[Darth-Apple]

Reddit recently changed the behavior of how their blocking system is managed, and it's resulted in some strange behavior from certain accounts. If a user blocks you, you will now be unable to reply to any of their replies to your comments, and neither will you be able to reply to any replies of replies either (even if the person you are replying to wasn't the person who blocked you). It basically prevents you from seeing much of the thread and prevents you from responding to any of it. 

At first glance, this makes sense. If a user blocks you, why would you want to reply to it? But some users have apparently figured out how to take advantage of it by posting information that is objectively controversial and easily disproven, and then by blocking the accounts of those who reply. In some cases, they are doing it at the post level, preventing many from being able to reply (or to even see the responses), and thereby manipulating public perception in the post. It makes it appear as though their opinions are more widely held than they actually are, and prevents users who might offer rebuttals from participating.

I've seen it crop up more often lately, and it's usually from troll accounts that post blatantly disprovable information (or sometimes spread FUD based on false premises about a specific person or company). There isn't really much you can do when it happens because it's generally not obvious to the onlooker what has happened (unless folks who replied before getting blocked edit their posts to inform readers about what has occured).

Apparently some folks on Reddit noticed as well, and what's scary is that there is nothing stopping dodgy PR firms from doing the same thing (and effectively manipulating public perception to be different than it actually is.)

[SpookyZalost]

I mean... this is nothing new. unfortunately with any social platform there will be groups taking advantage of loopholes like this... it's how certain groups tried to manipulate the last two elections.

[Darth-Apple]

Yea, you're definitely right about that. Bots have been a problem for a while as well. Reddit has a lot of them, and Twitter has been absolutely rife with them for years. (To Twitter's credit, they're at least making substantial efforts to tackle the problem head on. Still way too many of them, but it at least seems to be improving.)

It's scary how much public perception can be manipulated online. I suppose this is nothing new, this sort of thing has happened for a while (even long before the internet, just in other ways through the different media and information outlets of the time).