I want to highlight another aspect to this that doesn't seem to be mentioned: reddit. We all know about adding "reddit" or "site:reddit.com" as a search term.

I want to highlight another aspect to this that doesn't seem to be mentioned: reddit. We all know about adding "reddit" or "site:reddit.com" as a search term. So does Google. We saw in the recent leaks how Google is increasingly value reddit as a source. Why do we do this? Because it's one of the few remaining places that isn't completely astroturfed. But this is a temporary situation. You can see this on any controversial topic. It is incredibly easyto hijack a subreddit or simply change what bubbles by brigading posts. This can be with real people (usually coordinated via a Discord) or with bots. This is not simply a bot detection problem. It might be viewable as a voting ring problem but I have my doubts. Depending on the size of the subreddit this may only take dozens of people acting in concert. Even larger subreddits may only take a few hundred. But such a group can completely change what posts make it to the top and also what comments on each post make it to the top. My point here is taht many on HN and elsewhere like to bemoan "fake news" on social media, which is a real problem to be sure. But at the same time they will extoll the virtues of reddit. The only difference is they're either unaware of reddit manipulation or it hasn't happened to their favorite subreddits yet.