Reddit: The shill-neutralizing machine

36  2015-04-27 by magnora7

I learned recently that there are sites online that will buy old used reddit accounts. They buy them for the purposes of astroturfing, or shilling.

The wiki definition of a shill is: "a person who publicly helps a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization." which is the definition I will use here.

Just google "sell reddit account" and you will see how much of this account buying and selling there is going on. There's no other reason anyone would pay to buy old accounts other than to use them as puppets for shills. If you think of another one, say it in the comments, because I sure can't.

This means that certain people with say, 7 year old accounts they don't use now, may sell the account for money or bitcoin. There is a whole market built around buying and selling these old accounts, with middlemen and bulk sellers. It's not a small market.

The accounts are then brought back in to common use by posting boring, neutral memes about non-corporate non-governmental things, to make them appear like a normal guy who has just resumed use of the account. Here is a perfect example from today. Read all the sub-comments and you will see.

Then, once the account is established with baseline material that makes it appear neutral, then the account can begin to be used as a shill account. The account is then used to defend Monsanto or Exxon or Israel or the US army or whatever the script of the day is, for whoever wanted to pay for the use of the shilling service.

Now remember, once something gets at least about 15 upvotes, it's then out of the 'new' and 'rising' queues and it goes in to the main page of that subreddit and on to the bottom of /r/all, places where it'll get many more upvotes. So if it gets 15, it's likely to get 1000, especially in a place like /r/adviceanimals.

If account neutralization was widespread enough, we would see material that is extremely mediocre getting upvoted to the front page. This would be because many of the things coming out of the new and rising queues would be low-quality neutralizing material that shills are up-voting for each other, to give their accounts the appearance of legitimacy. Especially when combined with the declining quality of the votes of the average reddit user, this is a recipe for disaster (regarding the front page).

But in effect, this means that perhaps a sizable portion of the content of reddit may be things generated by shills neutralizing accounts, and is part of why reddit is so infested with mediocre garbage content instead of good content.

The buying, selling, neutralizing, and shilling use of old accounts is going on right under our noses, every day, and it's getting worse. Just wanted to make sure we are all on the same page when it comes to this stuff, because knowing about it is the only way to defeat it.

Just had to get that out. It's something to think about, that's for sure. I know we all see this going on, I just wanted to spell out some things I realized recently so we have the chance to all be on the same page about the details. Now, to go make myself a beef quesadilla. :)

tl;dr: reddit sucks in part because shills use old accounts to appear legitimate, and they post lowest-common-denominator content that gets a disproportionate number of upvotes from their buddies in order to make the accounts appear neutral. In addition to the actual shilling.

48 comments

yer right - this shit is fucked

Check out /r/TheseFuckingAccounts/ for accounts that seem to build profiles by reposting shit. Reasons unknown and not necessarily malicious.

I still don't really see the advantage of a 3 day old account over a 3 year account with lots of karma unless it is to beat automatic limitations like the spam filter.

automatic limitations like the spam filter.

This and investigations by admins and moderators. It gives the account more credibility. This also gives the shill company more separation from the shill themselves, it makes it harder for them to be discovered.

You see an 8-year old account that has 500 posts to /r/knitting and one post about the police heros they saw today, it looks better than if the account is 2 months old and that's the first post. If you're going to go to the expense to hire someone to shill, buying an old account is a small expense.

Why not flood their market with crap new accounts? Make scamming people trying to buy accounts so prevalent that the market dies. Just a thought. I don't know how the market works, but if there is any trust required, scam them out of their money. Unless they have some system to verify the credibility of the account before purchase, and/or you can't change the password after they pay.

You can see the age of any account by going to the account's page, so that's public information. If there were a way to trojan-horse some old accounts in some way to ruin the shill's game, that'd be an interesting approach. The changing password idea is interesting, I wonder if they have safeguards against that

Sounds like a person could learn the system and give them a hard time some how and maybe make some bitcoins while doing it.

Maybe someone with an old account could contact someone who buys accounts, like one of the people on the google results, for example, and see what the policy is and how exactly it works to see how easy something like that would be. I feel like that'd be something you could only pull off once.

