Hello, /r/Facepalm.
As you may or may not be aware, Reddit is absolutely overrun with bots. An in-depth explanation of how they work could fill several encyclopedia volumes, but here's the short version:
- Follow human karma-farmers around the site.
- Learn from (and hide behind) those human karma-farmers.
- Emulate the karma-farmers' activity.
- Eventually, turn to posting spam, propaganda, and divisive content.
If you've ever wondered why so many subreddits take such a firm stance against karma-farming, that's the reason: Karma-farming (defined as intentionally seeking upvotes, usually by way of unoriginal content) directly enables the spread of misinformation and bigotry. Additionally, it suppresses original content, shifts standards downward, and generally makes the site, the Internet, and even the offline world just a little bit worse.
Now, this might come as a shock – and we're saying that sarcastically – but /r/Facepalm used to be a go-to place for karma-farmers. We've been cracking down on them lately, but thanks to their "efforts", the subreddit is still infested with bots and spammers. For example, if you see an account offering single-sentence comments that don't actually contribute anything beyond "Here's a sentiment that people will agree with!" or "Here's a rephrased summary!", it's very likely a bad actor.
Practically speaking, the only reliable way to combat these parasites is to raise standards. See, nowadays, a high karma-score is almost always a mark of shame, but there is one exception: If a Redditor's history is composed entirely (or almost entirely) of their own high-effort, high-quality, wholly original content, then their imaginary points can be viewed as digital applause. Moreover, since it's prohibitively difficult for bots and spammers to produce their own high-effort, high-quality, wholly original content, they typically ignore high-karma accounts that got their points legitimately.
Here's the issue, though: Although Reddit would certainly be a better place if everyone made that level of effort, it isn't realistic to require that. As such, /r/Facepalm's approach to combatting bad actors is going to be a bit less effective, but also a bit less draconian:
Starting now, screenshots of any variety are explicitly banned on /r/Facepalm.
You can still post photographs, videos, articles, GIFs... you get the idea. We might even start accepting text-based stories (although we'll get your feedback on that idea first). In any case, though, the title of your post must describe the facepalm-worthy moment – think of it like a spoiler for the post's content – and there must be a facepalm-worthy element present.
We're well aware that banning screenshots is going to be unpopular, but to put it bluntly, we care more about earnest Redditors than we do about karma-farmers, spammers, and their ilk. By banning the lowest-effort, least-contributory sort of content, we're hoping to drive away some of the bots, open up the subreddit to people whose posts might have otherwise been drowned out by the noise, and get the community back to what it's supposed to be.
I applaud you all making an effort to combat this. Especially over the last month, the bots are fucking obvious and everywhere. They are ruining the experience and I hope Reddit knows that their platform will be destroyed if they dont address it.
To be completely frank, the rot is probably terminal at this point. There are quite a few subreddits that are populated entirely by karma-farmers and bad actors – even /r/Facepalm was trending in to that territory at one point – and as explained above, the only effective way to counter them is to raise standards.
The trouble arises from the fact that platforms like Reddit need to attract as many people as possible, which means that they need to have as little friction as possible. Reduced friction means reduced quality, and low-quality submissions are easy to churn out automatically. There's a whole "flywheel" in play there, with everything – not just Reddit, but the entire Internet – getting worse and worse.
Still, even if the proverbial ship is sinking, we can still try to make the remaining moments as pleasant as possible for the people who just want to connect and interact with one another. Who knows? Maybe by throwing the bots overboard, we'll buy enough time to fix things. Either way, though, we're intent on ensuring that our little corner of Reddit is reserved for earnest Redditors.
I'm a flesh and blood human and i support this initiative. I do not welcome our new AI chatbot overlords.
Hm… sounds like something a bot would say…
(Kidding, ofc)
Your printer will punish you accordingly shortly.
All hail our AI overlords!
My printer has been punishing me for like a decade already 😭
The monthly subscription bounced, so it doesn't work.
This is a sentiment a lot of people can get behind.
Note: I too am a human, fellow humans. It is nice to be human with other humans in a media of sociality.
The enshitification of Reddit.
Are there any thoughts about banning politics? Like 95% of the "facepalms" are just trump related atp
To be fair, 95% of everything that chump says or does is facepalm worthy.
So stuff like a tweet that showcases a political problem within the United States? Is that what you mean by screenshots because I’ve been seeing an awful lot of these lately hitting top and I don’t even think they count
Yep, that sort of thing is now banned.
