this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2024
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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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[–] Ibex@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (4 children)

It’s probably higher than that. Every time I comment on there it feels like a play with the way people act and respond. Like it’s not real, or they have a script to follow. No real person would act the way most Redditors operate.

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Also important to remember that karma farming is a thing over there, alongside the circle jerk. There's thread after thread of people just saying the same shit over and over because it's guaranteed karma.

[–] smokebuddy@lemmy.today 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I was on there recently and saw the same LET THEM FIGHT GIF posted 12 times in the same thread and all of them had some number of upvotes

[–] SGforce@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago

I can't even understand what human would upvote the trash like that

[–] Pechente@feddit.org 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sure this can be bots but at least when I was still active this behavior was also just karma whoring by real people. Comment fast before the thread „expires“ and become one of the top rated comments.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 week ago

I see a lot of this, where it's become a mix of

  • bots
  • real people that comment like bots

It comes up on the Reddit moderation side where I look into an account assuming it's a spam bot but it's not. There is a certain voice or style that's similar between the two groups of accounts

[–] JWBananas@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Alternatively, people like to meme on the Internet.

[–] jrs100000@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It makes sense that a vote based platform, where users encounter direct positive and negative reinforcement with every interaction, would tend to developing repetitive conversation patterns over time, even if it were populated entirely with humans.

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Came here too say that.