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What percentage of Reddit users are bots or foreign bad actors? (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 1 week ago by slowmotionrunner@lemmy.sdf.org to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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It probably seems weird asking this on Lemmy, but of course posting this on Reddit would get banned or taken down. Reddit doesn’t like being critical of Reddit. Anyways….

Over the last 10 years as a Reddit user I’ve believe the amount of accounts that are bots or foreign bad actors has tipped past 50%. I have no statistics to speak of, but would love if somebody did and could share.

Based purely on some of the conversations, posts, rage bait, strong ideologies, etc… I’m pretty convinced that a reasonable sample of humans could not or would not act the way they do on that platform. So often now I see posts that I feel are specifically attempting to sow discord and disagreement.

Does anyone else agree? What percent of users do you think are bots? Foreign bad actors?

Sadly, I think Reddit has no desire to find out or do anything about it. There would be no upside to them correcting their advertising numbers.

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[–] VHS@hexbear.net 33 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Why "foreign" bad actors? Reddit is a US company and has "former" CIA in high-up positions. The site is heavily astroturfed by US military and intelligence. The prevailing opinions seen on the site are extremely pro-NATO and pro-"Israel". If foreign actors are trying to influence the site, they're in the extreme minority.

The site is of course also heavily botted to fake engagement, similar to how twitter is, but i think a lot of the unpleasant people on there are real. The site caters to their hostile, antisocial behavior.

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

If reddit and lemmy (to a lesser degree obviously) have anything in common, it's that they both desperately need perspectives from outside the US to be heard more. I mean just knowing what is meant by "foreign", shouldn't happen. Like foreign to which country? Oh of course the global hegemon again... Why is this the default on an anti-imperialist site?

[–] Zoift@hexbear.net 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

In 2013 Reddit accidentally revealed the most "Reddit Addicted City" was Eglin Air Force Base. A city with a pop of 2.8k getting +100k visits. Neat.

The 2nd most popular city from that list, Oak Brook Il, is the HQ of Elsevier, a data analytics company & DOD subcontractor.

The Research Lab at Eglin AFB was cited in a 2014 paper on how to influence social groups to converge to a "common desired state"

It's been a decade since. How far do you think they've come?

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 week ago

By now the Eglin AFB & other fed bots ought to know to use VPNs.

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 23 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Why “foreign” bad actors? Reddit is a US company and has “former” CIA in high-up positions. The site is heavily astroturfed by US military and intelligence.

i had this same thought and it's clear that posts like these are meant to frame the conversations so that it we only talk about the foreign bad actors and not the american or western bad actors.

seeing these bots and shills expand into lemmy; especially throughout .world is bone chililng to me sometimes because it makes it clear how thoroughly well this slop sells to the american people.

[–] slowmotionrunner@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 6 days ago

It was not my intention to suggest there are not "domestic bad actors". I live in America, and yes, that is a blanket term that we use to generalize countries that are antagonistic to "American values". We have plenty of domestic bad actors. I was painting with too broad of a brush and that was my bad.