182
submitted 1 year ago by Eccehom@lemmy.world to c/reddit@lemmy.world

What's happening to reddit 🤦🏻‍♀️

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

Synthetic engagement.

I think it's been this way for a while, maybe 8 years. I also think there are certain companies that pay reddit for this kind of engagement. It's a completely unfounded conspiracy theory of mine own, but I think Disney and Marvel fandoms have been synthetically built up using this kind of astroturfed engagement. By using my bots to build a strong baseline, you create the sense that there is far more involvement than there actually is. Because these bots are owned by reddit, they can steer the engagement. It's not a guarantee, but it's a part of an overall strategy.

[-] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There is absolutely no question that Disney and Sony are both heavily engaged in viral marketing on Reddit. You can always tell when a new PS5 exclusive is about to drop because subs which almost never hit /r/all end up getting tangentially related gaming memes on the front page with 4000 comme ts talking about how excited everyone is for the new PlayStation game. Same with Marvel movies for a while there. Reddit even had engineers writing code for the Thanos snap thing.

Reddit has very clearly been trying to monetize guerilla marketing for a while, and I think a big part of the API issue is precisely that everyone realized that it's super easy to just cut reddit out of the equation entirely with bots.

[-] gencha@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I always thought it was so stupid when people complained about "karma farming bots" when it was obviously synthetic content that primarily benefitted Reddit themselves.

[-] SpeedLimit55@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Of course the marketing dept of large companies and sports leagues work directly with reddit. They also have the ability to sponsor and boost organic posts, place top comments etc…

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I believe it but I'd like to have direct evidence for it.

[-] SpeedLimit55@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
182 points (89.2% liked)

Reddit

17443 readers
189 users here now

News and Discussions about Reddit

Welcome to !reddit. This is a community for all news and discussions about Reddit.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules


Rule 1- No brigading.

**You may not encourage brigading any communities or subreddits in any way. **

YSKs are about self-improvement on how to do things.



Rule 2- No illegal or NSFW or gore content.

**No illegal or NSFW or gore content. **



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-Reddit posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



:::spoiler Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS