Daily Reminder: Do not give gold

2568  2017-04-04 by Rosssauced

Hello all,

Coming in with a daily reminder that giving another user gold while a seemingly kind gesture directly funds censorship and collusion with shadowy organizations like shareblue, intelligence agencies both foreign and domestic, and others.

438 comments

So do taxes

You don't got to jail yet for withholding gold though...yet.

Haha could you imagine if you didn't give some.ome an online goldstar you went to prison. Lmao. I'm just saying the very existence of money is aiding the system. It's all designed to help it. Every aspect of our society.

Yep. We have traded everything for convenience.

It's a sad world

Idk man I rented a jet ski with money. It was very convenient.

In the moment and looking back I can't describe it as sad.

Wtf are you talking about

His comment made 10x more sense than yours pal

I mean I guess but I'm not talking about personal experience I'm talking about the financial statement of the world

Nah, there are plenty of places in the world they care nothing about.

Folks like you just aren't willing to go to them, because you value safety and convenience far too much.

isn't it more customary for the secret guys behind the shadows to bribe the media outlets, rather than the other way 'round?

Let's not give them extra income

you know how free websites work, right? If you feel this strongly that reddit should not be supported, you really shouldn't be using reddit at all.

You think it's okay for a free website to censor speech and attack users?

Nice deflection.

I think it's hypocritical to be a frequent poster on a website you believe should not be supported.

Come on now you mention deflection then spit that nonsense? I know you're not this dense. Discussion on reddits clearly a means to an end and an unfortunate necessary evil. I don't support the military anymore but as a disabled vet you better damn well believe I'll take advantage of the systems in place. Plus many started using this site before realizing how corrupt to the core the world was.

So what if spez can only buy 4 new houses this year?

Here, why don't you start your own reddit and pay for it: http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html

Yeah complaining about people giving gold while directly supporting the service (by posting here) is a really impotent message. Maybe it's not the case but every time I see someone complain about giving gold I think they must be very young or have no understanding of internet businesses. Reddit isn't making money off of your gold they make money off of your posts.

Maybe it's subsidized by the Military Industrial Complex with some of the missing 9 trillion or so dollars. Perhaps it's all just a ruse to collect information, alongside all the other media information collectors in order to feed the Monster AI, so they are able to foretell future events before they happen, enabling them the power to make moves and adjustments to control everything while ruling over you, all the while you think all this is just normal, and life has always been like this, don't really think you guild such a machine.

I don't think any regular user of this sub is giving gold. That usually happens when we get "visited" like last night.

I agree and ideally we could get everyone on board with that so that giving gold becomes the mark of brigades.

Too many people like me (here for the laughs) would capitalize on that and buy gold solely to fuck with your heads.

Done and done.

That's foolish. We should clog up the gilding queue to make it a more expensive way to adjust opinions while also shifting Reddit's incentive structure.

What's considered a regular user? I've been coming here for years on this account, and I rarely see any of the old regular users. Most of the accounts are 1-12 months old.

We're here.

Well, obviously the mods lol. Most mods have been around a while in some form. But, there's a lot of older posters who no longer participate. Personally, I drop off a lot too. There's just too much fighting in a lot of these threads.

It's interesting to watch behind the curtain, that's for sure.

If I see that someone has never posted here except for when there's a major MSM story like last night. I guess that wouldn't be a regular user.

I posted in that thread last night, and I was gilded. I didn't ask for it, and I stuck strictly to articles and points relevant to the story. People immediately attacked me and some of the other posters for being gilded.

What's to say that people aren't doing that on purpose, just so that they can degrade the commentary? It didn't work in that thread, but it's spawned many others.

I have no idea. I just notice that I can't remember any other time comments are guided except for in threads like last night.

Real people don't sit on websites all day

I disagree. I'm in healthcare technology, and can easily be online for 7-14 hours a day.

Sure I still my statement hold truth though, even computer workers can be on other sites all day

I would assume a huge majority of redditors are online many hours a day, be it through work, school, or just general addiction.

Does he not know phones exist? If I'm not doing something this very second, I'm probably on my phone, which usually means Reddit.

In between classes? Reddit.

Professor isn't talking right now? Reddit.

Nothing to do at work? Reddit.

Waiting in line? Reddit.

Practically no one is on Reddit all day every day. But I'm able to be here frequently enough that it can sure as hell look like I'm here all day every day and doing nothing else depending on how much I comment.

Your statement doesn't hold true, any sources anything credible to back that up?

Or should that have been "In my opinion"..?

even computer workers can be on other sites all day

I am a "computer worker" I work in IT, you browse what you browse all day, albeit FB, Reddit, etc., and then you pop open another tab if you need to look something else for your work or whatever. Most of us have multiple monitors that we can stick this or that on to work with and then one monitor is browsing, I've found this is how it generally is for all of my co-workers both in IT and not.

The only place where I know this isn't the case are those places where you have to have a security clearance and they take extra pre-cautions, like no cellphones in the IT area and their network has limited outside connections.

Exactly I'm a net/sysadmin, reddit/whatever else I'm browsing in one screen and whatever I'm doing in the others I'm on the web all day I have no idea what this guy is talking about, so many people do this, especially my co-workers.

What a ridiculous statement.

"Only the people I say are real, are real".

Homie almost literally everyone carries around a personal computer in their pocket 24/7. Half the time I'm not even on the internet on purpose I just open it subconsiously. Its not 1990 anymore

Well. That's just like, you. Homie

I've been here for a while under a joke/troll account before this joke/troll account. These accounts have been my main ones.

I did once, and I would describe myself as a regular user.

Altright users love throwing gold around

It also somewhat discredits the comment/post. People will see gold and assume its for shilling purposes and not because a user genuinely thought the post/comment was good was well thought out and researched. I guarantee that some users give gold to comments they vehemently disagree with just to spread paranoia.

So is this post discredited?

Or it's just meaningless.

It means more than you think on a sub like this.

Almost nothing means what anyone here thinks, let alone more than they think

Uh oh this post is gilded. Must have been made by Clinton shills!

I can't even be mad really, knew that was likely to happen.

The newest mod of this subreddit just gave me some questionable warnings and removed a comment that wasn't any worse than the other stuff said in any thread. Censorship because I mentioned their could be a right wing "shareblue". I really doubt giving gold is the problem and it's just petty.

This is another post basically violating rule 10 which is what I was accused of. Attacking possible real people who want to use the gold system for comments they like.

Same, also newest mod. Funnily enough a different mod banned the guy I called out for being an obvious troll yesterday.

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/62yxw1/victims_found_in_mass_graves_in_ukraine_lack/dftg56n/?context=3

Rule 10 is bullshit. I'd prefer /u/Balthanos going after trolls rather than removing 48-hour old posts that called out trolls/shills that were later banned.

Gotta remove all evidence of shills on /r/conspiracy, eh? ;)

What I said felt so minor that I honestly feel like my free speech is threatened on this account. I may argue or be sarcastic sometimes and now I have to walk on eggshells. This subreddit felt oppressive but I'm not going to feel that way anymore so this post let me say it since nearly everyone engages in "shill" accusations.

since nearly everyone engages in "shill" accusations

Everyone does indeed, it's a sign of how effective the shills were and are. As an East-German, posting on reddit feels like I am being watched by the Stasi again.

Oh man... America is so bad right now. People don't trust their government, media, intelligence agencies or other people....

We need a deus ex machina in America or it will rip itself apart.

It's not just America, it's global. They want to control the narrative and they can't do that on shill-free platforms. Just look at all the fake-news bs we are fed everyday, soon we'll get warnings from our browsers when we visit news sites deemed fake by them: https://www.journalism.cuny.edu/2017/04/announcing-the-new-integrity-initiative/

Just imagine you share an article on Facebook and Facebook tells you "Do you really want to share this fake news article? I can't let you do that Dave"

We are getting a law in Germany that fines social networks like Reddit if they don't remove "fake news". https://www.ft.com/content/d50573fa-f6d4-3083-a8d5-52eb4537de85

I could go on but I'm in a bad enough mood already.

Oh wow I haven't seen that subreddit. Imma have to take a gander at that.

I understand what you're saying, but I also don't want to see every other post accusing someone of being a troll/shill. You'll have real troll/shill spamming this sub with those accusations of legitimate people.

I see your point too and I agree, the shill accusations have a bad effect on legitimate people and others reading the discussion.

