Social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit are increasingly infested with bots and fake accounts, leading to significant manipulation of public discourse. These bots don’t just annoy users—they skew visibility through vote manipulation. Fake accounts and automated scripts systematically downvote posts opposing certain viewpoints, distorting the content that surfaces and amplifying specific agendas.
Before coming to Lemmy, I was systematically downvoted by bots on Reddit for completely normal comments that were relatively neutral and not controversial at all. Seemed to be no pattern in it… One time I commented that my favorite game was WoW, down voted -15 for no apparent reason.
For example, a bot on Twitter using an API call to GPT-4o ran out of funding and started posting their prompts and system information publicly.
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/chatgpt-bot-x-russian-campaign-meme/
Bots like these are probably in the tens or hundreds of thousands. They did a huge ban wave of bots on Reddit, and some major top level subreddits were quiet for days because of it. Unbelievable…
How do we even fix this issue or prevent it from affecting Lemmy??
If they don’t blink and you hear the servos whirring, that’s a pretty good sign.
Ah yes, the 'bots.
Lemmy.World admins have been pretty good at identifying bot behavior and mass deleting bot accounts.
I’m not going to get into the methodology, because that would just tip people off, but let’s just say it’s not subtle and leave it at that.
deleted by creator
Perhaps the only way to get rid of them for sure is to require a CAPTCHA before all posts. That has its own issues though.
That sounds like a good way to get rid of most of the users too.
Eh. It doesn’t have to be before all posts. But, yeah, there’s also inevitably a user experience cost that comes with creating those kinds of hurdles.
One argument in favor of bots on social media is their ability to automate routine tasks and provide instant responses. For example, bots can handle customer service inquiries, offer real-time updates, and manage repetitive interactions, which can enhance user experience and free up human moderators for more complex tasks. Additionally, they can help in disseminating important information quickly and efficiently, especially in emergency situations or for public awareness campaigns.
This reads like a chatgpt reply 😅
A ChatGPT reply is generally clear, concise, and informative. It aims to address your question or topic directly and provide relevant information. The responses are crafted to be engaging and helpful, tailored to the context of the conversation while maintaining a neutral and professional tone.
I love dailydot. They summarize tiktoks about doordash and then provide the same video at the bottom of the page. I can feel my mind rot while consuming it but I still do it.
I think the only way to solve this problem for good would be to tie social media accounts to proof of identity. However, apart from what would certainly be a difficult technical implementation, this would create a whole bunch of different problems. The benefits would probably not outweigh the costs.
You were targeted by someone and they used the bots to punish you. It could have been a keyword in your posts. I had some tool that would down vote any post where I used the word snowflake. I guess the little snowflake didn’t like me calling him one. I played around with bots for a while but it wasn’t worth it. I was a OP on several IRC networks back in the day and the bots we ran then actually did something useful. Like a small percentage of reddit bots.
I doubt that. 15 downvotes for saying they like WoW doesn’t seem that out of line. People hate the crap out of that game and its users. Bots are a huge problem, but I doubt they are targeting OP.
I’m ready to go back to irc. Let’s make irc a thing again.
IRC is still a thing. It has a ton of activity in the pirate/warez scene.
Awesome, do you know what server would be popular? For science of course.
Its still there. I like it and sometimes when its tech related its the best place to go to get reliable information.
Genuine question:
Is IRC somehow better or more secure than Matrix?
I’ll be honest, I have no idea. What’s Matrix?
Very similar to IRC from what I understand, but a different and newer system designed to work with the current fediverse. I haven’t fiddled with it yet, but im in the process of standing up a social media server for my family and friends and will likely be using it.
Just trying to weigh my options, so I figured if ask about IRC.
Check out matrix here
Very neat and interesting. Can you send files? It does look a lot like IRC.
You know, I’m not sure. I imagine you can though, given that you can do other data intensive things like group video chat.
I might have to spin this up this weekend.
Give up. There is no hope we already lost. Fuck us fuck our lives fuck everything we should just die.
GPT-4o
Its kind of hilarious that they’re using American APIs to do this. It would be like them buying Ukranian weapons, when they have the blueprints for them already.
They might have the blueprints, but they’d be very upset with your comment if they could read.
Trap them?
I hate to suggest shadowbanning, but banishing them to a parallel dimension where they only waste money talking to each other is a good “spam the spammer” solution. Bonus points if another bot tries to engage with them, lol.
Do these bots check themselves for shadowbanning? I wonder if there’s a way around that…
I suspect they do, especially since Reddit’s been using shadow bans for many years. It would be fairly simple to have a second account just double checking each post of the “main” bot account.
Hmm, what if the shadowbanning is ‘soft’? Like if bot comments are locked at a low negative number and hidden by default, that would take away most exposure but let them keep rambling away.
How do we even fix this issue or prevent it from affecting Lemmy??
Simple. Just scream that everyone whose opinion you dislike is a bot.
I disagree with this statement, so Ensign_Crab must be a bot. Reported.
I admit I’ve been guilty of this in the past, so sarcasm aside I cannot recommend this as a strategy for detecting actual bots … even though if you’re parroting the opinion those who have power & control bots wish you to believe, expressing that opinion makes one’s post functionally equivalent to that of a bot. I KNOW, SUE ME 🤷♂️
I cannot recommend this as a strategy for detecting actual bots
That’s because it isn’t one. It’s a means by which people attempt to impose orthodoxy.
On an instance level, you can close registration after a threshold level of users that you are comfortable with. Then, you can defederate the instances that are driven by capitalistic ideals like eternal growth (e.g. Threads from meta)
Oh. And an invite-only could also work for new accounts.
Not a full solution, but… can you block users by wildcard? IMHO everyone who has “.eth" or ".btc” as their user name is not worth listening to. Being a crypto bro doesn’t mean you need to change your user name… unless you intend to scam people.
I’ll revise my opinion if rappers ever make crypto names cool.
can you block users by wildcard?
Nope. You also can’t prevent users from viewing your profile. It’s not like Facebook where you block someone, they’re gone and can’t even see you. On Reddit, they can see you, and just log onto another account to harass and downvote you.
Create a bot that reports bot activity to the Lemmy developers.
You’re basically using bots to fight bots.
Love that name too. Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.
While a good solution in principle, it could (and likely will) false flag accounts. Such a system should be a first line with a review as a second.
Whenever I propose a solution, someone [justifiably] finds a problem within it.
I got nothing else. Sorry, OP.
It’s reporting activity, not banning people (or bots)
Are you willing to sift through all the reports?
Cause that’s gunna be A LOT of work
Let AI do it! See? Easy!
