New Study: At Least 15% of All Reddit Content is Corporate Trolls Trying to Manipulate Public Opinion

Mwa , 5 days ago

Tbh happy I deleted reddit

cryo420 , 5 months ago

(in voice of tts laughing god)

well, who would of fucking thought?

egeres , 6 months ago

I know lemmy is fundamentally critic of reddit, but let's not forget if lemmy ever achieves a significant weight in humanity's attention, it's not immune to such disease. The problem is systemic, not inherent of a specific platform. Any place with a lot of eyes will be susceptible to manipulation, even more so now that we have tamed artificial intelligence to write texts just about anything. We as a community need to think about countermeasures to fend this off

GutsBerserk , 6 months ago

Only 15%? More like 99%!
The most recent Gaza genocide was truly an eye opener for me.

schnurrito , 6 months ago

In the 2000s we thought user-generated content would lead to a utopian future where we got our opinions from each other rather than from big companies.

Turns out: big companies, governments and other institutions with money are perfectly capable of paying people to be "users" who are "generating content". Now we get (at least some of) our opinions from them and don't even know it.

Jarmer , 6 months ago

I was really surprised recently when I was searching for some help with a mod for a videogame and a result popped up on my duckduckgo search page for a thread on reddit about it, so I clicked it and BAM: "error, this subreddit has not been reviewed, so it is not possible to view it. Either use the app or go to home page" ......... wtf? I mean, this basically destroys the entire site right? I was 100% unable to view whatever content had been posted in that subreddit. So I just closed it and went somewhere else. I don't see how reddit can even continue to exist if they don't allow people to view the site. How did this happen?

RedditEnjoyer , 6 months ago

No way it's only 15%

m13 , 6 months ago

Exactly. And on major subreddits it would be much higher. Worldnews at the moment just feels like IDF posting pro-genocide content, commenting, upvoting and agreeing with each other.

Reddit goes in the bin. 🚮

casual_turtle_stew_enjoyer , 6 months ago

It's not like one of the six biggest power janitors of Reddit has been caught multiple times wrongfully deleting posts, using bot armies to manipulate votes and accepting money from marketing agencies for "consultancy" in social media guerilla marketing.

It's almost like the company doesn't give a fuck what their unpaid help does to the userbase or content because they still gets investments regardless.

Fuck spez, fuck GallowBoob, fuck awkwardtheturtle and fuck Sam Altman.

watersnipje , 6 months ago

What’s Sam Altman’s connection to Reddit?

casual_turtle_stew_enjoyer , 6 months ago

He was an angel investor and also onboarded a bunch of celebrity investors.

I wouldn't be surprised if they are trying to whitewash this, since it became a minor point of contention a few months ago

Was also interim CEO for 8 days, to give you an idea of how involved he was. I'll update with more info and sources later if I have time, otherwise Wayback Machine is your friend

DeepGradientAscent , 6 months ago

I would've thought that number would be higher. Surprised at only 15%!

prole , 6 months ago

Key words: "at least"

_xDEADBEEF , 6 months ago

Isn't that just astroturfing and they've been doing it forever there?

WetBeardHairs , 6 months ago

They've taken over moderation too. I criticized a local restaurant that got passed down from father to son, and got banned. I did call the son a trump loving shitstain so that might've had something to do with it.

GardeningSadhu , 6 months ago

Yep, i've been banned from like 10 subs despite being very careful with how i word my opinion that's different that what's normally accepted.... it didn't used to be that way, a lot of the opinions I have that get me banned were once mainstream on reddit.

fossilesque , 6 months ago

I still have a few subreddits I passively maintain and every three days on the most popular one I'm banning some new app someone is shilling to a vulnerable group. It's absolutely disgusting and makes me so incredibly angry/jaded how much they're targeted.

AVincentInSpace , 6 months ago

say more about that. what sort of apps are being peddled?

fossilesque , 6 months ago

ADHD "helper" apps, productivity apps, etc. Good UX should be for everyone and be accommodating. ADHD folks don't need something special 99/100 times.

ryven , 6 months ago

Is all bad online behavior "trolling" now? Isn't "shill" a better word for someone who is paid to surreptitiously promote something?

Milk_Sheikh , 6 months ago

Back in my day trolling meant something. It meant you cared enough to actually form a real argument that withstands scrutiny, just to setup for the rug pull. The better your polemic, the more engagement as people debated if you were for real or not.

Shitposting controversial hot takes or dog whistle memes is mid af, do better

seaQueue , 6 months ago

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/0c53a273-224f-4756-971b-ff3b46707a74.png

ElderWendigo , 6 months ago

I'm not used to seeing this with so many pixels.

SpookyUnderwear , 6 months ago

https://eviltoast.org/pictrs/image/ce06994e-ecff-46ce-8ee6-c84ac15b192d.jpeg

PerogiBoi , 6 months ago

The ebike subreddit is modded by the owners of Lunacycle. They actively remove posts about bad customer service/other issues from Lunacycle. I witnessed them name and shame some random redditor and accuse them of fraud because they posted screenshots of email correspondence that pointed out shady dealings on Luna’s part.

They use the general subreddit for electric bikes to funnel everyone into ordering from them.

gregorum , 6 months ago

during the massive purge of rebellious mods, there was a huge opening for corporate shills to move into places where previous mods had kept them out. this phenomenon was widespread in many fan and specialty subs. Reddit admins were more than happy to let this happen, as corporate shills were also more than happy to be cooperative with Reddit admins.

FriendOfElphaba , 6 months ago

I’m calling 1 year on the over/under for the introduction of blue check marks.

GreatAlbatross , 6 months ago

In a similar more minor vein, the Snowpeircer (tv show) sub was administered by the showrunners.
They were mostly subtle about it, but quietly removed lots of posts after a week or so that didn't fit show promo.
I'm pretty sure they've abandoned it now that the show is in limbo.