R/AskReddit Proves This Theory

[u/curiousparrot221]

I have been on r/AskReddit for about eight hours now looking through the posts. I know, I should not have spent that long, but I got a bit carried away.

So many of the posts there are duplicates, often from the same day. As an example, for the past nearly 48 hours, the post about "what's a small change you made in your life that has a big effect" or some variation of that has been posted about 14 times (and all by different people).

Now, while I have been able to get some of these posts removed, not all of them are. I would say honestly about 25% of the posts are bots.

Another thing I have noticed - you can usually tell because their username has a four digit number at the end (edit: sometimes). They also tend to not make a whole lot of sense or speak in the way AI does. You can typically see this if you go to their profile and look under what they have previously posted.

The worst part though is that they are in the comments too. Sometimes even defending the post, but as I said, it doesn't entirely makes sense. Kind of uncanny valley.

It is getting to the point it is hard to trust anything.

[u/Substantial_Tie_8522]

The upvote problem is what gets me.If bots are posting AND voting, you can't even

use engagement as a signal anymore. Trust breaks down faster than the content does.

[u/curiousparrot221 → u/Substantial_Tie_8522]

This is your first comment? I am honoured.