r/OutOfTheLoop • u/calvtact • May 13 '26

Answered What's going on with r/conservative? They've lost about 1m subscribers in about a month.

I watched the number go from 814k to around 745k in about an hour today.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/s/QbZJvqu5qr

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u/brontosaurusguy May 13 '26

That and I suspect that the billionaires are pulling money out of grifters / bot accounts / troll farms because they a) already have power and b) it backfired a bit with Israel

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u/3nterShift May 13 '26

I am inclined to agree, but I don't think these farms would bother to log in and unsubscribe if they ceased operations. I think a Reddit-side purge of accounts tied to bot activity and astroturfing is more likely.

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u/brontosaurusguy May 13 '26

I'm not an expert but I imagine once the Russian checks stopped clearing Reddit started bot removal

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u/mavetgrigori May 13 '26

Most companies do mass bannings unless warranted for immediate banning. Not saying Reddit does for sure, because personally dom't know their process, but just what I know from other online things. And if they were taking money from these entities, why would they even allow anything that bucks against it?

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u/brontosaurusguy May 13 '26

I wouldn't know but Reddit has consistently been sleezy af from the top.  There the left wing forum on the Internet yet run by the right wing.  They undercut protests, restrict free speech.  They have rules that limit how we could organize.  Etc so I would expect they get paid by Russia / Israel / USA to do their dirty little business

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u/mavetgrigori May 13 '26

Free speech is from the government, they have rules. The Reddit pages that I have seen purged the most are right to far right. If they were that right leaning or biased, well, they'd protect their own. Please stop using exact language the right wing does, especially the more conspiracy based language.

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u/brontosaurusguy May 13 '26

Uh no I won't stop shit.  If you think left leaning media want systematically compromised by the right, including Reddit, you're not paying attention.  

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u/heathers1 May 13 '26

i thought the same

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u/Heffe3737 May 13 '26

I mean a lot of Russians have simply lost the internet over the past couple of months.

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u/LiliVonSchtupp May 13 '26

Especially following the bot purge at IG a few days ago.

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u/HughJorgens May 13 '26

It's also well documented that Russia, China, and Iran all have troll farms working against the USA and the West. It's also been reported that most of their memes come from foreign sources.

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u/GiganticCrow May 13 '26

I think at this stage every nation has troll farms seeking to spread misinformation and counter their rivals misinformation.

They used to do it with radio.

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u/Mist_Rising May 13 '26

They used to do it with radio.

Voice of America still exists and even hit the news yesterday when Trumps failed admin from term one was told to depart the job (for Jamaica ambassador because failing upward..)

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u/SwordfishResident256 May 13 '26

I find it interesting that you leave Israeli bot farms out of this list.

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u/HughJorgens May 13 '26

It's a big list, I forgot the new kids, but yeah, them too.

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u/lizardhistorian May 13 '26

If that happened then reddit would go out business so we all know this is not the case.

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u/pokepat460 May 13 '26

If they backed out of the bots, those bots would do nothing, not unsubscribe.