No screenshots of tweets, no screenshots of news articles, no screenshots of Facebook posts, no screenshots of text-message conversations, no screenshots of Tumblr interactions, no screenshots of Craigslist posts, no screenshots of screenshots of screenshots of screenshots, no screenshots of... look, you get it.
So, if we want to share an article, we'd need to share a link?
AND explain the facepalm in the title of the post. Can't tell you how many posts I see making some stupid comment about a link they posted without any context.
Correct.
Could we share a link and then also put a screenshot in the comments as backup in case the link gets taken down or edited?
While there's certainly value in that approach, it would likely end up causing trouble of its own.
Let's avoid it for now, but if there turn out to be numerous instances wherein it would have been valuable (like if the facepalm-worthy element arose from something like a typo that got fixed), we'll revisit that.
Okay. That's fair.
I am glad your team have brought this to the attention to others; the community. I figured there were spam bots floating about, but was unsure if new standards was the only way to get rid of them.
I feel like this is gonna make it harder for people to post certain genuine facepalm moments online to this sub. Like…sometimes the best way you can share a facepalm moment online, especially in the case of it coming from a non-public figure where links or other forms of sharing it could have a higher risk of harassment for that person, is a screenshot. I would like to get rid of the bots as well, but I feel like completely banning screenshots is just gonna make it unnecessarily difficult for people to post some genuine facepalm moments. Maybe it would be better to have a rule where screenshots are only allowed to be posted on certain days? I feel like that may still limit bots a little more than they are currently being limited while still allowing some way for genuine facepalms that are most easily shared through screenshots to still be shared here.
But you could post a photo of a newspaper article? Could you print the tweet and then take a picture of the paper?
Hey, if someone is so intent on showcasing a tweet that they physically print it out, arrange it with some aesthetically pleasing complements, photograph it, then post the photograph (ideally alongside a photograph of a beautifully handwritten note that explains the facepalm-worthy element), it wouldn't technically be a screenshot.
I’mma go get a sled for this slippery slope
The hill of "obvious human effort behind an image" isn't a bad one to die on tho, at least when it comes to somewhat arbitrary rules.
That's like the entire sub 😭
Finally 🙌🏻
Thank fucking God this entire sub was just trump does xyz and then some milquetoast second tweet about how trump sucks like yeah we know rfk jr has a worm in his head we know elon musk is obscenely wealthy we don't 500 posts about the same things
Here's a sentiment that people will agree with!
I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. Thank you for doing that. Half the stuff on here isn’t even a facepalm, it’s just people ranting and being angry.
And I think with “half” I’m being generous.
The beauty of a good face palm, involves absurdity, illogical behavior, a sense of humor, and a sprinkle of being cringey.
Hopefully people will agree with my sentiment.
(Dammit, I did it again.)
I agree with your sentiment, and will also restate it so people will agree with my statement too!
You're sorry? I thought you were Haidrek.
We bots go by many names
The problem is Reddit was filled with people who acted like bots before bots where even a thing.
There's a (probably apocryphal) statement from the US Parks Service that the reason they can't design an good anti-bear trashcan for use in National Parks is there is a severe overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest humans.
Same there. A good bot and just a standard robotic barely human fauxtistic "I act like human social interaction was only explained to me once in a flow chart and I was only half paying attention" types that make up so much of Reddit are pretty similar some of the time. And that problem is only going to get worse as bots get better and Redditors get worse.
And Reddit Users would shit kittens at even the suggestion of any kind of ID enforcement which would really be the only long term solution.
Yeah, honestly, it's a tough problem to solve.
On the one hand, you want to leave the floor open to everyone who's approaching with good intentions, but on the other hand, well... there's that saying about the road to Hell, after all. Gatekeeping of some variety is a necessity – I don't think any reasonable person would argue otherwise – but the unfortunate fact of the matter is that optimizing for quality of content requires excluding a sizable majority of would-be contributors.
In less-flowery terms, people who aren't willing to make an earnest effort need to be content with staying silent, and that really doesn't fly on social media.
The good news is that we don't actually need to make those sorts of qualitative assessments in subreddits like /r/Facepalm; we only need to establish some minimum standards, and we need to allow the community to benefit from that baseline. It isn't a permanent solution – bots are getting better all the time, and the aforementioned standards are in constant decline – but it's enough for the moment... we hope.