Sadly I don't have a plan how to properly combat this. Exposing them seems to be a good idea though, maybe they will pay for their deeds one day.

It's given me identity issues. I'm not sure whether I'm a shill, or a Russian bot anymore. I think I identify more as a bot...

Well, I guess it's good to question everything. You never know until you get back those x-rays with a pcb as your brain.

Constantly calling out CTR/ShareBlue shills will get you the "Russian stooge/Cheeto bot"

It's hilarious really. The amount of projection CTR/ShareBlue shills spew.

Cant tell if this is a joke or...

Rule 10 is bullshit.

No it's not. Ad hominems are just a waste of everyone's time, adding no value to the discussion.

If we are not allowed to call out shills, shills will take over this sub.

Calling them shills is intellectually lazy. If their using shill tactics like whataboutism, call them out on their lies, omitted fact, or logical fallacies. Calling them names just adds noise here.

Going into long arguments with shills is one of their tactics though.

There is no good solution. What we need is a law against this shit, for example "Correct the Record"-Shills should have to mark each and every post they are paid for.

This would be great, as long as the 1,000 people Russia hired to create anti-Clinton 'fake news' also tag their posts.

And how would you implement this? Would it be voluntary? Or something the mods used to tag posts? Or reddit admin based on IP address?

Omg stfu. The projection CTR/ShareBlue spew is unreal. Ban these Fuckers that defend rule 10 and get into bullshit, red herring arguments.

How is it that you can assume everyone who disagrees with you is a paid shill, but it can't go both ways?

People disagree with me all day long. That doesn't make them all shills. But sometimes shills are shills. Being obvious shills makes them shills. And then the shills say "Shills are a myth! CTR is a vast right-wing conspiracy! Disagreeing doesn't make me a shill!" Shills exist, and they project. It's quite comical, actually.

I think I found the shill.

Rule 10. This is your warning.

What's rule 10? No sarcasm?

Removed. Rule 10.

Nice whataboutism. Of course, everyone should have to mark their paid posts and if they don't, they and their employer should be punished.

Too bad that no such law will happen.

whataboutism

Umm I don't think that word means what you think it means. Calling for a balanced application of the rule has nothing to do with it.

I knew you would fall for the bait. Read the rest of my post, I agree with you.

If you agreed with him, why did you feel the need to also 'bait' him?

Because he answered with "but Russia!!!" although I gave no indication that I want the law to only target CTR.

There is nothing intellectually lazy about calling out someone who DOES NOTHING BUT shit all over trump, makeup baseless trump/Russia disinfo, and vigorously defend HRC against at all costs.

AND THEY EVEN HAVE A WEBSITE THAT DIRECTLY MENTIONS ASTROTURFING REDDIT.

These CTR friendly/pro rule 10 mods are slowly poisoning r/conspiracy

DOES NOTHING BUT.. vigorously defend HRC against at all costs.

She's a civilian. Anyone still defending that corrupt establishment scum obviously has mental issues or is a shill. No need to add noise to the discussion by repeating the obvious.

AND THEY EVEN HAVE A WEBSITE THAT DIRECTLY MENTIONS ASTROTURFING REDDIT.

They do?

I checked all of those links and didn't see a direct mention of astroturfing on Reddit.

Ad hominems are just a waste of everyone's time, adding no value to the discussion.

What if a person is blatantly lying? For example, it's quite valuable to let people know that Alex Jones is not telling the whole truth.

We're not talking about obvious corporate shills like Alex Jones. We're talking about redditors in the comments sections.

My point was about ad hominem attacks generally, which you said were a "waste of everyone's time." Letting people know that a source is unreliable is not a waste of time.

There's a difference between stating that something is false or a half truth, ideally backing that claim up with evidence, and attacking someone's character. Saying Alex Jones is a douche/shill/fuckface does absolutely nothing to substantiate whether or not what he's saying is false.

Saying Alex Jones is a douche/shill/fuckface does absolutely nothing to substantiate whether or not what he's saying is false.

In the sense of formal refutation, no. In terms of probability, yes. A known shill is probably lying.

I would say the difference is that calling AJ out is not calling out a user of this sub, but calling out a source of information. You shouldn't really trust anyone on this sub or reddit in general as a source unless they give and prove their real identity.

That's why I think it's fine to point out in the general case the existence of shills on reddit, because it's a useful PSA to users who may be unfamiliar with it, but calling out specific users is problematic because it's nothing more than a simple ad hominem, which as others have said adds nothing to the conversation, and can actually be a forum sliding technique in itself.

This comment will probably be removed, and I will probably be banned - but the mods of this sub are compromised.

For instance, the "they betrayed you" under the picture on the side of the sub.

I've never seen such obvious partisan bullshit taking center stage in this sub before.

There is another side to the internet privacy issue, and a forum full of free thinkers should be able to discern for themselves whether they were betrayed or not.

If it's telling you what to think, what to do, or how to feel, it's propaganda, plain and simple.

I wouldn't go that far, but it's obvious that not all of them are neutral indeed.

The internet privacy bill bs all over reddit should show everyone how they control the narrative. Critical thinking is downvoted, it's not wanted.

It's not that bad on /r/conspiracy, but the tendencies are here, which is why I am very vocal about it.

The internet privacy bill bs all over reddit should show everyone how they control the narrative. Critical thinking is downvoted, it's not wanted.

It's all over Reddit in the sense that you're seeing it on the frontpage daily, but really it's only being pushed in the anti-trump subs. These subs include politics, resist, marchagainstrump, marchforscience, and any other mainstream subs that can be co-opted from time to time to serve their means, these subs include technology, pics, science, futurology, latestage, etc, etc.

Here's the thing though, the same narrative being pushed in all of those subs is now starting to be pushed here regularly. Icing on the cake? It's being pushed by at least a few mods - because I doubt just 1 mod can decide what goes on the sidebar and what doesnt.

It won't fully work for them here I hope, since /r/conspiracy (at least for now) still has a lot of critical thinkers who see through their bullshit.

When I'm told "think this" by an obvious campaign everywhere, chances are that I will do my research instead of blindly believing them. Sadly that can't be said for everyone.

Before the election they mostly targeted the defaults. It's worrying that they are now targeting this sub.

Weird, how'd he find that post anyways?

It probably just got reported to the mod que.

could be, lol. The right has done just fine for years with their astroturfing. Just look at any article posted on Drudge. At this point, if you aren't steering the conversation online, you can't win. And this goes way beyond the left/right dichotomy.

Mods are biased and abusing power.

They keep using rule ten to stamp on any left wing person who is on anything but their best behavior.

A trump supporter can make a post directly linking to another comment, accuse everyone else of being shills and brigadiers, and straight up lie about the content of the thread. Nothing.

But if I call them an idiot I'll be banned in a second.

I just wish it were consistent. If my comment was removed there are hundreds more than deserve it as well.

In the couple weeks I've been here as a mod, probably about 60% of my rule 10 removals have been comments accusing others of being CTR/Shareblue. Depending on the time of day, different mods are "on duty," and we each interpret the rules slightly differently. I tend to remove any comment that directly or indirectly calls another user a shill, and other mods are a bit more lenient. I do try to take the context into account.

But we as mods don't have the time to go through every single comment, so we have to rely on what get's reported or brought up in modmail. If one mod approves a post, the report gets hidden, so sometimes modmail is a good decision if you feel a comment is not handled properly, though sometimes it just means no one is watching the queue at that point.

Do you check if the accused persons are obvious shills though?

They do not have the time to go through every single persons comment history. If you go through mine it's mostly pro Trump. I have thousands of comments on T_D and 100k karma there. You can't determine if I am a paid shill by going through my history. You can't determine if anyone is a shill by going through their history because shills do not have some obscure comment where they notify everyone they work for shareblue.

You can only sense if someone is a shill with your 3rd eye.

I often find myself in disagreements with you but this perfectly articulates my feeling on the matter (with my small modification):

That's the real problem with banning shills [or suspected shills]. Real people won't rebuild a new account just to not be banned here. Shills will just switch to one of 50 alt accounts they bought from reddit HQ with fake karma and account date.

I should have phrased it that way in the first place. Thanks for the clarification.

I assumed that's what you meant.

It is exactly what I meant. Thanks.

To the extent we can, we check to see if the accused is breaking the rules in that thread, and if they are, we remove those comments and/or give a warning/ban.

