r/OfficeChairs • u/ibuyofficefurniture • Sep 16 '26
r/officechairs is under attack by spam artists. How we go after them next is going to be partly up to you.
Very good epp in last weeks WSJ podcast about Reddit subs and the prevalence of brands spamming subs as a way to sneak brand content into LLMs.
It's happening here and we are not controlling it as well as we would like to.
Years ago it was Autonomous, we banned them for a while, engaged with them and they have been respectful of the community standards for years now. Some brands participate here with this sub while also being respectful of the rediqute and the rules, think Steelcase, Anthros or Musso.
Now, it feels like we see quite a bit of content about Libornovo, Secretlab and ProtoArc. Regularly, multiple accounts and posts, but similar kinds of content being inserted into the sub.
This raises questions to me. Our r/officechairs team has been leading this sub for about 6 years. This last 2 years, the amount of slop / promotional content has been off the charts.
When we stated moding here, u/classroom and u/cranda58 and I were able to keep up with the spam and the self promotion to a minimum. Now even with more people on the team plus the auto-mod functionality, we are just not able to keep up with it all.
Today, spammers have become very sophisticated. It's much harder to see what is bot / spam content and its both very cheap and potentially very profitable for them to attack this sub with their slop of nonsense.
What are brands you notice that seem to be over represented here lately?
How aggressive do you want this sub to be moderated?
There were 800 posts and 6300 comments in the last 30 days. Normally, the mod team will not see all of the posts and only a small fraction of comments, so if your goal is to slip some slop into the LLMs, it can be done quietly.
The nuclear option would be for us to require new posts to be affirmatively approved by a mod before they hit the sub. One of us would really see if there were 50 Libornova posts every week and act accordingly. It would be a more curated sub but it would also be more resistant to marketers efforts. A less aggressive option would be to use mod tools to pause mentions of those brands that we suspect are being the most aggressive lately while engaging them to make sure their future communications here are within the bounds.
If you want to see what un-moderated looks like, my social experiment r/officechairsIsell is based on the idea that if you give folks the ability to post whatever they want, a chairs sub will become garbage.
Its our sub to use so please, what do you, the subscribers want to see us doing about this problem that is impacting the quality of what we have here?
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u/thepottsy Sep 16 '26
Fellow mod here. Why isn’t the sub running bot bouncer? It‘s not a magic cure all, but it certainly helps.
Second, do you have your Crowd Control and Reputation filters turned on and set to the level the sub needs?
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u/ibuyofficefurniture Sep 16 '26
I'll definitely look into bouncer.
Yes, crowd control and reputation filters are on here.
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u/thepottsy Sep 16 '26
The odds that those accounts are getting reported to bot bouncer are pretty good, and if they aren’t already, you can report them.
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u/ibuyofficefurniture Sep 16 '26
Just added this bot bouncer app into the panel.
Let's see how that goes.
I also think we need to take some more Draconian steps, but, thank you for the suggestion u/thepottsy
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u/yaboymitchell00 Sep 16 '26
Libernovos marketing is aggressive as hell. It's just weird. Looks like a decent chair. I want to try it, but their shady marketing has led me to believe I can't trust them or their products/warranties
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u/ibuyofficefurniture Sep 16 '26
Yeah I don't want to paint the company with that brush but if I had to guess I would say someone working there is spending a lot of time trying to make it look like a lot of people of their product. (It's entirely possible that many people also like their product outside of whatever is going on in this grayer marketing space)
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u/ManBro89 Sep 16 '26
I know I like their product, but it was an OG from the first kickstarter before all of the complaints of the SE cushion. They did send a completely wrong screwdriver with the chair, which was weird af. Like... how does that even happen?
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u/FangirlCrazily 28d ago
Astroturfing is very sophisticated in this day and age. It's very likely they are using AI LLMs to mass generate posts in a spreadsheet, that are then deployed through burner accounts managed by a team of employees. Reviews generated this way tend to be phrased with online slang and downplay flaws in the product, which is why its harder to determine which posts are authentic.
