New Study: At Least 15% of All Reddit Content is Corporate Trolls Trying to Manipulate Public Opinion
Submitted 11 months ago by silverbax@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
seaQueue@lemmy.world 11 months ago
ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
I’m not used to seeing this with so many pixels.
SpookyUnderwear@eviltoast.org 11 months ago
seaQueue@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I find it has a nice understated impact
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
It’s so much worse than 15%.
HaggierRapscallier@feddit.nl 11 months ago
And they said the bears were the ones posting obnoxious huge images!
Heresy_generator@kbin.social 11 months ago
Member-only story
Medium wants me to pay them to read a story from "Homeless Romantic" who is listed as a "Ph.D. Rocket Surgeon & Aspiring Troglodyte"?
Are they fucking high?
gregorum@lemm.ee 11 months ago
well, whomever describes themselves in such a manner clearly is.
TacoButtPlug@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
It’s been a wonder that site ever got traction as something credible to get info from and not just a weird mesh of editorial, blogging, and long winded shitposts…
OmanMkII@aussie.zone 11 months ago
For me, it was often a place where a lot of qualified people would essentially write blogs because hosting their own site for it would get utterly ignored by google. The last few years though I’ve got more utter morons than people who can write a good article, even for generic questions that they could straight up copy and paste from another site.
MSgtRedFox@infosec.pub 11 months ago
Are they fucking high?>
Yeah, probably
ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
Is all bad online behavior “trolling” now? Isn’t “shill” a better word for someone who is paid to surreptitiously promote something?
Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Back in my day trolling meant something. It meant you cared enough to actually form a real argument that withstands scrutiny, just to setup for the rug pull. The better your polemic, the more engagement as people debated if you were for real or not.
Shitposting controversial hot takes or dog whistle memes is mid af, do better
MIDItheKID@lemmy.world 11 months ago
From my understanding trolling meant exactly what it says it is: Trolling. I think people for some reason get this mixed up with trolls - as in the fantasy type monster. But I think it actually has to do with the fishing termtrolling where you cast out your line, and see if you can get somebody to take the bait. Once they take the bait, you take em for a ride.
CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 11 months ago
polemic
po·lem·ic /pəˈlemik/ noun a speech or piece of writing expressing a strongly critical attack on or controversial opinion about someone or something. “his polemic against the cultural relativism of the Sixties”
helenslunch@feddit.nl 11 months ago
You can just add “troll” to the pile of words twisted into meaning “people I don’t like”.
sour@kbin.social 11 months ago
mid
paraphrand@lemmy.world 11 months ago
No, all bad online behavior now is “bots.”
At least that’s how people in the comments on lemmy and Reddit label them.
CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 11 months ago
No, all bad online behavior now is “bots.”
At least that’s how people in the comments on lemmy and Reddit label them.
I, and others, have distinguish between shills and bots.
Usually people use shilling as an alternative to astroturfing by paid human beings, while bots are just AI/programming posting.
Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Shill is a banned word on reddit still right?
ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
No idea!
SCB@lemmy.world 11 months ago
There’s no way it’s a banned word. /r/neoliberal has a “neoliberal shill of the year” award where they vote for their favorite economist based on social media posts, books, etc.
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Is all bad online behavior “trolling” now?
People like throwing buzzwords regardless of their meaning.
gohixo9650@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
it is not “now”. It is exactly as it was being used in 2020, when the article was written, by the mass media. They were calling “troll” everyone they were disagreeing with.
MargotRobbie@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Fellow lemmings, I, for one, am glad that there are no corporate trolls trying to manipulate public opinions on Lemmy, it is the same warm, fuzzy feeling I get when I was watching multiple time Golden Globe nominated summer blockbuster, Barbie, now available on Blu-Ray and select streaming services.
I don’t know about you, but I sure hope Barbie sweeps the Golden Globes next month (and then the Oscars next year.)
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 11 months ago
MargotRobbie@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I can’t talk about selling out any more, it’s giving me a headache.
Chickenstalker@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Et tu, Barbie?
sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
I can’t believe THE Margot Robbie is on the fediverse.
Good for you, girl!
MargotRobbie@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I know, I can’t hardly believe it either!
Wait, no, now my astorturfing cover is blown. 😭
Prking@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I popped over to Reddit for the first time since third party apps were cruelly shut down. It’s clear that Reddit has sunk to new lows. Obviously trolling and a marked decrease in the quality of content
Dagnet@lemmy.world 11 months ago
what I noticed is that posts have huge amounts of upvotes, even from small communities, and often no comments or when it does have comments its often very basic stuff, almost AI like
EatYouWell@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Well, if you’re going to defraud investors by pumping up your numbers before your IPO, you might as well go all out.
