Just your biannual reminder that the government’s social media manipulation arm, Eglin Airforce Base, was the most active Reddit using town in the WORLD. Stay aware, stay informed

Reddit has removed their blog post identifying Eglin Air Force Base as the most reddit-addicted “city” – Eglin is often cited as the source of some government social-media propaganda/astroturfing programs

The article as it was originally, now archived on archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20160604042751/http://www.redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day.html

The page as it appears currently (archived a couple days ago): https://archive.is/7MY8D

The original url: https://redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day.html

It appears that reddit recently updated the styling/branding of the reddit blog to be more like the “Upvoted” website. In this process some of their old articles have been pruned while others remain.

Here’s a paper about Eglin being used as part of a program testing the power of online astroturfing/propaganda: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1402.5644.pdf

Do a web search for Eglin AFB and astroturfing or propaganda for more information – if reddit is trying to obfuscate this, it is disconcerting. In all likelihood they just fucked up in moving the articles over to their new format or something stupid… but it still looks strange.

/u/DonGeronimo has provided these links as additional context:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/07/eglin-air-force-base-busted-gaming-reddit.html

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/07/pentagon-admits-spending-millions-study-manipulate-social-media-users.html

Update 9/10/2016: it appears the blog post has been restored.