yep, i have the seem feeling, but on this subreddit in particular. it's a shame, because i think alot of fellow redditors come check out /r/conspiracy, see some whacky shit and write off 'conspiracies' as a whole, not realizing a good portion of the submissions on here are complete and utter disinfo. there are plenty of great, open minded discussions that take place in this subreddit. that said, it's important to realize that it's not our job to point out the disinfo, it's the reader's job to be able to sift through it.

it's important to realize that it's not our job to point out the disinfo

Completely disagree, I'll point out whatever I want. I think it's good for people to realise that they're not the only ones fed-up with the bullshit submissions. People who post batshit insane theories need to be told to shut the fuck up and I'm often happy to oblige.

Interesting. I don't subscribe to r/conspiracy, but the r/relationships, r/suicide, and r/depression seem to have a number of posts that can't possibly be true. And it's not like you can call BS on them because what if someone's really hurting. If you're seeing similar things in r/conspiracy then perhaps we've found a trend...

Fun fact: back in the day when reddit was first struggling to become popular, Alexis and Steve actually did make a full-time job of personally scouring the Internet for interesting material and submitting it to reddit themselves under fake accounts.

That said, it sounds like you're seriously underestimating the traffic reddit actually gets. It's possible that employees are hired to populate reddit with addictive content, but this doesn't necessarily follow from any apparent features of the site.

Alexis and Steve actually did make a full-time job of personally scouring the Internet for interesting material and submitting it to reddit themselves under fake accounts.

Aha!! Old habits die hard! :P The jury's still out in my mind then.

Heh, maybe. Keep in mind that this was back when they had approximately zero regular users, though; there wasn't exactly an easy solution to the "chicken and egg" problem.

I'm sure every site owner does this at some point. An interesting question is how long does it persist, and does it ever stop. Or, can a site be successful without hedging their bets.

scouring the Internet for interesting material and submitting it to reddit themselves under fake accounts

This is not the same as making fake IAMA/AMA's or submissions asking for life advice from random internet strangers.

correct... they're two different things. But they both deviate from the ideal of all content being user submitted and democratically rising and falling by majority vote standards.

back in the day when reddit was first struggling to become popular, Alexis and Steve actually did make a full-time job of personally scouring the Internet for interesting material and submitting it to reddit themselves under fake accounts.

Do you have any sources supporting that assertion? I'm not an old-timer so I don't have experience to guide me on this.

I wouldn't know where to find a documented source, but I heard it directly from Alexis a while back (he was pretty open about it).

The big "emotional" and "outrageous story" posts that gets lots of attention only happen in the big subreddits like Ask Reddit or IAMA or Pics. Suicide Watch and Depression posts only generate a handful of responses, and most of them are of the quick "PM me if you want to talk" variety. The "OMG Where can I send money?" responses that grab lots of attention occur much more frequently in the big subreddits. If Reddit employees are trolling behind the scenes to generate buzz, then it makes more sense to devote their resources to the most popular subreddits and not Suicide Watch or Depression, which are smaller and less influential in comparison.

I also just don't see what's so hard to believe about the majority posts in Suicide Watch and Depression. I've never thought anything was particularly trollish in either of those subreddits, and I'm usually among the first to call BS on just about anything in IAMA or Ask Reddit.

I've been close a few times to unsubscribing from /r/consipricy, mainly because a hell of a lot that makes it onto my page is pure batshit insane tinfoil hat stuff

Only because it is upvoted.

I'm getting the feeling that school is out, and the dumb questions that usually stay on campus is being redirected here.

It happens every year, usually by the end of summer everyone just gives up and waits until they go back to class.

Gotcha. Maybe I'll learn how to knit this summer....

Kind of like this bogus post.

lol... calling BS on the post about BS posts! Can't argue with that one.

Haha that's the dilemma, now every reddit post is potentially disinformation. Maybe reddit is like the cyber truman show and you're the only real person on here!

But that would be me... meaning, you're a fake!

A lie is hidden most conveniently between two truths

I actually really like that saying, +1 :)

Could also be the other way around though, ya?

Due to the nature of the voting system, coupled with the millions of likeminded/hiveminded voters, wouldn't it make sense for the same types of posts to always rise to prominence?

It's like thinking "Hey, why are all these frontpaged comics so funny? SOMETHING MUST BE AFOOT!"

You ever cruise the "New" tab? There's a hell of a lot of chaff to sift through before you catch any cream.

a fair point. didn't think about it that way.

