this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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Do you have a link to that thread?
Because it often appears in place of 'I's and 'E's as if the emails were printed then re-digitalised with OCR(the top and bottom bars on I and E in certain fonts could trigger certain OCRs algos to read it as =)
It also appears to replace characters rather than being appended like you'd expect with a separation flag(chars in unused unicode spaces are also more likely to be used for that function than something commonly used in text like =), I could be wrong though so I'm interested in seeing the discussion
I do not. I just spent about 10 mins trying to find it. It's not in c/technology or c/chapotraphouse, that I can see. Searching "=" or any other relevant key words for posts or comments doesn't bring it up. IDK.
No worries, thanks for looking(I assume you also checked your browser history)
Maybe it was this I saw (thanks to astronot)
https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueAnon/comments/1quqk6q/this_is_where_all_those_equals_signs_in_the/
Really easy to confuse hexbear with r/trueanon since everyone just reposts from there all the time.
A Reddit link was detected in your comment. Here are links to the same location on alternative frontends that protect your privacy.
Yeah it looks like the digital rot version of copier burn.
I don't have a link to the thread over here, but this article explains it in depth