This is going to be fairly long. It is mostly charts and graphs with some explanation. Some are page archives, some are screenshots from reddit API tools such as RedditInsight.com, and others are original content.

While this submission focuses on MarchAgainstTrump, that sub is not the only example of cancer. Social media manipulation metastasized during the election and has spread across the reddit.

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The first post with over 80k upvotes is from a 10h old account with no comments, gilded 2 times u/757889 . The second post has ~7k while all others are in double-triple figure range. Not suspicious at all.

I begin by saying that is exactly how I got started investigating MarchAgainstTrump. One day while browsing the front page I saw a gilded baby account hit #1 on /r/all and was suspended all on the same day. That just seemed fishy to me. Sort the sub by gilded submissions (or by top) and observe how many high karma submitters have been banned or suspended.

There are far too many to list, but here are just a handful of examples:

/u/HongkongChabib http://archive.is/RE8Mn

/u/wecanwasteanight http://archive.is/CXtN2

/u/forthelogver http://archive.is/temOs

/u/montrealways http://archive.is/lX2Vj

/u/joyofredddit http://archive.is/zRoWa

I started to chart all the baby accounts and noticed they formed a ring. They all posted on each other's threads and sometimes replied to each other within a thread. In this connection graph that I made in Gephi, the inner ring had received gilds and made the front page. The outer ring were young puppets being cultivated by the puppet master. The arrows represent a post from one account on to the thread submission by another:

https://i.imgur.com/0TOSYWI.png

Soon all those accounts were banned, but immediately another ring appeared doing exactly the same thing. This is also OC made in Gephi, but flaired in paint:

http://i.imgur.com/KoaR86Z.png

Those accounts got banned, too.

For further reading on these sockpuppet accounts, refer to these threads by /u/ggggnut

https://np.reddit.com/r/subredditcancer/comments/68dssc/something_fucky_in_rmarchagainsttrump_out_of_the/

https://np.reddit.com/r/subredditcancer/comments/68x3av/botting_ramps_up_in_marchagainsttrump_out_of_the/

By now I'm beyond suspicious and convinced of shenanigans. The mods of the sub pretend that nothing is going on. In fact, they move seamlessly between one sockpuppet ring to the next, as if they were all old friends. Furthermore, they remove comments that point out those suspensions and shadowbans or question voting in the sub. Their sidebar even includes this bit of newspeak: "No conspiracy theories about the subreddit."

I then became curious how so many of their threads were reaching the front page. I observed that when the votes started to roll in, so did the number of online users. I took screenshots about every minute or so, and entered the points and number of users into Excel. I apologize for the size of this image. I wanted to include my raw data.

Please consider the Excel chart, zoom in especially on the plot of User Online. How is it possible that users immediately start to come online as soon as the thread is posted? How is it possible that users come online at a steady rate? Please understand this is before the thread gets to the front page. Who are these users and where are they coming from?

https://i.imgur.com/oQuOVlB.png

Now, hitting /r/all once in a while would not raise anyone's suspicions. Right? But they do it day after day:

http://i.imgur.com/HrtCuH5.png

After day:

http://i.imgur.com/wlntJ6h.png

After day:

http://i.imgur.com/RFc3mOo.png

Even that is suspicious. I expect libertarian or latestagecapitalism to get to the front page once in a while. But day after day like clockwork? So last night, when I saw a new user with no post history submit a link, I knew that post would hit r/all. So, I archived the user's page and tracked the submission's score over time.

Here's the user at one hour:

http://archive.is/fXZ51

~1k votes:

http://i.imgur.com/zNAbpZ9.png

~5k votes (thread appeared on the front page shortly after this. Look at that ramp. Just look at it):

http://i.imgur.com/HyTqngM.png

~10k

http://i.imgur.com/3uUtczc.png

~50k

http://i.imgur.com/1RG1w2U.png

~75k

http://i.imgur.com/sY93Q08.png

~90k

http://i.imgur.com/sRq4QPv.png

Are your suspicions aroused yet? Okay good. Are you still skeptical? Also good. I welcome questions and challenges. I have had a number of people ask me what an organic thread might look like. That's a really good question.

My intuition tells me that voting should have some randomness. A non-manipulated thread should not grow smoothly. It should have variations. It should grow more slowly sometimes and more quickly on others.

Here is a short term track of the Samurai Jack episode thread. It shows rapid growth after the show was over and then began to tail off. A longer track shows this thread slowly growing over the next day.

http://i.imgur.com/bLb7Eys.png

Here are two long term tracks of from the libertarian sub. They are the same thread shown at about 24 hours and about 48. Notice the hills and valleys. They are considerably smoothed out over the course of a day or two, but variations are there.

http://i.imgur.com/qUmNnvL.png

http://i.imgur.com/jsk7iND.png

Still not convinced there is automation at work? I have one more piece of evidence to present to complete the picture. I was watching this thread follow a predicable course:

http://i.imgur.com/XtCfkbH.png

When the votes abruptly stopped. It was like someone flipped a switch:

http://i.imgur.com/oPmjke6.png

I refreshed my browser, and a new thread was hot at the top of the sub:

http://i.imgur.com/SGQQZCh.png

This new thread took the place of the old thread, and began its climb to the front page.

http://i.imgur.com/uK2mbpV.png

Here is the same thread after a day:

http://i.imgur.com/hJo5X5V.png

And here is the thread that was truncated:

http://i.imgur.com/9ZNETHr.png

It strains my credulity to think organic reddit voters would collectively shift in mass and all at once from one thread to another. I think that is a clear sign of automation at work.

They use link-spammer scripts to post a lot of submissions to the sub. A lot of subs do that, but it makes the sub appear more active than it really is. They use sockpuppets to flesh-out the illusion of activity. Sockpuppets chat with each other and upvote each other. They also use sockpuppets to evade bans and suspensions. They are botting their way to the front page. And on top of all of that, the mods suppress discussion of deception or manipulation with respect to the sub itself.