There is no social/moral rule against simulating usage on a brand new website that has no organic usage.

People in this thread are writing whole screeds arguing the importance of condemning this supposed moral breach, but it’s a case of the beg the question fallacy: people are seeking to prove there was a moral breach by assuming there was a moral breach.

I say again: nobody who was an early organic visitor to Reddit has ever complained of being deceived or harmed, and indeed they self-evidently benefited by finding content they liked and a site they wanted to post to.