▲ | Is it me or is Reddit mostly bots now? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
34 points by rizs12 13 hours ago | 41 comments | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A lot of the comments I am seeing under posts seem just a bit off. I am considering whether being on Reddit is worth it anymore? It doesn't have the same human-seeming environment it had 5+ years ago. Does anyone have any recommendations as to a Reddit alternative? Lemmy doesn't have the same number of diverse users that Reddit had during its pomp (it's mostly just Linux fans and technical people), and I do quite like the network effects of a diverse audience. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | thegrim33 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
After using Reddit for many, many years, at this point I personally am fairly convinced that the majority of posts and submissions on many of the high-value subs is inauthentic content. Inauthentic content being some combination of bot posts and coordinated shill/sockpuppet posts. Either for political/social manipulation (enforcing a narrative and allowed ideas), as well as some economic manipulation (paid posts shilling for a product/movie/person/etc). In the past the inauthentic accounts had patterns that you could more easily find. Names that are all generated the same way, or comment history patterns that all match. It was 100% obvious a few years ago that there was a lot of manipulation going on. After being exposed a few times they've improved, and now with LLM capabilities added in it's much harder for a random person to clearly be able to identify them. I feel like one day there will be a whistleblower who finally reveals to the world exactly how much manipulation has been going on (especially by governments) and it'll be a pretty shocking revelation. Until then we have little proof, as it seems the owners of such sites either willingly or unwillingly or unknowingly cooperate with it. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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▲ | openrisk 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I am moderating a niche technical sub on reddit and don't see that much of bots. They are probably targeting "high value" subs. As for alternatives, it depends on what you are looking for. E.g., if you don't need to comment / post, a feed reader with all your favorite discourse forums can cover a lot of ground. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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▲ | throwaway315314 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
You basically have to moderate it yourself if you ever want to browse /all or whatever the front page is. You have to filter a bunch of different criteria, basically anything that looks like its meant to farm engagement or outrage. Anything remotely political any of the meme reposting subreddits any aita related subreddit any subreddit that limits replies to subreddit members aka circlejerk and hivemind subs any user with excessive karma/year that isn't making OC like a comic/ artist or something any new user that posts anything related to the things above that cuts out at least 50% of what you see on the front page, still not great but probably better than any other alternative for what you are looking for. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | brap 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The front page is full of OF ads masquerading as genuine women posting innocent selfies. The rest is either political propaganda bots or karma farming bots (gaining karma to later advertise OF or propaganda). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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▲ | A_D_E_P_T 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
> Is Reddit mostly bots now? Long ago, marketing firms became aware of the "just add 'reddit' to your product search for real human advice" meme. They're also aware of the fact that it's very easy to buy karma, buy accounts, set up upvote/downvote networks, and manage sockpuppets. Now I'm absolutely certain that >80% of all posts in product-related topics are fake. Bots, guerilla marketers, PR firms, reputation management firms, influence operations, you name it. A lot of the personal stories you see on Reddit are also fake -- posted to farm karma. The upvote/downvote system there, combined with anonymous accounts that have public post histories, has been a disaster for internet discourse. (Here, at least, it's gated and the community is relatively small. Also, the power of the downvote on HN is very limited, and only accounts with 500 karma can downvote anything. Over there, it's unrestrained and the downvote is too powerful. Reddit has structural problems.) > Does anyone have any recommendations as to a Reddit alternative? Forums still exist for most interests. They're usually much better than Reddit. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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▲ | eitally 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I use an adblocker and also Reddit Enhancement Suite and have subbed to probably 40 subreddits. Except a very few of those (like /r/politics), they're all niche enough to mostly avoid the bot plague. As long as I'm logged in, my experience is pretty dang good, relatively speaking (compared to the default view). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | timeon 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Most posts on r/all seems to be fake for purpose of engagement harvesting. But is this the case for smaller subs as well? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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▲ | ActorNightly 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Reddit in large part is very left leaning with a big echochamber, but the individual specific communities are generally really good, especially for search. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | CM30 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
My experience with Reddit is that it still mostly depends on the subreddit. Big subreddits like Ask Reddit or Politics or Technology? Probably a lot of bots and shills, with an equally large amount of low quality content from people that didn't bother to read the article or anything related to it. Smaller niche ones for games and series? Eh, it's definitely worse in terms of quality, though my experience is that it still seems mostly human driven. The last subreddit I used was the one for the Mario & Luigi series for example, and it seems pretty legit as far as posts go. But yeah, my opinion is that the quality has certainly taken a nosedive overall, and the amount of posts per day has fallen in many places, but the quality of more niche subreddits is still decent enough compared to majority of social media sites. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | dzhiurgis 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Same in Facebook and X. Fake name accounts brigading certain topics and comments. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | mrguyorama 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Get Reddit Enhancement Suite and start tagging posters. Fully ten percent of /all is literally one account posting karma bait. I've also seen entire threads get "replayed". Bots will post highly upvoted comments from the last time a link was posted etc. Nearly everything that makes it to the front couple pages of /all is posted by people pushing an agenda, or worse, literal Russian accounts fomenting hate. Remember, their goal above all else is to make you angry, tired, and get you to give up on functioning democracy. Lots of people on the left and "democrats" are fighting with talking points straight out of the kremlin. That infighting is the point. Everything you see on reddit is meant to make you angry. Someone will mine Twitter for the most hateful nazis shit/most objectionable "I hate men" post, and post a screenshot on reddit as if that's a meaningful representation. This is intended to piss you off, because you will "engage" more if you get pissed off. The internet doesn't want you to be happy or successful or informed because it is literally less profitable. There are entire popular subreddits that are mostly agenda posts, either literally part of an operation, or outright useful idiot sycophants. You almost cannot make it to the front page anymore without a bot farm to to get the "momentum" going on your post. Otherwise it just cannot compete with the manipulated posts. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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▲ | willmadden 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
It's not mostly you. It's unbearable and even seeps into niche subreddits. The bots are also lean so far left they fell off the wagon. I barely use the site anymore. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | cranberryturkey 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
i like stacker.news but its mostly bitcoin peeps | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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▲ | JSDevOps 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nope. Even if you aren’t a bot you get banned or suspended for being a bot. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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▲ | htrp 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
yes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | hndamien 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
X.com |