Proving an "obvious" shill is much more difficult than it would seem. Not sure which side of the political divide (if any) you're on, but could you come up with an objective set of criteria for determining a shill that would catch a fair number of shills for one side that you would not think is overly sensitive to shills on the other?

I'm only partially rhetorical here; if you have a suggestion I'm all ears. But I don't think many people who would want such a criteria applied to one side would actually like it if it were applied to their own.

If you genuinely think someone is a shill, tell us in modmail and provide documentation and reasoning.

That would be difficult. Everyone NOT a shill is an advocate of their own position, and sometimes these things line up. I roll my own eyes every time I see the word "Zionist".

But the fact remains, people are being paid money to press an agenda across Reddit. And I'm not actually making for drunkenly yelling at the internet, I'm enraged at the prospect.

Being a mod is a tough gig. You'll get your sea legs, and getting beat on like this is part of the process.

I'm german so the Trump/Hillary thing is mostly amusing to me, although the (in my eyes) "obvious shill"- and media-campaign against Trump made me actually root for him, I imagine that is true for many of his voters too.

Ofcourse it's almost impossible to prove suspicions with the tools we have. Since mods can't see IPs either, I totally see your point. There is no good solution and unless admins want to help (they won't), shills have it easy.

I will report those that I suspect. Removing shill accusations is a very fine line to walk, case in point: https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/62yxw1/victims_found_in_mass_graves_in_ukraine_lack/dfqcjpa/

The user I called out was banned a day earlier, after I reported him in a different thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/636fhi/breaking_st_petersburg_metro_blast_special/dfrxzft/?context=3

Things like this make people suspicious, especially in this sub. I feel that shill accusations are the lesser evil.

The media campaign against Trump certainly did endear many anti-establishment folks to him — and I think there's a not-unreasonable case that that was by design — but I take your point.

We don't have the tools to match IPs, and any but the most unsophisticated shills will be using dynamic vpns/tor anyway, so it's somewhat a moot point.

I'm not sure what specifically led to that user getting banned, but if that's your goal, we respond much faster and more thoroughly to modmail reports on shilling, esp. if you document a few comments/posts that would suggest shilling. When I see a report that just says "shill," I generally won't look into it further than the context of that comment unless it seems blatant. If the person reporting isn't going to bother to do the work of demonstrating that user is a shill, I'm not going to bother spending much time on it either.

As written, rule 10 prohibits calling out specific users as shills in the comments, and if you continue to do so, you will likely be banned. That's just how it is. I do think shill accusations are a lesser evil than actual shilling, but it's one thing we do have control over. We don't stop people from making general claims about the nature of shilling, but calling out specific people in the open forum usually only distracts from the conversation at hand.

I don't know if shilling is illegal in the US. I imagine it could be if done by the government or if it breaks campaign finance laws, but I'm not aware of it ever being prosecuted.

Thanks for the answer, much appreciated. I'm glad that you see the problem and saddened by the inability to really do something against it, which ofcourse is true for all of reddit (and beyond).

Dark times.

I don't think you realize the sheer size of Reddit. It has over 230 million unique monthly users and receives over 2 million comments a day.

There simply is nowhere near enough admins to go through and investigate every suspected user. It would cost an incredible amount of money and time. This is why they rely so heavily on volunteer mods to do the policing and legwork.

It could take them hours to properly investigate a single user which adds up quickly at $20-30 a hour.

In the end it all comes down to money and like it or not the most obvious shills and trolls bring in a lot of pageviews and community engagement. Just look at The Donald and all the BS Anti-Trump subs that have sprung up.

While it may seem like a good idea to give mods more powerful tools like admins, It could cause even more problems. It'd give the shills even more power and influence once they infiltrate the mod teams. Especially since they are essentially anonymous unlike admins.

Reddit profiting from the extra page views is an angle I didn't even think of, that actually makes them complicit.

The only way to combat these fake posts is legislation imo.

I agree they need to do something to combat it but honestly I don't know what. Banning VPNs could cause a lot of legitimate users in other strict countries a lot of problems.

Such as Turkey, China or Saudi Arabia just for example. I'd like to see them implement a system that tells you their IP, Location posting from within 100 miles and if they are using a vpn. Have the IP address create a unique hash that's viewable to users and whether or not another user has that same hash.

The election has been a major boost for reddit and other media outlets. TD has the 2nd highest daily traffic. They alone generate over 24 million pagieviews daily. This is a huge goldmine for any online news site or person with a blog.

They are shilling their articles and blogs here with outrageous and baseless claims to generate revenue for their sites. The crazy headlines work great too as they double the normal traffic.

Instead of just having one side reading their site they draw in the other side because they are pissed off and want to refute the claims.

The only ways I can think to combat this is only link to archived versions of the page, screenshots of the articles or quoting the entire article in a text post. That would make it no longer profitable for the shills to post here.

I'd also like to see a user statistic page that quickly shows what percentage of their comments are made in each sub. It would also be nice to see exactly what time each comment is posted. It'll give a hour breakdown right now until it hits 24 hours and then it reverts to using days.

I've seen a lot of users who suspiciously only post in a 8-10 hour window each day with two day breaks each week. Which would suggest they are only posted during work hours.

Some people do legit only post at work but the ones I'm talking about only make comments in political threads and often as an attacker.

Such as Turkey, China or Saudi Arabia just for example. I'd like to see them implement a system that tells you their IP, Location posting from within 100 miles and if they are using a vpn. Have the IP address create a unique hash that's viewable to users and whether or not another user has that same hash.

That's actually a really nice idea, would love to see that implemented.

Agree with the rest of your points, some shills do it to promote their sites, some do it to further a political agenda, paid or not.

Now how do we get admins to take the problem seriously? For them everything is fine, as the number of users is rising and so is the profit.

Now how do we get admins to take the problem seriously? For them everything is fine, as the number of users is rising and so is the profit.

The only way they will ever take it seriously is when it begins to lose them $$ rather than make it, as they are doing now. Look how long other things lasted such as FPH and Jailbait.

They were not shuttered until they received national attention and began to hurt Reddits bottom line. Unfortunately we are the vocal minority against these issues and it wouldn't hurt them one bit if the entire conspiracy user base left the site.

I should add that i don't think it's necessarily the admins fault either as their hands are tied by their corporate overlords. I doubt they get to choose what to implement or enforce. Maybe one day one of them will have enough and leak all the dirt to wikileaks.

The only other option is crowdfund an exorbitant amount of money and attempt to purchase reddit haha.

Thanks for being logical and using a judicial process in your decision making. Some of the loud people here think that everyone is a part of a major conspiracy, even the /r/conspiracy mods are in on it. And this post is bad, because gold supports the platform that allows everyone on here to communicate their ideas.

Rant: I miss when this sub was about aliens and the JFK assassination, not the current culture of the sub where everything is a leftist conspiracy against the Trump administration. Hell, some mods are guilty in this too; remember when the Russian connections to Trump first came out? For the first time on any post the mods put a note that it was not proven. Not sure why the sub has turned into a mini t_d.

I might disagree with the premise of this post, but it doesn't objectively break any rules, so I won't use my mod powers to remove it.

I wasn't a mod at the time the dossier post was flaired, but I disagreed with the decision at the time for the same reason a lot of the users did. We've since put some safeguards in place to ensure that one mod does not unilaterally flair a post like that.

How recently were these safeguards put in place? What about the Michael Flynn post that was flaired and had a mod comment refuting it (citing Fox News of all things) stickied at the top just last week? Even when numerous comments provided evidence contradicting the sticky comment, it wasn't removed or edited.

Since that post.

From what you said, it is a knee-jerk reaction to remove the comments which shills report to you. Shills must be thrilled they can remove any comment at will. Don't you think with that many requests that there really are CTR shills and others poisoning the sub that you moderate? Is that the goal?

Two things: first, you're assuming that the shills are the ones reporting the accusations. This in itself assumes that the accusation was directed against a true shill, and that that was the person who made the made the report.

Second, you're assuming I and other mods remove comments unthinkingly. We don't. We take the context of the comment into consideration. For instance, in meta-threads like this, I tend to be far more lenient, because I'm not opposed to the idea of shilling being discussed here; I think it's important. But when the thread is about some conspiracy theory, the shill accusations only seem to distract from the known facts and good-faith speculation, and doesn't serve much of a purpose.

