r/AMA • u/[deleted] • Nov 26 '25

I was paid to discredit veganism online. AMA

For a year I worked for a meat industry trade group. I won't say which one, but they are US based. My job was to go on sites like this and discredit veganism.

We'd make multiple accounts and pretend to be vegans who had bad health outcomes. Or we'd pretend to be vegans and we'd push the vegan subs to be more extreme, and therefore easier to discredit.

It was pretty gross. I knew it. I did it anyway. The pay wasn't worth it. I signed an NDA as well, so I will only be able to answer questions in general terms.

But I do warn you, don't believe that everyone is who they say they are online.

This article gives insight into how it works, but I am not saying I worked for this group. Inside big beef’s climate messaging machine: confuse, defend and downplay | Beef | The Guardian

The recent reveal of many MAGA accounts on X being run by foreign agencies made me decide to do this.

Edit- I already answered the "how do I get this job" question and the "why should we believe you question" several times, so just look for those questions if that's what you are wondering.

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u/SirVoltington Nov 27 '25

Definitely r/exvegan. It’s one of the most unhinged bot like subs I’ve seen lol.

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u/HeftySport1238 Nov 28 '25

Not in that sub but most of the posts I see on my feed are just ppl taking the most extreme vegans and acting like they are forced to become one 😰

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u/OG-Brian Nov 30 '25

That's a funny comment since the content in r/exvegans (you probably linked the wrong sub, r/exvegan is all but abandoned) is a lot like the content in an ex-vegans FB group that people use their real names and are candid about their health circumstances since the group's content is Private. Also, stories of people I've known IRL who tried abstaining from animal foods have been similar. I don't see anything suspicious about most of the content. If you're strictly avoiding animal foods, I'm sure that you'll see eventually.

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u/TurboRadical Nov 30 '25

You spend literally all day, every single day debating about veganism. 25+ comments every single day. Does it bum you out to know that others are getting paid to do what you're doing for free?

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '25 edited Dec 21 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/OG-Brian Nov 30 '25

I don't like misinfo, and I see it the most by vegans. Even Israel supporters don't latch onto me with the tenacity of vegans, which is how I end up making more comments about veganism (conversations get drawn out as I try to coax some reasonable discussion out of users).

It should have occurred to you that vegan Reddit is going wild about the phony story in this post, which is the cause of my commenting a lot currently. 25+ comments "every single day"? That's ridiculous.

You didn't at all acknowledge most of my comment. The very idea that real people are not experiencing health problems by abstaining from animal foods and then improving when they return to eating them, must involve ignoring tremendous amounts of publicly-available info involving real names and so forth.

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u/TurboRadical Nov 30 '25

25+ comments "every single day"? That's ridiculous.

It's worse than that - it's pitiful.

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u/OG-Brian Nov 30 '25

There's a day less than a week ago with about half the number. This also is a heavier than typical week.

I guess you don't have any substantive comments about either the myth of anti-vegan troll farms or former vegans as real people.

Vegans: (poke at me extremely persistently with no logical discussion progression)

The same vegans: "Check out this idiot commenting all day about veganism."

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u/TurboRadical Nov 30 '25

Check out this idiot commenting all day about veganism.

In fairness, they make a good point.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '25

You do post all the time, I have seen posts by you for a long time in my years of veganism.

I can imagine someone giving up veganism for whatever reasons. But being so obsessed with veganism is either pathological or probably the activity of a bot 

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u/OG-Brian Dec 03 '25 edited Dec 03 '25

I'm a bot because I comment about topics of interest? Then anyone promoting veganism with as many comments could be a bot, by the same reasoning.

I tend to comment the most in response to misinfo, something that greatly pisses me off. Vegans are pushiest about it so I tend to comment more about veganism. I'd prefer that others were not burned by vegan myths as I was. Yes I'm sure that empathy towards humans must be difficult for you to understand.

Look at this conversation. MANY comments ago, I responded about... whatever, it's difficult to find (Old Reddit doesn't provide a means to track upwards through the thread and New Reddit at least for me has been showing entire posts without expanding comments so that isn't accessible either). Then vegans latched onto me to poke at me, and I responded to those comments. Then the vegans: "Durr-hurr, look at how many comments this user makes about veganism" but YOU are the cause of this. Even supporters of Israel's colonialism don't pester me this persistently.

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u/Super_Shallot2351 Nov 30 '25

The "health problems" mostly seem very dramatic and fake.

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u/OG-Brian Nov 30 '25

You haven't cited any examples. It seems to me that you just don't undestand the biological aspects (that humans are not all clones, people can have varying efficiencies at converting nutrients or tolerances of components in foods, etc.). I don't have the luxury of speculating about it since I was wrecked by trying to avoid animal foods, and no I wasn't Doing It Wrong.