this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
1305 points (95.0% liked)
Technology
59217 readers
2726 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.