“Work on Reddit is very sensitive, and requires hiring of Reddit users with aged accounts who have good standing in the community. "We do have a few existing users on staff, but for each campaign we create a custom roadmap and staff it accordingly, as unless the comments come from authentic users with an active standing in the community in question they will immediately be called out - and that has the opposite effect of damaging your reputation. Our success at shifting the conversation depends heavily on who we find and vet for the process.” The agency’s representative continued to tell me the extent of their work. “I have worked over 100 of these kinds of campaigns and never had it come back on the client. I've been doing viral marketing and reputation management since 2005. =In the past year I've worked for a major entertainment network to magnify a rumor within sports entertainment, as well as damage control on a rumor that came out of an actor being hired on a film before the production company was ready to announce that casting.” Shilling services from an online marketing agency. Image credit: Jay McGregor Shilling services from an online marketing agency. Image credit: Jay McGregor To get a better picture of the extent of the problem, I spoke to with two influential Reddit moderators who are the site’s first line of defence against malicious use of Reddit. Robert Allam, who moderates 70 subreddits, and English06 (he didn’t want to reveal his real name), who moderates the influential r/politics sub, had strong opinions on shilling. Check out my interview with Reddit's most (in)famous user, Gallowboob Both agreed that the issue is apparent and that they could do with more tools to stave off the onslaught of fake comments. At the moment, they can only tell if a post isn’t genuine by the user’s account history; how old it is and how much karma it has (Reddit’s point system where users are rewarded for posting content). If an account has good karma and is relatively old, then it “immediately rules out a lot of suspicions” Engish06 told me. But this isn’t an effective way of spotting fakers. The agencies I spoke with explicitly talked about using aged accounts, and when I spoke with an account dealer late last year, he sent spreadsheets of usernames for sale of various ages. Reddit accounts for sale. Image credit: Jay McGregor Reddit accounts for sale. Image credit: Jay McGregor English06 - who compares the moderator role to being a forum janitor - explained that to properly solve the problem, the volunteer moderators need more tools, or admins (Reddit staff) need to step in more. “I think we're doing the best we can with the tools we have available. We're able to look at user history and stuff and determine a lot of it but as far as doing it on a larger- I mean, politics is the second busiest subreddit behind The Donald on Reddit. There's a lot going on. "There's always something to be done on the politics subreddit. And it's just, there's just a lot of volume. As far as stopping everything, there's nothing the moderators will ever be able to do. We can only see the user history. That's going to have to come from the admin side of things. There's just nothing we can do.” It’s not uncommon, too, for moderators to be targeted by companies that want to manipulate influential subreddits. “You can make money off Reddit. I've gotten a lot of offers to try and plug products, just make a gif out of a video, plug it, try to link stuff, some articles, some shady articles that just- they're like, yeah, if I send you an article could you post it?” Allam explained. He continued “there was a Chinese company that wanted to send me a drone and something else, some gadget, and for me to film it and post it for money but then- I don't know how to film stuff. I'm not interested in promoting products like that because I'm not a producer, what the hell am I going to do? How is that fun? Even if I did, it would kill my whole presence on Reddit.” Allam, who works for a viral video company, has had to make it clear to his employers that wouldn’t consider using his position to promote their videos, despite being asked. “I have everything to lose. And if I lose everything, it's just not worth it for what? More money? Obviously, if they paid me, like, $5,000,000 to post something, fuck yeah I'm posting that but, you know what I mean, for a salary, what? Am I going to shill my account on Reddit? It's personal, I enjoy it, it's how I made a name for myself and I do take a weird pride in it.” Clearly, Reddit is being manipulated and gamed on a wide scale by companies who want to promote a specific cause, product or politician. This isn’t just a fake news problem, it’s a fake conversations problem. If fake news can be solved with fact-checking, how can fake conversations be stopped when the commenter isn’t interested in anything other than debating you into submission? The wider implications of are damaging too. Non-engaged users (those who read but don’t comment) are often swayed by the overall tone of the conversation. I presented Reddit with my findings and asked it if it’s doing enough to combat fake comments, threads and upvotes. But in a bizarre response, the company’s representative - Anna Soellner - didn’t bother to address any of these questions, instead providing a statement that seemed to be a response to my previous story. “In order to write your story, you and your co-author engaged in multiple levels of impersonation, violating the terms of service of Reddit. Our users recognized the stories you posted as fake and community moderators removed the links in a very short time frame. We are continuously working with our users and moderators to ensure the integrity of our site to promote genuine conversation.” Soellner said. Whilst I didn’t manage to get these agencies to spill the specific campaigns and companies they’ve worked with, scanning Reddit’s HailCorporate thread reveals some very suspect posts. This thread about Red Bull, in particular, looks like clear marketing. It was eventually deleted and the user account was removed once it was called out as marketing. Alleged Red Bull marketing. Image credit: Jay McGregor Alleged Red Bull marketing. Image credit: Jay McGregor The ubiquity of Reddit manipulation, and the ease with which anyone can employ these agencies - or even tactics - should be of concern to millions of Reddit users. Genuine, real user-generated content is key to Reddit’s success. Without the assurance of that authenticity, it makes it hard to take anything on Reddit - and indeed any other popular forum - seriously. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length. Jay McGregor is the editor-in-chief of the YouTube channel, Point. He also reports for The Guardian,

edit: removed fb link at the end