
Reddit Is Being Manipulated by Big Financial Services Companies - benologist
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2017/02/20/reddit-is-being-manipulated-by-big-financial-services-companies/2/#6a0796d824b5
======
WilliamB
Despite my love for reddit, I can't go on it anymore due to the recent changes
they made. I never log into reddit, so I automatically see /r/popular when
going to the site. /r/popular was added about a week ago to filter out certain
subreddits that would reach the front page.

Some filters include, "Subreddits that are large and dedicated to specific
games are heavily filtered, as well as specific sports, and narrowly focused
politically related subreddits, etc."

Yet, this past week, all I see on the front page are political posts &
subreddits that are left leaning. Not to start a political argument, but,
reddit makes it clear that they are filtering out posts that include
conservative views. All I see are posts making fun of POTUS through memes, or
how he caused a problem.

Politics aside, I just don't see how reddit will last if their political
agenda outweighs their ability to provide a site which allows for sharing of
information and discussion. I don't want the front page to consist of highly
opinionated political posts, since their reasoning behind /r/popular was to
"filter out" focused political groups.

If you want evidence, look at the internet archive time machine for reddit
starting this past week, around the 17th of February.

~~~
thekevan
Also, r/politics is just basically an anti-Trump subreddit now. Long also, it
was a neutral political news reporting sub with a policy for not
editorializing the titles of submissions.

Bias, no matter which side of the aisle it strays to, is just a turn off.

~~~
bobdole1234
You don't need to editorialize the headlines, the administration has been a
complete shitshow.

They don't even spell check, in an age where that just happens for you.

That's a special flavor of sloppy.

Given the number of grammar nazi's on reddit, what did you think would happen?

~~~
gfody
the spelling errors are deliberate, it adds authenticity.

------
pillowkusis
Astroturfing like this, shilling and manipulating discussion, has gotten so
advanced that it's almost impossible to tell real opinions from fake anymore.
On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog[0]. I don't see any way to sort
authentic comments from in-authentic ones. My conclusion has been to assume
that any major conversation about companies/brands/products/governments on
Reddit is probably astroturfed to some extent. HN "growth hackers" probably do
the same thing.

This is a real problem, how to sort real users from the fake ones, and I'm not
sure there is even a solution. But the integrity of our discourse, politics,
and direction as a society is dependent upon finding a solution.

0:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you're_a_dog)

~~~
travmatt
This is actually something I've been quite curious about. For example, I know
that stormfront regularly organizes brigades and disseminates talking points
to disrupt conversation on Reddit - same with FSB/corporation/ etc.

I was wondering if I could mine all users on stormfront and then perform a
stylometric analysis on Reddit posts to ferret out those same users.

Same with other astroturfing groups, instead maybe running some type of
classification technique to find aockpuppet accounts.

I'll probably make this an ask hn at some point to get some input.

~~~
rdtsc
I don't know what stormfont is but I'd focus on /r/politics. I managed to bump
randomly there in what looked liked bots or some organized trolling. In one
case I disagreed with some topic regarding Clinton during elections and got
this general (vague) insulting comment back. Looking through posters' history
noticed they/it? just copy-pasted same thing into their other responses.

FSB ones might be fun too. There is a certain class of grammar mistakes
Russians make when writing in English. You could filter by that in addition to
other stuff.

~~~
xkxx
> FSB ones might be fun too. There is a certain class of grammar mistakes
> Russians make when writing in English. You could filter by that in addition
> to other stuff.

Cool, you would filter me out too. Or would you not? If my English is good
enough to confuse your bot, then what stops FSB from hiring somebody like me?

Also, what stops FSB from hiring native speakers of English?

There are plenty of people on the Earth who speak Russian, but don't live in
Russia and don't support the Russian government. Bear that in mind too,
please.

~~~
rdtsc
Heh, I meant it would be an additional filter not the primary. If you copy and
paste the same response to multiple posts back to back you might be a robot,
as Jeff Foxworthy would say :-)

FSB probably doesn't pay as many non-Russians on average. It would be
expensive, risky and harder to control.

The point about grammar is interesting. Last time I heard of it was when there
was discussion if Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian hacker or not. Some were saying
he wasn't because his grammar mistakes were not characteristic of Russian
speakers and most likely it was a native English speaker trying to talk in
broken English trying to sound like a Russian.

------
trendia
I can hardly stand Reddit any more -- so many people seem to have agendas that
drown out most authentic conversation. Which reminds me of a quote from the
book "Schitt Happened":

> So, social media is less and less about "an authentic conversation with real
> people" and more "prospect-powered advertising." And in an environment where
> anyone can be a shill, and their financial motives aren't known, credibility
> disappears.

> Which leads me to my bold prediction: that in the next decade we're going to
> see paid, conventional advertising in big-name venues become the most
> credible source of information, and word-of-mouth the least credible.

------
socrates1998
Reddit is the wild wild west. Bots are everywhere, power mods sell their
services to companies, admins editing comments without anyone kn0wing, it's
just a big shit show.

I would be very skeptical of anything I read on there.

~~~
rdtsc
Remember seeing in subreddit drama section a situation where the CEO went into
the database and apparently changed one of the comments from Trump's
subreddit. It was probably something insulting or taunting as usual. What was
interesting to me is one of the admins then leaked internal Slack chat logs
talking about the fallout of it and such. In there one of admins boasted
getting paid by Correct The Record which I understand Democrats contacted with
to control the narrative online. And I thought that's pretty brilliant - focus
on admins and moderators of a popular site or subreddit is more effective than
just picking any old Joe from the street.

~~~
socrates1998
Yeah, that's what I was referring to. Reddit is just a very strange place
where they sort of let users and mods do what they want, then step in randomly
when they get too much bad press or the admins (like the CEO) disagree with
the content.

It really does feel like Lord of the Flies

------
jandrese
Say anything even remotely negative about HFT and these guys pull out the
claws. They don't hesitate to downvote either. It's really quite blatant once
you know what to look for.

