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Reddit is being manipulated by big financial services companies

forbes.com

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Re: Reddit is being manipulated by big financial services companies

#51

Post by vostok »

Drumlin wrote: post #20
vostok wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Donald Trump's war on media is 'biggest threat to democracy' says Navy Seal who brought down Osama Bin Laden". What is this an example of? This sounds like exactly the kind of thing that I would expect on the front page if there was no vote manipulation.

It comes from the politics sub, which - to put it mildly - is one of the most suspect subs for manipulation on Reddit. They let that sub appear on the homepage, yet they ban a lot of other similar subs that are on the other side of the spectrum. It's one of those issues where I look at Reddit and think... something isn't right.

> They let that sub appear on the homepage, yet they ban a lot of other similar subs that are on the other side of the spectrum.

Perhaps I'm not familiar with the situation. What similar subs have been banned?

Re: Reddit is being manipulated by big financial services companies

#52

Post by staticautomatic »

dowjones wrote: post #41
grzm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without substantiation of any of these types of things occurring, it actively destroys discussion to engage in speculation of them, particularly online. People are left with no good faith upon which to have constructive discourse.

I agree with you. Which is why the entire Susan Fowler discussion and subsequent holier-than-thou proclamations (i.e. Mitch Kapor) are odious, since there is currently zero substantiation of any of her claims.

Who can be relied upon to substantiate her claims (particularly if there is no lawsuit) ? Surely not Uber itself or its so called independent advisors.

Re: Reddit is being manipulated by big financial services companies

#53

Post by dsschnau »

codingdave wrote: post #8

I'm not sure how anyone can think discussions on reddit are not manipulated at this point. If you watch carefully, you see the exact same verbiage used from multiple accounts on the same topic used to steer conversations. And as new responses come up, there will be a multi-hour delay, then new verbiage will get posted simultaneously to multiple accounts. There is clearly behind-the-scenes writing efforts going on, th…

Agreed - my first thought on reading the headline was "duh. what companies _aren't_ manipulating reddit?"

Re: Reddit is being manipulated by big financial services companies

#54

Post by kneel »

mrfusion wrote: post #15

If you were designing Reddit today what would you do to prevent this kind of stuff?

Reddit's voting/karma system needs an overhaul. Karma does absolutely nothing on that site yet it's the only metric of value on that site (people do crazy things for meaningless reddit karma), that and having an ancient account but old accounts only matter to mods/admins for the most part.

Give an allowance of votes per day/week. More can be bought for very cheap, like 2 cents?

Votes are a commodity that can be accumulated and used to vote others. The more popular your posts are the more votes you have pooled to use on others. Votes are slowly dissipated over time to prevent hoarding.

You'd have to find a way to deal with shills/bots. No easy solution here, invite only will stifle growth. Collecting too much personal info will stifle growth. Maybe extreme blacklisting techniques for anyone found to be manipulating?

If you could pull it off then advertisers would actually have to pay to manipulate your site, not perfect but better than reddit's free accounts to manipulate thing they have going on now.

Re: Reddit is being manipulated by big financial services companies

#56

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

wcarron wrote: post #22
codingdave wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tiered subreddits. You would need to earn credibility in open discussions, and earn your way up into more serious discussions. So there would end up being multiple layers of credibility, with only vetted accounts participating in the highest levels.

This approach is probably the most reasonable. Stackoverflow seems to have implemented it fairly well.

I can't agree. Stackoverflow does some things well, but there are reasons that it hasn't caught on outside a certain cohort who were either there first, or who are very dedicated to cultivating their karma.

HN user jfc said it better here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7650975

Re: Reddit is being manipulated by big financial services companies

#57

Post by jacquesm »

dowjones wrote: post #41
grzm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without substantiation of any of these types of things occurring, it actively destroys discussion to engage in speculation of them, particularly online. People are left with no good faith upon which to have constructive discourse.

I agree with you. Which is why the entire Susan Fowler discussion and subsequent holier-than-thou proclamations (i.e. Mitch Kapor) are odious, since there is currently zero substantiation of any of her claims.

To see this coming from a novelty account is hilarious.

Re: Reddit is being manipulated by big financial services companies

#58

Post by jasonkostempski »

sctb wrote: post #39
anon2264 wrote: post #14

Reddit has some pretty extreme heavy handed political censorship. All Republican posts from the main Republican subreddit (the_donald) are censored from the front page (what most read). Techdirt is censored from r/news and r/worldnews and some of the other main subs. And for pretty repulsive apparent reason... All of the posts from r/conspiracy about the DNC corruption and subversion that was proven were censored. Wi…

We've asked you not to do this already, so we've banned the account.

Out of curiosity, was their username always "anon2264" or was it changed when it was banned? If changed, what did they do to get banned? Asking for a friend.

Re: Reddit is being manipulated by big financial services companies

#59

Post by accountface »

edgarvaldes wrote: post #28
Drumlin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes from the politics sub, which - to put it mildly - is one of the most suspect subs for manipulation on Reddit. They let that sub appear on the homepage, yet they ban a lot of other similar subs that are on the other side of the spectrum. It's one of those issues where I look at Reddit and think... something isn't right.

>something isn't right. Is that a pun? Because obviously reddit has a leftist bias.

According to the right, basic concepts like logic have leftist bias

Re: Reddit is being manipulated by big financial services companies

#60

Post by grzm »

jasonkostempski wrote: post #58
sctb wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've asked you not to do this already, so we've banned the account.

Out of curiosity, was their username always "anon2264" or was it changed when it was banned? If changed, what did they do to get banned? Asking for a friend.

Usernames don't change. Reviewing their comment history, I believe 'sctb is referring to this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=anon2264
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