Most of Reddit was bots interacting with bots a while ago already.
Anon finds a bot
Submitted 3 weeks ago by Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works to greentext@sh.itjust.works
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/2f001ffe-a8e3-4e35-accf-3ade24881520.jpeg
Comments
DaddleDew@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
yakko@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
The site makes most of its money selling ads. The value of that ad space is based on user metrics.
Many users are now fake. They are actively hiding this fact.
Apropos of nothing, the company has a $34 billion market cap.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Why is anyone paying for adverts that no one will see though? Surely adverts only have value if it brings in sales.
Would be amusing to see the entire advertising market crash tbh.
atthecoast@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
If you then train new bots on the generated content, the models will degrade yes?
frog@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
If you look a lot of new posts, they are actually highly upvoted old posts. So bots probably stay the same.
PrimeMinisterKeyes@leminal.space 3 weeks ago
The bots know what is bot content and what is not.
Actual users don’t.
Pyro@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Never been more glad to have left that sinking ship early.
atro_city@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
Oh, don't worry, they'll come here soon enough.
Bazell@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Well, isn’t the point of Lemmy to be similar to Reddit but not exactly like Reddit? I mean, it would be great to increase Lemmy user base to over 1 million despite the fact that this will also include all bad people. But, since Lemmy does not belong to anyone, it will not be controlled.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Congrats for the moderator of /r/Jailbait for becoming a billionaire! /s
lka1988@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Oh god, I had forgotten about that…
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Note to self: If the Epstein files ever come out, search for Steve Huffman in them.
nomorebillboards@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Mfw putting “author:username” into the Reddit search bypasses this
ddplf@szmer.info 3 weeks ago
Which is the worst of two worlds, because now most people will still not be able to verify other account’s credibility, however people with bad intentions - who are usually more prepared - will still be able to continue their activities.
x00z@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If you want to be anonymous on the internet you can’t rely on some website to protect you.I get your point but people need to really start learning the reality of the internet again.
Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
for now
n0respect@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Bots only upvote their own bot circle or content which makes their owners $$$$.
Real human concerns will only be heard if they align with $$$$.
lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
There used to be a site called Reddit, where you’d be your post history. Now that site is dead - the URL still works, I guess, but it links to some weird Twitter with an alien logo.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
That’s the best description of reddit I’ve ever seen both past and present, and you’ve completely bypassed all of the usual sayings about reddit in the process. I applaud you! Now where’s that Lemmy gold thing…
On a side note, an actual financial implementation of Lemmy gold would probably be a really good feature to drive donations to hosts. I’d imagine the implementation as the user donates to their host and receives a configurable amount of gold to give as a reward for donating. That gold is entirely tracked by the instance their account is on, then when they gift gold to a user the receiving instance just receives notice that gold was given, similar to an upvote. Then to filter for bad actors instance admins can whitelist/blacklist instances from giving gold to their instance, and probably also make it possible to see which instances a user’s gifted gold came from as a layer of transparency to help spot bad faith instances that give free gold or too much gold or whatever.
I could also see an extension where a portion of the gold’s value is transmitted to the recipient via cryptocurrency (about the only thing cryptocurrency is actually good at, peer to peer online transactions) but that has way too much opportunity for abuse. Maybe that can be done manually by admins to help ensure a fair dispersal of gold funds? Still overcomplicating and introduces a ton of opportunity for abuse though
lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
I’m not sure if gold would be a good fit for the Fediverse forums. As problematic as the voting system is, tying visibility to popularity is less worse than tying it to money spent.
Instead I think the current approach (donations) should be improved. I expect the same type of people who’d buy gold to finance their instances to be OK with donations, as long as they know it’ll be well used.
FG_3479@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I would just add a regular donate function that takes crypto, Paypal, etc but adds a small fee configurable by the instance owner on top.
muse@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
I see it a lot with AskReddit, surveying (or possibly influencing) how people feel when something happened in the news. Those posts get bumped to the front page.
Aeri@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Idk people used my reddit post trails to be creepy little bitches back in the day.
kameecoding@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
But then how would you check if someone is a disingenuous troll, or a hypocrite, etc, it’s the usual privacy vs open information trade off
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The only thing on the UX manager’s mind, when considering this decision, was “engagement.”
Nothing else is even in their same universe.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Eh. If a webcrawer took a snapshot, they could just be indexed anyways. Its false sense of security.
Just like upvote/downvotes on Lemmy. Btw its all public lemvotes.org
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
A post made on a public forum is public information. I’ve used post history to figure out if someone was serious vs telling a joke that fell flat or for weird patterns.
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
So what? These are public comments. If you don’t want your comments to haunt you for a prior bad take, maybe don’t have bad takes or alternatively, explain them.
If you’re saying you put personal information there, one layer of obfuscation wouldn’t stop someone from finding information.
aeshna_cyanea@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
It’s not necessarily bad takes it can be someone with an obsession trawling your history for oblique personal details or whatever. It may only be a deterrent to tech illiterate stalkers but better than nothing imo
Aeri@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ve got a take for you, drop dead cunt.
