I highly doubt that the people on Reddit and HN are just making this up. It's not like an "Automatic Update" is that remarkable of a claim. Forbes[1] a few days ago and others recently wrote about this very issue. So far it seems like a pretty real problem. Sucks it's messing with so many. :/

[1]http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/09/12/microsoft...