this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2024
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"Foreign bad actors" Sigh. This is propaganda framing.
The fact that reddit is astroturfed by the US government, US actors like Hillary's campaign in 2016, etc is very well known. Reddit even did an oopsie many years ago admitting that the most active reddit city was a US air force base with influence operations located there, aka psyops, aka propaganda bots.
If it has foreign "bad actors" they don't control the narrative, they don't control the main big subs, they don't have an in with the admin team, they don't run even a large minority of bots.
If these mythical creatures people like you believe in (as a result of the US policy of always accuse your enemies of what you're doing to hide it better) to pretend that the problems are all those evil foreigners do exist they exist as grains of sand caught in a mighty torrential river of US propaganda machines and influence operations. They exist hopeless. Helpless. With no friends on the admin team unlike the US propagandists, fighting a pointless fight where they are almost certainly subject to frequent, near immediate bans after mass downvotes by controlled moderators and/or mods who just are that happy to prevent any viewpoint but the US one from existing.
Even framing your question like this is a massive pushing of US propaganda. This isn't so much a question as a weaponized trojan horse that starts from the point of view of the people who control the most bots and the narrative totally on reddit.
The only thing approaching foreign, non-US "bad actor" astroturfing and botting would have to be the zionist bot effort which is admin and main subs moderation team backed and also backed by the US government by the way who doesn't care to get upset about it or raise it as an issue and demand it stop because they're supplying weapons to that genocide.
I mean the way you state it is literally the line being pushed by US government censorship proponents who are angry any foreign voices, any voices but their own are getting through.
Just because the US does it doesn't mean other countries aren't also doing it. OP said bots or foreign bad actors. Sure, a narrow scope that utilizes propaganda language, but your comment is some false dichotomy whataboutism tankie shit
For sources on foreign influence in U.S. social media, consider:
Well, he could have just said bad actors, but then the answer would be a lot higher...
Your point is fair and I didn’t mean to imply that bad actors are purely foreign. There are plenty of domestic bad actors. Please excuse the “propaganda framing”.
This was my subjective opinion based on the kinds of discussions and posts I see.
A lot of it IS foreign though. I don’t know about a majority, but it’s wild.
Interesting research into bots by The Flashbulb
Yeah there's a lot of foreign influence, some of it successful as well:
https://news.risky.biz/risky-biz-news-declassified-documents-reveal-russias-election-info-ops-in-romania/
Well said.
Some links from reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/z6unyl/comment/iy4mycx/
https://web.archive.org/web/20160410083943/http://www.redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day.html?m=1
https://medium.com/@MKultrawoke/the-truth-about-the-alt-right-a-destruction-by-facts-and-logic-e3d07f27e8cb