AI, Fake Profiles & the Collapse of Online Trust

Why It’s Time to Rebuild With Real People

There was a time when the internet felt human.
Social media felt alive — messy, funny, opinionated, imperfect, and very clearly real. When someone recommended a hotel, a café, or a local service, you trusted that it came from an actual person.

But in 2025, that confidence has crumbled.
The online world is now crowded with synthetic personalities, AI-generated reviews, bot-driven engagement, deepfake influencers, and anonymous profiles with unclear motives.

We used to rely on the internet to help us make decisions.
Now, we’re unsure who — or what — we’re listening to.

AI didn’t create deception — but it industrialised it

Fake reviews always existed. So did bots.
But AI accelerated the problem beyond anything humans could produce manually.

Today, AI can generate:

• Entire profiles with photorealistic faces

• Thousands of “authentic-sounding” reviews in minutes

• Influencers that don’t exist

• Videos with deepfake hosts and synthetic voices

• Bot networks that mimic human behaviour

• Endless comments boosting products, services, and agendas

A core study from the cybersecurity industry estimates that bots now account for nearly half of all global web traffic¹. That means a significant portion of what humans see online — likes, comments, reviews, discussions — is not necessarily created by humans at all.

Meanwhile, academic analyses estimate that up to 20% of social media conversations are generated by bots², and AI-generated reviews are now so convincing that detection systems frequently fail to identify them³.

The result? A digital ecosystem where synthetic content massively outnumbers authentic content.

Fake profiles are now a feature of social media — not a flaw

Major social platforms routinely report staggering levels of fake or inauthentic accounts:

• Meta removes billions of fake accounts per year⁴

• Studies estimate that 9.5% of Instagram accounts may be bots⁵

• Nearly half of influencers have inflated follower counts⁶

And it’s not just “followers.”
It’s engagement: likes, comments, shares — the signals we interpret as social proof.

In this environment, even honest creators and businesses struggle, competing with artificially inflated accounts designed to look more popular than they are.

The social internet has become a marketplace of distortion.

Consumers feel the shift — and they feel it emotionally

Beyond the data and the algorithms, there’s a human side to all of this:

People feel overwhelmed.
They feel unsure.
They feel manipulated.

Surveys show that 82% of consumers believe they’ve recently seen fake reviews⁷. Yet people also admit they still rely on reviews to make decisions — because what alternative do they have?

We’ve reached a strange psychological moment:
We no longer trust the systems we depend on — but we can’t stop depending on them.

This erosion of trust isn’t just a “digital problem.”
It affects relationships, commerce, travel, safety, meaningful experiences — everything.

This is the exact problem TruRex is designed to solve

TruRex doesn’t fight bots.
It removes the incentive for them to exist.

TruRex doesn’t try to detect AI-generated profiles.
It prevents them from joining.

At TruRex:

• All users are real, verified humans.

• No anonymous accounts.

• No synthetic personas.

• No fake followers.

• No AI-generated reviews disguised as human experiences.

Our entire model is built on identity, accountability, transparency, and real community.

Where traditional platforms prioritised scale, TruRex prioritises trust.

Where algorithms became intermediaries, TruRex brings back human-to-human discovery.

Where fake reviews manipulate, TruRex protects.

The future of social isn’t synthetic — it’s human

AI is extraordinary, powerful, transformative.
But when it comes to recommendations, trust, and human experience, the dependence on synthetic content has left us with digital spaces that feel hollow and confusing.

TruRex is a course correction.

We’re building:

• A network of reliable, real people

• A space where recommendations mean something again

• A platform where expertise, taste, and experience matter

• A community where people help people, not bots influence people

We believe the most meaningful discoveries in life — the best restaurant you’ve ever tried, the trip of a lifetime, a trusted local service — should come from real human connection.

Not from algorithms.
Not from bots.
Not from AI-generated content.

From people you trust.
From people you admire.
From a community that’s real.

TruRex isn’t the next review site.
It’s the movement back to authenticity online.

References

¹ Imperva (2024) Bad Bot Report. Imperva Cybersecurity.
² Ferrara, E. (2023) The Rise of Social Bots. Communications of the ACM.
³ He, S. et al. (2024) AI-Generated Fake Product Reviews: Detection Challenges. arXiv Preprint.
⁴ Meta (2024) Community Standards Enforcement Report. Meta Transparency Center.
⁵ Shopify (2024) Influencer Fraud & Fake Followers Report. Shopify Research.
⁶ HypeAuditor (2024) Influencer Fraud Benchmark Report. HypeAuditor.
⁷ BrightLocal (2024) Local Consumer Review Survey. BrightLocal Research.