~~~
sparky_z
Wait, why would high-frequency traders care what people on reddit think? It's
not like they're trying to sell their services to the public.

Are you sure you're not just seeing the usual flame wars over controversial
subjects?

~~~
jandrese
They appear to have been hired (or had their funding greatly increased) around
the time Flashboys came out. It's not just Reddit either, you see them all
across the web.

~~~
sparky_z
Serious question, though. How do you distinguish between the situation you're
describing, and a situation where the release of Flash Boys resulted in a lot
of zeitgeisty discussion about HFT, where people hashed out their differing
opinions about it.

I ask because I don't think that the case against HFT is airtight, or that
either side is obviously right. A lot of smart people have defended HFT to
some extent (including HN's favorite finance writer, Matt Levine[0]).

I get the sense that there are a lot of people out there who read Flash Boys
and assumed that HFTs are _obviously_ the bad guys. I'm something of a
contrarian, and pointing out the arguments in favor of HFT to those people is
the kind of thing I would have done. (I don't remember a particular instance,
but I probably did at one point.) In that situation, I wouldn't be surprised
if some people assumed that I was a paid Wall Street shill (because
_obviously_ that's the only kind of person who would defend HFT under any
circumstances, right?)

So while I'm not denying that manipulation does happen, I'm worried that it
will give people license to discount anyone that disagrees with their personal
received wisdom as nothing more than corporate puppets.

[0]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-03-31/michael-l...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-03-31/michael-
lewis-doesn-t-like-high-frequency-traders)

~~~
kneel
I really doubt wall street is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on
equipment because they care about market liquidity. These people/services add
absolutely nothing of value to society yet they suck up billions of dollars.

Very relevant:

[https://youtu.be/TFPugioX7uk?t=22](https://youtu.be/TFPugioX7uk?t=22)

------
tasty_freeze
Reddit still has value in niche subreddits. Do you play bass? r/bass will have
conversations about techniques, beginner questions, pointers to bassists on
youtube doing interesting things, etc. Think software defined radio is
interesting? r/rtlsdr is the place for you. Etc.

There is a sweet spot where the subreddit has gained critical mass to sustain
conversations, but haven't gotten big enough to draw in spammers and incite
political arguments. There are thousands of such subreddits.

~~~
brickmort
I regularly visit /r/rust and am happy with how it's stayed away from
politics. At one point, it almost brushed on it with Trump's travel ban
affecting an event, but overall it's a nice "oasis" from the sea of politics.

------
losteverything
What I don't get is isn't this simply wrong?

Did we not learn from our parents what is right and wrong? Lying? Making up
stuff? Exaggeration?

Just because you are anonymous doesn't make it right.

~~~
forgottenpass
_What I don 't get is isn't this simply wrong?_

Well, yeah, of course.

Do you normally expect propriety from for-profit organizations?

~~~
rogual
There is a theory that organizations which are concerned with right and wrong
will simply be out-competed by those with no such qualms.

There's an interesting essay on the subject:
[https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-
moloch/](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/)

------
i336_
> _English06 - who compares the moderator role to being a forum janitor -
> explained that to properly solve the problem, the volunteer moderators need
> more tools, or admins (Reddit staff) need to step in more._

> _" There's always something to be done on the politics subreddit. And it's
> just, there's just a lot of volume. As far as stopping everything, there's
> nothing the moderators will ever be able to do. We can only see the user
> history. That's going to have to come from the admin side of things. There's
> just nothing we can do.”_

When I read this, I get really enthusiastic about seeing what sorts of big-
data analysis is technically possible.

And then...

> _I presented Reddit with my findings and asked it if it’s doing enough to
> combat fake comments, threads and upvotes. But in a bizarre response, the
> company’s representative - Anna Soellner - didn’t bother to address any of
> these questions, instead providing a statement that seemed to be a response
> to my previous story._

> _“In order to write your story, you and your co-author engaged in multiple
> levels of impersonation, violating the terms of service of Reddit. Our users
> recognized the stories you posted as fake and community moderators removed
> the links in a very short time frame. We are continuously working with our
> users and moderators to ensure the integrity of our site to promote genuine
> conversation.” Soellner said._

When I read stuff like this I get simultaneously really angry and incredibly
sad at how vacuous and maliciously agenderized this incredibly popular website
is.

This response is clearly a massive dodge, but from what? Why do they need to
run and hide? I don't get it.

I can't help but think that Reddit (Inc.) itself is a massive, massive ivory
tower, with only just enough of a connection to (and interest in) its userbase
to know how to monetize it so the company can keep surviving. It's like the
worst possible cyberpunk scene.

And obviously I don't want to help the admins!

------
FeistyOtter
I wonder, why the Reddit's owner Conde Nast does not step in into this mess.
These advertising agencies completely sidestep Reddit's official ad channels,
thereby robbing the company of profit. Logically Conde Nast would be pretty
upset with it, unless they are using the same channels and means to manipulate
collective opinion themselves. Given their notorious left-leaning position and
more recent anti-trump campaign that seems pretty likely.

------
ryanmaynard
Anytime a substantial amount of attention aggregates in one place, there is an
inherent bounty on said eyeballs.

------
macawfish
So was the election! It was manipulated by Robert Mercer's quantitative
investment powerhouse.

------
jy1
Are there any clear examples "in the wild"? That were successful?

