And it was absolutely a case of negligent opsec.

I suspect what happened is that I posted pictures on reddit that I also posted on Facebook. A reverse image search links my reddit account to my facebook account, and therefore a real name and name of city. With that, the rest is public information.

It was a wakeup call that the internet contains the best and the worst of humanity, and the worst will come after you at the earliest opportunity.

At the height of it, yes. It filled up the front page every single day and made the site absolutely reek.

It’s what made me stop browsing /r/all, drop off most default subs, and stick to only my subscribed subs. Brigading and spamming is the whole point.

Historically this group has been responsible for an absolute shitload of spam and outright attacks.

I was doxxed by them. They had links to a discord group that included my full name, address, email, and phone number. There was a whole list, it’s one of the first reasons they were quarantined. There was a comment that read “anyone with spare bullets can send them here”.

This is a lot more than “I simply don’t agree with that community”. They are trash who will trash up any platform they can reach.

And that was indicated when they migrated to Voat. Nobody else used Voat, it was just them. Also when reddit changed their policies to prevent one sub from appearing on the front page more than once.

The whole point is to be obnoxious in spaces where it isn’t welcome. When they realized they couldn’t do that on a platform that only consisted of them, there was no incentive to engage. The whole point is to shit up a platform enjoyed by others, and that’s exactly what they’ll do here.

Also, I find that basically every search result that isn’t reddit is sponsored content.

Search something real specific like “Best aftermarket injector coils for a 2009 Toyota Corolla” and you’re going to get 100% advertisements and listicles for search results, likely written by somebody who doesn’t know shit about cars.

Append “reddit” to that search, and you’ll be led to a post from a car mechanic giving their opinion on the matter. And, well, I do trust a random stranger on the internet more than I do an advertisement.