Maybe instead of using the information to make money or play a trick on them, maybe it could be used as evidence of a crime. After all aren't most of these shill activities done in order to cover up something that is basically very criminal? If they are being paid to do it by people who are committing treason, then it might be very interesting to follow the money.

That's a much wiser idea. I wonder if there's any lawyers here who might have some advice to offer regarding this.

Maybe they would know at TruthDig or at The Real News Network.

If only you still had your 8 year old acc

I know, good thing you're in with the admins so you could get yours unshadowbanned, huh?

If I was in with the admins I wouldnt have been shadow banned in the first place.

That's not necessarily true

hmm? If I was in with the admins, why would they ban me for 2 weeks?

Because they're slow at processing claims?

2 weeks? They dont go back through messages. If they dont answer you in 24 hours they are not going to answer you.

Maybe it's time to get off reddit and actually do something towards change in the real world, instead of arguing incessantly with shills and bots.

Good point.

Maybe I'll go blend in with the Jade Helm terrorists or something.

Totally agree.. curious, what are some of the things you do outside of reddit to inflict real change?

Not as much as I should, because this post made me realize I am mostly wasting my time here. How about you?

I hear ya. I made that realization about a year back. It does help to spread the word via the internet, but that's hardly enough to inflict real change. If real change is what we desire, we cannot simultaneously be hypocritical with our actions. I feel just as shitty and helpless as everyone here, but I personally feel much better know that I'm doing my part. What else can we do right?

Regardless of what's going on in the world around me, I'm not going to allow that to tear me apart and waste my life. All that does is give more power to TPTB, and I will not let that happen with me. In any case, here are some of the things I try and do in my life:

  • With everything going on these days with police brutality, I always stop and film when I see the police stop a citizen.

  • If there's a protest going on in NYC that I believe in, I try to attend if I have the time.

  • I'm about to join a local 9/11 truth chapter I found on www.meetup.com

  • I volunteer locally through newyorkcares.org

  • I make an effort to regularly go to the gym, eat healthier, cook myself instead of ordering in, buy products that don't support the kinds of corporations I complain about, respect the environment, continually read and keep myself knowledgable and well-prepared to inform others when a topic comes up in conversation (I try not to be too annoying/negative/biased/pushy), I try not to smoke too much weed or waste time watch porn excessively, I socialize much more with strangers, make eye contact, be compassionate for anything people do that bothers me (very difficult in NYC), I picked up meditation and basic spirituality concepts that I use every minute of every day, and so on...

  • I regularly help/advise people suffering from mental health issues after having years of experience battling this myself.

  • I'm a software/product designer and my line of work gives me the opportunity to create something that will better the lives of hundreds of thousands of people (health related). I don't take this for granted and do my best to create the best product possible. Sometimes this means fighting the internal politics and sole desire to generate revenue over a product that actually helps people.

In general, I just try to enjoy my life and be grateful for all that I do have (family, friends, relatively stable financial situation, etc). There are billions of people in the world suffering from much more serious issues than I have going on, and I try to never take that for granted. Our time on this Earth is short and meaningful, but I don't believe that's all there is to life and the universe. There's so much we don't understand about life and we're only just beginning to scratch the surface of other dimensions that we live amongst in every waking moment (quantum science). Who's to say what happens after we die? It could be nothing, but it also could be everything. I take comfort in the fact that we don't know anything for certain, and for me that's all I need to keep me sane amongst such evil and chaos.

That's good. You are probably doing more than 90 percent of redditors. I've been involved a lot in the 911 truth movement. A family member was a victim in tower 2. So I've mostly focused on that.

There's plenty of minds and opinions on reddit left to be changed, I am just laying out the landscape so everyone knows what we are dealing with

It was my initial frustrated reaction. The Internet was how I woke up. I guess if it wasn't effective in reaching people with truth it wouldn't be so targeted with attack.

So...why are we still here, again?

Because voat still isn't that great and there's tons of people here. Every once in a while something good comes through, which is why I keep coming back.

But are we exposing the fraudulent powers that be?

I doubt we are changing any minds.

