• superkret@feddit.org
    40·
    2 months ago

    It’s remarkable, the questions that aren’t from bots are completely indistinguishable.
    It’s all low quality engagement bait, and all these questions were on the front page of askreddit a hundred times with slight variations.

    • ooterness@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      2 months ago

      They’re indistinguishable because they’re copied from top-voted posts that are a few years old (title, text, and image if applicable). It’s guaranteed to produce a post that fits the community and gets a lot of engagement, so it’s a cheap and effective way to mature a bot account. Once you start looking for it, it’s everywhere, and Reddit admins don’t care.

      • Yardy Sardley@lemmy.ca
        12·
        2 months ago

        Have you ever noticed those low effort reposts also getting the same top 10 comments as the original? It’s slop all the way down.

        • ooterness@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          2 months ago

          I’m speculating, but my guesses are:

          • Gathering enough karma to post on subreddits that have a minimum threshold.
          • Getting enough post and comment history to pass a casual inspection, either by human moderators or spam filters.
          • Maturing the account to the point where it can be sold to another shady company.
          • Generally having a lot of bot accounts ready, just in case.

          Once mature, it’s usually used for spam or astroturfing. There is a noticeable uptick around big elections, wars, etc.

          I saw one repost-bot that metastisized into the most vile porn-spam-bot you can imagine, but they’re usually more subtle than that.

          • Draconic NEO@lemmy.world
            2·
            2 months ago

            Possibly vote manipulation as well, I mean where else would the sites to buy upvotes and downvotes get those voter accounts.