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Reddit founders made hundreds of fake profiles so site looked popular (2012)

arstechnica.com

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Re: Reddit founders made hundreds of fake profiles so site looked popular (2012)

#31

Post by TeMPOraL »

turzmo wrote: post #21

I dunno, as someone generally disillusioned by tech and its shady practices/ethics, this doesn't seem all that bad to me. It's a little gross but maybe a necessary evil in this day and age.

To me, it was gross when I first learned about it, and it remains gross today. Just because approximately everyone[0] seems to be doing it, doesn't mean it's right.

Now, I would have less of a problem with this, if all the founders and CEOs would openly admit, "this is how business works", "we do what we must", or "we don't call someone a business shark for being nice and friendly to the fish". But they don't. Instead, they go on stage or order press releases and creation of blog posts and other content, talking about changing the world for the better, about excellence, moral virtues, diversity, inclusion, responsibility, sustainability.

It's all bullshit. Why should I believe they mean it, when they have a long history of lying to or bullshitting people, dating all the way to the first days of their companies, and they're 100% fine with it?

--

[0] - At least in the group of companies that would be discussed on HN and similar places.

Re: Reddit founders made hundreds of fake profiles so site looked popular (2012)

#32

Post by lelandfe »

RobotToaster wrote: post #28
lelandfe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL. For the US, users grant Reddit a license to use their content when they post it. The users still own that content. Reddit's license does not extend to your reuse of it[0], nor have the underlying users directly granted you permission, so it would not be legal (in the US) for you to reuse like that. [0] "you may not... license, sell, transfer, assign, distribute, host, or otherwise commercially exploit the Serv…

Wouldn't that mean it would be down to the individual users who still own each bit of content to issue a DMCA takedown if they objected? I imagine the number of such requests would be small.

Posting that you’re going to be “using Reddit data to pre-seed the content” may make it a bit harder to dodge Reddit in court.

Re: Reddit founders made hundreds of fake profiles so site looked popular (2012)

#33

Post by scosman »

RobotToaster wrote: post #28
lelandfe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL. For the US, users grant Reddit a license to use their content when they post it. The users still own that content. Reddit's license does not extend to your reuse of it[0], nor have the underlying users directly granted you permission, so it would not be legal (in the US) for you to reuse like that. [0] "you may not... license, sell, transfer, assign, distribute, host, or otherwise commercially exploit the Serv…

Wouldn't that mean it would be down to the individual users who still own each bit of content to issue a DMCA takedown if they objected? I imagine the number of such requests would be small.

Ah. The old “I did so much copyright violation it would be infeasible for everyone I took content from to enforce” defence. I see nothing that could go wrong.

Re: Reddit founders made hundreds of fake profiles so site looked popular (2012)

#34

Post by JoeAltmaier »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #18
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #6

Many small startups generate fake traffic, either for testing or for marketing purposes (e.g. cheating on the numbers). I would be surprised to find any successful company that had no shenanigans in their origin story. My history included a startup that shipped empty boxes to meet numbers, scraped thousands of emails from more popular websites to sell as their own traffic, even one that forged stock certificates to s…

Well, it definitely goes against the economic propaganda that the US fed the rest of the world, that you can become wealthy by hard and honest entrepreneurship.

I'd guess that this often happens when companies are failing. For every one that laughs about it years later with billions in market cap, there are 100 that failed.

Re: Reddit founders made hundreds of fake profiles so site looked popular (2012)

#35

Post by turzmo »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #31
turzmo wrote: post #21

I dunno, as someone generally disillusioned by tech and its shady practices/ethics, this doesn't seem all that bad to me. It's a little gross but maybe a necessary evil in this day and age.

To me, it was gross when I first learned about it, and it remains gross today. Just because approximately everyone[0] seems to be doing it, doesn't mean it's right . Now, I would have less of a problem with this, if all the founders and CEOs would openly admit, "this is how business works", "we do what we must", or "we don't call someone a business shark for being nice and friendly to the fish". But they don't. Inste…

I don't expect CEO's mean anything they say. But I do think this infraction is minor compared to everything else that goes on. Overall, I agree with you.

Re: Reddit founders made hundreds of fake profiles so site looked popular (2012)

#36

Post by drodgers »

dom96 wrote: post #7

I've been considering using Reddit data to pre-seed the content in a successor to Reddit. Though I am unsure how that would stand legally. As a side note, I created an alternative Reddit API[1] and Reddit didn't like that so much they banned my 13 year old Reddit account. 1 - https://api.reddiw.com

Adversarial interoperability like this would be a great way to neutralise network lock-in effects and create a more level competetive playing field between social media companies. I think we should enshrine protections for this kind of thing.

There was a strong 2019 precedent in favour of allowing this kind of scraping of public content (from LinkedIn in that case): https://www.techdirt.com/2019/09/10/big-news-appeals-court-s...

Re: Reddit founders made hundreds of fake profiles so site looked popular (2012)

#37

Post by slimebot80 »

lostlogin wrote: post #17
dom96 wrote: post #7

I've been considering using Reddit data to pre-seed the content in a successor to Reddit. Though I am unsure how that would stand legally. As a side note, I created an alternative Reddit API[1] and Reddit didn't like that so much they banned my 13 year old Reddit account. 1 - https://api.reddiw.com

Having first rephrased it all via Chat GPT. Load up those liabilities.

Do you mean using ChatGPT this way would also be a liability?

Re: Reddit founders made hundreds of fake profiles so site looked popular (2012)

#39

Post by oilchange »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #6

Many small startups generate fake traffic, either for testing or for marketing purposes (e.g. cheating on the numbers). I would be surprised to find any successful company that had no shenanigans in their origin story. My history included a startup that shipped empty boxes to meet numbers, scraped thousands of emails from more popular websites to sell as their own traffic, even one that forged stock certificates to s…

> I would be surprised to find any successful company that had no shenanigans in their origin story.

And it's not just in tech. New restaurants hire actors as customers to make the restaurant appear busy and popular. Publishing companies and authors buy their own books to make it appear popular and climb the best sellers list. Clubs give out free tickets. Studios buy seats or entire theaters to make it seems like their movies are selling out. The older you get, the naive idealized world of business recedes as the stark "fake it til you make it" world emerges. Everyone fakes it. But not everyone makes it. Taken to extreme, we get elizabeth holmes and theranos.

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