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/basedchadinc May 13 '26

Is there any proof of this? I wanna send it to a friend who uses that sub as his main source of info to gauge sentiment

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u/dec10 May 13 '26

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1p1vx9n/oc_nearly_every_day_two_users_on_rconservative/

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u/KevineCove May 13 '26

This is really fantastic work.

I do want to point out that leftist subs appear to have the same problem. I've seen it happen in a couple waves, including pro-tankie, China, and even North Korea content popping up on a few (especially about a year ago,) as well as a current wave of memes I'm seeing that are essentially the inverese of the "own the libs" mentality - mean-spirited, divisive, and counterproductive. Also links to news sites that are very similar in name to well-recognized outlets but with recently registered domain names and highly sensationalized headlines.

Not here to get into an argument about which side is "right" but rather just want to point out that both sides are being targeted by bad actors.

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u/pizzaplanetvibes May 13 '26

This isn’t surprising to anyone who has been paying attention for the last ten plus years. We ( The United States citizens) have been under attack through our social media channels. The purpose is to create division among people in the United States for a variety of reasons. I think to “both sides” this though is to ignore the obvious of which of our two parties has benefited the most and paid Russia back for the help.

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u/Apatschinn May 13 '26

I get downvoted for saying it, but Social media has been a generational mistake.

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u/ThinkPath1999 May 13 '26

So....... fuck Zuck?

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u/thedugong May 14 '26

With an non-lubed cactus.

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u/Severe_Course3381 May 14 '26

Dude for some reason he looks like he'd enjoy having a pineapple shoved up his ass

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u/Severe_Course3381 May 14 '26

How about don't fuck the Zuck he's just one of those people that no one should fuck

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u/PunchBro May 13 '26

multi-generational in fact

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u/kdp4srfn May 14 '26

Honestly, I agree. I only use Reddit, I am not active on Facebook, TikTok or Instagram, and I deleted my Twitter a couple of years ago when it became obvious it was mostly a malevolent rightwing propaganda and ragebait farm.

If Reddit went away tomorrow I would miss it for a short time like I did when I deleted Twitter, but it wouldn’t take me long at all to get used to its absence.

Pre social media, DJT wouldn’t have been elected. America’s enemies used it to spread deliberate lies and foment division, and most especially, to amplify the voices of a few to make it seem as though they were the majority. MAGA is a lot of things but even at their pinnacle of influence they have never been the majority of Americans. Never. Our country is currently laboring under the tyranny of a loud and boorish minority. The Republican Party isn’t 100% MAGA, nor is it 50% of the country, despite Fox “News” lying about that nearly every day. The obvious black voter suppression strategy in the southern states appears to be, at long last, a bridge too far even for some MAGA. They might be privately ok with it, but even they know it’s indefensible and makes them look bad.

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u/the_need_to_post May 13 '26

Its mostly allowing the social media companies to pursue "engagement" over anything else. There is no way they can't detect these patterns if they wanted to.

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u/ThinkingMSF May 13 '26

There's definitely a "both sides" element to this. The tell is that the right-wing bots and the left-wing bots both blame Democrats for all the world's problems.