Tricking Reddit auto downvote system

Hi,

Yes you may be aware, reddit is a smart website. They've got a auto-downvote system whenever they detect that something is not right. Basically, I've written a python script that upvotes my posts, but at some point the script adds a downvote to the upvote. For instance - when I run my script I'm having 12 users upvoting from 4 different linuxes. When you do the math you should get 12 or 13 upvotes and 0 downvotes, after the scripts finish - in my case I have 12 upvotes and 6 downvotes.

Anybody managed to trick the system?

Maybe those 6 downvotes where from real users?

Nope,

They aren't. I've reproduced it several times and I'm sure its from the spam system

Did you try to post something awesome

You made this script. So what. How does that help anybody else on the forum?

nkoleff said:

Nope,

They aren't. I've reproduced it several times and I'm sure its from the spam system

Click to expand...

Still you can't know if they are from real people or not. Actually i always get similar upvotes and downvotes as you mentioned.

I've reproduced it. When I ran the script, it added one upvote and downvote to my link. After that I simply went to a web browser and used the same username which gave me that upvote+downvote and clicked on the up icon to remove my up... and guess what, with the upvote, disappeared one downvote. Then I again clicked on the up icon and I got up and downvote added to my post.

So.. did anyone at least know what is actually trigerring that auto downvote system?

As an experienced custom botter. I can tell you right now your bot is nowhere near complex enough. Reddit has one of the best anti spam mechanisims of all websites. Up there with POF.

They factor in a SHIT TON of data about accounts, you basically need to have XXX near real accounts to trick reddit. And thats just the start. There is a reason there are no reddit bots on the market. The people who have spent hundreds of hours figuring it out will not just sell it for $XXX.

Then you have to overcome the actual users who are THE most anti spam community i have ever known.

You have a long way to go before you trick reddit brother. But if / when you can. Its a fucking gold mine.

(P.s Pls Dont pm me for advice, i spent hundreds of hours figuring it out and its too valuable to give to anyone.)

I appreciate your comment.

First, I'm not going to sell this to anyone, I use it for my personal traffic needs

As you said, reddit is Goldmine when you know how to post there and not get banned.

Second, I have some thoughts and observations on the way the things work.I think the key is in your upvote users - they should look like a real human and not like spammers + some other factors like time between upvotes, IPs and some other stuff.

Yeah, you basically need to emulate every aspect of a real user. think down to details like sign up dates of accounts, amount and frequency of posting to accounts etc etc, they all need to be random for a start.

Question: What about just posting something that the reddit community will up vote? I'm been on reddit for years and just so you know, even the best ranked posts have a ton of down votes. It's just a matter of having more up votes than down votes. I've never seen anything spammy last more than ten minutes on reddit unless it became a joke for the other users. The problem with your bot is that it doesn't take into account exactly how reddit works. If you had a post with a ton of up votes, it would move to the front page of reddit. This means that it would have more visibility and it would be down voted very quickly. If, in theory, you're bot could give you more up votes than the down votes you receive from other users, my guess is that the mods would figure it out pretty fast. The only way around this would be to pay a user to post about your service in a genuine, non-spammy way. Then you could use the bot to increase your up votes, but at the same time, you don't want to over expose your post because reaching the front page would get you showered in down votes. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk about this further.

MrBeastsOnToast said:

As an experienced custom botter. I can tell you right now your bot is nowhere near complex enough. Reddit has one of the best anti spam mechanisims of all websites. Up there with POF.

They factor in a SHIT TON of data about accounts, you basically need to have XXX near real accounts to trick reddit. And thats just the start. There is a reason there are no reddit bots on the market. The people who have spent hundreds of hours figuring it out will not just sell it for $XXX.

Then you have to overcome the actual users who are THE most anti spam community i have ever known.

You have a long way to go before you trick reddit brother. But if / when you can. Its a fucking gold mine.

(P.s Pls Dont pm me for advice, i spent hundreds of hours figuring it out and its too valuable to give to anyone.)

Click to expand...

Do you actually use reddit for advertising this way? Honestly, I can't imagine anything like this working on a large scale.

vote fuzzing. look it up

As Phatzilla said, search 'vote fuzzing' on reddit. Here is my approach, at first i grow up karma few days then I start up-voting, voting with 1 day old accounts with no karma will bring you 1 auto-downvote for each upvote

Sorry to necropost this. Okay, I have been a Redditor for around one year and I can tell you, OP, something I learned from the Reddit system.

If multiple accounts mutually share the same IP address (REGARDLESS of posting activity or total karma) and vote on the same post or comment a downvote or upvote (whichever one is opposite) will be added on top of the second account's vote. For example, let's assume a post has 2 points 100% upvoted. If I upvote a post on my main account and I also downvote it on my side account, it would show 3 points 80%. In other words, your main account upvoting would show 3 points 100%. Then if your side account downvotes, it would not show 2 points 75% but instead would show 3 points 80%. Which means that yes the system does add in an extra vote. Now if I were to use another side account and upvote this again on the same IP address, it would show 3 points 71% upvoted.

Apparently, it does not truly matter how much an account has been upvoting or downvoting each other interactively. Honestly, I tend to use my main account at home IP address while at work I use my side account. I shit-comment/post all the time on my side account and then when I come home, I upvote any comments/posts that my side account got downvoted on. And guess what? They all gained karma 1:1 ratio (except for text submissions lol). I did this vice-versa and it worked fine.

I've done this for around 6 months daily mostly, and the mods still haven't caught me. It may be the way how frequently I post comments on both accounts (emulate 2 different people). I'll try to test something with another dummy that votes both my accounts but use another unique IP address.

Also, I believe the amount of total comment karma DOES influence whether a vote counts or not. I sometimes notice a downvote from a person with a low karma score (idk lower than 30?) that downvote me yet I still didn't lose karma. This shows that new accounts also have a probation of their vote counting or not. I think this happened to my alt account as well in my early days.

Now I'm not sure if there are any Reddit admins that are looking after me but I have not been touched with a single shadowban on either account. Despite many times where my alt and my main shared votes on the same IP address login, we still didn't get hit or warned by a ban.

TLDR: if your vote counts, then you will see a karma gain or loss.