For years, speculation has surrounded Democrat candidates, with many wondering if they fill social media with fake posts to deceive the public, making their campaigns appear more popular than they really are. These suspicions were often dismissed by pointing out that Democrat voters are more likely to be on the internet compared to their less tech-savvy Republican counterparts, suggesting the left-leaning content on sites like Reddit reflected user demographics. Still, people couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off, especially leading up to major elections. Despite my strong suspicions, I had no direct proof of any manipulation by Democrats.
That changed two weeks ago, when X user @jessiprincey replied to one of my posts with a screenshot from a Discord server apparently linked to the Harris-Walz campaign.
I reached out to Jess immediately and soon received an invitation to the Discord server where this operation was taking place. What I found went well beyond algorithmic manipulation. I discovered large-scale “astroturfing” campaigns operating across multiple platforms. “Astroturfing” is a term for creating coordinated or paid posts to give a deceptive impression of grassroots support, essentially the opposite of genuine grassroots efforts.
In this case, a team of volunteers was spamming social media with posts promoting Kamala. Other users would then pose as random individuals who just happened upon the post and commented on it. It’s akin to a shady company paying people to write fake Amazon reviews to make its product seem better or more popular than it is.
On Amazon, this tactic might boost sales; in a U.S. election, it could falsely inflate a candidate’s popularity and sway votes. This behavior is not only dishonest but often violates the Terms of Service of social media platforms involved.
In this first of a three-part series, we’ll explore how the Harris-Walz campaign has manipulated Reddit, a popular site with 500 million users, to publish campaign propaganda.
Astroturfing on Reddit
Reddit comprises thousands of subreddits on distinct topics. The Politics subreddit, along with several others, is being actively targeted by the Harris-Walz campaign, with significant success. Since the operation began, it has developed a detailed organizational structure — including roles for team members, analytics spreadsheets, and “Key Messaging” guidelines for social media posts.
I found that 126 of the top 1,000 posts in the past month on r/Politics were from official Harris-Walz campaign volunteers. Controlling one in every eight top posts in r/Politics isn’t easy, and it doesn’t happen by accident. Here’s how they did it.
Every weekday morning, Harris for President staffers like Gabrielle Lynn post the “Daily Messaging Guidance” in the server’s Reddit channel. This guidance includes articles and data the Harris-Walz campaign wants to amplify, along with “key messaging” Reddit volunteers should follow.
On Gabrielle Lynn’s profile, you’ll find a blue D staff icon, marking her as a paid Democrat staffer for the Harris for President campaign.
Official Harris-Walz staffers compile links with contributions from volunteers, then organize them in a Google Spreadsheet labeled “Reddit Organizing.”
Kamala’s “Lead Posters” (users with experience on Reddit) choose which links will likely resonate with specific Reddit communities. For instance, a link on “how Project 2025 impacts reproductive health” targets subreddits frequented by young women, while a story about Kamala’s Fox News interview “winning over swing state voters” goes to Democrat communities and swing-state audiences.
Harris-Walz volunteers created a database of over 100 subreddits with information on content policies, high-performing topics, and specific notes on each community, including how much “karma” (Reddit’s upvote metric) is needed to post.
Once links are categorized, volunteer “Posters” share them in assigned subreddits. Kamala’s posters don’t simply spam links, though. They use sequential post timing to avoid Reddit’s spam filters, discussing tactics in their Discord server while continuing to share campaign links.
After posting on Reddit, they update the spreadsheet with a link to their new post.
And why do they track their posts?
They collect links to coordinate likes and comments, boosting post activity and making the content appear more popular. Reddit’s algorithm for promoting posts based on activity is straightforward and can be easily manipulated, which on Reddit is known as “brigading.”
How Effective is This?
Although the Harris-Walz Discord server has been around for months, the Reddit manipulation spreadsheet was only implemented on Oct. 4. In 15 days, this volunteer group, with guidance from Harris-Walz campaign staff, made 2,551 posts to Reddit, generating more than 5.7 million upvotes and 418,000 comments:
They’re currently posting around 120 unique links on Reddit each day.
But I wanted to see for myself just how effective this campaign was. I exported their spreadsheet and analyzed it.
Using their spreadsheet titled “Please Upvote These!” I filtered posts made by official Harris-Walz volunteers. I identified 1,728 posts from 67 unique campaign volunteers since Oct. 4, many of which quickly gained traction.
Labeling each of these users with a “Kamala Harris Volunteer” tag, I examined their targeted subreddits. The main target was r/Politics, Reddit’s largest U.S. politics community with over 8 million members. Sorting the top 1,000 posts from the past month, I discovered that 12.5 percent of the most upvoted content came directly from Harris-Walz campaign volunteers.
This operation has only ramped up in the last two weeks. On Oct. 17, eight of the 30 top posts on r/Politics were created by Harris-Walz volunteers — over 25 percent. By Oct. 20, 13 of the latest 100 posts were from them.
Beyond r/Politics, they target smaller, swing-state subreddits, including town-specific communities, making it easier to rank their posts. From Oct. 13-20, 10 percent of top posts in their swing-state collection came from Harris-Walz volunteers, many of whom were not even from those states.
This Harris-Walz astroturfing operation has undermined authentic political discussions on Reddit, falsely amplifying Kamala’s support.
While seemingly not illegal, these actions violate Reddit’s Terms of Service. Harris-Walz volunteers are using multiple accounts to manipulate and coordinate votes — another explicit content policy violation on Reddit.
Why is This So Effective?
For those unfamiliar, Reddit skews left-leaning, partly due to biases of activist moderators. Here’s an example:
A Democrat user posted a call to vote in r/Texas, earning praise and upvotes. Yet, when the same text was shared with “Democrat” and “Kamala” swapped for “Republican” and “Trump,” the post was removed and the user banned.
It’s unclear if Reddit is aware of the Harris-Walz campaign’s policy violations. While their accounts might be banned if exposed, it’s also possible Reddit is granting them leeway. In 2018, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in an interview with The New Yorker:
“I’m confident that Reddit could sway elections. We wouldn’t do it, of course. And I don’t know how many times we could get away with it. But, if we really wanted to, I’m sure Reddit could have swayed at least this election, this once.”
The author runs the popular Twitter account @reddit_lies.
