The ebike subreddit is modded by the owners of Lunacycle. They actively remove posts about bad customer service/other issues from Lunacycle. I witnessed them name and shame some random redditor and accuse them of fraud because they posted screenshots of email correspondence that pointed out shady dealings on Luna’s part.
They use the general subreddit for electric bikes to funnel everyone into ordering from them.
during the massive purge of rebellious mods, there was a huge opening for corporate shills to move into places where previous mods had kept them out. this phenomenon was widespread in many fan and specialty subs. Reddit admins were more than happy to let this happen, as corporate shills were also more than happy to be cooperative with Reddit admins.
Everything about Reddit’s most recent changes has been openly about cracking the place wide open for corporate marketing. Everything good about it was because of how genuine it was, and it was genuine because for a very long time, the attitude was to shield it against corporate influence.
That’s the only reason it became such a valuable place for search results: as the forums and blogs around the Internet went silent and corporations ravaged individual websites, reddit was a bubble of genuine interaction. It’s not just Google’s shitty algorithm, it’s also because the Internet itself got injected with shit, and reddit was a safe haven. A deeply flawed one, but still, notably less fake and corporate than the web pages around it.
That’s what gave it value.
Spez knows this. The admins have known this the whole damn time. That’s why there used to be rules against self-posting content. That’s why celebrities were only allowed to promote things in AMAS. To head off attention seeking, marketing, and corporate influence.
But the time came to make money, and they’re burning it all down to accomplish that.
I will never not share this blog because it hits the nail so cleanly on the head it sails straight down to the core of the earth:
Stop talking to each other and start buying things
It’s not just about ads, it’s about the corruption of public spaces. The death of social media is when someone tries to start making money off it at the expense of its genuine human interaction, which can not exist in that environment unmolested, and will cascade into the platform’s collapse over time. it’s enshitification, yes, but it’s also something else: “dehumanation”. The drowning of the human element of your social platform through profit seeking.
I’ve been through too many exodus, this post hits hard and true. Been using the net since 95 and have been a community refuge too many times. I’m really hoping federation takes off because I’m tired of rebuilding. Not sure I’ll try again if this doesn’t pan out.
Hate to break it to you but it will likely happen again. Meta is already encroaching on our new corner of the web, they’ll either eat it or it’ll die out on its own as funding doesn’t really exist here
Informational tragedy. Really is.
This hurts us as consumers, patients, thinkers, feelers. :(
That was an incredible read, thanks for sharing it. Please keep sharing it!
I’m calling 1 year on the over/under for the introduction of blue check marks.
You mean Reddit gold check marks
You mean narwhal bacon badges.
In a similar more minor vein, the Snowpeircer (tv show) sub was administered by the showrunners.
They were mostly subtle about it, but quietly removed lots of posts after a week or so that didn’t fit show promo.
I’m pretty sure they’ve abandoned it now that the show is in limbo.Since before the exodus or after?
Before and worse after
I had no idea. I am well aware of Lunacycle’s toxicity from endless-sphere.com.
Is all bad online behavior “trolling” now? Isn’t “shill” a better word for someone who is paid to surreptitiously promote something?
Back in my day trolling meant something. It meant you cared enough to actually form a real argument that withstands scrutiny, just to setup for the rug pull. The better your polemic, the more engagement as people debated if you were for real or not.
Shitposting controversial hot takes or dog whistle memes is mid af, do better
From my understanding trolling meant exactly what it says it is: Trolling. I think people for some reason get this mixed up with trolls - as in the fantasy type monster. But I think it actually has to do with the fishing termtrolling where you cast out your line, and see if you can get somebody to take the bait. Once they take the bait, you take em for a ride.
Actually, that’s also where the name of the mythical creature comes from. They’d set up bridges that offer convenient shortcuts as bait for humans
From my understanding trolling meant exactly what it says it is: Trolling. I think people for some reason get this mixed up with trolls - as in the fantasy type monster. But I think it actually has to do with the fishing termtrolling where you cast out your line, and see if you can get somebody to take the bait. Once they take the bait, you take em for a ride.
When the word is used on the Internet it’s meant in the fantasy monster way. Specifically it comes from the story of the troll underneath the bridge, interfering with people trying to cross the bridge.
polemic
po·lem·ic /pəˈlemik/ noun a speech or piece of writing expressing a strongly critical attack on or controversial opinion about someone or something. “his polemic against the cultural relativism of the Sixties”
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mid
No, all bad online behavior now is “bots.”
