this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
488 points (97.5% liked)

Fediverse

35575 readers
95 users here now

A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, KBin, etc).

If you wanted to get help with moderating your own community then head over to [email protected]!

Rules

Learn more at these websites: Join The Fediverse Wiki, Fediverse.info, Wikipedia Page, The Federation Info (Stats), FediDB (Stats), Sub Rehab (Reddit Migration)

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Are any of these accounts bots?

Or maybe how many of these accounts are bots?

Are they all bots?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Around 95% accounts are bots. Around 90% if we are positive and assume that a lot of redditors joined since the bot farming started.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Thats seems bad. I know some bots are hepful. But 1 million bots seems like they for something nefariously.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Like trying to keep people on reddit?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Or just too generally troll the fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I'd go to Facebook first

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah, I hope that people farming them are just trolling the fediverse and don't plan on using them.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Lol trolling is bad. A bot army could make things miserable here.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Trolling in the sense making people freak out while not doing anything with those bots. That's what I'm hoping for although it's improbable.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I was thinking more racist transphobic trolling aided by an amry of lurking upvoting bots........but ya know.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If it's anything like Reddit's bots, they'll probably post copy-pasted comments to gain upvotes, then they'll start spamming advertisements and scams once they have a good amount.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm just afraid that these bots are bascially here to sabotage lemmy.

The fediverse is so awesome, there is no way big social media corps can play nice in the long term.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I would not be surprised if that's what they'll try to do, especially with Facebook apparently trying to enter the fediverse. They'll probably try to destroy the instances that aren't part of a big corporation.

I'm hoping their project (and other companies' similar projects) never takes off.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Yup. I hope the federated model can defned against these things. But im really nervous.

Lemmy is so cool rn.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

So what are the Bots doing? Who created them and why? I don't understand the purpose of bots.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Currently nothing but once activated they may start spamming stuff everywhere. Owners can decide what gets upvotes and what gets downvotes which gives you a lot of power on a platform where downvotes/upvotes mean everything.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Still don't get it - someone makes a comment, bots upvote it so it gets seen by more people. Not really going to change the world.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Sure, but do you like ads that masquerade as posts? Because if you do then you'll love the delicious taste of Diet Coke, grab one today! (16900 upvotes)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Oh boy, I, for one, love the taste of Diet Coke, the perfect refreshing drink when you and your family watch my new movie, "Barbie", only in theaters July 21st.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Companies advertising on here through AMA's should also be prevented because it's just advertising

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

They don't want to change the world. They want to let you know about hot singles in your area

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I don't see what the problem is here...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

IM IN YOUR AREA IM IN YOUR AREA I KNOW THE FIRST THREE NUMBERS, IM IN I KNOW THE FIRST THREE NUMBERS, IM IN TEACHIN BITCHES HOW TO SWIM TEACHIN BITCHES HOW TO SWIM

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

So what are the Bots doing?

Many of them are doing nothing so far.

No doubt they are available for sale to some company or individual that wants to buy them wholesale and start spamming or astroturfing.

Who created them and why?

People wanting to sell them for $$ mostly. In some cases, people biding their time to use them for mass spam, social misdirection, opinion forming, etc.

I don’t understand the purpose of bots.

In social media, a common and concerning use of them is to use them wholesale (comments, posts, and votes) to try and sway mass opinion on some issue to something the person responsible for the bots wants.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm looking active user all time. It's 50k person

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

The platform has 3 years so I was thinking more in terms of real human made accounts.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm no bot and joined 6 days ago :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Welcome friend.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Are any of these accounts bots?

About 2.45 million of the 2.5 are, yes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

As i suspected.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Yes unfortunately but lemmy is still growing

I'm going to link my comment because I don't want to rewrite it for everyone I reply to where it is relevant

https://lemmy.world/comment/548294

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Thanks for the reply!

And I totally agree.