Since 2013 I have been active on Reddit and a couple of marketing forums that were popular at the time. Most of my life I have been making money using only the internet, my computer and knowledge I have acquired online. I have never attended a marketing class and have no degree in marketing but in 5 years and a bit more, I learned how things work.
Data Mining
If you are a freelancer or if you ever looked up job posts online you probably know that this is the most competitive area you can find. It sounds boring and is presented as a job that isn't very interesting because it is repetitive. That is completely true but what people do with that data is what you should be looking at. I had assignments where I went through hundreds of subreddits and collected usernames of active users that shown interest in a certain topic. Fashion is usually the most popular one. They used this data to send messages with links and offers to these users. Oddly enough, this generated sales. Later on, bots and scripts were doing this work so there was no need for data miners on Reddit. Why am I bringing this up? Because the Cambridge - Facebook user data scandal is hot right now and people should know that this isn't an isolated case. Even if Facebook didn't sell user data there would be people lurking in niche groups collecting names and personal info for similar purposes. It was a dick move from Facebook but you can always expect owners of big data to be tempted to sell it. Ads have to be served and there is no better tool for that than data and cookies that you probably never delete from your PC.
Shilling
All of the above is really no big deal once you look at the power of Reddit and public opinion. Shilling has been around for a long time now. If you haven't seen the videos from Point on this topic be sure to check them out.
Buying Reddit upvotes is a real thing and a big online business. You might wonder why would people do such a thing but I can tell you that it is not for karma. Upvotes are used to sway public opinion on Reddit and they are bringing results fast, cheap and easy. It is a completely legal thing to do and websites like this one have been thriving for a long time. One particular case when fake hype and fake upvotes were used massively was when /r/The_Donald was created. "Memming a man into the office" wasn't a thing "the internet" did on its own. The subreddit had to become popular and it did. No one could stop that from happening. Similar things were happening on other social media networks.
In the previous case swaying public opinion was used for political purposes but now cryptocurrencies are next in line. Shilling is almost unnoticeable in the /r/cryptocurrencies subreddit because it is very subtle. I was recently offered a job to maintain over 100 accounts that were active in crypto subreddits. There was a software that allowed easy logging into every account and they were all on different proxy servers. Their comment and post history looks completely normal but once a client comes along (any new upcoming ICO) every account will agree that this new project looks like a good investment. A hundred users agreeing on one thing will bring another thousand investors and this thing spreads like a plague.
The herd mentality works everywhere so why wouldn't it work on Reddit? If you read a comment and don't know exactly how you should feel about it you will look at the upvotes. If they are going up you will agree with the mass, if they are going down you will also downvote or just leave it be, but you will remember that this comment was bad. The same thing happens with posts.
Can I prove any of this? Not really. If I could a lot of other people could and reporting such activity would stop shilling from happening but it is close to impossible. Shills are embedded into our community and there is nothing you can do about them but you should always question everything! Especially if it is crypto related because they follow the money.
The point of this post isn't to expose anyone, the point is that you should start thinking with your own head. No "crypto expert" will make you rich because if he was an expert he would be rolling in money and wouldn't waste time on you. Stop listening to what others think and start researching before you invest in anything. As far as your personal info is concerned... It is as secure as you make it. If you post personal info on social media know that a million other marketers, companies, researchers, and many others have it as well. If you want to keep something private and safe don't share it on the internet...
That would be all for now. This rabbit hole is very deep so I will probably be sharing some more stories along the way. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope it was helpful in any way.
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