Zink@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
It seems to me that the combination of AI + engagement stats + advertising rates is probably enabling historically massive fraud.
But if the perpetrators of the fraud are tech giants worth trillions, and the companies selling the ads are the same tech giants worth trillions, how are individuals and small companies supposed to make good decisions about their ad budgets or do anything about the fraud?
I’m not going to shed any tears for the advertising industry, but I’m not looking forward to the side effects if the AI bubble pops and vaporizes $10 trillion of tech market cap. (all the big players would still be worth a trillion dollars but people would lose their shit)
Themosthighstrange@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Reddit is bots talking to bots
Bazell@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Reddit is admin bots banning real people for messing with other bots.
Vupware@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
And the humans that do reside there have the same opinions as the bots
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
You wouldn’t want to leave the narrative up for the people to decide on their own.
QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Is reddit dead yet?
Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Its spirit is dead, but its corpse lingers on.
Manticore@lemmy.nz 3 weeks ago
No. It’s definitely not what is was, for sure. But while search engines (especially Google) are so fucking bad, adding ‘reddit’ to your search is still the best way to get answers to your actual question and not just irrelevant sponsors and paid plugs.
Ofc that’s probably a big reason why reddit has swarms of bots for grass roots advertising… it’s a vicious slippery circle of slop
nickiwest@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I haven’t found a useful Reddit result that is less than two years old. Bot answers don’t provide the same value as actual human expertise. Go figure.
QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Being on reddit makes me said, because I got my account permabanned. I do miss being able to use the last actually active forum on the net.
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Not even close. It simply has too much critical mass.
Twitter was taken over by a white south african nazi and grifter with delicate sensibilities and people are still using it like nothing has happened.
Reddit would have to enshitify even more, and believe me they are trying.
ronl2k@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m not seeing any proof the Twitter is doing well as a company.
QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Didn’t people leave it for BlueSky? I can’t figure out how to use BlueSky… could never get Twitter to work either, maybe it’s too Gen Z for my Millenial ass?
Bazell@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Sadly, but no. From good new we only have increased amounts of bad reviews online and in app stores like Play Market.
jaybone@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Wait, hold on, slow down. Are you telling me there are bots on Reddit?
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
All while they partner with Google for ai training.
buttnugget@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah, I remember when they were partnering with whoever it is that does ChatGPT when they were testing out early iterations of it. I saw those gigantic endless comment chains they were testing and I knew we were in trouble back then.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Just handing one another a series of increasingly poisoned chalices when nobody is immune to iocane powder
m3t00@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
bots on fedi have been probing for an algorithm to exploit. not getting far, just annoying.
massacre@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Care to elaborate on what you’ve found to watch out for?
m3t00@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
blank profiles, ‘johnny truth’@ multi instances, high follows near zero followers, spam post then delete acct, usual jump bait spam for page views, porn spam. admins(thanks) mostly stay on top of it. botters might figure out how to make a profile but all their tools are geared toward average platform idiots. def above average idiots around here. here on lemmy just look at their profile posts, you’ll know. same post over dozens of communities. report/permaban/mute/block next.
Daft_ish@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I’ve memorized most of the comment scripts at this point. Going to the comments is like eating dog food because youre bored.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Reddit was interesting before politics became interesting
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Maybe you need to read a history book
Hupf@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Bazell@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Yeah, caption misses the fact that you can be easily banned for simply interacting with such bot in comments in any way against the bot.
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Tbf bots have as much a sense and substance as most people on Reddit
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I rather read a comment from the thorn user than some fucking bot lol
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Yeah but they are 100% regurgitating, people on Reddit add random novelty information. Without the people the bots would just spin in the mud.
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I like to think that somewhere out there, an LLM is slowly digesting my reddit history, lurking in the cloud, waiting to one day puke one of those stinky brown nuggets into some executive’s quarterly sales report.
chunes@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Public stalking-enabling was always the worst aspect of reddit. That it helps bots is incidental to how good it is for user privacy.
lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
As others highlighted:
This only helps the bots. It’s useless against stalking, since you can still find a list of the person’s post/comments by searching their username in Google or even Reddit itself. And a stalker, unlike someone trying to denounce bots, will do it.
If anything this harms users. A false sense of security is worse than accurately feeling unsafe.
And the motivation for that is clearly to hide the bots. Bots give you metrics. Metrics give you ad views. Ad views give you money.
ronl2k@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Public stalking-enabling was always the worst aspect of reddit.
Are mods of one subreddit still able to stalk your history of another subreddit in order to permaban you for joining a subreddit that they don’t like? It seems counterproductive for advertisers but that’s exactly what the r_bitcoin subreddit does. It’s a well-known echo chamber and those mods want to keep it that way.
falseWhite@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“be me, Reddit sheep”
FTFY
gndagreborn@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Jfc
xxce2AAb@feddit.dk 3 weeks ago
Reddit did WHAT?