I think the motivations are mainly 1. Improve SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) since so many people come to Reddit for answers and 2. Controlling community sentiment, by using positive reviews to dilute the negative ones.
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u/r_doood Sep 16 '26
Lots of protoArc and Libernovo. Way too many. I had my account attacked when I called out some of these posts in the comments
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u/ibuyofficefurniture Sep 16 '26
It's noticeable.
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u/r_doood Sep 16 '26
Perhaps only allow reviews from folks who have their post histories public. That might weed out some bot accounts?
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u/ibuyofficefurniture Sep 16 '26
Is that a setting that you can effectuate from the mod control?
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u/DryMouthKitty Sep 17 '26
It’s not. When someone posts or comments in a community you mod, you get to see their history regardless of the user’s settings. So unless you also look at their profile from another account or just not signed in, you wouldn’t be able to tell. There are some default options and some other things you can do with automod, but the bot / apps have come a long way and offer the most with the least work. Looks like you are making a lot of good changes already. r/modnews and r/modsupport are great resources for mods, and r/thesefuckingaccounts provides good insight into spam networks.
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u/ibuyofficefurniture Sep 17 '26
Thanks for the tip.
Yes, I am a regular in the mod support community..
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u/liqwood1 Sep 16 '26
Well you guys have done a pretty good job because I haven't seen too much spam here..
Yes there's been a fair amount of questions regarding Libernovo which to be fair is understandable considering it's one of the newest and most advertised options, people are naturally curious.
I've definitely seen some questionable Libernovo reviews but again some of those could just be people enjoying their new chair.
Either way the mod team here has done a decent job in my opinion of keeping this sub relevant and still useful and informative to people, without requiring every post to be approved, so in my opinion the current system is working, I do understand it's difficult though but I just hope you all can keep up the good work!
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u/ibuyofficefurniture Sep 16 '26
It feels off to me like the ratio of authentic content to manipulated is skewing towards manipulated.
I don't have data behind that but it's a feel after being on the sub for many years.
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u/liqwood1 Sep 16 '26
I get that. Definitely been some questionable posts but it's a tough balance to strike.
If you over moderate you risk alienating actual people asking about or reviewing their chairs vs the current system.
I dunno I don't envy you guys, unfortunately this is a universal issue across reddit these days and generative AI is only going to make it worse.
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u/Shalashaska87B Sep 16 '26
Can you do something "halfway"? If a post contains specific words, it gets auto flagged for manual review.
So, if you get 30 people posting a similar review on a specific chair, none will actually go through.
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u/IndoorSnowStorm Sep 16 '26
Normally I can tune out the spam (or brand shilling at the very least), but lately what's been irritating is the "I've tried X chair (Embody, Gesture, etc.) and hate it for no reason, should I try Y (Libernovo Maxis, Protoarc, etc.) chair?" It made me suspicious since those two types of chairs usually aren't cross-compared. And there's been so many lately as well.
I think the real problem though is determining how a post is spam. Despite a lot of them probably being such, it ends up being a matter of exposure and before you know it people who aren't spammers actually buy the chair and compare/review it. So for Libernovo, now that it's on demo at Relax The Back it might be more visible and easier to buy, while Protoarc is sub $200 so as a budget chair is a popular choice (hell, even BTOD said it was the best chair under $200 back in June). So a blanket ban probably won't work but there might be too much for manual review for everything.
As a sub that (at least formerly) was seen as the "Aeron/Embody/Gesture/Leap recommendation sub" blanket filtering might reinforce that stigma. But something should still be done. Maybe we start using a flair system for posts? Something like Review/Discussion/Advice/Repair/etc. and then everything flagged as a review could be manually checked by mods to help reduce the workload. Then reviews that aren't flaired can be reported as such to help the filter. This won't really help comments, but personally I don't notice much shilling in comments and its harder to fight for visibility if it is a spam comment.
