The 2020 study published in Computers in Human Behavior analyzed the top 100 subreddits — the most influential communities on the entire platform. Their finding? 15% of these subreddits contained content likely posted by bots or corporate trolls specifically designed to promote companies or organizations.

“15% of all subreddits contained corporate bot content” is very different than “15% of all content”

This also doesn’t really give a whole picture. How much of this content actually trends? There’s always some corporate sludge at 0 points if you sort by New, which is how the site is supposed to work. And even some stuff that gets brute forced through is “Hey fellow kids” level obvious and gets trolled or removed by mods.

And while Reddit right now is a soulless husk, all of these things need to be studied on Lemmy as well. Right now there’s probably not much because we’re just not a big target, but as it grows it’s certain that corporate shills and propaganda farms will start to target us. Like I’m not opposed to the general idea of the research, but it really needs to be more specific and in-depth to be helpful