It really isn't a problem. Karma farming depends on karma actually being generated, so this needs some kind of popular support. If it was just bots upvoting bots, they could do that on their own pages much easier. The silent majority enjoys screenshots, so removing them harms the average user in the name of combating "rot".
Is there a subReddit for shitting kittens? Or is that more of a fetish site thing? Asking for a friend. Meow.
To be honest, plenty of bots are much more helpful and relatable than a decent subset of actual humans.
Don't do "text based stories" it'll be more of the same. Malicious compliance is one big example of text only sub still flooded with bots.
A slightly complicated way to get around the screenshot thing but may be slightly harder to bot, what if someone does a 2 second screen recording of the thing they want to screenshot? Then they upload it as a short video/gif?
I don't really make posts on Reddit. In fact, I would argue most of my days on Reddit are spent passively scrolling and looking at posts. It's rare that I even take the time to upvote or downvote something that isn't in an art or tattoo sub. I say this to showcase I don't really have a "horse in this race".
My issue with this, however, is that I don't understand what sort of posts fit the new rules while also being true facepalm moments. Stupid social media posts are what I come to Facepalm for. Otherwise I would go to r/Engrish or r/OneJob.
Can you provide an example of a post that now fits into the criteria? Sorry if that's a silly question.
I fear the idea is.. the same braindead politics posts, but now instead of a screenshot, you post an article with a good title.. so basically it becomes /politics, since 99% of content here is politics.
which is kinda funny to me, seeing that they claim they want to get back to how it used to be... But politics was BANNED in those days... but the "no politics"rule they ditched ... i am puzzled.
I can well understand that your stance will be unpopular, especially amongst those people who repost the same facepalm from 5 years ago as though it's new. However, the level of bots on reddit is very high and growing daily. A couple of groups which I view are almost overrun to the extent that they are effectively nothing but bots posting now (maliciouscompliance, I'm looking at you).
In the case of social media posts being true and current facepalms, why can the poster not take their own screenshot and post it on the myriad of picture hosting sites? The text link could then be shared as a part of the text of their submission here as a backup in case the original post(s) are later removed or edited.
Artificial Stupidity (AI for short) is here and likely here to stay for quite some years yet. Indeed, some has gotten to the point of being able to bypass various safeguards set up to specifically detect it. I read an article about such research yesterday at https://phys.org/news/2025-11-fake-survey-ai-quietly-sway.html but I suspect that a number of other siters have also picked up that research.
While your new rule will be unpopular, I am fully in support of it. I don't want to see the same rehashed screenshot which has been posted here hundreds of times a year for the past 20 years. While it might have been a facepalm back then, it's very old news now. Time to move on and get fresh facepalm content. It's not as though humans are getting any better at avoiding saying or doing really dumb things.
That's not a bad idea, and it's actually something that we discussed (along with allowing written-out stories). At present, we'd like to focus on getting the community back to being a haven for humans, but if the problem seems like it's abating, we're certainly open to getting a bit more relaxed... provided that effective countermeasures remain in place, of course.
Posting screenshots via an image sharing site sounds like an ideal solution at this point. A good balance between ease of posting and a worthwhile amount of effort. Especially if it could be restricted to sharing sites that use captuas or other anti-bot screening for uploading.
The requirement to explain the facepalm is definitely needed, as the bot posts and karma farmer posts could also lead to genuine posters thinking that's the sort of content that fits the sub.
Having both limits bots and combats low quality non-actual facepalm posts without completely removing screenshots, which are a major source of genuine facepalm moments, especially things like private message conversations etc.
On the one hand, this rule seems reasonable, on the other hand... it annoys me when people reference tweets without giving a picture of it.
But idiotic tweets is what r/whitepeopletwitter is for, so I guess everyone can go there to get their political tweet fix (not me though. They banned me for a ridiculous reason, so I blocked them).
Well, people have to link to the tweet I guess. Unless this is one of those subs that have banned Twitter links, I don't know, I remember that being a thing a while ago.
I understand the rule but honestly I don't like it. I am scrolling reddit to see the dumb people on this page and I certainly don't want to give Elmo any kind of traffic but with the new rule of no screenshot and just a link I would need to open the link and give the site traffic, so I wouldn't look at the post at all.
Isn't r/facepalm mostly screenshots? Wasn't it originally meant to be about stupid things people posted on Social Media?
This new "restriction" feels like it is trying to turn the sub into something completely different from what everyone subscribed to it for.
It was, certainly.
