Corporate & Trolls Estimates:

A 2020 study (re-circulated in late 2025) found that in the top 100 subreddits—the primary sources for r/all—at least 15% of communities contained content likely posted by corporate trolls or bots designed to promote specific organizations.

Bot and Spam Removals:

Reddit’s Transparency Reports consistently show that “content manipulation” and “spam” (which include paid promotional agendas) account for the vast majority of admin-level removals. For instance, in early 2024, nearly 70% of admin removals were attributed to spam.

Prevalence of Bots:

Independent estimates and user analysis suggest that 5% to 20% of users in high-visibility subreddits may be bots. These bots are frequently used by bad actors to manufacture “consensus” or “outrage” to push specific agendas.

Infiltration Experiments:

Unauthorized research in 2025 demonstrated that AI bots can successfully pose as humans and engage in “psychological manipulation” to change user views in front-page subreddits like r/changemyview without being detected.