# Why reddit spam? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [August 23, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570 "2015-08-23T00:27:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2015, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/21 "2015-09-12T23:19:11Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > If your business is live streaming sports, why not just advertise or otherwise legitamately promote your site. That way, people who want to go there can. Tricking people to click would seem to be a terrible business model. Most people, I assume, don’t click on random links, and how many cents can each click be worth anyway? If no one wants live steaming football websites, why bother setting up the site? At the risk of besmirching the good name of the spammers, I think it is highly unlikely that they have acquired the legal right to stream live sports. So they likely do not want the paper trail that setting up legitimate advertising would require. Alternatively, maybe there is no live streaming at all and the spammers are just leading you to pages full of ads/scam websites/&c. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2015, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/22 "2015-09-12T23:22:33Z")
I hate to suggest a technological solution to this problem, but it seems to me that a simple two-criteria test would catch 100% of these: 1. Is this the poster’s first post? 2. Is the content of the post one or more links? If both are true, hold for moderation. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/23 "2015-09-13T00:02:38Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > Someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but the broadcast rights to a sportscast belong to either the home team, the network that airs the broadcast, the league, or some combination thereof. So those streams are essentially illegal - advertising openly is bound to call attention to the illegal stream and lead to men in suits asking awkward questions. > > Out of curiosity, are those illegal sports streams filled with viruses and other pitfalls? Or are they generally safe? They are safe and openly tolerated in Europe. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/24 "2015-09-13T00:35:53Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > They are safe and openly tolerated in Europe. It’s spam, and not wanted here. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/25 "2015-09-13T01:23:49Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > No, it goes on all the time. Sometimes it’s Wimbledon, or the US Open, or whatever happens to be going on. It feels like a surge over the last couple of days and I also assumed it was coinciding with the beginning of football. I hope that means it will slow down. > [@beowulff](#): > > I hate to suggest a technological solution to this problem, but it seems to me that a simple two-criteria test would catch 100% of these: > > 1. Is this the poster’s first post? > 2. Is the content of the post one or more links? > > If both are true, hold for moderation. I am no expert on this but there are various techniques used to combat it. We will not discuss those methods in the open. Spammers are also always looking for ways to infiltrate and they develop countermeasures. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/26 "2015-09-13T03:27:03Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Yeah, there’s been a plague of these guys lately. We were a little slow on clean-up this morning. (I guess some of us must have been out partying last night.;)) I just banned seven of them, and I see **Asimovian** got a bunch more. If they’re posted during waking hours, we usually get them with a few minutes, so you don’t see them … > > … At least we seem to be forcing them to put more time into composing each spam message than they were. Would it be more work or less work in the long run for the mods if the registration process had to be manually approved? Something like “please tell us why you’d like to join SDMB in words that are at least semi-intelligent and don’t obviously come from either a bot or a dumbass”. (You might want to phrase it differently ;)). Might improve the quality of the new-joins, too. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/27 "2015-09-13T04:14:28Z")
“Don’t obviously come from either a bot or _ **a dumbass** _?” Are you intending to stop ALL new posters? A regular injection of Misters or Misses Dumas are the lifeblood of some fora. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/28 "2015-09-13T04:31:33Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > I guess that it is to evade any spam filters the SDMB might have. If they directly posted the links, SDMB would quickly filter out any post that contains that domain. **But if they post reddit links, SDMB can’t really block those without blocking all of reddit.** I see no problem with doing that. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/29 "2015-09-13T17:33:59Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > … > I am no expert on this but there are various techniques used to combat it. We will not discuss those methods in the open. Spammers are also always looking for ways to infiltrate and they develop countermeasures. It never occurred to me that the bots suggested in the originating post, and this reply, must be an important and complex area of software design. Imagine how many jokers per minute post spam “references”/“cites” in Wiki–and I’ve never come across one. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/30 "2015-09-13T17:35:21Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Would it be more work or less work in the long run for the mods if the registration process had to be manually approved? Something like “please tell us why you’d like to join SDMB in words that are at least semi-intelligent and don’t obviously come from either a bot or a dumbass”. (You might want to phrase it differently ;)). Might improve the quality of the new-joins, too. 🙂 Bad move, IMHO. But deserves separate ATMB thread. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/31 "2015-09-13T17:37:42Z")
