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While on stream, Felix "xQc" Lengyel discovered the dark truth behind the popular subreddit r/Place.
After a failed attempt to take over the Turkish flag's spot on the digital canvas, the streamer investigated the accounts that defended it. He discovered that many of the accounts were created within the past few days, followed a similar naming pattern, and had no posting history.
"It's all bots!"
xQc discovers r/Place is full of bots
While opening the r/Place subreddit in between games of Fortnite, the popular streamer wanted to organize his viewers to take over the space the flag of Turkey was occupying. He specifically wanted to turn the star and crescent moon red, and the rest of the flag into random colors.
The attempt quickly failed, and xQc quickly began investigating the Reddit accounts that were keeping the mural intact. The accounts he looked up had procedurally generated names, following a similar scheme of two random words and a few digits.
The accounts were also created within the last couple of days, after the April Fool's Day 2022 reboot of the popular r/Place social experiment, and had no post or comment history outside of r/Place.
After the failed attack, the popular streamer quickly decided that the prevalence of bots on r/Place was the reason he lost.
"That's just bots. You can't win against bots."
Many would argue that Reddit and r/Place aren't doing enough to prevent the use of bot accounts. Potential solutions include adding a captcha before being able to change a pixel or adding a minimum Karma point requirement to prevent fresh accounts from participating.
However, there is no denying that having an automated army defending your mural is the meta on r/Place.
Whether he was being gracious in defeat or simply coping, xQc said he thinks the flag looks better after the failed attempt to change it.
"This actually improved it. This actually made the art better. I'm glad we did this."
Fans react to xQc discovering bots on r/Place
The pixel war on r/Place has been a hot topic on Reddit over the past few days, and there have been plenty of takes from users over the streamer's recent loss.
Others focused on the issue of bot accounts on r/Place, arguing that they make the subreddit less enjoyable for others.
There's likely to be even more shenanigans on r/Place in the future. Perhaps xQc’s next raid will be more successful than his previous attempts.
