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Comment by dude187 | Hacker News Reader

It's the same technique that people on Reddit use to take down subreddits that don't agree with the carefully curated "hive mind".

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I don’t know why you are downvoted, this is absolutely what happened semi-frequently until Reddit was finally forced to crack down on it. The same thing happened on Twitter/X for a while where bots would mass reply to targeted users with gore and CSAM.

I've been seeing something similar on some youtube videos, endless unflagged comments advocating hatred and violence, completely unrelated to the video topic or channel.

Interesting, this may suppress reach of the video through something in the YT algorithm.

no, it's just self promotion. they instruct users to click their profile where the default video is a call to action to join a depraved discord server. you get messaged bestiality automatically once joining so sane and likeminded people get sorted quickly

could be, but i think its similar to a bathroom wall, or physical bulleten board. a publicly facing space with no attribution, that can be linked to, and evade URL based filters of known hate speech projectors.

Because even though it definitely happened, it's one of those things you cannot prove and that don't really get recorded anywhere.

It also doesn't help that there is not even a time reference here. I want to say somewhere around 2018? Maybe earlier? Gamergate era? CTR?

There are pieces of internet history which are a "either you were there or you weren't" kind of deal. Like how the implementation of image posts in Reddit was very controversial, with concerns of the quality of the site going down. Wrong side won that one.

True, but to be fair, it’s very difficult to document something like this in a way that both provides hard proof and avoids serious felony charges.

>Because even though it definitely happened, it's one of those things you cannot prove and that don't really get recorded anywhere.

How do you know that it definitely happened?

I downvoted it because it's commonly said by people who do bad things, as a red herring. "People from your subreddit keep killing people" "Well at least we're not infected by the woke mind virus"/"You can't accuse us of that just because we don't agree with the hivemind"/etc. It's no different from "but her emails" etc.

If there was one thing I could make people understand: Even though bad people are saying it, doesn't mean it isn't true.

Social media false flag tactics happen. People from all over all sorts of political spectrums tell the same story. The sites tell the same story.

If you decide to blindly dismiss claims of abuse because you don't like the ones claiming to be abused, you create a comfy little space for abuse to happen.

> Even though bad people are saying it, doesn't mean it isn't true.

I am a human being and therefore have a built-in Bayesian filter for spam and bullshit. Should I also read Nigerian prince emails, just in case there's a real Nigerian prince who needs my help?

In case you are a real Nigerian prince who needs my help, it's up to you not to phrase it identically to a spam email.

You're choosing to disbelieve people because you don't like them. You would have believed them if you liked them and they said the same thing, because if you've spent any time at all online you know it happens.

That's not the same as disbelieving an anonymous spammer. Your distrust of them does not stem from disliking them.

To me, your attitude seems like indifference to the truth: I think you know that this happens, and it would be VERY odd if it only happened to people you like, but you're just indifferent when it happens to people you don't like, so you disbelieve them out of spite.

Is there any evidence that reddit banned subreddits because of those spammers? Did the reddit admins make a statement?

It's still regularly used by the "mafia" controlling large parts of Reddit. You can simply buy these services on sites like BHW and Swapd.

>I don’t know why you are downvoted, this is absolutely what happened semi-frequently until Reddit was finally forced to crack down on it.

What subreddits got banned because of that?

>The same thing happened on Twitter/X for a while where bots would mass reply to targeted users with gore and CSAM.

Did any of those targeted users get banned for this or was it just a form of harassment?

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