I apologize as I didn’t fully get everything. This was just posted 15 minutes ago on Subreddit Drama, and if Reddit decides to delete it, here it is on Lemmy.

Direct link: https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1ocisqr/comment/nkmq44a/

Content below by shoveitupyourown

Coordinated Alt-Right misinformation network being pushed to the front page of Reddit.

I have noticed these subs infesting my feed for awhile now and decided to take a deeper look. this shit is scary, and symptomatic of our current information landscape. and it will only get worse.

there are a shared group of moderators: https://www.reddit.com/user/SwimmerPlus3383/submitted/

https://www.reddit.com/user/dead-end-kid/

https://www.reddit.com/user/InternationalYou4065/

https://www.reddit.com/user/00dayoff/

https://www.reddit.com/user/ptlegion/

Im sure there are more, Dead-end-kid is a consistent link between all these communities, two of the most popular being: https://www.reddit.com/r/EuropeNewsandPolitics/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ThisMadeMe/

These subreddits are flooded with misinformation designed to rage bait the user, these are often racially charged. an example being:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ThisMadeMe/comments/1ocfeot/an_immigrant_harassed_a_young_man_on_the_tube_he/

Where a video from 2023 in RUSSIA, was framed to be a British teen being harassed by immigrants. there are plenty more examples of this if you look yourself.

These subreddits have been floating to the top of peoples feeds for some reason, whether these users are botting engagement to get there, or are manipulating the algorithm, or hell being put there on purpose by reddit. i do not know. what i do know is that this is symptomatic of our society at the moment, and that people should keep their eyes open, and also report the shit out of these assholes.

EDIT: some lovely person has linked a post that is relevant to this from 4 months ago, i urge you to check it out: https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1l8hno6/palantir_may_be_engaging_in_a_coordinated/

  • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
    3·
    45 minutes ago

    People forget how big the astroturfed sub r/The_Donald was in 2015.

    It was literally the most popular sub on Reddit that year, with multiple posts an hr getting to the front page for like half a year.

    Then reddit banned it after Trump was elected…

    It was a clear troll farm operation, i don’t think anything came of it besides it being lumped in with the DOJ+FBI report that proved Russia and China helped Trump get elected through social media propaganda.

  • ShamanRonin@lemmy.world
    4·
    7 hours ago

    It is a sick world we’re living in. Reddit was my final mainstream social. Now that I am permanently banned for being staunchly anti-Nazi. Now fully federated. New here, so suggestions welcome!

  • James R Kirk@startrek.websiteEnglish
    35·
    1 day ago

    I’ve suspected this was a thing for a while now but it’s nice to see someone naming names. Many subs ban MAGA/hateful content, so a workaround they use is sharing it “innocently” by someone who’s “confused as to what the controversy is”. A big one is right wings memes being posted in /r/peterexplainsthejoke with the user feigning ignorance as to their meaning. OOTL is another.

  • TommySoda@lemmy.world
    11·
    1 day ago

    A good rule of thumb that I feel like everyone needs to know for locating bots is to look for default usernames. When you make an account, Reddit gives you a randomly generated name that consists of “[word][word][4 digit number]” unless you specify otherwise. 8 out of 10 times the account is less than two years old and barely posts outside of these subreddits, and even when they do it is very minimal and only done to “seem normal.” And when you really start to dig deep you can obviously see a “hello fellow redditors” type of behavior and writing style.

    There are two examples in this very post: SwimmerPlus3383 InternationalYou4065

    InternationalYou4065: Only a few months old, has all their content hidden, and yet has over 20k karma somehow.

    SwimmerPlus3383: Slightly older, but still within the timeframe of mass bots flooding Reddit. Low effort posts that pretty much accomplish nothing or straight up propaganda. Only posts in a few different subs but consistently has poor English.

    It’s the same thing in the majority of right wing subreddits. Even the verified ones follow this rubric. Sometimes it’s literally a post by a bot filled with bots commenting and bots upvoting. It’s basically dead and there are hardly any actual people in there except when there’s big news. These places are the definition of “dead internet theory.”

  • tidderuuf@lemmy.world
    181·
    1 day ago

    It will likely be removed. One of the times I was permabanned from Reddit was when I linked a bot network and astroturfing campaign on TheseFuckingAccounts.

    Something about how I was brigading and targeting users which is against Reddit TOS. Pretty funny shit that they selectively enforced the rule against me when I was the one reporting those accounts for breaking Reddit TOS.

    Once the paid APIs went online it just gave a fast pass to break the rules for those who pay for the privilege.

  • Tempus Fugit@midwest.socialEnglish
    11·
    1 day ago

    It seems like every day I’m assured that my choice to leave that shit platform was the right one. Can’t even type “Luigi” without getting banned, but fomenting hate is rewarded, LMAO, get fucked.