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Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?

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Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?

#1

Post by joegibbs »

It seems that in about a third of threads I check, the top comment is by an LLM. They aren't pushing anything sinister, trying to promote political division, doing crypto scamming or anything like that.

They just post inane one line comments in response to the article headline. They often have some corny joke or something like that, but it's never anything more than two sentences, and those sentences never, ever say anything insightful or even controversial - it's just an incredibly surface level and uncontroversial reaction to the headline.

Of course, this sounds like a setup to a joke about what the average Redditor posts but I'm serious. Just thousands of accounts posting completely inane takes, with that "gee whiz" Ned Flanders ChatGPT perkiness, and getting massively upvoted for it. The entire account will be just these inane one-liners, or sometimes plagiarised posts from the top of all time. Also, they use way more em dashes than the average person - and I'd assume that the average em-dash-user would make less boring comments.

What's the gain in this? Are people farming karma to later sell the accounts to shill products? To get conspiratorial, is Reddit trying to pump up the site with fake accounts to juice growth?

Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?

#2

Post by Festro »

> Are people farming karma to later sell the accounts to shill products?

Yes.

Any self-respecting bot shiller knows their accounts need to look as genuine as possible. Broad subreddit use and commenting, harmless comments. Then whammy with the sponsored post when the time is right.

The more harmless the better. The more comment karma the better.

It's not Reddit pumping their numbers. They don't need to and after Elon's MAU crusade prior to buying Twitter they likely wouldn't want that kind of scrutiny when it comes to selling up.

I think Reddit will reinforce their user sign up pipeline in the short term to cut down on the bots. They'll have more data on it and I doubt any of it is good for them. They want real humans with cash to be posting popular comments, not bots.

Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?

#4

Post by joegibbs »

Festro wrote: post #2

> Are people farming karma to later sell the accounts to shill products? Yes. Any self-respecting bot shiller knows their accounts need to look as genuine as possible. Broad subreddit use and commenting, harmless comments. Then whammy with the sponsored post when the time is right. The more harmless the better. The more comment karma the better. It's not Reddit pumping their numbers. They don't need to and after Elon…

The interesting thing is that looking through the history I’ve never noticed any of them actually shill a product yet - maybe they’re the bots that upvote the shill posts, or maybe it’s just that they’re so cheap you can run 100 of them for ages before you even think of putting them in use.

Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?

#5

Post by csmattryder »

> They just post inane one line comments in response to the article headline. They often have some corny joke or something like that, but it's never anything more than two sentences, and those sentences never, ever say anything insightful or even controversial - it's just an incredibly surface level and uncontroversial reaction to the headline.

I haven't used Reddit in years, but this was Reddit pre-LLMs.

Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?

#6

Post by latexr »

> to shill products

You’re thinking too small. Swaying political sentiment is another option. Imagine thousands of accounts all repeating the same talking points and the same “facts” across all of Reddit. They can also be used to drown out certain contentious topics such as a political scandal.

> Of course, this sounds like a setup to a joke about what the average Redditor posts

Indeed, this isn’t new¹. And I don’t just mean the atrocious (lack of) quality of real Reddit comments, but companies have been using Reddit for covert promotion for a while. I remember someone showing me the types of posts. Someone would recount some crazy story and a product as key without saying what the brand was—e.g. “and if not for my boots, I would have died”—so other people would then ask for information and the commenter could then shill the product in a way that sounded natural.

People (including on HN) often claim they add “reddit” to every internet search they do, as if that’s some secret sauce unknown to companies, scammers, and other pursuers of profit. It isn’t.

¹ Though the scale permitted by LLMs is certainly worrying.

Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?

#7

Post by justsomehnguy »

As others note it is the same for years, even before LLMs.

They just scan the older posts, take the upvoted comments and when they see the most appropriate surrounding - they just post them verbatim.

More so, half of the posts you see on the frontpage are the reposts from the years ago. Made by bots, commented by bots. And every couple of years they repost the reposts. Circle of botlife.

If Reddit's search weren't so shitty you could've easily checked it, but as anyone understands Reddit owners are not in the position to actually improve the search in any way, it doesn't worth it for them.

> never noticed any of them actually shill a product yet

Well, you won't notice it till they actually respond to you.

But there is a product what is shilled to you all the time and you probably don't even notice. It's in r/worldnews, a couple of subs topical for the current geopolitical situation and whatever the hot topics what hit the frontpage.

Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?

#9

Post by cyanydeez »

Festro wrote: post #2

> Are people farming karma to later sell the accounts to shill products? Yes. Any self-respecting bot shiller knows their accounts need to look as genuine as possible. Broad subreddit use and commenting, harmless comments. Then whammy with the sponsored post when the time is right. The more harmless the better. The more comment karma the better. It's not Reddit pumping their numbers. They don't need to and after Elon…

Reddit, like twitter, realiz3 they benefit from the bots cresting engagement.

Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?

#10

Post by ZunarJ5 »

Festro wrote: post #2

> Are people farming karma to later sell the accounts to shill products? Yes. Any self-respecting bot shiller knows their accounts need to look as genuine as possible. Broad subreddit use and commenting, harmless comments. Then whammy with the sponsored post when the time is right. The more harmless the better. The more comment karma the better. It's not Reddit pumping their numbers. They don't need to and after Elon…

I'm fairly certain my account is being AB tested for only visiting it on a web browser on Android, for how much a user will put up with before just leaving the site and not downloading the app lol.
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