Don't you think with that many requests that there really are CTR shills

I don't think any mod doubts the presence of shills, but this is an open marketplace of ideas. If you cannot defeat their arguments on their merits, then who's really to say you're not the shill? (I don't think you are).

I believe you read that long comment of mine in the other thread, but as an addendum, I think vote manipulation is probably a more serious threat to free discussion here. You seem to assume the highly-upvoted comments are made by shills, but it would seem just as likely, and more efficient in resource utilization, to not make comments as shills, but just identify those you find that support the narrative you're trying to push and bot vote them to the top. I think a lot of those that look like shills are likely true believers.

we as mods don't have the time to go through every single comment, so we have to rely on what get's reported or brought up in modmail.

you approve users calling others' "jackass"

why?

This is a good example of text posts calling out another user and claiming they are obviously a shill. I don't see no unverified tag either for the claims...

Well we have proof 100% of hundreds of employees working for david brock and shareblue.

The whole "Russian bots spamming pro Trump" is a garbage made up smear. Anyone paying attention knows the whole Russian narrative is actually a coverup for the illegal surveillance they did and the media is colluding with the dems to try and cover their tracks with this bogus no evidence smear. Finding anyone who ever met with anyone who is Russian ever in history who ever worked at any point in their lives with Trump is not evidence. Anonymous sources from the deep state is not evidence. We have tax documents, interviews, hidden tapes, police charges, etc. for shareblue. You have nothing but deep state media to back up your bogus claim. If I was a mod I would ask you to put up or shut up too.

The problem is, every time you guys are asked to put up or shut up you link some lists of news articles from the NYT as if that is evidence. You link deep state actors saying "Trump bad! Russia bad!" and call that evidence. You find some time one person ever met with a Russian person and say "GOTCHA!" as if that somehow constitutes evidence. Then when called out you go "This is conspiracy "theories" not conspiracy known facts that are public." and use that as a defense for pushing deep state propaganda. It's all too much.

Yeah, I'm totally going to believe a guy with the name CuckedbyTrump. We already know about CTR and shareblue. That doesn't mean there couldn't be groups that have never been named spreading the same agenda sending people like you from T_D here to harass me.

You just claimed there are no pro Russian spam bots? Put up or shut up, hyper-partisan man.

You just claimed there are no pro Russian spam bots? Put up or shut up, hyper-partisan man.

That's not how this works. You prove it's true. I don't have to prove something is not there.

Just wanna say Russians don't have to file tax documents outside of America...

lol, nice try with that fake narrative. Go push more deep state propaganda.

It's likely that there are also Trump shills.

So prove it. I can prove to you there are shariablue shills here. Prove there is a paid Trump group. Prove it.

Trump would be stupid not to, and I wouldn't doubt the likelihood that he would. Lots of people use shills. Notice how this sub started turning into T_D 2.0?

Yea it was turning that way because freethinkers support Trump. People who buy what CNN is selling and buy what the deep state is selling are not free thinkers.

Trump is Hope and Change all over again.

Except:

  • Debt has decreased the debt by 70 Billion so far and in Obama's first month he increased it by 60 Billion.
  • Business manufacturing optimism is at an all time high.
  • Business optimism is at a 20 year high.
  • The stock market has gained 3 trillion dollars in value. It was the largest rally after an election in history.
  • Our trade deficit is down 10%.
  • Illegal border crossings are down 40%.
  • Trump cut more bloated regulations than every other president combined.
  • He returned the extra money for his swear in ceremony to the people.
  • He donated his salary to the parks service.
  • He reclassified coding so it was not covered by HB1 visas so silicon valley would stop importing cheap labor.
  • He increased NASA's budget by 400 million.
  • etc.
  • etc.
  • etc.

Hate all you want but those economic stats do not lie. You cannot spin those. You can talk about other things you dislike but Trump is nothing like Obama. Trump is talking about illegal surveillance and Obama helped expand the program and give them unlimited power. You are wrong on this topic.

I don't know. I just don't see who would benefit from that. Shills aren't cheap.. Who would turn a profit from it and how?

The newest mod of this subreddit just gave me some questionable warnings and removed a comment that wasn't any worse than the other stuff said in any thread. Censorship because I mentioned there could be a right wing "shareblue". I really doubt giving gold is the problem and it's just petty.

It's interesting that you think others breaking rules gives you permission to break rules as well. This excuse is all I've heard in the past week. Unfortunately "They did it too" isn't a valid reason for much of anything.

You did make a great point without realizing it. I'm a new mod. Therefore any posts that I'm not sure about I leave in the queue for a time when other moderators are around to get a second opinion. I've only touched shill accusations that I felt confident were attacking another person or the subreddit as a whole.

You can verify this all day. I have been dealing with shill accusations from both sides and treating each as a separate incident. I've not been biased in my duties at all. Being that I've been under attack and criticized by both sides of the spectrum I don't know how one group could say I have been targeting them specifically.

But here's the kicker:

If you don't like me and don't want to deal with me then it's really simple. Don't break the rules. Don't use ad hominem as a method of winning an argument or debate. It's not relevant and only displays an inability or unwillingness to discuss a topic.

You can deal with shills without calling them out and without breaking the rules. I know this because it was my hobby prior to being a mod.

Perhaps people dont take kindly to being threatened their account will be banned for speaking their mind. Especially considering creating a new account is so easy.

Banning an account does nothing to solve the issue you are having and reeks of an abuse of power.

being threatened their account will be banned for speaking their mind.

Is there any line in your mind that should not be crossed? That is, do you think this sub should have any rules other than reddit's site-wide rules?

In your mind, what effect does banning an account have?

Many users we ban straight up tell us they're going to make a new one and be back. It's a minor inconvenience to them, but nothing insurmountable.

But for the genuine users who do have some attachment to their account and reputation, the threat of a ban or temp bans does have the effect of letting them know that the rules will be enforced. I think comment removals and warnings are generally as effective if not more so than bans in this regard.

I think comment removals and warnings are generally as effective if not more so than bans in this regard.

Hence the point of my comment, users dont want to be threatened with a ban. Simply removing the comment is enough to suffice, in my opinion.

If users don't want to be threatened with a ban, then that implies a ban warning is an effective deterrent to rule breaking. I remove far more posts than I give warnings for; maybe one in three I warn. If it seems incidental or in the heat of the moment, I'll just removed it with the explanation. It's those comments that are egregiously in violation or from a user who's repeatedly broken the rules already I warn.

No need to defend that practice. It's much better to receive a warning rather than no warning and just banning them. It also makes them aware they are breaking the rules and if they do so in the future you know they're doing it willingly.

Thanks. I'm not so much defending it as explaining it, I and I think people who ask respectfully deserve an answer, which I'm happy to provide.

im fairly computer illiterate so if Im way off feel free to say so. In these cases cant you flag the ISP or something? Im sick of not being able to have nice things online because of people like this. And when I say these cases im referring to the "go ahead and ban me, ill create a new account" types of mindsets.

I don't want to stifle peoples speech, but I also want people to conform to some basic social etiquette.

Only the admins have access to those types of tools and most people's ips reset daily. This can result in legitimate users being banned because they received a previously banned IP for the day.

Got it, thanks.

Most people have only one reddit account and wouldn't bother creating a new one just to post on this sub.

And people are banned for attacking/insulting users personally or for otherwise breaking the quite simple sidebar rules, not for "speaking their mind".

If I want to say you are bias, that would be speaking my mind. Which also happens to be a violation of your rules.

Now if this some will nilly claim with nothing backing it up, sure censor away. I am truly curious what you think stifling that discussion provides to a conspiracy community?

Every single human being on earth has biases. You can tell me I'm biased without getting banned. You're free to hold that opinion about me or any of the mods, what you aren't free to do is call me/other mods/other users idiots, retards, shills, assholes, etc. All of that hostility brings nothing positive to anyone and nobody learns anything if a thread is just back and forth insults.

Every single human being on earth has biases.

Citation needed

/s :)

However you want to spin this. My comment wasn't bad, it was to show the blatant bias and you fell for it. It had no disrespectful language nor any real attack that others don't do to point out "shills". Plus you gave 2 to me based upon me replying to myself that the op of that thread is hyper partisan.

Honestly... removing any comments other than graphic violence or excessive language is complete pettiness. No one ever said conspiracy theorists were a brave sort.

Just calm down and take a shill
pill. Nothing to see here.

Removed. Rule 10.

