• MorrisonMotel6@lemm.ee
    137·
    3 months ago

    I was a bot hunter on reddit and was asked to mod /r/kittengifs because of my ability to find them. There were like 5 legitimate posts in 6 months

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      40·
      3 months ago

      So, tangentially related to this, you know r/kitty? The subreddit where every post was a picture of a cat, and the only word permitted in the title and any comments was “Kitty”?

      I’m convinced that was being used for covert communications. Run those pictures through Outguess or something.

      • MorrisonMotel6@lemm.ee
        23·
        3 months ago

        There was r/catsstandingup(?) as well that just responded “cat.” Never considered the conspiratorial angle there…

        If I cared about reddit anymore, I’d dig into that

    • Starbuncle@lemmy.caEnglish
      12·
      3 months ago

      How do you track down the sheer number of them so efficiently? You could obviously dig through each one’s profile, but that wouldn’t work for hundreds or thousands.

      • MorrisonMotel6@lemm.ee
        72·
        3 months ago

        Lol. There is no way to do it efficiently. I did it in the way you described every time, and I reported literal thousands to reddit’s admins (and never got a single response) and was banned by multiple subreddits because I was “annoying” when I reported bots to sub mods. I also called bots out in comments and provided evidence when I did. Nobody cared.

        When reddit killed 3rd party apps, I rolled out. I didn’t realize how bad reddit had become and how much I hated the site. I’m much happier here with less content and without a bot infestation. Additionally, I’m sure users, mods, and admins WOULD care if I reported that sort of thing on Lemmy

        • kboy101222@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          21·
          3 months ago

          Oh man, I used to see you around constantly. I believe you posted about your methods at one point and I started following them. Hunted down quite a few bots as well!

          For the subs I modded, my main strategy was to just ban any NameName or NameName## accounts that could post, and remove any comments from them that were super short or contained a link. That cut down on a ton of those assholes.

          I actually got to talk in person with one of the admins at Reddit in charge of spam prevention. I basically gave the bastard a lecture in all the ways the spammers were spamming and scamming. Got told they’d follow up with me soon for more. Never got that follow up and I gave up caring once the API changes went through. I actually deleted all my anti bot code from the subs, but they’re still all private anyways

        • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          611·
          3 months ago

          Tbh I always ignored users like you because they added nothing to the conversation and were annoying.
          My usual response was “Neat. Now report it and stop posting and bragging” or people callung the sleuth bot for reposts.
          Considering how often Lemmy has posts reposted (I can see the same meme twice or thrice per week in the same community instance. My default sorting is ‘rising’).

          • Belgdore@lemm.ee
            15·
            3 months ago

            I generally agreed with this sentiment, but the fact that admins and mods didn’t care makes me understand why they felt the need to point it out in the comments.

            As long as the mods and admins care about removing bots instead of just wanting an inflated user base I think the comments about bots should stay confined to posts like this one where they are on topic.

            • MorrisonMotel6@lemm.ee
              5·
              3 months ago

              the fact that admins and mods didn’t care makes me understand why they felt the need to point it out in the comments

              That is EXACTLY why I did it. I thought that if I could get more users to report those accounts, and if they did, the mods and admins would do something about it.

              Not coincidentally, /r/wholesomememes was the worst of all the subs. The overwhelming majority of obvious organized bot rings were operating there. The mods told me they knew and didn’t care because it was an opportunity for users to see content they hadn’t seen before (completely missing the point)

  • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
    64·
    3 months ago

    I wonder if they didn’t block the bot that approves content…

    Haha, moderator approval on Reddit.

      • kboy101222@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        8·
        3 months ago

        As a former mod, in my experience it was more having a place to engage a community, and helping that community grow and improve. Reddit being a million dollar company when I started and a billion dollar company when I left didn’t really factor in. If you have a site split up into a million little communities, you need moderators that can have intimate knowledge of each community they oversee, and that’s unreasonable for a company of any size to do in house. Otherwise you have Facebook style moderation where it’s just plain dreadful no matter where you are.

        Additionally, it really matters what sized sub you modded.

        I modded mostly smaller subs, one big one for a while, and a default for 2 weeks. I put a lot of effort into the smaller subs, especially when it was just a few people whose usernames I recognized posting. I had little jokes hidden around, some cool CSS stuff, and some automated tasks. It was an enjoyable way to spend a couple hours a week. I didn’t mind it.

        The big sub I was on mostly through mutuals. I was known to be pretty decent with automod scripting, so I got brought in to deal with never ending spam. I would update the automod and check queue every couple days, no biggie. Then the rest of the mods all drifted offline, leaving me alone to either let the sun die or to try and maintain the damned thing.

        I maintained it near single handedly for like 2 years. It was mostly adding more and more to automod, but a lot was manual approvals and deletions. It sucked and sapped all the fun out of an activity I used to enjoy. Wasn’t the worst, but I wouldn’t have joined in the first place had I known why would happen.

        Default subs are a different beast entirely. They don’t even use automod half the time. All of them have custom bots that link either a slack or discord, and everything is run externally through there. I decided to dip when I asked how tf all their tools worked and got refered to almost a damn knowledge base. That truly seemed awful and like it needed to be done by dedicated and paid employees.

        Anyways, this comment spiraled, so sorry about that.

  • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
    40·
    3 months ago

    Was anybody under the impression that it wasn’t just account harvesting? It’s been that way for years. All of the default subs have been that way for a long time. The biggest clue is when you see the same post on multiple different subs at the same time. Just have your bot swarm upvote posts so that they take off under hot and you’re good.

  • Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone
    30·
    3 months ago

    So I know my wife still uses Reddit, if the dead internet theory is to be believed either she’s a bot or I’m a bot…

    Can someone help me click this box?

  • Zozano@lemy.lolEnglish
    23·
    3 months ago

    “A few year away”

    Lol, have you tried searching for a “how to” article in the past five years?

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    231·
    3 months ago

    That’s kinda astonishing. I mean, I knew there were a lot of bots, but that many? That’s crazy. How did they filter for bots?

  • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
    20·
    3 months ago

    … I am somehow completely missing two days worth of memories, completely blank.
    I hope it’s not related.

  • RogueBanana@lemmy.zipEnglish
    18·
    3 months ago

    I misread that as Lemmy community for the same. Hopefully we are still got a lot of time before it hits us.