It usually at least filters out bots when you make people who register answer a dumb question like “what is the sum of 2 and 3?” or “what color was Washington’s white horse?” It won’t stop the manual spammers, though. Unless they’re really dumb, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/32 "2015-09-13T18:10:06Z")
Questions like that don’t work too well-- If you have a small number of them, then a human can just go through and answer all of them for the bot, paving the way for an arbitrarily-large number of bots to get through. And if you have enough question-answer pairs to thwart that, then you end up doing more work than the spammers. > [@](#): > > Quoth **Dewey Finn** : > > So why don’t they just copy the same links from the Reddit posts when they post here? Why link to Reddit? And does Reddit not delete the spam posts? Reddit is set up with very little overarching authority. Pretty much anyone can create their own sub-reddit, and then that sub-redditor is responsible for maintaining whatever standards they choose to maintain. The sub-reddits in question here are probably owned by the spammers themselves, who thus have no problem allowing the spam (and in fact, probably don’t allow anything else). ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/33 "2015-09-13T19:04:26Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > At the risk of besmirching the good name of the spammers, I think it is highly unlikely that they have acquired the legal right to stream live sports. So they likely do not want the paper trail that setting up legitimate advertising would require. > > Alternatively, maybe there is no live streaming at all and the spammers are just leading you to pages full of ads/scam websites/&c. Ok. Makes sense. But are they going to make any money with misleading thread titles on the SDMB? If I wanted live streaming, that’s now how I’d get to their site. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/34 "2015-09-13T19:22:18Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Ok. Makes sense. But are they going to make any money with misleading thread titles on the SDMB? If I wanted live streaming, that’s now how I’d get to their site. The whole point is to blend in. Make it look like a legitimate thread. Of course, misspelling and awkward English defeats the purpose. :ETA: Also intending to beat spam filters. Hence the copy/paste of previous thread titles. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/35 "2015-09-13T19:35:35Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > At the risk of besmirching the good name of the spammers, I think it is highly unlikely that they have acquired the legal right to stream live sports. So they likely do not want the paper trail that setting up legitimate advertising would require. > > Alternatively, maybe there is no live streaming at all and the spammers are just leading you to pages full of ads/scam websites/&c. > [@Procrustus](#): > > Ok. Makes sense. But are they going to make any money with misleading thread titles on the SDMB? If I wanted live streaming, that’s now how I’d get to their site. > [@running\_coach](#): > > The whole point is to blend in. Make it look like a legitimate thread. > Of course, misspelling and awkward English defeats the purpose. > :ETA: Also intending to beat spam filters. > Hence the copy/paste of previous thread titles. Most of these spammers are people in Bangladesh, India, Russian Federation, Philippines who possibly get paid $1-$5/day to do this. Very cost effective for the website owners trying to drive traffic to their sites. ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/36 "2015-09-13T23:03:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Reddit is set up with very little overarching authority. Pretty much anyone can create their own sub-reddit, and then that sub-redditor is responsible for maintaining whatever standards they choose to maintain. The sub-reddits in question here are probably owned by the spammers themselves, who thus have no problem allowing the spam (and in fact, probably don’t allow anything else). I followed one link before it got nuked–the spammer thread was part of a legitimate subreddit. The user had already been banned, and if you went to the subreddit itself you could no longer find the thread. So it looks like when Reddit mods nuke a user/thread, it may vanish from the subreddit, but it is still reachable via direct link. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2015, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/37 "2015-09-14T00:24:24Z")
> [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](#): > > On the spammer topic - Often (usually?), the OP is edited. I assume they are trying to evade some filter or verify that they can post or something. > > What do they put in the original message, before the edit? Interesting question, me, from yesterday! 🙂 Anyone have any idea? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2015, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/38 "2015-09-14T00:35:02Z")
> [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](#): > > Interesting question, me, from yesterday! 🙂 > Anyone have any idea? It’s almost always the text that will be used for the link. You have to catch it in the first minute or so, they post then immediately edit. Wild guess is that sites that don’t allow links for the first few posts will allow a link to be edited in. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2015, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/39 "2015-09-14T00:52:33Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > It’s almost always the text that will be used for the link. > > You have to catch it in the first minute or so, they post then immediately edit. > Wild guess is that sites that don’t allow links for the first few posts will allow a link to be edited in. Yes, basically it’s just the thread (and post) title. They then edit it to post the links in order to evade filters. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2015, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570/40 "2015-09-14T02:34:17Z")
Thank you, both! Now I can rest in peace. By which, of course, I mean I can get a good night’s sleep. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-reddit-spam/728570.md?page=3)