Freudian slip I swear.

thank you for enforcing the rules evenly

Genuinely asking: what is the logic behind the rule barring users from attacking "the sub as a whole"? Asking as someone who was banned once for being overly critical of the kinds of content this sub tends to upvote or downvote.

People are always going to disagree about what is and isn't a 'conspiracy,' and so naturally some people will express their grievances when their views do not align with the views of the subreddit as a whole.

So what purpose does such a rule serve? Is sub criticism inherently bad for this community?

Could be?

Republicans have been responsible for a metric shit ton of illegal and shady shit including censorship, voter manipulation, misinformation campaigns etc.

You have to be utterly delusional to believe Democrats are the only ones. I've never voted Republican and I recognise that Democrats do some shady shit... but pretending it doesn't come from both sides is crazy.

Censorship because I mentioned there could be a right wing "shareblue".

It's called shareidiocy.

This place was basically taken over by t_d during the election campaign. There's a good summary floating around of the mod changes etc but I can't remember where and don't have time to find it. Expect to see an even further swing to the right on this sub as they get even more censor-happy. T_D is honestly insane with censorship, by far the worst on reddit (I was banned for stating that right wing terrorism exists on there, just for example).

LOL I think it's funny to see a historically anti-government type of people suddenly become so pro-government once Trump was elected.

Great thread telling other people what to do with their money.

lol why wouldn't you be able to do that

I see someone gave this thread gold just to be a contrary sarcastic punk. Lol.

Can't even be mad, it's just funny.

SPEZ IS LURKING.

lol, OP has great strategy to receive gold.

Came here to say the same thing. While I was here, he got gilded.

Commenting here for the gold

I can't even really be mad, knew that was probably going to happen.

I only clicked here to see how much gold you got...

because this post is gold.

That's gold Jerry! Gold!

Which is exactly why you posted it, this is some of the oldest bait shit on really

"Don't buy gold! Reddit supports X thing community hates"

Gilded repeatedly

This was ridiculously prevalent during the fph/Victoria fiasco, people aren't that stupid, they know buying gold supports Reddit, they know not to buy it if they don't wish to support Reddit, they make it 100% clear gold supports the cost of their servers when you go to buy it, this post achieves nothing except baiting people into buying you gold.

This implies that they were never going to spend that money on gold in the first place which I'm not so sure is the case.

alot of people will always do the opposite of what you tell them, helps them to define themselves as individuals, i guess.

i been trying to get gold just to up my sub count to 100, this shit makes perfect sense.

I'm off to add DO NOT GIVE GOLD to every post i make from now on..

Genius

Sneaky

Confirmed, OP is a member of a shadowy organization and this post was just a huge conspiracy for gathering a few months of Reddit gold

Shit they're onto us!

Start the car Dave!

Is Dave the one responsible for these telemarketing calls I keep getting?

What are you wearing "Dave"?

Uh... khakis?

Ugh, Dave sounds hideous

Thats because hes a reptillian.

You weren't supposed to use my real name. My callsign is Veritas.

Viertably, my good isr.

Dave's not here man.

giggle puff!

is it true you can substitut hemp as a hair conditioner?

Dave's not here man

CENSORED! Rule 10!!!

OP is a member of a shadowy organization

and this comment provides cover for OP or the shadowy organization, since this exact same thread title was previously posted twice (same day as OP) by /u/RestfulFiend then deleted:

http://web.archive.org/web/20170406012846/https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/63gxuk/daily_reminder_no_one_is_allowed_to_give_gold_on/

I guess somebody thought it was important enough to post 3 times/same day until it had a clean (read: sans initial negative comments) thread start to justify the simulated 2000+ upvotes illusion.

I don't like my username. 4 months ago I was trying to come up with a new username. A username is like a tattoo.

And then I wrote THE post. It was a sappy, from the heart post. It got easily the most upvotes that I have ever gotten on Reddit.

It also got me 6 different people gifting me gold.

Fuck me.

Now I feel like I can't change my name till that gold runs out.

~sigh~ only 2 months and some amount of days more to go!

Lol you're back to almost 4 months now stuck with yo-yo-baggins. Which is moderately better than yolo-swaggins.

Also you're a good dude.

Thanks. Now I got more time to chose the perfect name.

very clever!

Hey man, after studying itfor a while I realized I hate mathematics. Don't be so hard on your username.

I'm and no longer a little queef!

Is /u/bigqueef already taken though?

Sadly...

Maybe it's like, "I'm a little gassy / farty today."

"I'm a lilqueefy today. Sorry in advance."

I swear I'm not bald.

I'm not fat or a chef, I do like pizza though

I'd keep the one you have. Gave me a good chuckle.

My real name isnt jake and i have no affiliation with the air force.

dude be careful giving personal info out over the internet. Now that you've put it out there that your real name isn't Jake, there's only so many possible real names left. Time to think about changing your name to Jake now just to throw them off. But don't tell anyone when / if you do!

Should i go into prptective custody?

Can't go wrong with a dick name

I couldn't agree more.

nice strats

My last username was a tasteless holocaust reference, but I got stuck with it for similar reasons (my first gelding was for posting a summary of the senate intelligence committee torture report leaked by McClatchy).

By that point I had a reputation as a "famous" putinist shill, and decided to see if I could swing the election for Trump.

my first gelding

The poor (former) stallion.

Am I the only one that treats his username as his identity? I have no other and speak in my nascent personality for the sake of authenticity. I also practically dox myself a lot for this reason. I think it's creepy others are so openly chameleonic.

Never put personal information into a computer. The Internet is not a secure network.

As someone who's never been gilded, what do you mean by running out of gold?

Each gilding gives you a month of gold, so running out is when those months are up.

Nice try.

WTF is so important about gold?

Why don't you feel as if you change your name?

My only gold posts was me drawing a sex position someone claimed they did, which everyone was confused by. Someone requested a "diagram be drawn". I attempted to draw it, though it only created more confusion and hilarity.

Thinking how the only gold + upvoted post I've ever made is of a horribly drawn sex position.

Was it the two dick guy that did an AMA? :D

Were you the guy who couldn't draw arms/hands?

Yes, yes I am.

Ill be here waiting patiently for you to see this diagram.

Here's the link to the thread

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You are STILL a hero for those diagrams.

what do you like about having gold

i dont know what it does

Why can't you change accounts? There's no value in having gold, unless you enjoy sucking the tit of Reddit to the point you are a fanboy. Just go with the username you want and forget Reddit gold is a thing.

A username is like a tattoo.

So do you look like The Enigma?

The greatest karma con of them all

r/karmacourt would like to have a word with you, then...

Reddit employees give gold like crazy since it's free for them. They hate the conspiracy and conservative subs, so it's no surprise that they would do this.

Proof OP is illuminati

Shit they found me! We never left his Shoney's abort! Abort!

Its not like gold is useful anyways

I'm going to wait a month and do the same. That way everyone forgets. I bet the same 3 people will give me gold.

When the news you described. yup.

brilliant strategy. I will use it hence force!

I wonder if OP realizes that his mere presence on this website does the exact some thing...

You are ready for a vp spot. Move to North Korea.

are you insulting our Dear Leader?

I never got gold :(

Mods... this guy abuses his upvoted comment and spams a link to an app. Obvious textbook shilling.

Obviously shilling for trying to help my friends. I gave warning

Wtf is the point of "reddit gold" even?

I had a look at the description page of what they provide you for the vanity of a little flair, and all those features can be had with a combination of NoScript / uBlock Origin / RES / Stylish plugins on Firefox / Chrome.

At no cost too. Why the hell would anyone spend money to support this private organisation that makes money from your content and advertising, I have no idea.

Gold = Lannister

to take your money. what else

FWIW I think the beginning paragraph on the description is very clunky and does not do a good job in making the reader want to download it. The rest seems okay, but IMO that first paragraph needs a revamp.

Amazing feedback! I will let them know. Thanks for not making a shitty comment

What does gold actually do for the individual? i've been given a few times and never did anything with it.

Becomes a Lannister

Gives you access to /r/lounge so you can read everyone bragging about how they got gold, the ability to load more comments on a post, the ability to highlight comments that were made since you last saw that thread, a couple random discounts at obscure online stores, no ads are displayed, the ability to filter subreddits from /r/random, and I think that's it. There used to be a couple more benefits, but they were eventually added to default users. Things like saving posts and comments and filtering /r/all.

