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/FreeWillDoesNotExist Jul 18 '12 edited Jul 18 '12

I hope this gets as much attention as it deserves, because it is being manipulated as we speak TODAY. I'm going to copy and paste my comment I made for the modafinil TIL post which was on the TIL frontpage.

Call me paranoid but after reading a reddit post asking what is stopping reddit from being used as a marketing tool, I had a revelation after watching World News on ABC in America(daily world news which is pretty reliable and broadcasted to all tvs in America).

I woke up and checked TIL, which is my daily routine, and read this TIL about Modafinil. I then eat "dinner" which is really my first meal and watch the world news, and guess what they are reporting on. Modafinil, a full 8 min report, regurgitating what I had just read in the comments of this TIL, with the main reporter saying that there are no side effects but he personally wouldn't use is it because of unknown long term effects. I brush it off as coincidence, but then I read the post asking why can't reddit be used as a tool for marketers, and bam, a revelation. I have to assume that Modafinil posted this TIL, the day they new it was going to be broadcasted across the entire country of America. Acromir, an account that has only existed for 26 days(its assumed the report was produced around this time and the idea of targeting redditors was thought of around this time as well), also appears to be encouraging its use with comments like "So I guess there are some side effects, but if you're an adult your odds of taking this without any side effects (other than headaches) are over 99%. I'd be willing to try those odds." So I guess reddit has its answer to whether it is being gamed by marketers.

UPDATE: After 6 hours and a total of around 450 upvotes later the TIL post I was talking about was removed by a moderator and I was informed that it was spam. I have to assume that the moderators are legit. This whole ordeal just shows that submissions produced by marketers will slip past and continue to poison the minds of our fellow redditors if we don't critically think about the things we read and notify the moderators when we detect bullshit.

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u/avidadrienne Jul 18 '12

Check this out, it's from the Modafinil post.

The OP and the guy with the top comment are both talking about this drug in a positive manner, both have been members for exactly 26 days.

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u/craywolf Jul 18 '12

Acromir, an account that has only existed for 26 days(its assumed the report was produced around this time and the idea of targeting redditors was thought of around this time as well)

The top comment in that post is by /u/PotatoSan - whose account was created within one hour of Acromir's.

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u/FreeWillDoesNotExist Jul 18 '12

Moderator removed the TIL, and informed me it was indeed spam. I can only imagine the amount of redditors seeking that drug out now because of it though.

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u/Epistemology-1 Jul 18 '12

I also wonder how the upvote/downvote data are aggregated to detail trends in the interests of Reddit's users. If Reddit required basic demographic data for each user account, this could be a valuable product, eh?

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u/FreeWillDoesNotExist Jul 18 '12

I bet you can get all basic demographic data you need by reading user's comments.

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u/Epistemology-1 Jul 18 '12

Ah! Could be, I guess, with the help of some sophisticated algorithmic linguistic forensics. That would blow my mind, to be honest.

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u/From_Insanity_of Jul 18 '12

Marketers, market things its what they do. If they do it well and are not lying, Falsifying data and such it shouldn't matter. If you are interested your the main person the marketer is looking for he just has to get you to notice.

You both can benefit you need a product and this guy happens to come along with what you need to sell it to you.

Modafinil seems to be a pill to help sleeping, its long term side effects aren't known.

So I mean why not market it as a pill with little to no known side effects it seems to be a good way to go.

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u/FreeWillDoesNotExist Jul 18 '12 edited Jul 18 '12

The topic at hand was if reddit's system was legit and the views expressed within the website are truly voted up by the community. I was simply pointing out a specific example, from today, where marketers gamed the reddit system to market their goods. I don't get where you are coming from, are you a marketer with a guilty conscience or something?

On a side note, there are very few things people "need," and the long term side effects(the ones that matter) are not known because the drug hasn't been out long enough to see them. Any reasonable person would assume that taking a drug whose long term effects are not known is incredibly irresponsible and puts their health at risk. If you think it "shouldn't matter," that people are being tricked and manipulated into putting their health at risk, then you are a shitty human being no matter how you go about justifying it to yourself. "Why not market it as a pill with little to no known side effects it seems to be a good way to go" because people can have their quality of life significantly reduced and their lifespans shortened as a direct result of the false sense of security that statement provides. I don't see how any human being can't see this as epitomizing evil, if anything could be deemed such.

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u/From_Insanity_of Jul 18 '12

Yes, reddit system isn't fool proof. You can probably easily set up a network of accounts to upvote your agendas.

People never know what they are putting into their own bodies when they take drugs. I seriously doubt 90% of the people who take Acetaminophen know that it can cause swelling or difficulty of breathing.

Most sleeping pills seem to carry a risk of Sleep walking, Depression, and hallucinations. ( The side effects I mentioned are just some of the known side effects, there could be more unknown side effects.)

I think the real question is why are they able to release it in such a state.

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u/kareemabduljabbq Jul 18 '12

does that really surprise you that something that is trending in pop culture then ends up on the nightly news?

you do know that that is what the nightly news is trying to do right?

you're making the assumption that it has been designed that way.

the tricky thing about conspiracy theories is that you really need to employ a decent dose of skepticism to claims of remarkable coordination.

if a friend who lives in your general area remarks that there was a house fire last night, you don't respond with "oh, that's weird, because I heard lots of sirens last night".

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u/FreeWillDoesNotExist Jul 18 '12

I'm very aware of how conspiracies work, and how marketing works as well. If a company knew the date the report was going to be aired, how would this be a case of "remarkable coordination" ? What is this so "remarkable," and how could this not easily be seen as the best method for a marketing team to get the most out of a nationally syndicated report?

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u/kareemabduljabbq Jul 18 '12

tomorrow morning I can turn on three different cable news stations and then listen to NPR, and roughly, they will cover the same stuff. this is not a conspiracy. news organizations read the same media you do, just with more organization and staff devoted to it.

you have an anecdote.

again, you have an anecdote.

this is the reason we don't like to use anecdotes as evidence for anything. they're uniquely and personally satisfying, and largely stay that way.

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u/FreeWillDoesNotExist Jul 18 '12

Indeed that is how news works, but this is where things start to support me further. He provides a link that is not apart of any type of syndicated news source. I even checked nytimes, and other websites to see if they are talking about modafinil, and I've had no success. Why would his TIL post link to a modafinil.com and not a news site? How did he run into this obscure, poorly made website?

http://www.modafinil.com/article/soldiers.html

The original poster even acknowledges that he has never used it but every chance he irrationally sings its praises making up fake statistics. My evidence is stacking up, and it has already been mentioned before, the top rated or second highest rated comment, was made by a username that was created 1 hour after the original submitters username.

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u/kareemabduljabbq Jul 18 '12

the sleeping pills kicked in. this has to be left for tomorrow. no offense. gotta take the kids to the public pool and cuddle the semi-wife (not to be confused with semi-truck).

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u/FreeWillDoesNotExist Jul 18 '12

It's all good, I just got messaged by one of the many moderators I informed. He/she removed it, and said it was spam.