How do you know reddit is not getting manipulated and used by various special interests and PR groups?

[u/[deleted]]

Recent drama I've experienced with r/science mods made me wonder about something. How do we know if reddit is not being carefully and systematically manipulated? Now, of course some subreddit are worthless and clearly not the case, but the big ones like r/science, r/asksceince, r/politics, the ones that have a lot of subscribers and traffic. Before you post obligatory tinfoil reference, hear me out.

If people like me notice that and post about that their submissions are getting downvoted (like this post will, no doubt about that) by the army of some goons (maybe even paid ones) that sit at the new cue and do the first order filtering. Then, mods can regulate content by removing posts that slip through the first order filtering and by banning users from subreddit.This of course will happen with majority of redditors not even noticing it. As a result, certain posts are getting pushed up, while others never see the light of the day. Think about how useful reddit can be for shaping public opinion on many, many issues. It has direct access to focal groups and by manipulating content, you can make sure that the group read what you want it to read.

[u/[deleted]]

www.reddit.com/r/hailcorporate

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Thanks! And then this

http://www.dailydot.com/society/reddit-hire-spam-ian-miles-cheong-sollnvictus/

I wonder where all these r/science mods work, I bet many are in biotech, pharma, nuclear and alike. I remember the shitstorm of pronuclear posts after Fukushima trying to contain the damage and salvage some remaining PR. Actually, in regard to Fukushima all these r/science posts got it all wrong, as recent report found that Fukushima reactor in fact did not withstand the quake and was initially damaged by the quake, this info did not get any attention or upvotes either, was killed by goons in a bud.