It's done by Reddit themselves. They know user visits are dropping. They know power users have slipped. To avoid making it look like a desert, they have bots create content.
The difference between now and then though, is they were a private company.
Unless they disclose they use bots to post content and make the site look active, any use of user count and engagement for any aspect of the company becomes fraud as its misleading investors.
Oh we have 1 million posts an hour! Fraud.
Oh we have 100 million monthly active users! Fraud!
Investors Q/A - do you use bots? Answer No. Fraud.
Conspiracy: Reddit sells bots and bot acquired analytics to high paying corpos, but are losing sales to secondary markets undercutting the reddit sold bots.
Could also be so they can make more ad money, since it makes it look like more people use the site, and more people see the ads. Allows them to get more money from advertisers.
Huh, even the most "aged" and high-karma accounts seem to top out under $1k, average for a well-used account seems $300-500, and most for way less. Wonder how many sales are actually made.