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Does Reddit have an astroturfing problem? What the data suggests

312 points · 408 comments · p-s-v

  1. zergrush · · focus · HN ↗
    This is why Reddit is a low value high effort distribution channel. When your userbase is hostile and suspicious constantly to any commercial introductions, advertising there becomes just an exercise in futility. The demographic also is problematic on Bluesky. Same on hackernews. Astroturfing is certainly a response to this friction and in turn it only creates more of it.

    Also specifically with Reddit they have allowed hiding comment history which makes it even harder, I imagine they did this for boosting ad business

    There are much better platforms to spend your effort on like X. X requires many users to purchase a subscription account and thus acts as sort of a litmus test (people who can afford low amount of money per month).

    1. khazhoux · · focus · HN ↗
      > Also specifically with Reddit they have allowed hiding comment history which makes it even harder

      Such a terrible change, and it's apparently the default for new users. I have no way to check if the person I'm about to spend 3 minutes typing a reply to is just bleep-bloop.

      1. minimaxir · · focus · HN ↗
        The hidden history is particularly annoying when evaluating if someone is a troll operating in bad faith or not; in my experience, when someone makes a comment that is completely out of pocket, their profile is almost always hidden. That is selection bias, however.

        IMO it is a net negative.

        1. rlonstein · · focus · HN ↗
          > The hidden history is particularly annoying when evaluating if someone is a troll operating in bad faith or not; in my experience, when someone makes a comment that is completely out of pocket, their profile is almost always hidden. That is selection bias, however.

          Agreed. Hiding history has become a negative signal or, really since it's so common to hide, open history is a positive signal.

          There used to be bots that summarized an account's posts. One, I think it was usersimulator, was particularly amusing as it ran a markov chain over the account and generated a fresh post in the style of that user. Quite telling.

          I still use reddit but I tag accounts using RES and sometimes see the same bad apples turn up in other subreddits.

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