/R/the_donald was consistently getting bullshit content to the front page using bots.
If you're pro free speech you'll need to answer towards the onslaught of bot based content generation and fake users
I had a weird one on Reddit the other day, and in thinking back, I rather wish I had saved it than just reporting it.
There were a comment under one post from 2 different users that was exactly the same. It was a somewhat well though out comment on the shorter side so it caught my eye. When I looked at both the accounts they had the exact same post history, but this was the only comment on the same thread. The other comments were dups of each other on different threads, and they didn't appear to post on the same posts anywhere else in their history.
There was otherwise no other information that would have pointed at them performing any bot like behavior.
I had a weird one on Reddit the other day, and in thinking back, I rather wish I had saved it than just reporting it.
There were a comment under one post from 2 different users that was exactly the same. It was a somewhat well though out comment on the shorter side so it caught my eye. When I looked at both the accounts they had the exact same post history, but this was the only comment on the same thread. The other comments were dups of each other on different threads, and they didn't appear to post on the same posts anywhere else in their history.
There was otherwise no other information that would have pointed at them performing any bot like behavior.
Just curious, how do you know for a fact that bots were involved in boosting the content? I mean, I'm sure that's possible, it's just that the level of energy/enthusiasm there among the users was extremely high to the point that I think it's reasonable to think that the subreddit's success was mostly just people being enthusiastic and wanting to upvote everything.
As far as bot based content-generation goes, that seems a little far-fetched to me given the level of humor and quality of the memes. Human humor to that level seems beyond reach of whatever technology was state of the art in 2015-2016 or even now.
I've watched this tab for many years because it strikes the right balance between new and interesting content.
During the trump election. Everyday there were multiple posts to the sub getting upvoted and this went on for months.
Also, multiple people analyzed the content voting for that subreddit and it significantly deviated from every other major subreddit.
I get you're trying to claim "there's no way to be statistically certain" but the evidence in the Mueller report and elsewhere makes it clear, internet propaganda is a real problem and is documented.
Here are 2 ways to look at this. There's no way to prove which viewpoint is correct, but anybody who spent time there will know exactly what I'm talking about.
1) One way to explain this is bots.
2) Another way to explain this is you actually saw genuine enthusiasm for the first time. As somebody who has spent a long time on the Internet, I've never seen a large forum like that devoted to some cause that was basically a 24/7 party-like atmosphere with genuine extreme enthusiasm and people having fun shit-posting, not worrying about political correctness, and making memes. If it was the case that the enthusiasm was indeed an outlier, then the level of activity would also be an outlier.
In light of actual evidence, how one interprets this is pretty subjective and minds are already made up. You be the judge, but I think the answer is obvious.
But eventually the push to gentrify reddit from the venture capitalists demanding profit on their millions made reddit corporate start banning even completely legit, but unprofitably controversial, subreddits. I left after they banned r/gundeals for having the temerity to exist and post links to and discuss firearms and firearm accessory deals online.
All the bot stuff you're talking about came well after the gentrification and switch to user profile centered posting to absorb the Facebook refugees. It seems like the Facebook bots just followed the Facebook users to reddit.
The problem is when a forum becomes a synthetic medium for shills.
It is absurd to say that the problem started with robot or mechanically generated content. They haven’t ever been effective or smart in developing content policies that work.