At least that’s how people in the comments on lemmy and Reddit label them.
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It seems to correlate with the rise in general awareness of LLMs like ChatGPT. It seems like just the threat/possibility of ChatGPT being used has already distorted discourse online.
I always saw it as someone who only repeats talking points verbatim is essentially a robot. If I can’t tell if you are a human posting, or an automated response is there a meaningful difference?
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Shut up, bot!
Edit: Shitty typo
He’d probably need a strong sphincter muscle to manage that.
Lol, how did I miss that
No, all bad online behavior now is “bots.”
At least that’s how people in the comments on lemmy and Reddit label them.
I, and others, have distinguish between shills and bots.
Usually people use shilling as an alternative to astroturfing by paid human beings, while bots are just AI/programming posting.
Shill is a banned word on reddit still right?
No idea!
There’s no way it’s a banned word. /r/neoliberal has a “neoliberal shill of the year” award where they vote for their favorite economist based on social media posts, books released that year, etc.
There was a time when you’d get hit with a [Removed by Reddit] for calling people shills but that was a while back I guess
Is all bad online behavior “trolling” now?
People like throwing buzzwords regardless of their meaning.
it is not “now”. It is exactly as it was being used in 2020, when the article was written, by the mass media. They were calling “troll” everyone they were disagreeing with.
Fellow lemmings, I, for one, am glad that there are no corporate trolls trying to manipulate public opinions on Lemmy, it is the same warm, fuzzy feeling I get when I was watching multiple time Golden Globe nominated summer blockbuster, Barbie, now available on Blu-Ray and select streaming services.
I don’t know about you, but I sure hope Barbie sweeps the Golden Globes next month (and then the Oscars next year.)
I can’t talk about selling out any more, it’s giving me a headache.
I wish I could get some of that retro Reebok stuff he has. I miss the 90s.
Et tu, Barbie?
I can’t believe THE Margot Robbie is on the fediverse.
Good for you, girl!
I know, I can hardly believe it either!
Wait, no, now my astorturfing cover is blown. 😭
Member-only story
Medium wants me to pay them to read a story from “Homeless Romantic” who is listed as a “Ph.D. Rocket Surgeon & Aspiring Troglodyte”?
Are they fucking high?
well, whomever describes themselves in such a manner clearly is.
It’s been a wonder that site ever got traction as something credible to get info from and not just a weird mesh of editorial, blogging, and long winded shitposts…
edit: That being said, fuck reddit.
I’ve always seen it as a site for random people to shitpost. Who takes Medium seriously as a credible source?
For me, it was often a place where a lot of qualified people would essentially write blogs because hosting their own site for it would get utterly ignored by google. The last few years though I’ve got more utter morons than people who can write a good article, even for generic questions that they could straight up copy and paste from another site.
Are they fucking high?>
Yeah, probably
That title is clickbait.
From the article:
In 2020, the Computers in Human Behavior study provided additional insights into the tactics employed by corporate trolls on Reddit. The study focused on the top 100 subreddits, analyzing the content posted within these influential communities. The results were alarming, with 15% of the top 100 subreddits found to have content that was likely posted by bots or corporate trolls, specifically aimed at promoting certain companies or organizations.
That’s 15% of the top 100 subreddits contained some content that was likely posted by bots or corporate trolls.
Even just calling it a “new study” is already a lie
This title is one of the 15%
It’s not like one of the six biggest power janitors of Reddit has been caught multiple times wrongfully deleting posts, using bot armies to manipulate votes and accepting money from marketing agencies for “consultancy” in social media guerilla marketing.
It’s almost like the company doesn’t give a fuck what their unpaid help does to the userbase or content because they still gets investments regardless.
Fuck spez, fuck GallowBoob, fuck awkwardtheturtle and fuck Sam Altman.
It’s amazing how quickly the admins came down on some subs after the trench titty drama broke. He was basically reddit’s MrBabyMan. And he’s probably not the only one.
Trench ritty drama? Dare I even
Google thatDuckDuckGo that…
What’s Sam Altman’s connection to Reddit?
He was an angel investor and also onboarded a bunch of celebrity investors.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they are trying to whitewash this, since it became a minor point of contention a few months ago
Was also interim CEO for 8 days, to give you an idea of how involved he was. I’ll update with more info and sources later if I have time, otherwise Wayback Machine is your friend
How is Sam Altman related to Reddit?
