Reddit repost bots are spam, and that needs to be stopped.
Reddit repost bots are spam, and that needs to be stopped.
Ok, imagine this, you are on reddit (say, a slow hobby focused subreddit), everybody there is nice and knowledgeable, and one day, the mods there announced that since there is not enough "content" on the sub, they are going to use a bot to repost content from 9gag in order to "bolster engagement" and "grow the community".
How would you feel about that?
If you feel upset and grossed out, you're exactly right.
I don't think there is a single non-spam subreddit where that kind of behavior would be tolerated without being called out for blatant mod abuse. No community in the world would ever tolerate automated reposting from another website, not reddit, not 4chan, not any forums of any size, even 9gag, I repeat, BLOODY 9GAG, was tired of being called out for reddit reposting and started making original content.
So why exactly should this kind of behavior be tolerated here?
Now, I'm sure some mods here did it with good intentions, but again, the road to the hell that is modern reddit is PAVED with good intentions. Content for the sake of content is bad, and we already knew it is bad, which is why Gallowboob was so thoroughly disliked, he generates """"""content"""""", in other words, spam that drowns out the normal people who can't compete with a professional marketer, much less a bot, which is exactly the reason why "Just block the bots" doesn't work, because it ruins the genuine engagements on a forum by drawing people to the lowest common denominator of """""""""""content""""""""""""".
Reddit, over the years, has turned into a platform for "bolstering engagement" for advertisers, and it does that by algorithmically stoking conflicts between people so they would endlessly argue and doomscroll. Why would we want that here? Now, I think most of us like the Lemmy/kbin right now because of the lack of bots here, and the conversations happen naturally and genuinely. I've even seen people here try to engage the bots, not realizing that they would never get a response out of them, because it felt normal to just talk about things.
(Eat your robot hearts out, @L4s and @BotIt)
Suppose then, if this repost bot situation was indeed temporary, why would people want to make original content if they are just going to be drowned out by bots? What's to stop someone from turning on bots from /r/dankmemes or /r/tiktokcringe? The bots are not members of the community, because they are not people (save the /r/botsright joke for more appropriate times), and over time, we will just become dependent on the bots hosing us down directly from that burning dumpster fire and become doomscrolling addicts again.
That's the number two lesson from the failure of Voat: that repost bots, like hate, should also not be tolerated, and Reddit will never die if we keep feeding it.
Everybody here are still currently all "Oh fuck reddit, fuck spez, I deleted my reddit account and all of my comments and will never go back again", but after finally getting away from reddit, why are you so insistent on trying to turn this place back to the worst part of reddit again?
And if the reddit migration on July 1st does indeed occur, do you think they would be ecstatic to see a place that's mostly reddit reposts, but with less """""""""""""""""""content"""""""""""""""""""? If they wanted reddit, why wouldn't they just go back to reddit?
When will we finally be rid of reddit, if we are the ones keeping it on life support?
I will say, if I sound frustrated, it's because I am frustrated, because I actually can't believe I even had to say this. Judging from the comments on this thread yesterday, I think a majority of people here would agree with me. We have something good here, and I'd like to keep it that way a bit longer.
Now, I very much appreciate that our admins here at lemmy.world and their amazing job of preemptively blocking suspicious bot infested instances, so I'm asking politely for @ruud, @Antik and the rest of our good admin team here to put their foot down on not allowing reddit repost spambots and nip this problem in the bud before it takes root, so I can get back to shitposting in peace.
Be better than reddit.
Burn reddit down.
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Can I ask if this sounds like bots handled my relationship situation on Reddit?
My ex broke up with me about 4 months ago. It was a brutal discard and ghost on her part. I ended up going to Reddit for support and really trashed her actions and our relationship on some of the relationship subreddits there. Nothing serious and no doxxing but some specifics that she might recognize if she read it. I was just venting hardcore anonymously which is what I do to get over something like this. After a few weeks I started to notice that many of the posts on the relationship subreddits looked like they could be based on our relationship or might be slightly off in time or other minor details. Then I start to see what I interpreted initially as my ex's attempt to communicate with me. I'm going through a series of messages in Reddit which get me to one specific story. The title of the story had my ex's name as the poster and in the title it states a characteristic of hers that no one else would know and I'm having a conversation with someone that had her name as her Reddit handle but the spelling was slightly off but the same pronunciation. So I posted a reply and got an immediate auto-response saying this is not your person but we will reach out to them. The next day I'm back at the post chatting with this person again but they are being non-responsive or vague in their responses but she/it states things that might be vaguely related to something I've posted before. I'm seeing more posts which appear to be related to our relationship but with a little more threatening overtone. I'm starting to feel like I'm getting harassed on there and things are happening with my phone specifically with the Reddit app that appear to be abnormal. I removed it from my phone and started using Narwhal again. Then I start seeing strange things occurring with that (one time I was redirected to what appeared to look like the FBI website). As I'm trying to get to the bottom of it, my accounts are getting flagged and I can no longer post with them. This happens to multiple accounts I created. Then my last action I was on the subreddit chatting with someone that indirectly appeared to be my ex. This person was giving me an impression 100% that it was her without telling me it was. My account gets disabled and I decided this was a lost cause and I need to move on from this venture.
In addition, I'm getting prank phones calls once in a while. I've also been dealing with fake dating profiles since breakup which I believe are her doing. My conclusion was that perhaps she worked in some form for Reddit or was a moderator and organized this with other moderators or employees. It would require some technical expertise which I know she didn't have. I recall her stating that she used Reddit and she was very addicted to it but I never saw what she would do on there. Based on what I was reading on the subreddits, I was getting the impression that she had moved to San Francisco (home of Reddit), but due to a disorder she doesn't have a high school diploma. My thoughts went from the possibility that my ex wanted to reconnect to the point where I thought I was getting harassed by multiple individuals that would force demands on me. It got so bad that I sent Reddit a cease and desist letter. The events above occurred within the last 3-4 weeks.
I'm not sure what to make of this, but I'm not discounting that it was all scripted and possibly automated. What I noticed in the past weekend was an uptick in the posts as though they are being auto-generated. The posts are no longer specific to us or have any demands of me on there. I'm not sure what to make of this and I don't have my ex's contact information anymore and I'd be afraid to even reach out even if I did.
Does anyone have any past experience like this? Or is there somewhere I can post this experience where people might have an idea as to what happened here? It's all just very odd to me leaving me a bit distraught until I gave up.
Thank you.