New Study: At Least 15% of All Reddit Content is Corporate Trolls Trying to Manipulate Public Opinion
New Study: At Least 15% of All Reddit Content is Corporate Trolls Trying to Manipulate Public Opinion
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.
375Fellow 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.)
108That 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.
75The 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.
The study found some (likely) bot/corporate troll content in 15% of the top 100 subreddits. That's completely different from what the article's headline claims.
Edit: Also, the "New Study" as the headline calls it is apparently from 2020.
(here's a link to the article without paywall if you want to read it for yourself)
75It'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.
65Corpreddit.
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
55Reddit 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.
47This 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.
23I 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
19Ya 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.
15It 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.
15Isn't that just astroturfing and they've been doing it forever there?
14I was really surprised recently when I was searching for some help with a mod for a videogame and a result popped up on my duckduckgo search page for a thread on reddit about it, so I clicked it and BAM: "error, this subreddit has not been reviewed, so it is not possible to view it. Either use the app or go to home page" ......... wtf? I mean, this basically destroys the entire site right? I was 100% unable to view whatever content had been posted in that subreddit. So I just closed it and went somewhere else. I don't see how reddit can even continue to exist if they don't allow people to view the site. How did this happen?
13Crazy thing I've been noticing more and more. When I search "[thing I want to know] reddit" there are always one or two comments in the top results from reddit, usually much more recent than the others, very clearly shilling a product. Sometimes it's an edit purely to include a product the user just thinks is really great that sends you to an affiliate link-ridden site.
11The study found that 11% of the respondents had been contacted by a bot or troll attempting to promote a product or service. Even more concerning was the discovery that 13% of the respondents had witnessed a company manipulate public opinion on the platform.
Self reported garbage. Asking a user to self identify manipulation is ripe for abuse.
9From the article...
The study’s demographic analysis further highlighted the targeted nature of corporate trolling. Younger users, particularly those aged 18–29, were significantly more likely to be contacted by corporate trolls, with 17% of them reporting such experiences, compared to only 7% of users aged 65 and over. This age-based discrepancy underscores the strategic approach of corporate trolls in engaging with a demographic that is often more susceptible to their influence.
Wow. Corporations are tagging younger generations as dumb shits. That is not cool.
9That number has got to be higher than 15%. Everywhere.
9Maybe Reddit needs a paid verified seal, let's make it...umm.. blue to distinguish between real people and big corporate greed. /s
6I thought it must be way more.
6Feels low.
6Oof... This makes the dystopian, highly censored, antithetical Star Trek subreddit make more sense...
5When I stopped over there, it looked like reddit is running some sort of suggestion algorithm like youtube for posts. It mostly seems to be promoting right wing outrage bait. We might not have videos but I'm very happy not being subjected to that shit anymore from some of the more popular video/gif subs. It's strange they'd want to lean into it further. Baiting engagement that way will just degrade your ability to host interesting conversations and continue being the top result for many questions on google.
5Reddit sucks!
5That's all? woulda guessed higher
4I always thought there were corporate trolls on there just not so many
4No need to read the article, and check my comment history if you doubt it..
I want to add that this is only part of it. The secret "secret" arent the bots in the system coming from the outside. Its how the content is manipulated from the inside.
The entire modern Marvel and Starwars franchises owe themselves to reddit.
4I'm surprised it's that low.
3Tbh happy I deleted reddit
2In the 2000s we thought user-generated content would lead to a utopian future where we got our opinions from each other rather than from big companies.
Turns out: big companies, governments and other institutions with money are perfectly capable of paying people to be "users" who are "generating content". Now we get (at least some of) our opinions from them and don't even know it.
2Permanently Deleted
2(in voice of tts laughing god)
well, who would of fucking thought?
1After spending a decade plus on reddit watching the changes over time, 15% seems low.
0I wish Reddit hadn’t banned me. Doomscrolling was so much fun. I’d easily take a month ban and go to “Reddit Jail”. I don’t care that it’s all bots and dead internet. But, now I’m here.
-4