So all in all I agree it's probably happening, but properly filtering them out might be tricky.
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u/HlyMlyDatAFigDoonga Sep 16 '26
I’m totally for the nuclear option. The less work on you guys, the better. Do what you have to to deal with the slop and bots.
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u/Far_Kiwi4882 Sep 16 '26
This, the sub is spammed with Libernovo and ProtoArc lately. Just go nuclear on them.
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u/ibuyofficefurniture Sep 16 '26
We've done it before. Part of the reason for this post is I want to see if it's just my perception (and that of few of my fellow mods) or if this is something seen more broadly.
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u/Far_Kiwi4882 Sep 16 '26
I am quite new to Reddit and this sub, I've been visiting for 2 to 3 months I think. At first I mostly saw the usual US brands like Steelcase, Herman miller and Haworth. Maybe some Anthros and Flexispot, plus some more generic, cheaper brands.
The last month there's been a flood of LiberNovo and now ProtoArc. Some genuine reviews from actual users, but I noticed A LOT of them received the chair for free to review. Those reviews are extremely biased by nature, they didn't break the bank for it.
I visit this sub for real user reviews. YouTube was already flooded with paid reviews, I hope Reddit can stay genuine.
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u/prime-SS Sep 16 '26
I am one of the ones who received the Protoarc chair for free and gave my honest thoughts. What surprises me though are all the posts about the chair not disclosing that they got it for free and there are also a lot of posts with that weird #ProtoArc hastag at the end. I was certainly not told to put a hashtag of any kind during my review, so it's really strange
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u/Prezi2 Sep 16 '26
Some of the anthros posts have just been weird, like a dude gets sent a $2,000 chair just because he DM'ed the CEO on LinkedIn and then decided to make a Reddit post about it? When he already had an embody? It's bizarre.
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u/ibuyofficefurniture Sep 16 '26
Could be. I think that u/anthrossupport has been a good corporate citizen in this space.
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u/Prezi2 Sep 16 '26
Yeah I'm sure the official account is fine, I think I'm just trying to point out the Astroturfed posts.
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u/BasicJunglist Sep 16 '26
People really found my story to be unbelievable, and I think that’s probably fair, but it’s factually honest as wild as it sounds. I’m happy to send u/ibuyofficefurniture or another mod my email exchange with Anthros to corroborate, not that it would make any difference.
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u/moldivore Sep 16 '26
Crush them with as much force possible IMO.
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u/ibuyofficefurniture Sep 16 '26
I always have that bit of doubt.
We need to be more aggressive in removing content because of the volume of traffic here but we also don't want to remove too much authentic content.
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u/TraffikJam Sep 16 '26
I don't see a problem with curation if the mods don't have any opposition. It allows for the sub to be clear of trash. We need to keep bots and snake oil salesmen out of our spaces for as long as possible.
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u/Marc_kk Sep 16 '26
As someone that was in the first wave of protoarc reviews (and discussed this issue with the mod team briefly), I support more drastic action. Bot bouncer, karma requirements, banning suspicious first-posts/reviews from users not commonly browsing the sub, requiring clear statements of conflict of interest, etc.
I really appreciate what you all do for this space, and I'm sure whatever direction you choose to take will be positive.
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u/ibuyofficefurniture Sep 16 '26
I did just enable the bot bouncer, let's see how that one goes.
I think we're also going to take a temporary hiatus on a couple of the brands that can't clean up there overly eager armys of reviewers.
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u/Rocket-Racc8n Sep 17 '26
I'm personally tired of all the constant comments recommending everyone and their mother to get a used Herman Miller.
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u/ibuyofficefurniture Sep 17 '26
Sure. There is a lot of that. The two things I'll say as one of the advocates for pre-owned as an option:
1) it's a genuine goal of this sub to put out the idea that you can save bucks and find good product on the secondary market when you are budget constrained.