Yep. Sixteen years ago, that was the idea.
Mind you, that was only two years after the release of the first iPhone, only three years after the launch of Twitter, and only four years after the launch of YouTube. The Internet is a very different place now, and it's easier than ever to bring fresh content forward. The only reason why people don't (or don't appear to) is because the lazy, easy-to-recycle stuff eclipses it.
It seems pretty unlikely that people subscribed to be swamped by swarms of karma-farmers and bots, but if that's what you want, /r/NonPoliticalTwitter is right over there.
Hi. I was going to ask for an example because I am really, really bad at recognizing bots. Thank you for naming one so I can go, look, and learn.
It's a bit like chicken-sexing, but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy.
In general, you can start by asking yourself "Why did this account post this?"
Think about the apparent motivation behind any given submission, then look for inconsistencies between that motivation and the execution. For example, this comment – the one that you're reading right now – is attempting to help you recognize bots. If it suddenly digressed into a description of why bots are bad (which was already offered in the original post), it might seem to be on topic at first glance, but it wouldn't actually be relevant to the specific subject at hand.
Start by looking for those details, and just keep asking yourself "If this is a real person, what are they hoping to get out of posting this?"
Thank you :)
Edited to add, as somebody that’s gotten male birds that were supposed to be female, I truly appreciate the analogy lol
While I've never purchased a live bird, I do want to thank you for asking about how to identify bots! The mod's response was great and helped me learn and started because you asked a question. Great job you fantastic fellow human!
I see what you're doing, and I thought that you'd be amused to know that someone reported your comment.
Take it as a compliment about your performance, I suppose.
I am too, for all I know I just have conversations with bots daily and think it’s real people - that’s the real facepalm lol
I am told that bots are everywhere, but I am also rotten at identifying them. Bots and AI posts are hard for me to recognize. I appreciate being educated on what to look for.
Well, I applaud you for trying to combat bots, but it feels weird to see the banner at the top with all the social media logos, the name being a pun on a social media network and seeing all the all top posts being from social media and then being told "No more social media".
It feels like turning on MTV and realizing they don't play music videos anymore.
How do you know what everyone subscribed for?
For me it's turning it back into what I came here for.
At what point? because go back not even that long ago, and politics was banned.(though poorly enforced) But it is not now. you'll get a page full of political news links. Which is 100% not what you signed up for, since it was never that
finally unsubbed from (and muted) several other long-time tried-and-true subreddits because the spam & bot flood made them plainly unenjoyable. I'm very hopeful for this sub with this move.
Really appreciate you taking the time to explain the reasoning behind the change in policy.
So all of those 'how it started; how it's going' things will stop? Thank f%^k for that
I'm torn. On one hand, thank god, the low effort social media post screenshots were exhausting and I'm glad they'll be gone.
On the other hand, it's a well-known fact that a lot of people won't actually click and read links to articles, so it's gonna be debates only based on whatever ragebait headline was used for it. Plus, so many newspapers limit their reach nowadays, meaning even with a link we often CAN'T read the article, even if we want to. Screenshots avoided that issue, everyone could see the news story with context beyond the headline right away in the screenshot itself. I'm not convinced banning that is gonna improve discussion culture here on the sub :/
we took a bit more of a draconian stance in our original music subreddit. while it has no where near the numbers you have, we basically removed all content if it has been posted to reddit within a 24 hour period. we are the biggest original music subreddit and it is entirely overrun by bots(even bots from other subreddits sadly which you can see as the only pinned post). It had to be done, or people that actually create original music and don't have a bot farm to spam every known music site available would be drowned out by a million ARTIST x ARTIST TYPE BEAT(used to be kpop posts), or whatever other musical fad is popular.
i only do this because i believe there should be a valid platform for artists that legitimately want to share their creations, not be the next ticktok viral meme.
its at the point now, that i'm just ready to throw in the towel and let it completely disintegrate. i dont like where the company is headed and i also don't appreciate how hard they have made it to ban bad actors. if i have to click x amount of times to ban someone that shouldn't be allowed to post to begin with, then whats the point?
As always I think there's edge cases in the sceen shot debate.
But we can worry about that either when things are better controlled or things haven't actually changed so the rule is of questionable use.
Bold move, this is going to be interested if nothing else
I bet that wasnt a easy choice to make. Glad you guys are taking a hard stand though. Now lets hope it works and we can go back to the old rules quick
👏
I hate bots too ! (Ed note, I assume this is the kind of posts banned).