People that come here are either:

A. Already know what's wrong, or

B. Shills paid to cover up the corruption.

I think perhaps 60% falls in to one of those two categories, and 40% do not. And of course, that's in /r/conspiracy, the numbers are obviously much lower in other subreddits, people from which may also see this post.

I dunno man. From what I heard, the mods are all the way sold out on subs that matter. It's fucking shillville in r/conspiracy--gotta keep that corruption covered up.

I do think people are waking up, but I doubt r/conspiracy is doing much to expose new people to the corruption. I was 100% convinced of manufactured terror events before I found this place, and besides it seems the shills pretty much overpower things here. They are paid professionals. They are highly trained. They have all day.

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a person who publicly helps a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization

The thing is, you can't prove that anyone is connected with anything...so all this does is leave it open for people around to scream "shill! shill!" at anyone who has a different view or opinion. There are users here that have set out to specifically do this. Can they be considered shills?

Its good to check comment histories of the people with said differing opinions. An extensive review will show them to be a legitimate user or a user with an obvious agenda. You are correct that the line is blurry, but I originally made this account for the purpose of outing these people and its devolved into a general reddit account. I don't think you could consider me a shill even when it was the sole purpose of the account as I am up front about it, and have no relationship with any organization.

edit: Your account still occasionally comments on video games threads and niche stuff, I believe you to be someone who just disagrees outright with conspiracy theorists even in the face of overwhelming evidence. You COULD just be a try-hard shill, but I don't think that exists. ;-)

Its good to check comment histories of the people with said differing opinions. An extensive review will show them to be a legitimate user or a user with an obvious agenda. You are correct that the line is blurry, but I originally made this account for the purpose of outing these people and its devolved into a general reddit account. I don't think you could consider me a shill even when it was the sole purpose of the account as I am up front about it, and have no relationship with any organization.

Even if they have an agenda, if you have solid evidence to support your beliefs, it shouldn't matter. Facts don't care about agendas.

edit: Your account still occasionally comments on video games threads and niche stuff, I believe you to be someone who just disagrees outright with conspiracy theorists even in the face of overwhelming evidence. You COULD just be a try-hard shill, but I don't think that exists. ;-)

Ha! Thanks. And you're right...I'm way too lazy to be a try-hard about anything. And we may disagree on what constitutes "overwhelming evidence" ;)

I just saw you maybe arguing about building 7.

Indeed I have.

So you must acknowledge that its veridical that the building fell at free fall speed for the majority of its collapse and that its impossible to attain those speeds in a natural collapse.

I acknowledge that it fell at free fall speed for a period of time, but that saying it's impossible for that to happen in a natural collapse isn't scientifically sound.

Saying that it hasn't been witnessed before is fine though.

I would have a much easier time believing the controlled demo theory if the whole building had fallen in the same way, but you can clearly see the roof falling inward way before the rest of the building.

Also, there's no tell-tale controlled demo explosions or squibs (as seen in many many controlled demo videos). Then people say, well it was thermite. But, thermite has never before been used in controlled demolition, and there's only one shady paper with extremely shady samples saying that there might be thermite in the dust.

Like I said...the evidence is circumstantial. I can see where the theory comes from, but I don't agree with based on the evidence provided.

Any evidence provided wouldn't be enough for you because you are in denial. Does it not bother you that more money was spent investigating Bill Clinton than the 9/11 commission spent? Does it not bother you that you don't have mainstream evidence because all evidence has been covered up? All the steel from the buildings hauled away? Evidence of insider trading? The power outages on the days leading up? The eye-witness accounts of explosions and the planes not having american airlines markings? The provable fact that cell-phones don't work at the altitudes they were supposed to have worked? The impossibility of the planes airspeeds and trajectories? The unaccountability and negligence of numerous higher offices of military and government? The lack of plane in the Shanksville 'crash?' The lack of plane at the pentagon? The many coincidental impact zones? Explosives not tested for by the investigation? Isn't there an overwhelming amount of unanswered questions? Aren't you being disingenuous when you twist reality to confront the people who are simply asking these questions and challenge admitted speculations that are more logically sound that the official narrative?

Any evidence provided wouldn't be enough for you because you are in denial.

