Oriveda Lions Mane Experience

Okay, I'll answer this. When they launched, they participated in activities that not only broke our subreddit rules, but also broke site-wide Reddit policies. They created multiple Reddit accounts so they could shill, or act like uninvolved consumers that just happened to stumble upon them and suggest them. That's a form of fraud. If you create fake accounts online to pose as customers of yours, and use those accounts to recommend yourself and create fake reviews, that's a problem. You as a consumer should care about that. We warned them about it when it happened, yet it kept happening. They would make new accounts to try it again, like we were idiots as moderators and wouldn't catch them. So because they repeatedly and flagrantly violated our rules, we banned them. Any talk of them was filtered out for a bit. Did they learn their lesson from it? Nope. They went and created another subreddit to go post things, and private messaged people to go there. They would go into any thread with people talking about mushrooms, and PM the people in it. That way they could get around the subreddit comment filters, and draw people to their sub where they could say whatever they wanted. You know it. You post there all the time. It was a subreddit created so they could formulate an narrative, and seed doubt in people that are prone to believing it. Their message resonates with people who naturally want to believe some big conspiracy is happening to fool them. The ironic part about all of it is those people are the most likely to fall for propaganda. In their quest to find out how they are being fooled, they are fooled in the process. Anyway, I won't get into the psychology of it, but it is definitely interesting to watch.

So after a while, more legitimate people wanted to discuss them. Early on it was just filtering out shills and propaganda, so it was easier. As time went on more legitimate people started to ask reasonable questions about them. In an ideal world we would not have to remove posts and comments from legitimate people. So the decision was made to loosen up our filtering of them. In doing so, the other moderators decided to have the automod put a warning on any post that came up about them. This would allow normal people to discuss them, but also inform them about the deceptive practices they participated in and continue to participate in. The evidence is undeniable. They even slip up sometimes and forget that they are supposed to be typing in English, but accidentally spell things the way you would in Dutch. Where is Oriveda? The Netherlands. Any half competent person really looking for the truth can figure it out. Look at the IP addresses on the sites they use for their "totally independent" mushroom facts site, then look at Oriveda's site. Hell, just read the actual studies they say are evidence, and you can see they don't say what they purport them to say. We even reported some of their shill accounts to the Reddit admins, who have the ability to see the IP addresses accounts are accessed from. The Reddit admins banned some of those accounts. Bulk Supplements is doing the same thing right now. They have a massive army of fake accounts they use to post as customers. The Reddit admins have banned a ton of those accounts, too. They were just doing it more on /r/Supplements. Creating new accounts to circumvent subreddit bans is against site-wide Reddit policy. So if they catch that with IP logs, they will ban those shill accounts. If you want an example of what that looks like, here is one.

https://www.reddit.com/user/MajesticNovel

The account gets banned, and their history gets wiped. Not the public posts and comments, though. They stay there. However, when you click on their username it goes to a blank page like that. That means the account was banned.

So no, these actions are not just part of business. They are dishonest and fraudulent marketing practices. Sure, you could make the argument that it happens more than people realize. You would be correct in that assessment. It's happening every single day all over Reddit. Some subreddits control it more than others, but we certainly do. Sometimes the efforts are so easy to detect that a three year old could do it. Other times they are more sneaky and take more effort to find. It depends on the company and the competency of the people working for them. However, we should not normalize this behavior. Fake accounts, shilling, fake reviews, review compensation programs, creating fake independent sites to post propaganda... it's all to the detriment of consumers. It might tickle the insides of people who love to feel like they are shining light on conspiracies, but actual real-world consumers are all worse off in the end because of it. The internet has become a cesspool of lies and deceit. It's hard to even trust anything you read on sites these days. Most educational sites out there are just affiliate marketing sites being paid to say whatever a company wants, and promote whatever product gives them the most affiliate commissions. The ones willing to pay the highest commissions are usually the shadiest ones with the shittiest products. So a lot of money is passing around in the background to show you products that make that site money, but are more often than not complete crap. Our attempts to prevent those fraudulent and anti-consumer practices here on Reddit might seem annoying to you, but I can guarantee you that if we stopped, this subreddit would turn into the most worthless pile of shit you can imagine. You don't see all the stuff that gets filtered out every day here. I do, and if we just let it all through, none of you would ever visit here again. If a local mom and pop shop was having their family members act as customers, and go around town telling everyone to shop there because it was the best, would you trust them every again? Do you think that's normal for all businesses to do? Fraudulent and deceptive practices should not be normalized as "just part of business."