Reddit's Karma Score Is a Lie. Here's the Math Behind It.

Two comments. Same subreddit. Same topic. Posted minutes apart. One has +847 karma. It sits at the top, gets gilded, spawns a thread of 200 replies. The person who wrote it gets DMs. Their next post gets upvoted reflexively because people remember the name. The other has +1. It exists somewhere below the fold, unseen by 99% of readers. Same words, different fate. That number — Reddit karma — is one of the most consequential invisible forces on the internet. It shapes what millions of people read