Sheeple@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Is that recent? I haven’t used Reddit since a few months and that phenomena was previously only on promoted posts (read, ads)
Lemonparty@lemm.ee 11 months ago
You know what else is random and probably related to their paid content? Their sorting doesn’t work right anymore. Posts in “hot” are regularly like more than a day old but then also some are brand new like minutes old. But if you sort by top 24 hours…same posts. Sometimes the order is different but easily 75% of the posts are the same. A 24 hour old post with no new comments is “hot”? A one hour old post with 20 comments is in the top posts of the past day?..OKAY
lol@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
[deleted]x4740N@lemmy.world 11 months ago
FYI there is also scribe qnd 12ft.io for medium links
MBM@lemmings.world 11 months ago
The study found some (likely) bot/corporate troll content in 15% of the top 100 subreddits.
Now I’m surprised it’s that low. Feels like a big part of /r/all is bot posts, with the top comments being from bots too
hroderic@lemmy.world 11 months ago
That title is clickbait.
From the article:
In 2020, the Computers in Human Behavior study provided additional insights into the tactics employed by corporate trolls on Reddit. The study focused on the top 100 subreddits, analyzing the content posted within these influential communities. The results were alarming, with 15% of the top 100 subreddits found to have content that was likely posted by bots or corporate trolls, specifically aimed at promoting certain companies or organizations.
That’s 15% of the top 100 subreddits contained some content that was likely posted by bots or corporate trolls.
miridius@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Even just calling it a “new study” is already a lie
lorkano@lemmy.world 11 months ago
This title is one of the 15%
casual_turtle_stew_enjoyer@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
It’s not like one of the six biggest power janitors of Reddit has been caught multiple times wrongfully deleting posts, using bot armies to manipulate votes and accepting money from marketing agencies for “consultancy” in social media guerilla marketing.
It’s almost like the company doesn’t give a fuck what their unpaid help does to the userbase or content because they still gets investments regardless.
Fuck spez, fuck GallowBoob, fuck awkwardtheturtle and fuck Sam Altman.
watersnipje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
What’s Sam Altman’s connection to Reddit?
casual_turtle_stew_enjoyer@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
He was an angel investor and also onboarded a bunch of celebrity investors.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they are trying to whitewash this, since it became a minor point of contention a few months ago
natsume_shokogami@lemmy.world 11 months ago
How is Sam Altman related to Reddit?
Jordan117@lemmy.world 11 months ago
And a significant part of the remainder are repost bots recycling old popular posts and comments in order to farm karma, which will eventually be sold to OnlyFans spammers, political ops, and corporate shills.
RedditReject@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’ll see the same post on 2 or 3 subs and it will just be something I saw a year or more ago.
alvvayson@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Corpreddit.
Lemmy feels very much like the old, old Reddit. When it was mostly IT folk and tech savvy people (talking about 2005-2010).
I think reddit peaked around 2015 or so. A much broader audience had found it. There was interesting content from a lot of people.
Now, it still has a lot of good content. But it is definitely past its peak
MacFearrs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
Maybe it’ll be good and healthy to start again from fresh, get the old feeling again. We just gotta build up that initial content now to grow the appeal to newcomers
Deceptichum@kbin.social 11 months ago
And people want Meta involved in the Fediverse, like reddit wasn’t bad enough.
paraphrand@lemmy.world 11 months ago
If the fediverse gets a lot of traction, this sort of “spam” will be difficult to moderate and every instance will need to have sophisticated systems to prevent it.
Deceptichum@kbin.social 11 months ago
It’s okay Meta is totally great at removing spam and fake accounts.
bonnetbee@lemmy.world 11 months ago
We should all calm down, buy a Twix and look forward to christmas.
skeezix@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I went to the mall because I wished to experience Christmas undignified, to front only the essential facts of capitalism, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to New Years, discover that I had not contributed.
Jubei_K_08@lemmy.world 11 months ago
🥲 Beautifully written tale of a mortal peril swerved.
FlavoredButtHair@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Not calm? Eat a snickers.
anticommon@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Yeah but we just got 8" of rain and 70 mph winds during a freak December storm that took out half our power grid, how will Amazon-Clause find my house?!? 80 degrees warmer than it should be here and our snowman holding up the mail box melted!!!
miridius@lemmy.world 11 months ago
The studies are from 2018 and 2020, “new study” in the post title is a complete lie
pastaPersona@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Reddit feels less genuine for sure, than it would have even as far back as 3 years ago. The mod purge probably accelerated things greatly but in general it’s felt like Reddit was going corporate astroturfing route for a while. Real discussions are very sparse compared to the amount of people telling you “to solve problem, buy this expensive thing!”
At this point the only thing Reddit has is a numbers advantage. The videos are no huge loss because at this point since you’re forced to use their (god awful) mobile app they either autoplay obnoxiously or automatically popup obscuring the comments (discussion is 90% of why I go to a forum why make it harder to see comments?).