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maybe so... I think the pace of the drama is what triggered my conspiracy senses. It just seems so steady. Never a deluge, never a drought.

It's always been like that, to a certain extent. It just got much more noticeable since the Digg migration.

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it's true though, digg had a much younger, less mature userbase. i think it was probably due to kevin rose being on television.

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i didn't blame the rise in crap on them, i blamed digg for the large influx of users who were mostly young teenagers. whether those people post mostly crap is debatable as is whether there is a similar percentage of douchebags now vs then.

i know that digg's userbase was made up of people with somewhat dissimilar interests to the userbase of reddit and i can see the influence of those people on reddit. am i saying that every digger was an immature douche? no, obviously that kind of generalization would be false and there's really no need to be so defensive.

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this is all anecdotal from my experiences with these websites. i was a digger for a couple years prior to migrating here so i'm just going on what i observed. i think digg was much more easily accessible to a younger audience than reddit was. digg was more well-known.

reddit changed after the whole digg fiasco, whether it was caused by the influx of users straight from digg or the randoms reading about it on the tech blogs. not to mention all the Anons who were undecided about which site to post their recycled 4chan material on suddenly had that decision made for them. is it better or worse? who's to say really? but it is undeniably different imo.

ninja edit: i guess you think i'm bitching about the state of reddit but i am still here and i still enjoy it, fwiw. also to quote just put > in front (no space!) of what you want to quote on a new line like

this

I was part of the Digg migration as it were. Thnx for the old timer perspective.

DAE this is the internet and nothing here matters?

I wonder about every post that mentions a product/TV show/game/movie/band etc... i do see your point and have also wondered if the "hivemind" really works like that or if some topics/ideas are encouraged somehow

product/TV show/game/movie/band

Yes! They always come up with intriguing stories and then subtly slip their product placement in there.

I've never dismiss a post as being fake. If something strike a cord with me I follow it until I find logical fault with it. Why use an online medium like a forum if I'm just going to dismiss everything I read as a hoax or a bot? I might be missing out on a chance to find out something interesting or new. IMHO it's worth the risk of being fooled. It's the Internet. Play at your own risk :)

good point. I tend to do the same. I don't dismiss posts unless I see an obvious logical flaw.

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LOL. Earthporn?? not sure what those ones are. You're right about filling it with things that interest me though.

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Word.

Funny, I was wondering that myself. I guess we're on the same page...

Listen... it's time you guys found out, all the fake post's are to promote LL Cool J's return to the rap game

Are some posts fake? Yes, but the growing majority, I don't think so... not even close. you've got to admit it's somewhat pessimistic/cynical to think that of all the people on reddit, that a "majority" of people submitting new posts are fake.

Do these sensationalist bullshit submissions happen, totally, but it certainly doesn't mean that they're all fake. Beyond that, it's totally unprovable that it's even a "growing" number, and if you really wanna debate it, you'd be better off spending some time over at /r/circlejerk.

All I can say is that most everything that I've noticed in life goes in some sort of cycle of up and down like a sine wave, and if you believe that more of these new submissions are fake, then perhaps we're just in a higher part of the fake submissions wave.

Yes

The level of paranoia here is amusing.

That means you're subscribing, right?

I feel the IamA posts now fall into two categories; IamA totally made up (Game of Thrones actress) or IamA pedestrian post that must be real because it is no one special (I am a black man, I work at Best Buy).

true... kind of like when people claim to have been reincarnated it's always Cleopatra or someone interesting. It's never a shop keeper from the 1400s.

I was a farmer in 1013.

There is a lot of viral marketing on reddit.

true. Want to hear about my watch collection business? :P

Some people cannot make the argument for themselves or to their friends so they ask for insight, what is wrong with that?

nothing at all. It's just if they're making it up in the first place.

It's a karma collecting hivemind.

This is why r/trees is the only reliable subreddit.

You know that there's never a conspiracy there.

truth

Not to mention [find cool picture on the intertubes or take one yourself] - post it as: "Look what my friend did...", "My girlfriend made this for me..." etc.

Exactly. The other trend, which may be falling out of favor is the, "My post with bad grammar will catch your attention" trick. No idea why those gravitate to the top- something to do with human nature.

Damn it, I'm sick to death of this whole cynical "everything on Reddit must be fake" hivemind bullshit. Not only that, but I'm not sure why the fuck I'm subscribed to this subreddit anyway. I'm off to /r/conspiratard.