The studies are from 2018 and 2020, “new study” in the post title is a complete lie
Corporate trolls at it again!
Downvoted for medium article.
I shouldn’t have to make an account to view news.
If it’s on Medium it’s almost certainly repackaged news anyway.
Am I blind? I don’t even see where it names the study. It just says Pew, who publishes many studies. Does medium expect me to search for their sources?
The results were alarming, with 15% of the top 100 subreddits found to have content that was likely posted by bots or corporate trolls, specifically aimed at promoting certain companies or organizations.
The study found some (likely) bot/corporate troll content in 15% of the top 100 subreddits. That’s completely different from what the article’s headline claims.
Edit: Also, the “New Study” as the headline calls it is apparently from 2020.
(here’s a link to the article without paywall if you want to read it for yourself)
The study found some (likely) bot/corporate troll content in 15% of the top 100 subreddits.
Now I’m surprised it’s that low. Feels like a big part of /r/all is bot posts, with the top comments being from bots too
We should all calm down, buy a Twix and look forward to christmas.
I went to the mall because I wished to experience Christmas undignified, to front only the essential facts of capitalism, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to New Years, discover that I had not contributed.
🥲 Beautifully written tale of a mortal peril swerved.
Not calm? Eat a snickers.
Yeah but we just got 8" of rain and 70 mph winds during a freak December storm that took out half our power grid, how will Amazon-Clause find my house?!? 80 degrees warmer than it should be here and our snowman holding up the mail box melted!!!
TBH I’m surprised it’s not higher than that. Even back before the API changes it certainly felt like a lot of front page content was paid for.
A lot of the shill marketing is very hard to prove. A lot of the dialogue gets mixed in with commentors that have genuine brand loyalty.
It’s far too easy for a marketing team to acquire a high karma account and blend in. We’ll never get a truly clear picture of how much Reddit is astroturfed.
This is research from before the API changes. Loads of astroturf efforts were easy to notice, there must have been more subtle ones.
I always wonder whether the famous post about vacuum cleaners was paid for by the company he recommended. If it was, they got their money’s worth - that redditor was convincing.
And people want Meta involved in the Fediverse, like reddit wasn’t bad enough.
If the fediverse gets a lot of traction, this sort of “spam” will be difficult to moderate and every instance will need to have sophisticated systems to prevent it.
It’s okay Meta is totally great at removing spam and fake accounts.
Well, I see your point. All I’m saying is spam is difficult when you are a large target.
Which is why I WANT lemmy to stay “small to medium”
“New Study”
“Two significant studies, the Pew Research Center study conducted in 2018 and the Computers in Human Behavior study published in 2020”
So you’re saying it’s almost certainly a significantly larger percentage now.
Sounds about right.
I’m just saying that the article is not coherent. If we are at the end of 2023 and it talks about a new article, it doesn’t make sense that it then mentions two articles, one from 2018 and another from 2020.
You also have to see the irony in an article that forces new user signup to read it in its entirety. The internet is just gross now. Almost everything is corporate garbage or some site or individual trying to establish a “user base” or “followers” etc. I’m mostly just tired of it all. We’ve had radio, tv and now the internet. I’m personally just hoping to be around for the next thing to come along so I can enjoy it before the same cycle hits it and fucking ruins it.
I could tell that and I agree … not really “new”…
And another 50% is trolls working probono to be try and convince people that racism is the only way forward
And the other 50% is AI bots, just trying to keep people engaged.
That’s a 115% - dayum, that’s a lot of users! :D
I know it’s crazy.
The racing of time is faster because we pull against the sheets. A clock may not know its way but tell me, I dare you, tell me when the snake hits the road and I’ll show you its direction!
You’re kidding yourself if you think they aren’t also on Lemmy.
You can assume they’re everywhere but at least Lemmy is still a small enough target for now that it’s not completely enshittened (yet)
Lemmy probably isn’t big enough for the ad bots to be worth it yet. Lemmy is more infested with right wing astroturf shills pretending to be leftists and pushing “both sides” nonsense.
What are you talking about? We’re not active on Lemmy. We don’t even have time to be here, we’re too busy enjoying a refreshing Starry
Okay but actually imagine preferring Starry over Sprite.
Too small. We only have users with individual agendas still.
May I talk to you about my lord and saviour, Gandalf?
