Reddit Bans 944 Accounts Tied to Russia's Internet Research Agency
April 2018
In its 2017 transparency report, Reddit disclosed it had identified and banned 944 accounts of 'suspected Russian Internet Research Agency origin' that posted over 14,000 times around the 2016 US election.
What happened
On April 11, 2018, alongside Reddit's annual transparency report, CEO Steve Huffman published a post disclosing that the company had identified 944 accounts it believed were linked to the Internet Research Agency (IRA), the St. Petersburg 'troll farm' indicted by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller for interfering in the 2016 US presidential election. The accounts collectively made more than 14,000 posts. Reddit published the full list of usernames so that moderators, researchers, and the public could examine the account histories directly, and it preserved the account activity to share with congressional investigators.
Reddit characterized the operation's impact as limited: roughly 70% of the accounts had a karma score of zero, meaning their content gained little to no traction, and Huffman stated none of the accounts had purchased advertising on the platform (distinguishing Reddit from Facebook, which had sold IRA-linked ads). The IRA accounts posted in subreddits ranging from r/funny and r/gifs to overtly political communities including r/The_Donald.
The disclosure followed a March 2018 acknowledgment by Huffman that Russian propaganda had circulated on Reddit, and it positioned Reddit among the major US platforms (alongside Facebook and Twitter) forced to account publicly for IRA exploitation of their services during the election.
Impact
First formal admission by Reddit that a foreign state-backed influence operation had operated on the platform; produced a public, named list of banned IRA accounts used by journalists and researchers, and material shared with US congressional investigators probing 2016 election interference.