5 ms·

I did some digging, and your evidence of "obvious pro-Hillary botting" (your [2] above) is an alt-right photoshop. They couldn't find any real evidence of this

I did some digging, and your evidence of "obvious pro-Hillary botting" (your [2] above) is an alt-right photoshop. They couldn't find any real evidence of this happening, so they fabricated their own. Here's how. The William_Trevino post is a real post on Reddit that was used as a template: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=author%3AWilliam_Trevino https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=author%3AWilliam_... But all the other "FirstName_LastName" entries were edited in by the creator of the image. Unlike William_Trevino's entry, they have no associated Reddit post. You can try to find users by those names or posts with those entries' title, but they don't exist. - https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=author%3AHoward_Lowery&sort=relevance&t=all https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=author%3AHoward_L... - https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=author%3ATerry_Moore&sort=relevance&t=all https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=author%3ATerry_Mo... etc. I've gone ahead and flagged you for posting a completely deceptive photoshop of the truth. Please make an effort to fact-check yourself next time.

pentagonpapers 9y ago
Is it possible that those users were deleted after this was revealed?
- etjossem 9y ago
  Nope. The fake entries added by the photoshopper don't even produce any associated posts in title search results [1]. If they were real posts from a deleted user, they'd still appear in title queries with [deleted] as their author. [2] It's a photoshop and you've been lied to. I hope this teaches you to think more critically about things, especially when they're what you want to believe. Thanks for playing. [1] https://www.reddit.com/search?q=title%3APaul+Ryan+Sides+with+the+Khans&restrict_sr=&sort=relevance&t=all https://www.reddit.com/search?q=title%3APaul+Ryan+Sides+with... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/18ejnd/are_old_posts_under_a_deleted_account_no_longer/c8e324r/ https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/18ejnd/are_old_posts_...
- Karunamon 9y ago
  That appears to be what has happened. Contrary to etjossem's post, Google still has the history of their posts. howard_lowery: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8e2/paul_ryan_sides_with_the_khans_vs_trump/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8e2/paul_ryan_... john_valtierra: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm7zz/could_sputtering_us_economy_torpedo_clinton/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm7zz/could_sput... frank_calder: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm88x/donald_trump_says_he_was_being_sarcastic_about/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm88x/donald_tru... terry_moore: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm79m/khizr_khan_calls_donald_trump_a_black_soul/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm79m/khizr_khan... carlos_liu: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8xn/donald_trump_is_guaranteed_to_win_as_top_joke/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8xn/donald_tru... All appear to be single-purpose accounts that only posted in /r/politics, all are currently banned or deleted.
  - etjossem 9y ago
    Okay - you're right. I'm surprised none of those show up in a title search. Reddit's search feature must be broken, because title queries are supposed to show even if the author is deleted. So it looks like someone did make super obvious sockpuppets that posted some pro-Democrat content once. I still don't think you can generalize that to a trend - certainly nothing on the order of the Russian bots. If anything, /r/politics had a reputation at the time of being extremely favorable to conservatives.
Karunamon 9y ago
Your methodology is flawed. I just searched my own Reddit account which I deleted early 2015, which was around for five years and had thousands of comments and 100ish posts, and it identically returns no results of any kind. https://www.reddit.com/search?q=author%3A+Karunamon&sort=relevance&t=all https://www.reddit.com/search?q=author%3A+Karunamon&sort=rel... Now, if we take the same search to Google, you see [deleted] posts by me, and posts that reference my name: https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=cnF7WqfTHI7ctQXJtZy4BA&q=site%3A+reddit.com+%2Fu%2Fkarunamon&oq=site%3A+reddit.com+%2Fu%2Fkarunamon&gs_l=psy-ab.3..35i39k1.2138.5842.0.5895.30.20.0.0.0.0.257.2669.0j8j6.14.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..16.14.2666.0..0j0i67k1j0i20i264k1j0i20i263i264k1j0i131k1j0i131i20i263k1j0i20i263k1j0i22i30k1j0i22i10i30k1.0.cs31eVzNiPE https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=cnF7WqfTHI7ctQXJt... If we grab a random account from that image, say frank_calder, we get results: https://www.google.com/search?ei=n3F7WqD7E8W2sAXu1ZzIBg&q=site%3A+reddit.com+%22frank_calder%22&oq=site%3A+reddit.com+%22frank_calder%22&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i160k1.1527.2633.0.2807.6.6.0.0.0.0.164.527.4j1.5.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..1.1.163....0.o9sdJy6fqdc https://www.google.com/search?ei=n3F7WqD7E8W2sAXu1ZzIBg&q=si... Including one that calls out the botted nature of that account by name: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/4vsk1e/a_tour_of_academia/d619sbx/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/4vsk1e/a_tour_of_ac... And with some more digging, we can turn up their actual posts: howard_lowery: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8e2/paul_ryan_sides_with_the_khans_vs_trump/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8e2/paul_ryan_... john_valtierra: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm7zz/could_sputtering_us_economy_torpedo_clinton/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm7zz/could_sput... frank_calder: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm88x/donald_trump_says_he_was_being_sarcastic_about/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm88x/donald_tru... terry_moore: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm79m/khizr_khan_calls_donald_trump_a_black_soul/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm79m/khizr_khan... carlos_liu: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8xn/donald_trump_is_guaranteed_to_win_as_top_joke/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8xn/donald_tru... Reddit's search is and always has been awful. This accounts for every user called out on that image. I'd thank you not to call me a liar in the future. I've gone ahead and not flagged you because I don't abuse the flag feature against people who make mistakes, given your utterly baseless and easily disproved assertion that those accounts were photoshopped onto this image.