2) while there are lots of us 'in the biz' of pre-owned furniture, there is not constant marketing aimed at any one refurbisher. David is mentioned often, partly because he is here, but so are Kamal, Levi, Greg and Facebook marketplace.
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u/OpTimalTiming Sep 16 '26
I dont mind the curated sub idea. However, I feel like a big part of the problem is comments, which are probably difficult to moderate. I'm not sure what sort of data you have. Is there a way to limit comments to proven people, or restrict it to accounts with public post histories?
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u/OpTimalTiming Sep 16 '26
Alternatively, you could also give flairs to accounts who are good contributors, which would give more legitimacy to proven users and by proxy less legitimacy to unproven users without actually restricting what they say.
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u/ibuyofficefurniture Sep 16 '26
I have given flair to a couple of people over the years again, it's kind of manual where as the moderator we can either let people select their own flair or have control over it restricted just to the mods.
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u/gregatbtod Sep 16 '26
ProtoArc appears to be the biggest issue at the moment.
Between giving away free stuff for people to write reviews specifically in Reddit (likely correlated to the WSJ podcast and LLM's) and some of the posts that don't feel authentic (ex: never get a reply from the OP on questions asked after they post + hidden profile) I agree with u/ibuyofficefurniture it feels off.
Is this legit? https://www.reddit.com/r/OfficeChairs/comments/1w94g06/couldnt_find_a_decent_used_aeron_near_me_so_i/
It's too bad, because for an inexpensive chair, the EC 200 doesn't need a fake push. It's already a good value and real people talk about it, including me.
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u/slavicslothe Sep 17 '26
Go hard on them. Libernovo especially, they aren't as obviously bad as racing chair slop like secretlab and I think they are getting some traction.
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u/IngenuityOk1707 Sep 16 '26
Why not just rely on user reports? if 5- 10 or so users report someone then it will be flagged for mod to review,
so mods would only review content thats been flagged, so u wouldnt need to manually review every single post/comment.
does reddit have a comment report system? idk
also i think ProtoArc EC200 brand has been posted a lot recently, so maybe look into that
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u/ibuyofficefurniture Sep 16 '26
That is a big piece of what we do now. But when I go through the feed, I see a lot of items I believe are suspect that do not get flagged.
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u/Gizmo83 Sep 16 '26
Not been here long, but for a sub reddit about office chairs of all things, the amount of traffic it gets recently is pretty mad.
Maybe have monthly stickies for the paid review posts to be added to, or do one per manufacturer. Go nuclear on those users not putting them in that thread.
If that fails. Burn it all.
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u/ibuyofficefurniture Sep 16 '26
🔥🔥🔥
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u/Gizmo83 Sep 17 '26
To add to my comment, I think initially banning or nuking all paid ads isn't a great idea. You risk the sub being becoming a bias to the likes of Herman Miller etc... which will turn away a large cohort of users who don't have that budget. This sub would become a graveyard in no time.
In my mind, if someone posts a paid review here, and someone else reads it, buys the chair and is happy with the chair, then that review is legit. Also, if someone else comments on that review giving their negative opinions then that's even better as it's allowing dialogue and balance. That's on us as the community to provide the balance. If you've tried the chair in question, had doubts, then add that to that review.
Honestly, I also like that there are more than just HM, Aeron etc being recommended. Chairs are subjective depending on body size and shapes so knowing there are other options out there is the reason I'm here. I'm also aware as a buyer there are paid reviewers lurking and that's on me to do my homework and take those posts with a pinch of salt.
That said, they should be clearly marked as paid in the subject title/flair/first line of the review.
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u/lyroux Sep 16 '26
I've noticed the constant barrage of protoarc lately. I kind of tune out the libernovo.
My vote is the pausing of mentions. It seems like it would be a great deal of work to approve each post for the mods.