If you buy gold on a day that reddit meets it's daily gold quota then you're allowed to suggest and vote on the name of the server your gold helped buy.

If my life? Not that your comment. A keyboard shortly.

Lol of all the subs to see blatant spamming using a top comment, it's the #1 post here....

I said.. worth a try. I bring shame for wanting my friends to succeed with their app?

I guess we know where you guys are from now. http://i.imgur.com/z5Xf5XX.jpg

Oh no. .. are you the CIA?:) Have you lost 5 passports or a dog? Or want to share a local shopping deal?

Removed. Advertising in edit of a top comment. First Warning.

For the sake of the thread, this was the original comment:

lol, OP has great strategy to receive gold.

sigh... can't help anyone these days without being attacked for doing it for free

Bad idea. Best to ignore the gold and use discernment and judgment in evaluating a post. Let it stand or fall by its own merits.

If you get everyone to assume gold = shill comments then it becomes just as easy for shils to discredit by giving gold.

Yup but we can avoid paying in to a scheme that actively seeks to censor us. We get new users constantly so if one person sees this and does the research I feel it was worthy of the 30 seconds to post.

You are right though ones own intuition will be their best guide not the existence of imaginary internet points.

you're fucking drowning in gold man

These people are assholes and must enjoy censorship.

Yup but we can avoid paying in to a scheme that actively seeks to censor us.

If they actively wanted to censor you, then you wouldn't be freely talking about literally anything you want.

Come on, share with us the last occasion in which an admin removed one of your submissions or comments. I dare ya to.

I came here to say this. Reminds me of the recent onslaught of posts when Dick Cheney talked about Russia. The people insisting you can't believe something because it's gilded or believed by someone evil are actually the ones trying to control what you think.

Just ignore that shit instead of allowing anyone with four dollars to mark a comment as Must Disregard.

Gilds are literally purchased influence. It shouldn't surprise you to learn that they're heavily used by those who wish to purchase influence. The correct way to combat this is to embrace the worst case. If the only influence available is that which must be purchased... oh, dear, what did you say the price of admission was? I fear we may be able to overcomply the shill organizations and shift Reddit's financial incentives quite markedly, oh ho ho, how precious that would be!

"Trump Russia connection is the real conspiracy sorry it's not reptilians and pedophiles" gilded four times

Where is the proof, because not one source has come forward.

I don't. Relieve that statement that's a regularly used comment I've seen multiple times

Reminder that prominent Hillary supporter and donator of over 1 Million $ ran a pedophile network for over a decade: https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/61uahv/tribenet_is_a_pedo_haven/ (NSFL)

https://8ch.net/pol/res/9578637.html

Reminder that 4chan has been taken over by shills: https://8ch.net/pol/res/9607723.html

Why are you linking to a Pedo site?

Why was the Zynga CEO running a pedo site?

Both of the Prince articles #1 and #2 on the front page were just ridiculous with the guilding yesterday, neither one amounted to anything but hearsay.

The distribution of gold is a perfect litmus test for indicating the presence of paid actors or bots. Coupled with receiving 20+ downvotes in under 3 minutes, you can be pretty certain some nonsense is afoot.

I've never even thought about buying Reddit gold until this post told me not to...... so what's stopping some asshole from blowing a couple bucks on gold and following users around and gilding their comments? No one would ever know who did it and that user would look like a "shill" right?

I literally thought that all the comments in this post would be gilded.

DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO DO

If reverse psychology works in here, we are all lost :-D ;-)

Russia Bots or was it BlackWater?

Someone has evidence. I think.

shariahblue*

Most people forget that one of DARPA's lesser known intentions when developing the internet was to control the flow of information while masquerading as a way to facilitate communication. From the earliest days of ARPANET the monitoring of traffic by the CIA was suspected, but this information was not confirmed until nineteen ninety eight when the undertaker threw mankind off hell in a cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.

Scratch my post this man deserves gold.

Don't you have some to give now? :)

I was the first person that gave you some :P Haven't given anybody gold since nineteen ninety eight when the undertaker threw mankind off hell in a cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.

Ok.

I love how almost every post of yours in this thread has been gilded.

not confirmed until nineteen ninety eight when the undertaker threw mankind off hell in a cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.

Ughh...what?

NOT CONFIRMED UNTIL NINETEEN NINETY EIGHT WHEN THE UNDERTAKER THREW MANKIND OFF HELL IN A CELL, AND PLUMMETED SIXTEEN FEET THROUGH AN ANNOUNCER'S TABLE.

I appreciate the shit post, but Im still confused...

That is good shit.

Do you know of a source that explains how they accomplished that stunt? I don't see any padding under Mankind. Did they actually just throw him off and figure it won't kill him? I would love to know what that planning session was like.

"So, you guys are going to tussle up there, and you Mankind, you're going to sort've hobble around toward the end after the Undertaker beats your ass, and then the Undertaker is going to throw you off the top."

"Wait, what?"

"Moving on."

A folding table will absorb a lot of shock because of the way that it breaks. When someone comes down in the center of one and it splits in half the kinetic energy is transferred outward to the edges, effectively cushioning the person's fall. That's an unexpected benefit that the creators didn't know about until nineteen ninety eight when the undertaker threw mankind off hell in a cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.

Gets me every time.

Everytime is better and better.

He has a tooth stuck in his nose later in the match when he falls about 12 feet onto a steel chair, its not as fake as you would think. Mick Foley can barely walk now because of his career.

Oh no. I understand the physical stuff is real. I just can't believe they didn't put padding down or something.

It's a local meme.

He is trying to copy u/shittymorph and get karma which is lame.

Thanks for making me lol in the draft waiting room

War is no laughing matter.

Damn, you got me good with this.

You are not u/shittymorph. I sense shenanigans.

He and I used to be really good friends in real life, but we had a huge fight and don't talk anymore. I was dating this girl named Katie that was friends with both of us, but I found out later that he had been sleeping with her for years behind my back. Still pisses me off to this day, even though that was all the way back in nineteen ninety eight when the undertaker threw mankind off hell in a cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.

It's a bold move Cotton, let's see if it pays off.

eddit re

God damnit that one was good

Its funny seeing that in this thread. The only time I've ever received gold is from this meme.

I suggested to shittymorph to spell out 1998 to trick more people and he guilded it.

I ended up screwing myself because once he did that I was fooled every time.

Link

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BY GOD HE'S GOT A FAMILY

Scratch your own post. We're not kitty cats!

I dont even see or know the point of gold anyway.

What? I'm not still new to Reddit... I'm a few months old (left and came back with the vengence).

I wouldn't mind some gold. Show me the gold! Thanks.

3 users want you to SHUT THE FUCK UP!!

Not me; just sayin

Appears to be the case lol

You know what's funny, Soros has budgeted for Reddit gold

Don't forget fraud!

Reddit is obfuscating subscriber numbers in specific subreddits.

thedonald is a piece of shit subreddit echo chamber of cucks who ban any differing opinion. I'm certain most of those numbers are inflated by the sheer number of 'forced subscribers' who were subsequently banned for any dissent. faggots.

Removed. Rule 1.

cuck

What's gold?

baby don't hurt me...

NOBODY BETTER GIVE ME GOLD!!!

waits patiently for the incoming Train of Ironic Gold?

nope

Do not gild this comment!

Also gold is overrated anyways

I hate getting gold. It is wasted on me because I do not use any of it's features.

"Don't give gold!"

Gets 3 gold.

I love reddit.

Came here hoping to see that

I also don't want anyone to give gold..... :|

FWIW you're really not missing out on anything

Wouldn't using the service also help fund those things, as the activity is how they are able to generate revenue through advertising at higher costs I assume.

admins gave OP gold

I still dont even get the point of gold.

I think its like those items in video games that you buy with real money.

It has some useful benefits. One is being able to search posts easier but more importantly you don't get any ads. It's a way to get users who complain about ads an option to pay to remove them.

Ah I see!

All muh censoorship on a private board is out of control.

Not sure how this post got through the censhorship police of reddit. Oh wait...

This is the easiest way to get gold. I see it all the time. Still pisses me off though.

Why? You're using this website. Why not do your part to fund it?

It's like listening to bbc, yes your getting some content, but at the same time partisan views and money manipulate a large portion of your content and what's popular.

The simple act of being here, or as you said, "using this website," is already doing something to fund it as reddit charges for ad space based on the numbers of people present in any given sub, including lurkers.

