Vote manipulation
Artificially inflating or deflating a post's votes with fake accounts, bots, bought votes, or coordinated groups — to rig what gets seen. A constant cat-and-mouse game against platforms like Reddit whose ranking is entirely built on votes.
Mechanic: since upvotes determine visibility, there are strong incentives to cheat — sockpuppet accounts upvoting your own content, botnets, bought upvote services, or organized groups coordinating votes (a form of brigading). Effect: manipulated content reaches the top and distorts what the community "really" thinks. Defense: platforms analyze unnatural patterns (vote timing, account age, IP clusters), "fuzz" the exact vote counts, and quietly down-weight suspicious votes. Reddit explicitly forbids asking for votes ("please upvote"). It exploits sockpuppets and brigading as tools. A core vulnerability in all vote/ranking-based systems. Related to sockpuppet and brigading.