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submitted 18 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

While browsing the fediverse I come across more and more accounts that seem ... a bit off, a little uncanny. The stuff they post seems random, their comments slightly weird. What's going on, is the fediverse being overrun by bots? Or am I as a fanatic anti-AI person just losing my mind and seeing the enemy everywhere?

I hate the fact that I now question every interaction that seems a bit off - it seems such a stupid waste of my time and I'm afraid I might just end up blocking real people who happen to express themselves in a strange way - as a neurodivergent person I know how bad I would feel about being ostracized as 'too strange to be real'. How would you handle this?

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[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago

Personally, I subscribe to "Live Internet Theory." I assume that the vast majority of people I interact with are real people, and bots are very much an exception, and often easy to identify.

The Internet connects people with different views who wouldn't otherwise meet and who might not express their opinions if they did. Most of the time when I see people lob accusations of being a bot at someone, it's either because their worldview is too limited to imagine a person thinking differently from them, or they just want to use the accusation as an excuse to write them off. The reality is, I think most people who post like expressing themselves through posts, and rather than go through a bot and posting that, they just wouldn't post.

Maybe I err too much on the side of assuming people are human, but I'd rather do that than assume a human is a bot. Especially because I find the biggest "Dead Internet Theory" types tend to be insufferably unimaginative and close-minded, and I don't want to be like them.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

To me, all of the fediverse feels just the same as the platforms they set out to replace. Mastodon nowadays is like 50% bots and 50% stupid people, like twitter, just a slightly different echochamber. Lemmy feels the same as reddit to me, also echochamber-y and botty, just more dead (as in less people). Very frustrating. The german memes here are fire, though.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago

So-called "social" networks can have three main issues: technical (they have to work), leadership (they have to not be dickhead), and users (they also have to not be dickheads).

The first point can be handled with competent people, consensus, open source contributors, etc. (assuming no dictatorial management).

The second point can probably be handled by having a handful of decent people, transparency, accountability.

The third point, which is basically the thing that makes the content on the service… is still people. If people were obnoxious on twitter, they'll be obnoxious on bluesky, mastodon, and whatever else shows up. It's almost inevitable.

It's also why decent moderations tools are needed, which brings the question of how to do decent moderations tools that are not too extremet but still remains useful. This is not an easy task (and to my knowledge, there's no general solution to that).

Bots showing up is just the icing on the top. Without a pretty aggressive vetting system for accounts, there's not much that can be done from the service itself.

Given the general ambiance, I guess smaller community and services tailored for them might come back, the way we had tons of different forums back in the days. It might be a good solution; some form of SSO across many services to make people reachable, but no general, shared stream of messages as we have now.

tl;dr: it's not a technical problem, it's a people problem. So it won't be solved by technical solutions.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

welcome to the beginning of the dead internet. i wonder if it will outlive humanity, bots tweeting at eachother and posting nonsense generated cat food recipes for nobody

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

Like that 1969 Ray Bradbury story, "Night Call, Collect", where a man stranded on Mars spends 60 years setting up pre-recorded messages for himself that one day spring into action and eventually start talking to each other.

Spoiler

A relay snapped somewhere. The two phone voices were connected, one to the other.
"Hello, Barton?"
"Yes, Barton?"
"Aged twenty-four."
"I'm twenty-six. We're both young. What's happened?"
"I don't know. Listen."
The silent room. The old man did not stir on the floor. The wind blew in the broken window. The air was cool.
"Congratulate me, Barton, this is my twenty-sixth birthday!"
"Congratulations!"
The voices sang together, about birthdays, and the singing blew out the window, faintly, faintly, into the dead city.


[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Ray Bradbury is great. I remember convincing the teacher to do a lesson on there will come soft rains back in the day.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 4 hours ago

You should also consider what instance the user is from and whether that instance has a proper sign up application or not.

For instance I feel fairly confident that almost all users on Feddit.dk are real people because we vet every single applicant.

There are a lot of AI slop applications though so if other instances aren't as vigilant, I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of bots.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

On Reddit, yes. Here, I don't know. But I wonder if it's possible to ensure that the fediverse stays humans only. Maybe by Introducing a captcha of sorts like 4chan.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

There is the option to tag your account as a bot, so I would assume not.

[-] [email protected] 14 points 7 hours ago

Why hello!

I can see from your post that you like losing it; that's great, it's something we have in common!
Have you considered using Mountain Dew? It helps me making losing it even better! Maybe it can help you too. Give it a try!

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

I was thinking about doing a post like this. :D

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

I was tempted to do a 'Every person on lemmy is a bot except you' before realising that the bots have taken that kind of post from us as well.

Edit: Come to think of it the way bots work is kind of like an automated version of how big companies used to kill memes by using them in their marketing to try and seem trendy. Murdering internet culture automatically by washing it out with repeated garbage.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 6 hours ago

I came here specifically to get away from the chatbot daycare hellhole that reddit became. Share some of your insights about these accounts and I'll tell you a little about why reddit got so bad. Fediverse doesn't really offer the same kind of incentive to somebody who's trying to train an LLM on comments but who knows.

