Someone posted this over on Reddit right when it happened and I apparently saved it. I’m cleaning out my bookmarks and came across it. I hought you’d like to see why it’s good news that we found Lemmy.
Edit: I took a screenshot in case it gets deleted.
There’s a ton of these accounts. They gather karma with scripts that randomly repost top 100 all time posts on big subs and then delete them so their account looks clean. Then they sell it to ad companies that post client sanctioned posts and comments and get paid based on user engagement with the brand.
Check out r/hailcorporate. A huge portion of Reddit is just guerrilla advertising.
They didn’t even do that though. It was an absolutely brand new 1 karma account that somehow mysteriously didn’t get automodded to hell. Account created 09:00:27 UTC, then Ally Bank comment at 09:11:37 UTC
Wow I guess they’re not even trying to hide it anymore.
They also do it by copying text from comments that are getting upvoted in the same thread and then reposting it higher in the thread so it gets random upvotes. Caught the copy-bots doing it a bunch of times, got tired of reporting them since the reddit admins obviously weren’t interested in combatting the problem even if local moderators were (and I suspect they were in fact helping it along because it aligns with their goals for Reddit).