User visits and time spent on the social media platform normalize after traffic to Reddit briefly dipped last week during the blackout, according to SimilarWeb.
Using bots to replace users-lost-to-protest has always been the goal. All that matters is that the numbers go up.
This is good for the sale (IPO).
Twitter had the same plan–keep counting bots. Elon (or some advisor on his team), rightfully argued this point and eventually it lead to a lawsuit, that was then settled out of court.
Google and facebook have been selling “ad impressions” of questionable human-ness for decades. None of these sites have any real incentive to find out how many bots are on their platform.
When Reddit protests were at its height, posts to the site dropped by only 20%. Who is doing the majority of the posting?
I am sure some of it is spam bots. But also - a big value of Reddit is indeed in the long tail of niche communities. Many did not join the protest.
Using bots to replace users-lost-to-protest has always been the goal. All that matters is that the numbers go up.
This is good for the sale (IPO).
Twitter had the same plan–keep counting bots. Elon (or some advisor on his team), rightfully argued this point and eventually it lead to a lawsuit, that was then settled out of court.
Google and facebook have been selling “ad impressions” of questionable human-ness for decades. None of these sites have any real incentive to find out how many bots are on their platform.