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A comment on So, I went down the rabbit hole of buying GitHub Stars, so you won't have to. Parent comment

Re:So, I went down the rabbit hole of buying GitHub Stars, s... by TeMPOraL on Thursday June 01, 2023 @12:01PM (#36153071)
Funny you should mention Reddit, because IIRC Reddit itself started with first-party bots pretending to be users, manufacturing "social proof" to cheat around initial user acquisition hurdles.
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Re:So, I went down the rabbit hole of buying GitHub Stars, s... by evandale on Thursday June 01, 2023 @12:09PM (#36153215)
You recalled correctly! Huffman isn't shy about it.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z4444w/how-reddit-got-huge-t...

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Re:So, I went down the rabbit hole of buying GitHub Stars, s... by arp242 on Thursday June 01, 2023 @08:55PM (#36159486)
This is a very old trick; the Nazi party started their membership numbers at 500 to make it appear they had more members. A certain failed Austrian painter had membership number 555.
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Re:So, I went down the rabbit hole of buying GitHub Stars, s... by throw_m239339 on Thursday June 01, 2023 @01:36PM (#36154564)
> Funny you should mention Reddit, because IIRC Reddit itself started with first-party bots pretending to be users, manufacturing "social proof" to cheat around initial user acquisition hurdles.

"started"?

They are still doing that today to inflate their user count...

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