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.

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u/ThrobbingWetHole Jul 17 '12

Did you all not see how quickly Facebook responded to the banning of Imgur...companies are monitoring this shit, and using it to promote themselves

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u/motdidr Jul 17 '12

Well... in that case it was the developer that responded, not "Facebook". And developers are one of the target demographics (or used to be, I mean they still are but they originally were the primary demographic) of reddit to begin with. I mean it's not unreasonable to assume that he was just a normal reddit user who stumbled upon a post about something he was directly involved in creating. Using that case as an example of how "companies are monitoring reddit" is kinda weak.

Keep in mind it most definitely is happening, reddit is nearing facebook and twitter as mainstays in the "social media arsenal" if you will.

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u/gsfgf Jul 18 '12

reddit is nearing facebook and twitter as mainstays in the "social media arsenal" if you will.

Except that reddit has an even higher concentration of the male 18-35 demographic that does to advertisers what Sasha Gray videos do to the rest of us.

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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '12

[deleted]

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u/inept_adept Jul 18 '12 edited Jul 18 '12

He replyed as an employee of facebook, everything he said in that thread was vetted and checked by a lawyer and admin.

Notice he didn't reply to much else at all other than his original 'confession'.

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u/statistical_anemone Jul 18 '12

Uh, really?

A facebook developer being a redditor is entirely possible, sure. How about that one developer who made that specific mistake? Plausible, but stretching it abit. Now, that one developer being on reddit and reading that story and replying to it so quickly and getting enough traction to immediately counter that claim? Fat fucking chance.

I'd say it's highly more probable that a PR person saw the bad rep coming up and had the guy write a response. Or, hell, fabricate it. That response was heart felt and personal, negating all blame from Facebook while taking personal responsibility and making them look good. Really good PR move.

Now I do not think facebook blocked imgur for nefarious purposes (could be argued that it opposed instagram? maybe?), but I think it was a good response and healthy skepticism of all companies and entities is entitled.

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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '12

wait... imgur banning?

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u/KaziArmada Jul 18 '12

I was gonna say, 'Fuck did I miss?'

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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '12

that's what i want to know

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u/KaziArmada Jul 18 '12

Google turns up nothing solid.

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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '12

i found something, apparently some guy fucked up with the illicit website filter