[ok123456]

I'm amused by how over the top it always is. A high-scoring submission on my local Reddit gets maybe +70 votes. Then, some random political-related submission —and it's only ever political-related—will have +2000 votes. They're so overt that they don't even care.

[hackyhacky]

Why is that a sign of astroturfing? More likely, there are more people who read (and upvote) posts on the default subs, than niche local subs.

[parineum]

He's talking about a politics related post in a niche sub.

[therealdrag0]

Why is it a sign of astroturfing and not just hyper political climate?

[ok123456]

Well, if broadly popular organic posts net about 100, I would expect organic partisan posts to have a ceiling of +50. Still, more realistically, the net would be about zero because half the people would downvote them.

But, somehow, partisan posts in one direction always seem to net over 1000 or 2000, yet partisan posts in the other direction net about zero.

Even with a skewed distribution, I would only expect maybe +20 to be the ceiling.

[hackyhacky]

> the net would be about zero because half the people would downvote them.

Why would you assume that? It's a fallacy to assume that political opinions are evenly distributed. People seem to agree that different sites attract people of different political persuasions. A post that gets highly upvoted on Truth Social might get highly downvoted on Reddit, and vice versa. That's not astroturfing, that's just self-selecting communities.

> partisan posts in one direction always seem to net over 1000 or 2000, yet partisan posts in the other direction net about zero.

Again, it depends on the audience. This is not a new phenomenon. 50 years ago, you would get a different response to certain political statements depending on whether you made them at a Grateful Dead Concert or at a meeting of the Fraternal Order of Police. Why should today be different?

> I would only expect maybe +20 to be the ceiling.

Why? People feel strongly about their political believes. It's polarizing and engaging in a way that a post about crockpots or guitar strings isn't.

[jhp123]

If a submission appeals to random people browsing r/all, i.e. politics, sex or memes, then it can get way more upvotes than a niche topical submission.

For example one of the top r/aviation posts is a meme about airbuses with "slutty eyeliner" (87k points), and it far outpaces shop talk type submissions like "why does the landing gear not get retracted at the same time on this 777?" (2k points)

[ok123456]

Posts from a regional subreddit, where world events seldom happen and traffic and roadways are the prime topics of conversation, are not making it to /r/all or the front page.

Yet political posts get +2000 out of nowhere and an influx of commentators who don't usually comment in that regional subreddit or don't even likely live there.

[jhp123]

You're incorrect, this is the normal way that the reddit algorithm functions, it promotes highly-engaging content from niche subreddits.

The top post of all time on r/toledo is about a police officer harassing a woman. It's highly engaging but not overtly political. It has 100x the upvotes of a normal r/toledo post about traffic or what have you.

One of the top posts of all time in r/sanjose is a video of someone trying to jimmy a hotel door open using a hook contraption. Highly engaging, not overtly political.

These were the first two city subreddits I checked. It's literally just how reddit works, highly engaging content bubbles to the top and can reach a much larger audience.

[ok123456]

Why does it ONLY happen to political posts, and why does it ONLY happen to posts that reinforce a particular viewpoint?

Either this is the design of the black box "algorithm," or it's not real engagement. There's no need to miscorrect me about something so hamfisted and overt.