pentagonpapers 9y ago

Is it possible that those users were deleted after this was revealed?

etjossem 9y ago
Nope. The fake entries added by the photoshopper don't even produce any associated posts in title search results [1]. If they were real posts from a deleted user, they'd still appear in title queries with [deleted] as their author. [2] It's a photoshop and you've been lied to. I hope this teaches you to think more critically about things, especially when they're what you want to believe. Thanks for playing. [1] https://www.reddit.com/search?q=title%3APaul+Ryan+Sides+with+the+Khans&restrict_sr=&sort=relevance&t=all https://www.reddit.com/search?q=title%3APaul+Ryan+Sides+with... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/18ejnd/are_old_posts_under_a_deleted_account_no_longer/c8e324r/ https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/18ejnd/are_old_posts_...
Karunamon 9y ago
That appears to be what has happened. Contrary to etjossem's post, Google still has the history of their posts. howard_lowery: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8e2/paul_ryan_sides_with_the_khans_vs_trump/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8e2/paul_ryan_... john_valtierra: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm7zz/could_sputtering_us_economy_torpedo_clinton/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm7zz/could_sput... frank_calder: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm88x/donald_trump_says_he_was_being_sarcastic_about/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm88x/donald_tru... terry_moore: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm79m/khizr_khan_calls_donald_trump_a_black_soul/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm79m/khizr_khan... carlos_liu: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8xn/donald_trump_is_guaranteed_to_win_as_top_joke/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8xn/donald_tru... All appear to be single-purpose accounts that only posted in /r/politics, all are currently banned or deleted.
- etjossem 9y ago
  Okay - you're right. I'm surprised none of those show up in a title search. Reddit's search feature must be broken, because title queries are supposed to show even if the author is deleted. So it looks like someone did make super obvious sockpuppets that posted some pro-Democrat content once. I still don't think you can generalize that to a trend - certainly nothing on the order of the Russian bots. If anything, /r/politics had a reputation at the time of being extremely favorable to conservatives.

Karunamon 9y ago

Your methodology is flawed. I just searched my own Reddit account which I deleted early 2015, which was around for five years and had thousands of comments and 100ish posts, and it identically returns no results of any kind. https://www.reddit.com/search?q=author%3A+Karunamon&sort=relevance&t=all https://www.reddit.com/search?q=author%3A+Karunamon&sort=rel... Now, if we take the same search to Google, you see [deleted] posts by me, and posts that reference my name: https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=cnF7WqfTHI7ctQXJtZy4BA&q=site%3A+reddit.com+%2Fu%2Fkarunamon&oq=site%3A+reddit.com+%2Fu%2Fkarunamon&gs_l=psy-ab.3..35i39k1.2138.5842.0.5895.30.20.0.0.0.0.257.2669.0j8j6.14.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..16.14.2666.0..0j0i67k1j0i20i264k1j0i20i263i264k1j0i131k1j0i131i20i263k1j0i20i263k1j0i22i30k1j0i22i10i30k1.0.cs31eVzNiPE https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=cnF7WqfTHI7ctQXJt... If we grab a random account from that image, say frank_calder, we get results: https://www.google.com/search?ei=n3F7WqD7E8W2sAXu1ZzIBg&q=site%3A+reddit.com+%22frank_calder%22&oq=site%3A+reddit.com+%22frank_calder%22&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i160k1.1527.2633.0.2807.6.6.0.0.0.0.164.527.4j1.5.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..1.1.163....0.o9sdJy6fqdc https://www.google.com/search?ei=n3F7WqD7E8W2sAXu1ZzIBg&q=si... Including one that calls out the botted nature of that account by name: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/4vsk1e/a_tour_of_academia/d619sbx/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/4vsk1e/a_tour_of_ac... And with some more digging, we can turn up their actual posts: howard_lowery: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8e2/paul_ryan_sides_with_the_khans_vs_trump/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8e2/paul_ryan_... john_valtierra: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm7zz/could_sputtering_us_economy_torpedo_clinton/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm7zz/could_sput... frank_calder: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm88x/donald_trump_says_he_was_being_sarcastic_about/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm88x/donald_tru... terry_moore: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm79m/khizr_khan_calls_donald_trump_a_black_soul/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm79m/khizr_khan... carlos_liu: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8xn/donald_trump_is_guaranteed_to_win_as_top_joke/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4vm8xn/donald_tru... Reddit's search is and always has been awful. This accounts for every user called out on that image. I'd thank you not to call me a liar in the future. I've gone ahead and not flagged you because I don't abuse the flag feature against people who make mistakes, given your utterly baseless and easily disproved assertion that those accounts were photoshopped onto this image.