A Reddit bot drove me insane

Perceived bot takeover / “Dead Internet” vibe

• Many commenters feel large platforms (especially Reddit, Twitter/X) are now dominated by bots, LLM-written posts, affiliate spam, and engagement farming.
• The “Dead Internet theory” is repeatedly referenced: much online activity is seen as bots talking to bots, with humans as collateral.
• Some say they can now “hear” LLM cadence and see AI tells; others caution that people over-attribute disliked content to AI or shills.
• Several note that even if posts aren’t AI-generated, they’re often recycled, plagiarized, or follow tight engagement scripts.

Reddit’s decline: moderation, bans, and enshittification

• Long‑time users describe sudden, unexplained account bans with little or no recourse; past appeals now get automated denials.
• Moderation is viewed as a major weak point: unpaid, anonymous mods are seen as power‑tripping, ideologically biased, or targets for capture.
• Some argue Reddit’s algorithm no longer surfaces by upvotes but by outrage and engagement, producing political ragebait and “AITA‑style” slop.
• The API shutdown is cited as an inflection point: loss of third‑party clients, exodus of mods/power users, and rapid quality decline.

Astroturfing, propaganda, and echo chambers

• Many report heavy political astroturfing, especially in local subreddits: abrupt ideological swings, scripted talking points, and suspiciously high vote counts.
• Others counter that much of what’s called astroturfing is just Reddit’s demographic skew and hive‑mind dynamics amplified by voting.
• There are detailed anecdotes of coordinated vote‑gaming (e.g., stickied posts, flaired‑only threads) and of professional “reputation management” operations with fake personas.
• Some link this to broader state and corporate “cyber troop” efforts and note that governments rarely level with the public about scale.

Coping strategies and alternatives

• Common responses: quit Reddit, delete social apps, or consciously treat them as addictive substances to be replaced with “less harmful” sites.
• Many retreat to smaller, topic‑specific forums, Discords, BBS‑style communities, or in‑person meetups; old‑school forums are praised for depth and continuity.
• Tactics for making Reddit barely usable: old.reddit.com, Reddit Enhancement Suite, aggressive filters and uBlock rules, strict subreddit curation.
• Some foresee pay-to-use or “verified human” models as future anti‑bot strategies; others think money incentives guarantee ongoing enshittification.

Meta: suspicion about the blog and about HN

• Multiple commenters investigate the blog’s domain registration and sparse history, speculating the author might also be the bot creator or doing performance art.
• Others push back, noting previous domains and migration; still, the ease of spinning up plausible personas deepens distrust.
• HN itself is not seen as immune: people report obvious LLM replies, karma‑farming, and upvote dynamics that can also produce echo chambers, though moderation and niche focus are viewed as partial safeguards.