New Study: At Least 15% of All Reddit Content is Corporate Trolls Trying to Manipulate Public…
medium.com
The Impact of Corporate Trolls on Reddit: A Growing Problem
      • slaacaa@lemmy.world
        0·
        4 months ago

        Absolutely disgusting that someone would sell out that. Not me, my integrity is strong like like the legal protection I get from litigatenow.com, where you can sign up for a free consultation today, if you use my referral code #loveads2024

    • hakunawazo@lemmy.world
      0·
      4 months ago

      Ha, I’ve discovered your hidden advertising like I discovered the great taste of a crunchy Big Kahuna Burger.
      Let’s check out some random customer opinions:
      Jules W.: “Mm-hmm! This is a tasty burger!”

      Marvin: “Mind-blowing!”

      • Nicoleism101@lemm.ee
        0·
        4 months ago

        Ad comment in reality:

        ^453 u/DrJamieSmith34:
        Actually fast food isn’t that bad for you. A Big Mac for example has everything you need nutrition wise. Carbs, veggies, protein.

  • stembolts@programming.dev
    0·
    4 months ago

    Lol. I guess it’s hard to tell when you haven’t seen the site change over time but… yeah?

    It uses to be “argumentless” discussions on esoteric tech and philosophy issues… then a few years later it was people commenting the same 9 memes for 9,000 comments… then a few years later suddenly everyone’s anecdotes are praising China, or capitalism, or offhandedly mentioning some product or influencer.

    Tbh tho, most of Reddit now just reads like Subreddit Simulator. All of the site’s value regarding sincere, unique, and detailed user content… yeah, that’s gone. They’re just coasting on past laurels, will be fun to watch the wheels fall off as the data stays locked in 2023, before the LLM Ouroboros.

    • Gigasser@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I mean you can see it happening here. How many cyber armies do you think are starting to pop up on Lemmy, from the US, from China, from Russia. How many corporate astroturfers do you think are coming on here, apple dicksuckers, etc. shit, mainstream media is trying to dip it’s toes into federated spaces.

      Edit: a word, added an -ing

      Addendum: Do you guys think that defederation campaigns can be weaponized? Isolate and destroy type stuff? Creating bubbles that can be easily analyzed and manipulated?

      • stembolts@programming.dev
        0·
        4 months ago

        They will certainly come here, but as a defederated website we don’t have to defend against them with one approach, everyone can take a different approach, see what frustrates them the most, then mass adopt that. I see this as the ideal… no idea how it will unfold in practice.

    • zephorah@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      A few very niche subs appear unaffected, but mostly the questions are all like someone shook a magic 8 ball and the same crap pops up over and over and over.

      You know how your brain feels after being assaulted by a commercial? Reddit feels more like that now.

      • batmaniam@lemmy.world
        0·
        4 months ago

        That’s the part that people don’t get and is intentionally hard to find numbers on. The entire appeal was on it not being an influencer centric space. The entire value was always at odds with monetizing that value beyond it’s upkeep and paying the people (who apparently aren’t that many) a reasonable salary. It is the worst growth case you could have ever had.

    • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
      0·
      4 months ago

      I watched it happen while drinking a refreshing Coca Cola. I’ve never felt so sad and refreshed at the same time.

      • psycho_driver@lemmy.world
        0·
        4 months ago

        Maybe they’ll do a Behind the Bastards podcasts on the corporate influences that ruined the internet. I look forward to that listen while enjoying some delicious Cool Ranch Doritos.

    • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Reddit is going to end up just being trolls arguing with bots and corporate shills… if it isn’t already. I haven’t been there in a long time, but I’m fairly confident in that assessment.

      What i really wonder about is how long a site can profit off of the majority of activity coming from bots. I’m not tech savvy enough to know if the analytics can tell the difference between a bot posting and a person. How long can that go on before the site stops being profitable via ads? Will companies pay to advertise to bots? Would they even know? It’s kinda funny to think about honestly.

      It’ll be really interesting to see how reddit’s downfall comes to be though.

    • simple@piefed.socialEnglish
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      4 months ago

      What’s damning is how the most harmless subreddits is now full of astroturfing. Television subreddit? Suddenly the top article is praising some show you never heard of. Meme subreddit? Here’s a meme about some music video or hot new product. Game subreddit? Here’s some random cosplay girl that’s only here to advertise her social media.

      I don’t remember who said it but there’s a general rule that if your subreddit has over 500k subscribers, it’s already full of bots and dying. Any mainstream sub is insanely astroturfed.

      And don’t get me fucking started on social media twitter accounts. HAHA GUYS CHECK OUT THIS FUNNY MEME SHARED BY #WENDY’S!!

    • Tregetour@lemdro.idEnglish
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      4 months ago

      then a few years later suddenly everyone’s anecdotes are praising China, or capitalism, or offhandedly mentioning some product or influencer.

