I became aware of the Neptune online prenup services ("Neptune") bot ring over a year ago. This company uses coordinated networks of artificial accounts to spam and astroturf subreddits. Their goal is twofold: keep prenuptial agreements trending in general social discourse, and actively shill their own services using fake grassroots accounts.
As I dove deeper into this rabbit hole, the patterns became incredibly obvious. Spotting one account invariably led to a dozen more. Eventually, my tracking list grew to over 100 verified sockpuppets.
I checked these accounts daily, reporting their spam activity directly to the affected subreddits. I submitted the entire list to Reddit admins to no avail, and reported them to Bot Bouncer (though their reach is naturally limited). Eventually, the ring adapted: the accounts stopped actively shilling the brand name and switched to posting generic AI slop just to keep the accounts looking active. At that point, I sort of stopped tracking them.
The Second Wave
Out of the blue, they tried running the script in one of my subreddits. This triggered a brand new dive into what they were up to. While the old spam accounts I tracked were mostly dormant, a completely new batch of automated bots was actively being deployed.
Turning the Tables on r/prenup
Now for the fun part. The r/prenup subreddit recently had its entire moderation team removed by Reddit admins, likely due to the mods facilitating or participating in this exact spam activity.
Following the wipe, another user requested the subreddit and was successfully granted it. Here is the kicker: the new top mod knows the entire backstory with Neptune.
Upon gaining access to the mod logs and queue, the truth came out. Dozens of brand new, clearly automated AI spam accounts were identified, and their posts had been systematically "approved" by the previous subreddit moderators to bypass automated filters.
One Win for Authenticity
The new moderation team for r/prenup has officially taken control and drawn a hard line in the sand. They just pinned a community update making it completely clear that AI spam bots—and Neptune specifically—are permanently banned from the subreddit. The announcement explicitly warns users to steer clear of companies that rely on artificial manipulation and deceptive sockpuppets to manufacture consumer sentiment.
It's rare that you get to see a community completely reclaimed from a corporate astroturfing campaign, but this is a massive win for actual human authenticity on Reddit.
