Comment by testdelacc1
5 days ago
/r/AskBrits banned me for pointing out that there are several threads each day about immigration, each tailor made rage bait. Sometimes they’re not even a question.
I’ve personally caught a couple of Iranians and Russians brazenly posting such threads at 4am British time (working hours in Tehran) and the moderators did nothing. They simply allow such threads while deleting any thread that goes “is anyone sick of the constant threads about immigration?”
These threads generate so much engagement from people of all opinions that it makes the sub appear in people’s feeds as recommended content even if they’re not subscribed to the sub. It gives people the impression that there is only one political subject in the UK that gets any discussion.
I don’t know why the moderators of this sub do this, but the effects of their moderation are clear.
I've often posted on the internet at 4am local time before. How did you establish the posters were Russian or Iranian, other than by time zone? (4am London is working hours for around half the world population.)
Not denying that there are people in these countries who want to cause trouble on the internet. But there are many such people in all countries...
Fair question. The answer is that they didn’t bother hiding it. They literally posted in a whole bunch of Iranian subReddits and only Iranian subReddits. On this thread they were claiming they were British. Literally the first post of that kind, completely different to everything they had posted previously.
The clincher was that they deleted their account as soon as I pointed they were Iranian.
I’m going to guess they bought a Reddit account from someone without looking at the past history on the account.
Obviously this is not what the posting history of a state-sponsored disinformation actor looks like.
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There are huge influence operations basically on every national sub.
I found one on r/portugal, clearly coordinated network spreading political news of a certain persuasion.
R/donald became famous because the admins turned on national flags for users there revealing a significant percentage was Russian IPs without even a VPN. The Russian users called it “the mark of David” and compared it to Nazism.
Have you got a source for the national flags claim? I'm not sure that is a feature on Reddit. Most subreddits have custom flairs and some will let you choose a flair for your country, but afaik Reddit mods can't autodetect a poster's country of origin.
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It's crazy for me that it's not a well-known thing that Russia, Iran, China, North Korea and other countries are fueling the polarization of western politics using bots on EVERY RELEVANT social media. The right wing bots are kind of known, but a lot of people aren't aware of other things (e.g., TENET Media [1]), or that they are fueling left wing circles as well [2].
People believe that these countries would love to do that, but for some reason, they think they are not doing as much as possible.
[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.19802
[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/06/25/scottish-ind...
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> There are huge influence operations basically on every national sub.
I believe you. But I've also often been accused of being a bot or working for an intelligence service when posting my own opinion in political discussions, not in coordination with anyone at all, and not pretending to be anything I'm not. I think the people accusing me of this did genuinely believe it too.
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I’ve never heard of Reddit revealing the nationality of members of any sub. Do you have a source for this?
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> How did you establish the posters were Russian or Iranian, other than by time zone?
To a lot of people, Russian is just a state of mind. It simply means that you disagree with them, or the regime that they support. Also, the mods on reddit are overwhelmingly these people, banning all opposing opinions, or banning people for being Russian, or Iranian, or Chinese, etc...
They think this is legitimate: aaah, so you're Chinese. I knew there was something wrong when you insisted that the Chinese weren't evil thieves hellbent on destroying freedom, by nature. You're not allowed to post in the West.
All governance in the western world has become weak as hell. You only need a few bucks to corrupt anything, unless somebody with a few more bucks is already corrupting it. And certain intelligence agencies have the deepest pockets. Maybe little fiefdoms wasn't the best way to structure the internet? Maybe section 230 would be obviated if there were clear, deliberative processes to allow entire groups to both take action and responsibility for what they allow in their discussions?
Take note about how adhering to parliamentary methods protects private organizations: in most places, having proper rules set up (not EULAs and ToCs) actually has the practical effect of creating law because it sets up obligations to the users as well as obligations from the users. There's no such thing as a benevolent dictator.
To a lot of people, Russian is just a state of mind. It simply means that you disagree with them, or the regime that they support. Also, the mods on reddit are overwhelmingly these people, banning all opposing opinions, or banning people for being Russian, or Iranian, or Chinese, etc...
Pretending that there aren't concerted efforts to exert political influence on Reddit isn't helpful, and comes across as pretty disingenuous.
All governance in the western world has become weak as hell. You only need a few bucks to corrupt anything, unless somebody with a few more bucks is already corrupting it.
Yes, corruption and bribery exist exclusive in "western" governments. Thankfully "eastern" governments are completely immune to these issues.
And I know, "I never said those exact words!" but that at was the obvious intention.
On a related note, leaving my gripes with one guy aside, a lot subreddits are also just blatant marketing fronts, with the full blessing of the mods.
/u/Turbostrider27 is a shared account between marketing firms. Saying their name in any sub the account is active on will shadow ban your message.
https://www.reddit.com/user/turbostrider27/
That's fascinating. How does an account like this not blatantly violate the TOC for personal or commercial use of Reddit?
Reddit wants to make money, which requires keeping advertisers happy.
Why do you think r/hailcorporate was killed?