Through those fake accounts, Huffman and Ohanian submitted high-quality content — the type of articles they wanted to read. This “set the tone” for the site as whole, Huffman says and, at the same time, made it look populated. Internet ghost towns are hardly inviting places. Reddit’s army of fake users made the site look far more inviting to timid early explorers.
How Reddit Was Built With an Army of Fake Accounts
The lawn of ‘the front page of the internet’ was landscaped with astroturf.
(via extraface)