      There used to be a satire sub called Church of the Current Thing that made fun of this phenomenon. It eventually got banned around 2022 thanks to a cohort of bad faith actors mass-filing dubious reports of subs they didn’t like.

      (I believe there was also a sub devoted to cataloging all such subs that got paved over in the name of le brand safetyTM, but it may have also gone the same way. I don’t keep up with the place)

  • Mango@lemmy.world
    0·
    4 months ago

    It makes me feel weird when I try to recommend stuff I really like. I’ll be so in favor of the things I like that it sounds like I’m selling it to you because I want you to like it too. I’m sure some people think I’m shilling the Steam Deck.

    • psycho_driver@lemmy.world
      0·
      4 months ago

      Same. I try to steer people to ALDI for groceries cause they were the least fuckwadish the past few years about price gouging and I sometimes feel like I’m shilling. I only wish I were getting paid for it :\

  • passepartout@feddit.org
    0·
    4 months ago

    You regularly see posts with 10k+ upvotes and about 5 comments. Even the users say it’s scummy as hell.

        • half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world
          0·
          4 months ago

          Side note, it doesn’t always fuck up, but most of the time it’ll give just completely wrong matplot instructions. The recent tattoo post comes to mind.

  • psycho_driver@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    They were failing pretty miserably back when I was a visitor. Hopefully that’s still the case, though I imagine they will gain more and more traction as the reddit brain drain continues.

  • PsyDoctah9Jah@lemmy.world
    0·
    4 months ago

    I just want more people to LEAVE Reddit. To hell with corporate agendas, cowardly moderators, and incompetent admin. The internet needs an open source platform like Reddit where you can voice your opinion, no matter how flawed it may be, without concern you’ll be “banned”…

    Second, end users need to display more maturity and stop being so sensitive…a BLOCK resolves 99.99% of ANY. “Moderator” involvement. “****” words is about all they need to “censor” and even that’s questionable. Mods should just focus on actual bots and sub organization not so much the content police, most stuff can be self regulated…

    Lemmy, albeit I don’t think the name is good for brand recognition, the functionality is ok, similar, just needs the audience. Even YouTube and Facebook…"community guidelines " …I “offended” the AI,… this is dire times and sadly most are not even aware. Without US these platforms don’t exist. Facebook wouldn’t be Facebook if it weren’t for the USERS so why are you micromanaging them… YouTube videos have to say “unalive” “deleted” “no longer with us” instead of kill murder death… it’s so cringe and I’m so upset that critical thinking, having an opinion, being an adult using “curse” words is problematic… I look forward to Reddit crashing. I look forward to mods crashing as well. They ruined the open space to speak freely… but again the massess go along to get along and they continue to win…

  • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    First things first.

    Second, given that the author has hidden this in a paywall–you have to sign up in order to access the article and presumably any links–I’m going to immediately distrust the motives.

    Third, Medium is a glorified blogging site; anyone can say anything on it.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
      0·
      4 months ago

      I’m going to immediately distrust the motives.

      Additionally, the data is self-reported surveys with questions like “Have you ever been contacted by someone from a company or corporation?” and… yeah? This part shouldn’t be surprising to any platform that allows private messages. And “Have you ever seen someone promoting a product?” and most people are going to either shrug or already have a strong opinion, it’s not very scientific for actual data on the actual traffic from bots and corporate shills, more how the human users feel about the platform.

      I would much rather see an independent investigation from a technical point-of-view, which tracks the comments and timing of user comments to determine how many are actually bots just quietly gaining karma with innocuous comments, or how many are just programmed to go to certain subreddits at certain times to push a narrative.

    • yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      0·
      4 months ago

      The “author” is citing a study. Idk why you’d indict the study because the media that is making you aware of the existence of said study is behind a paywall. Bizarre reasoning.

      • eponymous_anonymous@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        4 months ago

        Hmmm, not necessarily all that bizarre. The title on the Lenny link states that 15% of ALL Reddit content is corporate trolls trying to sway public opinion - now that this gentleperson has kindly provided the link to a non-paywall version, I can see that this is 2 studies, one from 2018 and one from 2020, one of which states that 15% of the top 100 subreddits may have experienced corporate trolls and/or bots posting content at some point, but they don’t say how much.

        Huge difference between the title and the substance of the article, they buried the lede in a somewhat clever way. Chances are the author (and editor) are well aware that most of their audience doesn’t have an account, and aren’t going to create an account - therefore, by posting a misleading title (or letting others exaggerate the claims in the title through links on other platforms) they can reach a far larger audience, and sway public opinion more effectively, by burying the actual context behind the paywall.

        I mean, I don’t know that that is what’s happening, but it makes a lot of sense and kind of rhymes with the whole point of the article, so yeah - I don’t trust their motives either, and I can definitely see the logic behind distrusting paywalls on principle.