[dchung333]

The thing about this is that it tells us a lot more about what media companies do online I wouldn't be surprised if most social interaction on various reddit forums are controlled by these companies after reading this. From the article.

"On Wednesday, Rolling Stone reported that in at least six instances between June 2020 and April 2021, Bloys and Kathleen McCaffrey, HBO’s senior vice president of drama programming, discussed using a “secret army” to respond to TV critics on social media and anonymous posters "

[rcarr]

Conde Nast owns Reddit, it's so obvious that most of the posts that make it to the front page are disguised ads for the media giants e.g memes featuring characters or actors for whatever show or book that's doing the rounds

[lotsofpulp]

Advance Publications owns Reddit (and Condé Nast), and has interested in many other media businesses such as WarnerBros Discovery (which sells MAX, formerly known as HBO).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Publications

[iAMkenough]

While this is a good introduction to what's been going on, astroturfing has a long documented history on Reddit.

Edit: Not a media company, but someone else with money that wanted to influence public opinion on social media: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/04/whos-behind-the-reopen-d...

[simmerup]

It's gunna get worse when they try and use AIs to control the narrative.

[lotsofpulp]

I assume it is already in use, at least by workers shilling for the business if not directly by bots.