The desktop experience is still okay but the constant pushing to get you to enable notifications is very irritating.
chitak166@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Downvoted for medium article.
I shouldn’t have to make an account to view news.
SoyTDI@eslemmy.es 11 months ago
“New Study”
Two significant studies, the Pew Research Center study conducted in 2018 and the Computers in Human Behavior study published in 2020
doctorcrimson@lemmy.today 11 months ago
TBH I’m surprised it’s not higher than that. Even back before the API changes it certainly felt like a lot of front page content was paid for.
kandoh@reddthat.com 11 months ago
And another 50% is trolls working probono to be try and convince people that racism is the only way forward
sebinspace@lemmy.world 11 months ago
You’re kidding yourself if you think they aren’t also on Lemmy.
miridius@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It’s amazing how much people will upvote something without reading it if the title confirms their biases
Guajojo@lemmy.world 11 months ago
IT IS WAY MORE The spez exodus made me realize the difference, you can tell the content/comments are from regular people here. Sadly that too can change once those actors see Lemmy as their new platform for propaganda.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
This part was written about a study from a 2020 study:
The results were alarming, with 15% of the top 100 subreddits found to have content that was likely posted by bots or corporate trolls, specifically aimed at promoting certain companies or organizations. One of the most concerning findings of the study was that corporate trolls were not only promoting products and services, but they were also strategically leveraging positive news articles to influence public opinion.
IMO, I left at the great exodus and I thought it was at least double that before I left. We are not free from the shills here though. I don’t know how you get around it tbh.
setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Not like here on Lemmy. I assume you, I am 100% humon.
FlavoredButtHair@lemmy.world 11 months ago
You mean that wasn’t some random wrestling fan or music fan I was chatting with? Fuck reddit.
In all seriousness, it was awesome 2 years ago, but the mods are fucking it up really bad. Lemmy FTW.
KeenFlame@feddit.nu 11 months ago
No it’s much more
egeres@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I know lemmy is fundamentally critic of reddit, but let’s not forget if lemmy ever achieves a significant weight in humanity’s attention, it’s not immune to such disease. The problem is systemic, not inherent of a specific platform. Any place with a lot of eyes will be susceptible to manipulation, even more so now that we have tamed artificial intelligence to write texts just about anything. We as a community need to think about countermeasures to fend this off
nicetriangle@kbin.social 11 months ago
It is incredibly cheap and easy to artificially bump a post to the top of a decent sized subreddit. I’ve seen it done before and the cost per impression/click puts most advertising to shame. And this was being done unsophisticatedly by some dude and a cheap bot. Now imagine what major corporations can do with all the resources to burn.
RedditEnjoyer@lemmy.world 11 months ago
No way it’s only 15%
chitak166@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Ya think? I noticed when all top comments on /r/worldnews were the exact same thing just said in slightly different ways.
It’s a science at this point.
PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
The ebike subreddit is modded by the owners of Lunacycle. They actively remove posts about bad customer service/other issues from Lunacycle. I witnessed them name and shame some random redditor and accuse them of fraud because they posted screenshots of email correspondence that pointed out shady dealings on Luna’s part.
They use the general subreddit for electric bikes to funnel everyone into ordering from them.
gregorum@lemm.ee 11 months ago
during the massive purge of rebellious mods, there was a huge opening for corporate shills to move into places where previous mods had kept them out. this phenomenon was widespread in many fan and specialty subs.
deweydecibel@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Everything about Reddit’s most recent changes has been openly about cracking the place wide open for corporate marketing. Everything good about it was because of how genuine it was, and it was genuine because for a very long time, the attitude was to shield it against corporate influence.
That’s the only reason it became such a valuable place for search results: as the forums and blogs around the Internet went silent and corporations ravaged individual websites, reddit was a bubble of genuine interaction. It’s not just Google’s shitty algorithm, it’s also because the Internet itself got injected with shit, and reddit was a safe haven. A deeply flawed one, but still, notably less fake and corporate as the web pages around it.
That’s what gave it value.
Spez knows this. The admins have known this the whole damn time. That’s why there used to rules against self-posting content. That’s why celebrities were only allowed to promote things in AMAS.
But the time came to make money, and they’re burning it all down to accomplish that.
I will never not share this blog because it hits the nail so cleanly on the head it sails straight down to the core of the earth:
Stop talking to each other and start buying things
FriendOfElphaba@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
I’m calling 1 year on the over/under for the introduction of blue check marks.
Zron@lemmy.world 11 months ago
You mean Reddit gold check marks
GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 11 months ago
In a similar more minor vein, the Snowpeircer (tv show) sub was administered by the showrunners.
They were mostly subtle about it, but quietly removed lots of posts after a week or so that didn’t fit show promo.
I’m pretty sure they’ve abandoned it now that the show is in limbo.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
Since before the exodus or after?
PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
Before and worse after