c/reddit · by punrca@piefed.world · 252d

Reddit is Being Manipulated by Professional Shills Every Day (reupload) - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uIrnEIuL8o

This astroturfing issue on Reddit is still relevant in 2025!

134 points · 22 comments · view on lemmy.world

22 Comments

yesman@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 252d (3 replies)

Reddit is a marketing platform. Manipulating users is it's function and purpose.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 252d (2 replies)

2 sides, one from propaganda, the other from spammers/OF accounts use to get income from spamming.

JesusChristLover420@lemmy.sdf.org · 1 pts · 251d (1 reply)

If sex workers are only advertising in the porn subs, I don't see the problem. If it were a corporation I'd consider them sinners, but workers giving people free porn with the ulterior motive of making a living wage, I think that's a win-win.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 251d

i feel like reddit only started targeting them, is because they arnt getting a piece of the pie of what they are earning, apparently if your an of, or a link dropper to your business you can earn quite a income, assuming you follow the proper procedures to evade the filters, it does cost you money to run legions of accounts and ban evasion methods.

panda_abyss@lemmy.ca · 17 pts · 252d (4 replies)

has been for a decade.

tidderuuf@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 252d

My first permaban was years ago for calling out an astroturfing campaign and the power mods who were running it or getting a kickback to stay silent about it.

There are hundreds of stories like mine on the TheseFuckingAccounts subreddit

technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 252d (2 replies)

100%. For example, never mention monsanto or GMOs on reddit because the shills will swarm... Probably wayyyy worse now.

pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 252d

Here too. Doesn't matter if it's a small or big community. Thankfully, we're small enough that it's really apparent.

fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 252d

The thing is if they go too hard it becomes obvious which ruins it

Blackfeathr@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 252d (1 reply)

A couple years ago there was this shitty wallpaper company called Plasteur or some shit, that ran a guerilla campaign of overlaying a corner of thousands of gifs with their URL and releasing a bunch of bots that only replied to comments using gifs with the injected URL. Those bots were very hard to flag for removal because they operated mostly in the shitposting okbuddy subs, so if you called them out, you were downvoted to hell for "killing the vibe." Also the bots would block accounts that called them out so you could no longer reply to or report them.

There are also entire subs that are completely overrun with astroturfing bots, like r/malwares and r/free_vpn.

This is a problem that has been going on for years and it is magnitudes worse now than ever.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 251d

the subs that are overrun with bots, they are usually they just to get enough karma or whatever so reddit doesnt ban them with thier anti-spamming botting measures. its a way to "warm up" thier hundreds of accounts at least temporarily.

InvalidName2@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 252d

Way back in the day I was invited to a private sub that tracked various "stealth" advertising / scam / shill rings on Reddit. I guess one of the founding members noticed a comment or post of mine complaining about the very obvious behaviors I'd noticed, and turns out, there were a large number of people in this group keeping track of it.

I'm not going to bother watching a youtube video, but I have to wonder if it's pointing out the same kind of stuff we'd been noticing for well over a decade.

flamiera@kbin.melroy.org · 8 pts · 252d (1 reply)

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optissima@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 252d

It's especially obvs now, but this was published in 2018!

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 252d

most notable and obvious was increasing russian propaganda bots back in '17 where the sudden rise had made the mods so overly sensitive that you are getting banned very easily. also pointing out such ragebait will get you similar astroturfing.

Rhoeri@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 251d

A YouTube video complaining about Reddit…. lol.

Novamdomum@fedia.io · 2 pts · 252d (1 reply)

I don't imagine there are any online forums that aren't being manipulated by professional shills every day. I recently decided to block any community that posted anything political. The silence that has followed has been quite blissful.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 251d

usually most forums are heavily gatekeeped against that, you arnt going to be able to say thing outside what the forum was meant for a specific subject. IF one is going to political one, you are going to expect an even more harsher control method than reddit.

alias_qr_rainmaker@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 252d (9 replies)

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ccunning@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 252d (2 replies)

You sound like an addict. I think it’s time to go cold turkey…

alias_qr_rainmaker@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 252d

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alias_qr_rainmaker@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 252d

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pinheadednightmare@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 252d (1 reply)

Fuck Reddit. Don’t go back. Let that platform die

alias_qr_rainmaker@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 252d

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