Real question.
Assuming that mastodon got super popular, would it be at risk of the same or is it someone more immune to this sort of thing?
Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?
11–20 of 27 posts
Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?
#12> They just post inane one line comments in response to the article headline. They often have some corny joke or something like that, but it's never anything more than two sentences, and those sentences never, ever say anything insightful or even controversial - it's just an incredibly surface level and uncontroversial reaction to the headline. I haven't used Reddit in years, but this was Reddit pre-LLMs.
Agree. And of course it's always something "surface level and uncontroversial", anything else gets you downvoted. Most subreddits (with a few exceptions) are huge echo-chambers.
Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?
#13I imagine the problem inside the company looks like this:
1) data science team collects numbers to suggest that the problem of Botz is catastrophically widespread
2) said numbers are presented to management. If they acknowledge the numbers are true, then they are indirectly under a fiduciary duty to report this to advertisers, which would cause a catastrophic drop in annual revenue figures.
3) Management panics and asked the data science team to look at the numbers again just a really really really really make sure that they are over blowing the problem. Meanwhile, they are hoping to fix the problem before any of this shows up any more in the revenue cycles.
Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?
#14> Are people farming karma to later sell the accounts to shill products? Yes. Any self-respecting bot shiller knows their accounts need to look as genuine as possible. Broad subreddit use and commenting, harmless comments. Then whammy with the sponsored post when the time is right. The more harmless the better. The more comment karma the better. It's not Reddit pumping their numbers. They don't need to and after Elon…
I'm fairly certain my account is being AB tested for only visiting it on a web browser on Android, for how much a user will put up with before just leaving the site and not downloading the app lol.
Use old.reddit.com it is a lot cleaner
Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?
#15Real question. Assuming that mastodon got super popular, would it be at risk of the same or is it someone more immune to this sort of thing?
Every server has their own policy, so there will always be reasonable places on Mastodon.
Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?
#16I think there's also an element of herd mentality. People I know who use Reddit also have reduced the quality of their comments to similarly inane one-liners and throwaway jokes of a dubious standard.
While I have no doubt that there are bots there, there are also a bunch of sheeple following the lead of the bots.
Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?
#17Yeah. But Reddit has been drifting in this direction for a long time, the LLM Bots have just accelerated it. Long ago it used to be the place to go for authentic discussion, now it all just feels like one big spammy botfest.
Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?
#18[deleted]
Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?
#19It's the same everywhere I look, the dead internet theory is in full effect.
Instagram and twitter are particularly bad too, overall I never know if something was posted by a 70 IQ politically brainwashed person, a troll, a 11 years old kid or a bot, it's virtually impossible to tell anymore
Re: Has anyone noticed how overrun by bots Reddit has become?
#20> Are people farming karma to later sell the accounts to shill products? Yes. Any self-respecting bot shiller knows their accounts need to look as genuine as possible. Broad subreddit use and commenting, harmless comments. Then whammy with the sponsored post when the time is right. The more harmless the better. The more comment karma the better. It's not Reddit pumping their numbers. They don't need to and after Elon…
> Are people farming karma to later sell the accounts to shill products?
> Yes.
I wonder who buys though. I had an account which was 9 years old, over well over 100k karma and I decided I would delete it. Before doing so and out of curiosity, I contacted a couple of accounts that said they bought accounts. I was offered $20 (twenty) dollars. No more. Deleted the account.
If that is a representative amount then it's a lot of 'work' for no real gain.