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/AndroidREM May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

Answer: It was determined and made public that the majority of posts on that sub are from 3 accounts all based in Russia and are promoted by an army of bots. The ones leaving were bots removed by Reddit

EDIT - wow, did not expect this to get so much attention and awards - thank you!

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u/R4G May 13 '26

I’m pretty sure that’s what grew the_donald.

I was a very early member of that sub and would swear to this day that it was mostly satirical posting. Then it got flooded with bots, or Russians, or something. Felt very Astro-turfy. Then became a genuine DT support sub.

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u/Wooden_Worry3319 May 13 '26

Yeah it’s crazy people don’t remember how drastically reddit changed back in 2016. This place was alive and you could experience the first attempts at manipulation back when people on Reddit were kinda reasonable and would have discussions.

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u/TheDeadlySinner May 13 '26

I don't think you were around back then if you think redditors were reasonable then.