Buying gold is free money for reddit, inc. The altruistic notion of users helping to pay for the site's operation went away the moment the users became the product.

I think it was a smart way to combat adblockers.

Also, if you're not already running it for some reason, be sure to install ublock origin

If you genuinely have an issue with this, then you should probably stay off reddit and all social media altogether then. Js

I've never, ever considered giving someone "gold".. It's a ridiculous concept. Especially giving this website money when they already sell our info and make money off us anyway. What does gold even give a person? Access to secret hidden subs and super mod powers and the feeling of being part of an elite club?.. Dafuq. I don't get it..

Hey listen asshole, the gloves are off. Listen you son of a bitch, what the fuck's your problem? You wanna sit here and say that I'm a god damn fucking Russian? You get in my face with that, I'll beat your god damn ass you son of a bitch. You piece of shit. You fucking god damn fucker. Listen fuckhead, you have fucking crossed the line. Get that through your god damn... fucking head! Stop pushing your shit. You're the people that have fucked this country over, and gang raped the shit out of it and lost an election. So stop shooting your mouths off claiming I'm the enemy. You got that? You god damn son of a bitch. Fill your hand. I'm sorry but I'm done. You start calling me a foreign agent, those are fucking fighting words. Excuse me.

Did you by chance reply to the wrong thread? This was about avoiding giving gold because Reddit censors people in ways that violate the integrity of the medium.

That being said I love your energy, have an upvote!

Oh shit I have never seen that before haha!

Haha also don't give me gold

It actually blows my mind that the "daily goal" - whatever the fuck it is - is reached night after night, and then some. The users are personally funding increasing censorship, propaganda and corporate collusion...and doing it with a smile.

Save the world, DO NOT give GOLD (to me)!

The "giving/getting gold" thing never made sense to me.. I don't know why anyone does it honestly but to each his own

Yeah! Reddit should lose money in order to let us use their site!

How dare these fools create a top 20 website, pay thousands of dollars a month for servers, and not want to do it for free!

For meeting their gold goal everyday, Reddit sure as hell sucks at letting me search without the servers killing themselves

Reddit gold? Who would want that?

So... got a source on that?

I've been using Reddit for 4 years and still don't understand what gold is or if I have any.

I get it. I mean, your not wrong.

But I argue that utilizing Reddit in any way shape or form does that anyways. Giving Gold just does it more.

Don't support the infrastructure I'm using to make my post!

nobody on here ever gives gold.

And here I thought I wasn't giving gold because my ass is poor.

HEY NO ONE FUCKING GILD ME I REPEAT PLEASE DO NOT GILD ME!

I'm pretty sure the ironic gilding would end if you could turn off the flair whenever you were gilded.

I love giving gold to the most fucked up comments in the most fucked up subreddits.

Everyone always loses their shit "I can't believe THAT got gold!"

I sit back and get to laugh at the little blip I caused in the Matrix.

Just remember, intentionally causing blips might damage the Matrix, unintentional 1s and 0s can potentially cause a virus that could delete individual files, or possibly make people blip out of existence. (Don't worry, nobody will remember them, as they never existed.)

Didn't you read the entire instruction manual for the Matrix? Sheesh...

-Smith.

Yeah, I mean everyone knows you should be investing in silver right now.

Dont give me gold

Best way to never get gold is just remind everyone you've never got it.

Lol

I've given gold once...I've hated myself for it ever since.

I got gold once. It was a long time ago before people knew me.

Let's make someone a millionaire is totally legit though, right? Lol

I don't understand the reference here.

Doesn't reddit do some kind of 'random' millionaire thing every so many months?

r/millionairemakers

Not sure what you're getting at

Please may I have some gold?

OP 4D chess

Just an honest question, why use reddit to socialize or whatever your purpose of coming here if you don't trust it as a platform?

It is a great platform, I just disagree with the methods used to suppress undesirable content.

Admins always give gold to this kind of thread. /U/spez is still a sold out faggot.

Is he still getting pegged by Selena Williams?

Yeah! Fuck gold! Am I right guys?

DO NOT GIVE ME GOLD

PLEASE

How does giving gold do any of those things? Isn't giving gold just a way for reddit to pay for bandwidth through voluntary donations for quality submissions?

can i have gold too thx

No and Fuck you.

Jokes on you, m8

OP is that homeless guy with a sign saying "don't give money, just prayers"

How is share blue a shadowy organization? Is the red pill a shadowy organization. My biggest problem with this sub is that the people who cry conspiracy and looked to trump as their savior think that for some reason the "people in power" couldn't have possiblu orchestrated him winning? What makes Trump immune to those things?

Trump is a piece of human garbage and a con artist, anyone worth their salt knows this. He is also being targeted by the deep state to the glee of many. The thing about both of these things is that there is no good option. I know you are venting about the general state of the sub but you got the wrong guy if you are looking for a fan of that tool.

Shareblue is a shady organization because it is a seasoned political operator's tool to destabilize the opposition via astroturfing campaigns. It is a case of the morally bankrupt trying to control virtue. This doesn't mean that the right doesn't have similar organizations, I'm sure they do, but shareblue and its predecessor CTR have been incredibly active on this site and this sub for months which is why I singled them out.

First comment i see you without gold.

The folks handing out gold don't seem to like my distaste for their god emperor. Lol

Trump is meant to make the system decompensate under stress. He's either real and sincere and he'll actually fight the deep state, or he's a hilarious incompetent who will fail it. The fact that he's such a questionable candidate was one of his assets during the campaign. People have gotten so sick of the powers that shouldn't be that this country's greatest threat does not come from foreign subversion, but from the obligation of patriots to undermine any government which so profoundly fails to uphold American values as that government currently provided by Washington DC.

I'm not right-libertarian but I don't like surveillance or believe in Pizzagate. I hate Trump and would rather have a real patriot leading our nation.

You are one clever guy lol Wish I thought of that.

r/conpiracy.... a prison of fear and selfishness

Ok gilded at least 8 times based on this post. Clever.

gold is fuckin dumb anyway.
at least for the user who receives it.

How to get free gold in one easy step

Lol

On that note: DO NOT GIVE $100 BILLS, HIGH CLASS HOOKERS OR PURE COCAINE.

I have been gilded twice:

1) n in-depth explanation oh how a "hacker hero" was actually a "notorious pedophile."

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/4czshb/til_in_1974_two_phone_hackers_stood_on_a/d1mu1ia/

2) Don't text analysis of two users on /r/conspiracy itself in order to help determine whether or not one account was another account's sockpuppet.

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/4cyda2/something_fishy_going_on_with_flytape_and/d1mh6wx/

I was happy to do both services, but did not care much for the gilding. If you are going to gild, check their post history first. If you get gilded, consider changing the text to make the person look crazy.

I've only ever been guilded once. Which was for suggesting that shittymorph spell out 1998 so it was harder to detect his undertaker posts. It was a quick suggestion that I quickly forgot about five minutes later.

When I spend a long time writing out a well thought out and passionate comment it gets completely ignored lol.

I don't care about karma but it's nice to know that people have actually read my comments. Regardless if they agreed with it or not.

Came here to give OP gold, three smart asses already beat me to it. GG conspiracy.

Ah. A new tactic to add in my book of "how to bamboozle for gold". /s

Thanks for the reminder though.

Coming in with a daily reminder that giving another user gold while a seemingly kind gesture directly funds censorship and collusion with shadowy organizations like shareblue, intelligence agencies both foreign and domestic, and others.

Please. Someone take pity on the new guy and explain WTF the OP is on about?

Essentially the post was a reminder that Reddit, while a great platform that I have used for years, willingly alligns itself with those that would censor your views to the point that they no longer possess a safe harbor certification.

I don't oppose using this platform, obviously, but I do not think we should support the system by giving gold. Gold does nothing significant for the user and everything for the site.

willingly alligns itself with those that would censor your views to the point that they no longer possess a safe harbor certification

The ominous 'they'? Or, more specific entities?

How does reddit censor people's posts? I don't discount your assertion, I just ask for more detail.

What is a 'safe harbor certification'?

I still don't get what reddit gold is.

Thanks for your time.

They is the exec board of Reddit made up of founders and new folks, multi millionaires that have strayed from what this site was, by their own admission, intended to be.

