I have uncovered a large number of accounts engaged in signal boosting various political messages on Reddit. I am but one lonely pede and am in need of help to gather information on them.
Here is my current list, it grows by the minute as I research: https://pastebin.com/Ary9PDsc
All accounts have no verified email. Many are created within the past month, most within the past week. They like to start by posting a comment in r/memes or to self. The comments are often reused/repeated. Some of the self posts are in Russian, some comments are defending China.
Who can help me with this? Groups/people?
Nice job gathering that data. Pretty clearly they have it automated for sure, so there's some script running bot. In the scraped list, notice the recurring name data format: string followed by 3 or 4 digits, commonly having a 1 and a 7.
It seems like this is run by a nation-state.
I wish Reddit had some AI that looks at new accounts, compares content with other new accounts, and if it finds exact duplication, it could block the content.
Now notice our Available_Union_1603's data format...
Maybe .win here could have a policy allowing new accounts to 'ripen and age' a bit before they get to leave posts. Perhaps that could cut down accounts made specifically to troll other people's posts.
My thanks to you mods for being diligent and active. It really helps keep the quality up here.
Reddit's only job is to push communist propaganda into the heads of the world's stupidest people.
Yeah, the naming scheme was the first odd thing I noticed and then the self posts. I know some groups use automation tools and they occasionally freak out and self post instead of to a specific sub.
The sheer volume of accounts led me to believe it was either state sponsored or a hired troll farm.
Using AutoModerator on reddit you can weed out new accounts with low karma and no email address. I'm sure they'd take notice and change their tactics, however. Another thing I saw was most of the accounts seem to get abandoned after 1 or 2 actual comments.
I see what you mean too about activity right here in this thread. I was told they likely operate here as well and that seems to be the case. BlindingTwiliight is also heavily actioned against. Mods are doing a good job.