On reddit, the biggest incentive for people to want to train LLM's is just the sheer amount of data there. Reddit is insanely big and the karma system is basically a "weight" value similar to how neural networks already categorize info. Even if somebody notices the obvious bot account, enough people there will still interact with the bot sincerely that it gets the interaction it's trying to provoke every time.

Also it's easy as hell to set one up to run on reddit. Simply verify an email address, subscribe to r/newtoreddit and and bunch of other subs that don't require karma to comment, and then only give votes for the first month before finally starting to leave comments. Reddit claims to screen for bot accounts but deviating from this specific pattern of conduct is something that gets new users comments flagged for review. Reddit is actually only screening real people.

If you want to talk real tinfoil hat shit, this is probably by design. Chatbots drive up traffic and interaction not just with eachother but specifically with the humans that will also severely inflate usage statistics to look good to advertisers. the ones who leave comments following common "redditisms" and patterns of discussion over and over and over and never get sick of saying the same things.

Basically, I'm hoping none of these conditions exist here. So far doesn't seem like it since fediverse isn't hiding ads as posts, blocking VPN users, or taking such a heavy handed involvement in moderation.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours ago

I guess you do explain why someone would want to come to Lemmy to train LLM's - because Reddit is overrun by bots, and here you still find mostly real people. Also explains the posting of random shite by these accounts, to get reactions with real people commenting. Sorry if I sound rather naive, it's because I am. I wasn't meant to exist in this timeline.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 5 hours ago

That is a possibility. Data from interacting with actual humans reduces the rate of model degradation. Maybe somebody does feel like they would get better results here. But they'd have to go to the trouble of sending requests to join instances and federate communities. It's not a whole lot of work but it's slightly more overhead for a website that gets way less hits than reddit as of now.

You're not naive dude, you're living in unprecedented times. It's sad to see people get jumpy at the idea that all of our interactions are becoming simulations of real ones but in some places it literally happened. I don't even fuck with instagram, facebook, or tiktok because I've seen the brainrot there that got created because the platform incentivised it. Stay curious and don't let the bastards grind you down👍

[-] [email protected] 6 points 7 hours ago

Dead internet theory is not just a hypothesis anymore. It's an intentional business model. Enjoy what's left of online human interaction. Soon, it will all be just LLMs siloing each user individually.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

thats why weeee neeeeed you to fill out this captcha beebop

[-] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago

Interesting how many people here get hung up on downvotes and advise to either block the techies, the tankies, or both. And quite hilarious how this adivice gets so quickly derailed into 'political discussions' (rather namecalling and blocking each other). I wasn't even talking about downvotes, I don't care much about them, and I try to not get involved in political stuff where people consider it a useful way to discuss about any issue, because that's just kindergarden stuff and I'd expect a bot to be able to be a little more convincing than just downvoting my post or comment. Yet another reason to spend more time offline - I'mma switch all of you off! And you! And you!!

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

What about the absolute worst? The tech-tankies? :D (joking, I dont think any of these short circuit words help, except those who want to derail discussions)

I really enjoyed reading your post and comments so far. Well done. Cya

[-] [email protected] 5 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

I sometimes go on lemvotes to see who's upvoting garbage. 80% of votes are done by account with no or very little comments. I also noticed a lot of the pro zionist accounts went offline relatively all at the same time. Hard to trust anything on lemmy.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

by account with no or very little comments

You think there's no or that few people who make an account to subscribe and block and vote without commenting or posting?

I assume it's a very valid way to use Lemmy.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago

Hold up. So Lemvotes is basically churning Palantir style data on who should get sent to some camp if they even accidentally upvote something with the P location name in it?

Why they do that?

[-] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago

Because any admin can see it, and Reddit is certainly selling it. It would be unsafe to assume these data are kept private.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago
[-] [email protected] 4 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

https://lemvotes.org/

It allows you to easily list users who upvoted or downvoted a post or comment. Most people don't realize their votes are public, as Lemmy doesn't display voters anywhere in the UI. The tool sparked quite a bit of debate when it was released, most of it unnecessary in my opinion as instance owners/admins, community moderators, and users of non-Lemmy software (like Mbin) can see vote information regardless.

[-] [email protected] 140 points 18 hours ago

Welcome to the Fediverse, we have an abundance of autism.

[-] [email protected] 29 points 16 hours ago

Great. Now we're giving the bots autism?

[-] [email protected] 8 points 11 hours ago

Antivirus is the same as vaccine

[-] [email protected] 15 points 14 hours ago

THEY'RE USING PYTHON IN THEIR CODING TO GIVE THE FRICKIN' BOTS 'TISM!!

[-] [email protected] 10 points 13 hours ago

Hey! I resemble that comment! >:^(

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[-] [email protected] 58 points 18 hours ago

There are definitely bots, but I would treat everyone as human until proven otherwise. It's one of the least botted out places, so enjoy the relative peace and quiet.

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[-] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Yep. It fucking sucks. AI is going to be running the show soon. Honesty? At this point, i think it’s easier to just accept it as normal. There’s not much that can or will be done about it. We’re losing a big part of who we are.

And sadly, the wondrous artistry we humans once possessed will run far beyond most of our remembrance, and will be left to the musings of those unheard.

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this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
139 points (97.9% liked)

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