Reddit engages in vote manipulation to push approved content while unpopular opinions die on the vine. To make matters worse their CEO has been caught altering the content of user posts to discredit them.

Safe harbor is an Internet organization that considers free speech as an absolute and unrestricted property, as such a site without ideological censorship receives a certification while those that do censor undesirable thought does not get them. When they edited some T_D clown's post they lost approval from this organization.

Reddit gold is a thing that you buy for other users that gives them access to a few secret subreddits all of which are underwhelming. The money goes to funding the site.

Fantastic. Thank you very much for filling me in.

What are some famous / excellent examples of reddit censorship?

Like I said there was the matter where a user's post was altered by /u/spez which resulted in the loss of safe harbor certification.

The most relevant bit is vote manipulation and astroturfing. First we see items critical of the status quo repressed while posts with far fewer upvotes pushed to the top. Second is the presence of astroturf movements through bots and paid shills that come from everywhere, shareblue to Moscow all participate.

There's some things he's not telling you. He's made out shareblue to be this enormous organization that is so nefarious, all they do it try to change people's minds on the internet against Trump, like that's the reason people don't like Trump.

Also, t_d was caught brazenly breaking rules to get their posts to the front page. The CEO tweeked things to make it fair, one of those things being the ability of users to filter their r/all. They got really furious about that and absolutely spammed the shit out of reddit, calling the CEO a child molester.

Yes, there's a conspiracy, but OP and others want to distract you from it.

Also, it's well known on reddit that if you tell people not to give you gold, that's what they do. If OP was sincere he would have deleted this post the first time it got gilded.

You're the conspiracy! And so am I. Isn't it wonderful to know that strife wins the world?

There are secret subs??

Pfff. If you count security by obscurity, every sub that isn't a default is a secret sub. There are gold-only subs, yes. There are also invite-only subs that are even more secret than that.

Mind. Blown.

[Citation Needed]

If this is a terrible website that should not be supported, do you have any recommendations for something that does deserve support?

I'm sure he'll suggest 4chan

Love that you got downvoted. We're not supposed to seriously consider alternatives, we're just supposed to huddle defeated where we were put.

Check out Voat, people. Check out obscure legacy forums on the internet. Go try to fake out a foreign-language forum with google translate, see how long you can do it. Learn new communities and it'll become hell for the powers to censor your information feeds.

Shareblue has a sense of humour it seems ☺️

They do. Hatred and comedy run the world. The whole reason it seems decent on the surface is... well, that's comedy's doing. Comedy is actually a cool guy. He's just fallen in with a bad crowd.

It looks like King Solomon's Mines in here

Ooh, how so?

Don't not give gold?

I spend a fair bit of time here, and I have NO idea what any of that means.

Shit! They found me out!

Need an extraction Dave!

Who the fuck would give gold. You haven't studied Reddit enough? You remember them banning entire subreddits after the Boston Bombing and 2016 Election?

Fucking what? This sub is becoming annoying.

What does Gilding a comment do? I've never received gold or seen it in action.

Best way to get gold on Reddit... Say, please don't give me gold. I've had months of it from one comment like that.

it would be so easy too open another reddit account and buy gold for your main account so that the post will automatically be assumed legitamate

Yell Shiiills now!

SHILLS like us to not buy gold, since it reduces their operating costs and improves their apparent sub control if they don't have to fight countercultural messages clogging up /gilded.

Use the fucking money to other stuff, give donations to groups who you support, DO something other than fucking throw money at reddit. I dont care if they tell you "we will give x of those dollars to that sub". It still used against you. So go yell all that you can..

Groups who I support? Pshaw. It's easy for a group to say they support anything. I'd rather be more direct with my money than that.

How to get gold: the post

Don't give me gold please :)

OP is a genius.

No one listens people here love sponsoring censorship. Or just doing whatever it is they are asked not to. Whatever you do don't go out and believe in aliens or the 9/11 conspiracies

This is how I got two gold gifts in one week. Started saying what OP is saying. Wanna bet that he will be gifted gold?

They're paying to stuff anti-gold messages into /gilded whenever they don't have anything higher priority to put in there. By complying with anti-gold campaigns, we make our forums more cost-effective for shills to control.

I figured this out late unfortunately.

Keep taking the gold OP, bankrupt them each post at a time.

I dont understand.What does giving gold change.Isnt it just a gesture?

It populates the /gilded section of each sub. Shill organizations have enough trouble ordering /gilded against each others' tampering. They don't want to have to combat the userbase, too.

thought this thread was about the federal reserve.

I would delete my account if someone gave me gold, I never want to be associated with helping reddit's business model

Great way to suspend the voices of unexpected gold-recipients!

Don't hyperbolize. If you'd delete your account that easily, you don't have a real-person attachment to it. No offense intended if you're an anon.

Is that some kind of joke? This website and it's janitors ban you for literally anything. Most janitors won't even tell you why you got banned, because even they know that you'll be right back. Virtually everyone makes reddit accounts again and again to bypass bans

Yeah, it was some kind of joke.

Also, I have multiple accounts because I'm more than one of Reddit's users. I've yet to be banned for anything on any account save that some of them post in "forbidden" subs.

I'm kind of tempted to give this guy gold...

OP are you a 49ers fan? Because you just struck gold.

Gold gold gold gold gold! Dwarven songs are some of the best.

Daily reminder: Financial incentives are real incentives. If the userbase funds Reddit, Reddit as a corporate attentive becomes more attentive to the userbase. If Reddit's only funding is evil, it's reeeal hard for Reddit to not be evil.

We're here.

If I see that someone has never posted here except for when there's a major MSM story like last night. I guess that wouldn't be a regular user.

Real people don't sit on websites all day

Too many people like me (here for the laughs) would capitalize on that and buy gold solely to fuck with your heads.

Well, I guess it's good to question everything. You never know until you get back those x-rays with a pcb as your brain.

Constantly calling out CTR/ShareBlue shills will get you the "Russian stooge/Cheeto bot"

It's hilarious really. The amount of projection CTR/ShareBlue shills spew.

Perhaps people dont take kindly to being threatened their account will be banned for speaking their mind. Especially considering creating a new account is so easy.

Banning an account does nothing to solve the issue you are having and reeks of an abuse of power.

However you want to spin this. My comment wasn't bad, it was to show the blatant bias and you fell for it. It had no disrespectful language nor any real attack that others don't do to point out "shills". Plus you gave 2 to me based upon me replying to myself that the op of that thread is hyper partisan.

Honestly... removing any comments other than graphic violence or excessive language is complete pettiness. No one ever said conspiracy theorists were a brave sort.

Doesn't reddit do some kind of 'random' millionaire thing every so many months?

It is a great platform, I just disagree with the methods used to suppress undesirable content.

Got it, thanks.

I've been here for a while under a joke/troll account before this joke/troll account. These accounts have been my main ones.

Genuinely asking: what is the logic behind the rule barring users from attacking "the sub as a whole"? Asking as someone who was banned once for being overly critical of the kinds of content this sub tends to upvote or downvote.

People are always going to disagree about what is and isn't a 'conspiracy,' and so naturally some people will express their grievances when their views do not align with the views of the subreddit as a whole.

So what purpose does such a rule serve? Is sub criticism inherently bad for this community?

I'm and no longer a little queef!

Like I said there was the matter where a user's post was altered by /u/spez which resulted in the loss of safe harbor certification.

The most relevant bit is vote manipulation and astroturfing. First we see items critical of the status quo repressed while posts with far fewer upvotes pushed to the top. Second is the presence of astroturf movements through bots and paid shills that come from everywhere, shareblue to Moscow all participate.

There's some things he's not telling you. He's made out shareblue to be this enormous organization that is so nefarious, all they do it try to change people's minds on the internet against Trump, like that's the reason people don't like Trump.

Also, t_d was caught brazenly breaking rules to get their posts to the front page. The CEO tweeked things to make it fair, one of those things being the ability of users to filter their r/all. They got really furious about that and absolutely spammed the shit out of reddit, calling the CEO a child molester.

Yes, there's a conspiracy, but OP and others want to distract you from it.

Also, it's well known on reddit that if you tell people not to give you gold, that's what they do. If OP was sincere he would have deleted this post the first time it got gilded.

I'm not fat or a chef, I do like pizza though

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Ooh, how so?

That's foolish. We should clog up the gilding queue to make it a more expensive way to adjust opinions while also shifting Reddit's incentive structure.