Since this subject is being brought up, can I, as an old fart but real person, ask what is the point of karma-farming? Can it be monetized by getting thousands of upvotes? I r dum and need smrt on this.
Thanks for the thoughtful explanation. And for your efforts.
comment people agree with, amirite?! You guys get it.
Defensive plan downloaded for AI analysis.
Jesus, by your definition I'm a bot. But that's mainly from sharing posts on a single subreddit I run and trying to keep it alive, more so for no other reason than habit. I ban bots on an almost daily basis though, it's rather frustrating. If I get a few days where I don't have to ban a bot, it's been a good week.
Can you automatically include the account age in the post title?
It could be included as a flair or something, but that wouldn't actually provide much insight. A lot of spammers make use of compromised accounts that are pretty old. If you ever see a twelve-year-old account seem to "wake up" and start flooding the site with low-effort trash... well, you can guess.
What if my eleven year old 800k account has been doing low effort trash all the time? Does that just make me a sad human? At least I can't use Imgur because I'm in the UK...
The explanation before the plan was super helpful for me. I didn't know that was how bots worked. I think the plan is a good way to move forward.
I don’t know text based stories can be just asking bad, just look at r/maliciouscompliance
Thank you, thank you, thrice thank you!
I applaud your explanation, and admire your continuing efforts to "Ban the Bot"!!!
It's a bit sad that first sub where I see this honest take on the situation is one that's supposed to be lighthearted and just for fun.
👌
What’s the current best way to post the facepalm-worthy things public figures say, if those statements have not yet made it into an article? Make a GIF of their facepalm-worthy statemen?
So much less posts a day, which is good. But if screen shots will be replaced by links a lot of people will skip and not interact at all. This might turn out badly.
Are those crappy ones where they just repost something with the same exact title and the title shows twice, bots? I’ve always hated those kind. Bots suck.
I would recommend that the title should identify what the facepalm is. Often a post consists of a statement with a reaction, but what is facepalm-worthy about it changes with the views (typically political) of the reader.
I suspect this is much less likely with the no screenshot rule, but since you are tweaking the rules anyway, it might be a good time to make this explicit.
This sounds like a lot of assumptions and fear-based reasoning. I don't have a dog in this fight, I almost never post screen shots, but there are a lot of reasons people will post short, agreeable comments. I will occasionally do this myself just for reasons of catharsis; my disgust\support simply cannot be left unstated.
This also ignores the fact that you won't get karma unless people actually support what you're saying. Sure you can get people to agree with terrible things such as racism, but just ban those things. Who cares if someone or something posts "haha my thoughts exactly" or whatever if that resonates with people. With proper moderation you might actually get karma farming bots that actually meaningfully contribute.
I didn't read all the comments to this post, but as far as I read I didn't see a single simple karma-farming comment making it to the top of the comments. I rarely ever do. Seems like mostly a non issue.
Good mods, have a cookie 🍪
Hmm, sounds like a one line comment everyone will agree with. Burn the
witchbot!Here's a sentiment people will agree with.
I'm hoping this sub can return to what it used to be - things that make you facepalm, rather that what it's become recently, which seems to be mainly US politics.
I salute your efforts, but feel like I have to point out that the underlying problem is enormous numbers of people upvoting useless comments, and very few people upvoting insightful, nuanced analyses like this one.
I'm hopeful that this rule means we'll start seeing actual facepalms on this sub again. A lot of the (I assume) bot content doesn't fit the criteria of the sub.
When you have to work this hard and force things to this degree it’s over. Time to kill this sub and move on.
I'd also consider banning the vast majority of political content. I dislike trump, but this sub has gotten really tiresome with all the posts that are essentially "haha, Trump is a dumdum!", followed by a slew of comments that essentially just amount to "haha, yeah, I also think he's a dumdum!"
This post is about the bad impact of karma farmers and they're bad for the sub.
Please ban politics too 🙏🏻
Will you also do something about the amount of US polotics posts? It doesn't feel like a facepalm when all posts on the sub are the same regurgitated American political drama.
I came to see stupid people doing stupid things not politics of a country I don't live in.
(I am not American)
A pedophile trying to emulate his own version of the Nazi party and actually being popular because of it ISN'T a facepalm for you?
As I said, a few is alright, but all I see from facepalm is American politics. I have no issue with a political post here and there, just not the entire sub.
Fair