It’s kind of an ad. More so a scam. Like on Reddit, bot accounts will post an image of a product such as a t-shirt, a coffee mug, various tchotchkes, etc., then they will post a scam link in the post description, in their user profile, or most often in the comments, especially after an unwitting real user or an associated bot account lauds the products in a comment. This is an example method of drop ship scamming. One thing to notice about the image in this post is that it doesn’t need to be on a t-shirt — the t-shirt is the “product”, if you were to even get a package delivered from the so-called store. The Threadiverse needs to wisen up to spam and scam methods or else it will become as bot infested as Reddit, which many people left because of the bot infection.
It’s easy to make the argument that an image of the content, instead of on a t-shirt is equally as much a promotion for a product as neither comes with the possibility of purchasing them through the post. Or even worse, an image could be put on a jumper, a mug or even sent to a printshop to be made into a poster.
What if I made a t-shirt with your comment on it? Would that transform your reply into a scam? No.
A post like this is not guaranteed to be by a bad actor, but it is a major red flag and I suggest good actors avoid it or otherwise make their intentions expressly clear if they were to make posts like it. Typically, spam bot accounts would have new and/or barren profiles, or may have bot-like post and comment history such as LLM generated text or two-dimensional “personalities” and interests. I mentioned the choice of medium as something for users to think about as a loose heuristic for critically examining the content that they consume.
cm0002@lemmings.world 3 days ago
I do, but I don’t get how this is an ad? There’s no branding
s@piefed.world 3 days ago
It’s kind of an ad. More so a scam. Like on Reddit, bot accounts will post an image of a product such as a t-shirt, a coffee mug, various tchotchkes, etc., then they will post a scam link in the post description, in their user profile, or most often in the comments, especially after an unwitting real user or an associated bot account lauds the products in a comment. This is an example method of drop ship scamming. One thing to notice about the image in this post is that it doesn’t need to be on a t-shirt — the t-shirt is the “product”, if you were to even get a package delivered from the so-called store. The Threadiverse needs to wisen up to spam and scam methods or else it will become as bot infested as Reddit, which many people left because of the bot infection.
DrDystopia@lemy.lol 3 days ago
It’s easy to make the argument that an image of the content, instead of on a t-shirt is equally as much a promotion for a product as neither comes with the possibility of purchasing them through the post. Or even worse, an image could be put on a jumper, a mug or even sent to a printshop to be made into a poster.
What if I made a t-shirt with your comment on it? Would that transform your reply into a scam? No.
s@piefed.world 2 days ago
A post like this is not guaranteed to be by a bad actor, but it is a major red flag and I suggest good actors avoid it or otherwise make their intentions expressly clear if they were to make posts like it. Typically, spam bot accounts would have new and/or barren profiles, or may have bot-like post and comment history such as LLM generated text or two-dimensional “personalities” and interests. I mentioned the choice of medium as something for users to think about as a loose heuristic for critically examining the content that they consume.