I used to be a lot on r/travel. Back then there were posts with pictures that had upvote ls in the triple to quadruple digit range. There were also user questions, usually in the double digits.
Now the majority is just discussions that mysteriously have thousands of upvotes. And some of them quite boring. That must be bots or fakes directly by reddit. No way this happens naturally.
Is this common practice now or is that something r/travel did specifically?
Yes vote manipulation is common on reddit.
It’s not just common, it’s the entire basis of the platform.
Every dumb fucking talking point they want their users to regurgitate in the real world goes to the moon. Speak the truth and be silenced.
It’s a nightmare platform.
Bot armies have been all over reddit for years manipulating votes and the larger the community, the larger that problem is.
I think the real reason they got rid of the 3rd party apps is that some apps (particularly the mod tools) make it easier to detect when the site’s own bots are active.
People manipulating the site as well. I documented a user’s spam network and dozens of alts where they basically ran a network of spam subs to promote their books, had different personas for different political viewpoints, etc. Admins banned them so many times but they just start new subs and change their personas again. Basically every other sub knows about them and bans them too cause they just spam the same shit constantly 24/7. They also harassed a bunch of co mods and are a narcissistic egomaniac.
Yikes. I imagine that happens a lot.
Everyone always talks about their alt accounts, and every time I hear about alr accounts, I’m like “you guys have more than one account”?
But of course they do. And the craziest people like you say will use them to market or take advantage of the system.
This guy has accounts with bios that align with identity groups he wants to speak on behalf of, and they’re like all co-mods, all talk in the same idiosyncratic way. Their comments always include links to not very reputable news sources identically formatted. They comment on each other’s posts with the same canned responses, and are basically the only approved submitters to his subs when he starts out.
And when I talk about different identity groups, this guy has/had profiles with bios like: “I’m a trans woman!” “I’m an anti-fascist satanic atheist!” “I’m a larger woman who isn’t shy about her beauty!” “I’m a Jew!” Then he’d jump in to debates and be like “as a…” and quote himself. “u/princessdragonslayer” used to post nsfw pics of “herself” and quote this guy in the post titles.
It’s also funny cause he self-publishes books that are conflicting in their politics and tries to make sure redditors don’t know. He has a pro-cop book that’s basically fascist, he has a rape-pill book about “Why Men and Women Can’t be Friends,” but on reddit he plays a liberal guy who posts anti-Trump stuff 24/7/365.
🌏🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
Reddit has quite literally been using them since they were first founded. To get the site off the ground, links, votes & engagement was artificially populated for years as the userbase grew. Reddit has never been organic. And anyone who believes reddit ever stopped manipulating those numbers after their “seed phase” to make the site look better is no more than a sweet summer child.
Can you source me on this? I don’t know what to Google to find information on this topic.
I don’t fault them for seeding content to get a totally blank site off the ground. But spez definitely never stopped manipulating everything that’s followed.
I only go back occasionally for a fap, and even my old favourite subreddits are just reposts of old content, it’s dead to me.
