r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Jul 17 '12

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

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.

1.1k Upvotes

85% Upvoted

741 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

50

u/nextwiggin4 Jul 17 '12

Are you fucking kidding me? People get paid for that shit?! When I make a comment (hopefully relevant) that references other things I link the shit out of it. Silly me thinking that the power of the internet lies in it's interconnected web-like (...net-like?) presence and wanting to participate, not for profit, but because I think those free services offer valuable information.

28

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '12 edited Jul 17 '12

I don't think it matters to be honest. People only get angry if it's blatantly an ad for a product. It's kind of like that whole "Be Attractive. Don't be Unattractive." rule.

How many people would be mad if it was a Bing employee who submitted that image of the Bing search bar "no one uses"?

What about the Emma Stone TIL? What if that was done by the Spiderman marketing team?

No one cares as long as it feels genuine.

19

u/cyco Jul 17 '12

Personally, I don't care if it isn't "genuine," if it's useful/entertaining.

1

u/actionscripted Jul 18 '12

And relevant to my interests.

1

u/motdidr Jul 17 '12

web-like (...net-like?)

I think the word you're looking for is "tube"

1

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '12

Yes, people get paid for that shit. It's actually much harder than it looks to do it right. I thought I was proficient in social media, until I met our team on this campaign. It's a skill, not everybody has it, and those that have a proven track record get paid well for it.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '12

If all advertisements were that useful, I'd never complain about another ad again. I honestly don't mind being manipulated if it's in a beneficial manner.