There was a reddit /r/unpopularopinion thread about 'looking through people's profiles for something to attack them with' recently, but I missed the boat by a few hours, so this seems like a good place to ask folks who do this:

Why do you look through other people's profiles? I just don't understand the appeal in the first place. I like Hacker News' 14 day newbie green text, but even if it didn't exist I have never cared enough about someone's posts to try and gather any kind of intel on them, or see if they are fresh accounts, or what have you. The only time I've used people's profile info here is to find contact info to send them something, usually on request.

The whole <6 months thing just seems like old school SomethingAwful style behavior, where regdates operate on a punch-down style system.

At the very least on Reddit it would give me context on whether someone is asking a question in good faith or not. I live in a relatively liberal city, so there's regularly people who drop in to try to ask pointed questions in an attempt to bait people into responding a certain way, so I can know whether to ignore or try to respond in a helpful manner.

Startup idea: use machine learning to scan social networks and detect PR campaigns, submarine pieces, fake reviews, etc.

This comment was posted by an account <1 year old.

Make of that what you will.

"… an awful lot of accounts that are <6 months old …"

For clarity, where are you seeing these accounts, here?