In what I think is a strange twist, I think r/conspiracy is now reporting accurate numbers. That is, 2.1M members and <500 online at any given time. I think that may be real.
There were times in the recent past when in the middle of the night for the US, it would report 70K active users. I never thought that was real, but neither did I think it was bots upvoting and downvoting according to the Establishment. Then and now, a highly upvoted post will only get 2K or so.
Yeah, sad to see. It still looks active but a ton of the posts (I'd say 30-40%) are from a certain new type of astroturf account.
It's very thinly disguised post after post from the same handful of users with "Israel sucks... just like Trump", and "Hillary sucks... just like Trump", and "The WEF sucks... just like Trump". Not quite that bad but not much more sophisticated. Half of it we all know already so it does no more damage, and half is what we're supposed to swallow along with the bait.
In what I think is a strange twist, I think r/conspiracy is now reporting accurate numbers. That is, 2.1M members and <500 online at any given time. I think that may be real.
There were times in the recent past when in the middle of the night for the US, it would report 70K active users. I never thought that was real, but neither did I think it was bots upvoting and downvoting according to the Establishment. Then and now, a highly upvoted post will only get 2K or so.
I guess a good number of those accounts are inactive or completely dead.
Yeah, sad to see. It still looks active but a ton of the posts (I'd say 30-40%) are from a certain new type of astroturf account.
It's very thinly disguised post after post from the same handful of users with "Israel sucks... just like Trump", and "Hillary sucks... just like Trump", and "The WEF sucks... just like Trump". Not quite that bad but not much more sophisticated. Half of it we all know already so it does no more damage, and half is what we're supposed to swallow along with the bait.
Also the throwaways. The old accounts are suspended...now it's hard to comment as a returning user...so they won't grow either.
That used to be the only place I went. Now I don't go. At all.