Any evidence provided that would confirm the official story wouldn't be enough for you because you are in denial. It works both ways, hence it's a pointless statement.

Does it not bother you that more money was spent investigating Bill Clinton than the 9/11 commission spent?

I don't have the cost breakdown for where/why the money was spent, so I really have no comment or care about this.

Does it not bother you that you don't have mainstream evidence because all evidence has been covered up?

Yes it does, I never said it didn't.

All the steel from the buildings hauled away?

It was strange, but they still had pieces to examine that were gathered within a short time after the event. You guys are fine with believing a study done with random samples of WTC dust, held by random people for 6 years in an easy-to-contaminate manner, that says there might be thermite...but you can't stand the fact that NIST only had 150+ pieces of steel and will use this as an argument for a cover-up. Makes sense...

Evidence of insider trading?

Insider trading happens all the time. It's circumstantial at best.

The power outages on the days leading up?

Again, circumstantial.

The eye-witness accounts of explosions and the planes not having american airlines markings?

The explosions? You mean that people said they heard explosions around buildings that were falling down and on fire? How weird...

This is actually the first I've heard about a place with no markings so I'll get to looking into that.

The provable fact that cell-phones don't work at the altitudes they were supposed to have worked?

Then it's a good thing all but two calls were used by the in-flight phones. Also, the cell phones calls they say did happen were under 5000 ft.

The impossibility of the planes airspeeds and trajectories?

Impossible, no. Unlikely, maybe.

The unaccountability and negligence of numerous higher offices of military and government?

You mean to tell me that mistakes were made during the aftermath of the worst terrorist in America? Oh man...must be a conspiracy!

The lack of plane in the Shanksville 'crash?'

The plane went straight down into the ground at a very high rate of speed. What did you expect to be left? (Oh, and there was debris, just not a lot of it).

The lack of plane at the pentagon?

There was debris in the field around the pentagon. There are pictures you can easily find by a simple google search that show that.

The many coincidental impact zones?

Explain.

Explosives not tested for by the investigation?

I would have liked that to happen.

Isn't there an overwhelming amount of unanswered questions?

Not really. There are always some unanswered questions, but many of the "unanswered questions" you guys have have been answered, just not in the way you wanted them to be answered.

Aren't you being disingenuous when you twist reality to confront the people who are simply asking these questions and challenge admitted speculations that are more logically sound that the official narrative?

Not at all. I've twisted absolutely nothing. Simply believing the evidence is saying something different than what you believe doesn't mean I'm twisting anything. How come it's ok to "simply ask questions" when those questions are against the official story, but it's not ok to ask questions about the theories you guys come up with? Anytime someone like me starts questioning the official story of /r/conspiracy, I get labeled a shill (not by you, yet), insulted, called a liar, disingenuous, etc....when this is the sub where you're supposed to ask questions? Apparently, you're not supposed to question the "official story" of controlled demo and gov't cover-up. Heaven forbid!

Have a nice day, please stop generalizing the subreddit.

That's what I thought. You take one thing from my post and focus it. Grats on furthering the stereotype.

I have an inbox full of insults and accusations to back up my statements.

Have a nice day, please continue ignoring any and all discussion that goes against your views.

I just don't have the time or energy for you. The fact that you think the Shanksville crash is legitimate is enough for me to stop talking to you.

Yup.

You're basically saying "you don't believe what I believe, so I don't want to talk to you". It's a coward's way out. Like I said, you're just furthering the stereotype. Have a great day avoiding things!

...and you're just trying to provoke an emotional response from me.

Nope, just calling it like I see it.

You could have just ignored me, but instead you had to tell me why you were going to ignore me. So let's keep talking about trying to provoke an emotional response, k?

Hint: If you're going to say you're going to ignore someone, you should probably follow through it.

That's a much wiser idea. I wonder if there's any lawyers here who might have some advice to offer regarding this.

But are we exposing the fraudulent powers that be?

I doubt we are changing any minds.

People that come here are either:

A. Already know what's wrong, or

B. Shills paid to cover up the corruption.

It was my initial frustrated reaction. The Internet was how I woke up. I guess if it wasn't effective in reaching people with truth it wouldn't be so targeted with attack.