I'm sick of all the pictures titled "look what my dad tried to do" or something similar. The poster did it themselves, took a picture, and lied to get some karma. I see them on the front page every day.

YES!!! Completely agree.

I've no evidence, but I cannot un-suspect now.

Does it really matter? Maybe the post may not be real, but those could be real situations people could be going through but dont want to out themselves out there by post their problems. And maybe they are helped by reading the comments knowing that there is support out there.

If you dont think its real than dont comment it, dont upvote, dont down vote just let it be. But if think you can help a person than you should.

Oh my god, when I clicked on this link my computer froze for several minutes! Someone doesn't want us to read it!

that's just reddit being reddit.

<reasonable_thought part_of_conspiracy="?"> just a thought, but what if that observation is just the result of an interesting statistical phenomena. instead of assuming the people aren't really posting things or there's a conspiracy, what if we thought of it as a "statistical conspiracy" and searched for the cause/source. that sort of understanding might be worth something to us (or at least be interesting). </reasonable_thought>

<paranoia>or maybe we're being gamed!!</paranoia>

Of course, maybe someone can show me a model depicting it but: the accounts on a website share an inverse relationship with the quality of said site.

Majority: Yes.

Growing: No.

Sorry, that's just doing too much. I'm as much of a conspiracy nut as anyone, but no. If anything, this is just an observation of human nature itself. The same shit happens in real life. People ask their friends the same questions... "He won't stop beating me. I know I should leave him but I can't. What should I do?" etc. (no offense, example only). Ever heard of Occam's Razor?

Obviously, Ockham was illuminati...

DAE think that the people at /r/conspiracy are insane. Really looking at the sensationalist posts (with no proof and lack of credible sources) here makes me believe that the posters here are batshit crazy.

I wouldn't say crazy, but idiots is a safe guess.

I don't subscribe to r/conspiracy, just posted here. Which I guess makes me insane, per your observations. :P

As a former lawyer and son of a pathological liar, you could say that my bullshit detector is pretty good.

In addition, I have studied for obvious reasons the mechanics of lying and deception. Sometimes to unmask liars, sometimes to be a better liar lawyer myself.

When you know the signs, you realize that 95% of the people who are telling a story, like "look, I did something awesome today" or "guess what I witnessed" are lying.

It's sad, really. Especially for the thousands of redditors who jump on the wagon.

Isn't it possible that these fake posts are just a by product of want to earn karma or troll this site? I mean, those need jerk posts seem to be written by someone who does copyright as in write advertisements to grab the audiences attention and further read their post.

I'm sure if we learn to write post titles like this on /r/conspiracy, we can grab a huger audience in this subreddit...probably...

and not only that, Reddit promotes certain posts over others. I think they have a circle of people who they promote and if you aren't inside it, forget about it. I'm outside the loop and it doesn't matter what I post, it won't get promoted.

I'm outside the loop... and this appears to have made it to the front page. :P I feel like an attention whore. Wish there was a way to transfer the post to someone who wants it!

I was here when Reddit was a bit smaller. The comments would be so retarded like "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah " and then the next person would be like "Zip-A-Dee-A" and then of course the next "My oh my what a wonderful day"

There's a certain type of person who is suspicious of everything and you, my friend, are almost certainly of that type. That's why you hang out in a place like this.

People of your type can never be dissuaded from this view because anyone attempting to do so is obviously part of a conspiracy.

The truth is in the real world there are fake stories and there are real stories and I suspect Reddit reflects that by having both kinds.

Who are you and why are you still following me!!?

Incidentally, I'm not subscribed to r/conspiracy. I just submitted to it since my proposition was based on a hunch and wouldn't survive the scrutiny of other sub reddits.

In that case I withdraw my suggestion. You're a regular guy. Just like me.

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I do this all the time! I'm part of the problem.

so? who cares? downvote if you don't like it.

It's difficult to discern... I do genuinely care about people who have a real problem. I just feel like it's too frequent and too similar for them all to be real.

I'm sure a lot of them are fake. They're still fun to read sometimes you must admit. I enjoy the witty humor that I run into on reddit.

that's a good take on it.

Of course, not only that but there are legions of 'cleverbot' type scripts trolling the Internet forums like reddit and elsewhere pretending to be people and inspiring stupidity within our more impressionable classmates, and wasting time of people that have something important to say.

true... kind of like when people claim to have been reincarnated it's always Cleopatra or someone interesting. It's never a shop keeper from the 1400s.