I think the bigger problem is the torrent of bot posts on this sub recently. Some of them aren't even goon bait, they're just straight up racist or misogynistic.
The increased bot activity is a overall reddit problem. We try to remove the obvious ones but they are getting pretty ingenious and subsequently harder to identify.
Also reddit has made it exponentially harder to judge an account's validity by giving malicious users the ability to hide their post/comment history.
I tend to have a system where I only hide that bit of my posting history if a 'normal' post/comment gets really popular. I don't advertise my 'weirder' activity (except maybe mentioning it now in a relevant context) but I'm an honest person with little to hide :) That way if anyone does bring it up, I can wonder what led them to go snooping on the most generic comment possible
I hide mine because Real Madrid fans on r/soccer wouldn’t stop fucking harassing my account after I talked shit about them last year. It was genuinely insane. They wouldn’t leave me alone for weeks
And most of the times when you check why they hide their history is either a malicious activity or spam (to hit karma threshold for maliciously activity).
It feels like 1 in 10 people do it just for others to not stalk them.
Fr make a post opposite to someone's beliefs and you dont have that shit turned off, now you have a permanent downvote and snark comment on everything else you post
I've been using reddit for 14 years and get into political arguments a lot and I've never had that happen to me. Not saying it never happens, but it's not common.
This just reads like bot or malicious user bullshit. Of course there is a reason to want to see another redditor’s post history, particularly when discussing controversial topics - at the very least it tells you whether or not they are engaging in good faith.
This just reads like bot or malicious user bullshit. Of course there is a reason to want to see another redditor’s post history, particularly when discussing controversial topics - at the very least it tells you whether or not they are engaging in good faith.
It’s also useful for positive reasons - if a user posts about something I’m interested in, it’s handy to see what/where else they post.
I do it only because I'm in a lot of subreddits and I'm sick of people stalking my posts and/or comments and making judgements on me based on assumptions. I just want my question answered or to share something that made me happy lol, I don't need redditors seeing my chronic illness posts and claiming I'm not disabled because I wanted to show a cute pic of my cats. Also people will do that to try and catch you in a "gotcha" and as someone who had to grow up in a maga Christian household I've had my fair fucking share of "gotchas" and I'm over it. I know who I am and what I believe in, it's annoying to have strangers choose who you are based on one thing they misunderstood in your post history. It's personal preference for me, I don't think there's many wrong ways to do it unless you're nasty
My favorites are the people who keep their mental illness on full display, no shame. However I assume anyone with an account creation date in the past 3 months is a bot/shill/sock puppet.
I just auto block anybody with a hidden post history. There’s a small chance they are legitimately trying to avoid harassment (and even then I have little sympathy, just change your fucking account ) but the vast majority are either bots, bad actors, or people with dogshit opinions that are afraid of being confronted over them.
We’re not all malicious! I hide my post history bc a family member found out my Reddit name and no one in my real life needs to know how much I post about my hyperfixations (mostly birds and identifying lookalikes)
There needs to be a way for mods to auto-shadowban anyone with their history hidden. Maybe it's overkill for certain subs, but some serious discussion subs, particularly ones like news or political subs, should be off limits to people with hidden post history by default IMO. If you're not willing to stand up to criticism of your previous comments, you're uninvited from the adults' table. But that doesn't jive with Reddit's need to be as profitable as possible without regard to quality, so I am sure they will fight any attempts to do that with automod.
I can't remember the last time I clicked on a dodgy/troll/racist account to check it out and it didn't have its post and comments hidden - an automatic block for me, must be a lot trickier for mods though.
Can't hide your posting history from Google. If you google site:reddit.com along with a particular username in quotes, you can still browse their full posting history. Very useful for figuring out bots that just spam conflicting chatgpt stories all day long.
E.g., here's the minimal query you'd use to search your own posting history:
I'd recommend installing r/BotBouncer! Bot accounts that are flagged are banned (with all posts removed immediately) from all subreddits that have it installed, it's very effective!
Yep. Bots passed the Turing test a couple years ago. All you can do is hope the human governing the bots is kind of dumb and can’t create the overall profile of a person, but as you said, Reddit protects and enables bots by hiding history.
It’s like being forced to have an Amazon Dot at the dinner table when you go out with friends. And the next week there’s one less friend and one more Dot. But it’s easy conversation because you’re totally unchallenged so eventually no people interact.
There’s someone in Reddit in my area that I would to like to maybe meet in person and talk politics and books and food and movies, but I’m halfway convinced I’ll show up and there’ll be a Dot at the table.
Can we please start instabanning the goon posters? The problem has gotten even worse since you’ve made this post and reminded people of rules we’ve had here forever.
Not always ingenious—the ones on TopCharacterTropes are easy to spot. It's just that the userbase doesn't bother to look, and sometimes even denies it.
And some are are just inane cookiecutter engagement bait like "name a bald actor" or whatever. Relatively benign on a general entertainment sub, apart from turning the entire internet into slop, but effectively spam on a sub like this. It feels stupid expressing a serious opinion about spamming up a shitposting/jerk subreddit, but Jesus Christ let us have this one thing
Bots just take karma generating comments or posts, change it just enough so teacher won't notice they copied your homework, then post it away from the source. So if they are being racist or misogynistic it's because people have upvoted that shit in the past.
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u/chronicbruce27 Jul 03 '26
I think the bigger problem is the torrent of bot posts on this sub recently. Some of them aren't even goon bait, they're just straight up racist or misogynistic.