Reddit if full of bots: thread reposted exactly the same, comment by comment, 10 months later
Reddit if full of bots: thread reposted exactly the same, comment by comment, 10 months later
For the threads with the older one on the left: https://lemmy.world/post/14859950
(Thank you @Nelots@lemm.ee )
My understanding of how this works is that that left one is real accounts making real comments, at least in the majority.
Then when the link gets reposted, either by a bot or naturally, potentially depending on the title, the bots scrape the old comments and post them.
It's content farming. And Reddit is probably okay with this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory
I didn’t believe this when I first heard about it but it’s looking more true everyday
We use manual approval for programming.dev accounts where there is a very simple instruction you must follow to be approved. The amount of spam that fails that test makes me concerned about the amount of bots from instances without any barriers for account creation.
What happens on reddit (in regards to spam) will inevitably finds its way to ActivityPub link aggregators like lemmy.
That's been happening for ages. I'm sure if you check the profiles you'll find other posts with all the same bots commenting. A lot of lazier ones wait exactly a year to repost, and it's pretty obvious in subs for something like a live service game where they'll be reposting complaints that are way out of date. One in the Monster Hunter sub reposted a trailer for Iceborne which had been out for 3 years by that point.
shit like this was happening before the exodus, you'd go into one thread then the other where it's crossposted, and it's the same comment, but with some dot, commas in weird places and it's a reply to another comment and doesn't really makes sense.
oh and youtube comments are full of nonsensical AI convos that like recommend financial advisors, or coins to invest in, like bruh
r/FluentinFinance is just five different accounts made less than a year ago that reposting the same political twitter screenshots with the exact same titles that all get boosted to the front page every time. Idk if everyone there is too caught up in arguing the same points they made a week ago to notice or if everyone who eventually finds out gets banned.
Just said on a Reddit r/worldnews' thread that the subreddit has been astroturfed for years, as a response to someone wondering how could people in the comments be wishing for more innocent Palestinians be killed, and surprise surprise, I got instabanned. The site is becoming a façade of a fake reality in far more ways than one.
A strange thing on reddit is that if you make a new account and then make a comment that gets like 8 down votes then that new account gets shadow banned.
They've implemented so many rules that it encourages new users to act in the same way as the hive mind. Where even if you are an actual user then you are indistinguishable from a bot. Basically you've become a living NPC.
Another settlement needs our help. I'll mark it on your map.
Yeah, I've seen that a bunch of times. Some subredits seem to be a particularly popular places to karma-farm to make convincing sock-puppet accounts to sell. Often someone in the thread points out that it is a bot repost - but the fake post and fake comments are easier to engage with compared to the accusation that someone is a karma-farming bot.
(And of course, these bots-in-training will upvote each other's comments and posts... so it always looks pretty popular.)
That's why you ignore all comments from usernames that are like the default ones. Has been that way for a long time, tbh.
This is incredible. Like, it was always obvious from a gut feeling or seeing comments reposted in the exact same thread, but this makes it even more obvious.
fuck reddit
Been happening a lot longer than you imagine. I stopped using Reddit when the third party apps got shut down. At least the last year of my time there was calling out repost bot accounts. Threads like that on smaller subs with week moderation were really common.
Even on some better moderated subs, they got through.
Reddit died for me a long time ago.
This happens everywhere there, and if you complain the just say “you’re a bot!” Or “Reddit is for discussion” … place is a shithole
has someone reached out to u/A-Seashell to let them know they’ll never get an answer :’(
I more and more think that the only way to manage online community is via invites. There are major downsides (difficulty of bootstrapping and reduced anonymity) but it gives a way to combat this. If a significant number of the users you have invited are bots you get your invite privileges revoked (or you get banned). It creates a chain of accountability and you can ban as high as necessary to severe the corrupted branch.
that's pretty creepy
Reddit Link of the duplicate:
Fidyrriy
Reddit perma banned for criticizing Israel
This is nothing new, pun intended.
🤡🤡🤡
Now do Lemmy.
This is clearly the work of the liberal establishment/Democratic party who have a history of 1. Using bots to influence social media and 2. Blame narratives that run counter to their narrow political program as Russian or Chinese "bots".
To be clear, I am not a right winger, I'm a socialist who wants student loans to be forgiven, in fact I'd like to see every part of the system challenged with political struggle and reforms, to the point that a class society is no longer sustainable and a new society of the workers can be fought for and won as humanely as possible. Also, if you consider yourself a progressive liberal who is registered as a democrat, I'm not immediately talking about you specifically here, but the party bosses who will sabotage our movements to stay in power; basically the lesser-evilist "moderates" who are so corrupt that its becoming difficult to tell the difference between them and the republican establishment.
But on the other hand, both parties are using social media bots, and the most popular method is to make the other party look like 1. They are using bots 2. They are backed by foreign countries who use bots. So this could actually be republicans using bots to make it look like democrats are using bots. This kind of uncertainty is paralysing. What do we do?
Get organized with other workers, if you're in a union, get involved. If not, attend local DSA/socialist worker meetings or involve yourself in community work that puts you in touch with like minded individuals in your community, and organize them using democratic methods. We have to create an alternative system that is democratic and highly organized to fight back. Recent social movements have not been hugely successful, but they are getting better, we are learning from past mistakes and becoming harder to manage. Please don't sit on the sidelines any longer, realize you can't trust the news media or social media. Talk to friends and family about their experiences and put yourself in contact with local activists who share your values.
