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Is there currently an influx of bots in the Fediverse, or is it just that the usual patriotism is kicking in? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by DandomRude@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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[-] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 85 points 2 months ago

Reddit used to get flooded with bots before elections. By 2024, they were just around all the time. I got permabanned after that, but it's probably even worse by now.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 43 points 2 months ago

You're not missing anything. Reddit is the embodiment of Empty Internet Theory. If you're a human posting on that site, you're a statistical anomaly. And not for long, because everyone's getting booted.

[-] greyscale@lemmy.sdf.org 46 points 2 months ago

I got booted because:

I said Peter Thiel should be turned to soup
I said Th-iel should be turned to soup
I said that I had previously been given a suspension for saying Peter Thiel should be turned to soup.

So now I'm redditless.

[-] foodandart@lemmy.zip 18 points 2 months ago

LOL! Thiel soup.. guaranteed to cause the shits!

I got permabanned for saying a naughty thing about Stephen Miller.

Found old.lemmy.zip, signed up and haven't missed a beat!

[-] crank0271@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Care to post a recipe for that soup?

[-] greyscale@lemmy.sdf.org 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Boiling Hydrofluoric Acid
Peter Thiel

I don't recommend eating the rich, due to Prions. It'd be better to render them and process them into fertiliser.

[-] spittingimage@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

I'd hate to see what all the dick pills in Elon Musk's bloodstream would do to a field of corn.

[-] greyscale@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 2 months ago

dent corn that'll put a dent in you

[-] prex@aussie.zone 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

That rendering process better be thorough - prions survive in the soil.
Edit: hydrofluric acid probably isn't very good for the soil either.

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[-] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago

My hungry pigs disagree with that advice

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[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

You're better for it.

[-] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

The big and medium communities are lost. Small niche communities still have some good followings and timely content.

[-] kurmudgeon@lemmy.world 21 points 2 months ago

I recently got Permabanned from Reddit because I reshared the Alex Pretti video back when that was happening. They also banned every other account for every person in my household because of their fingerprinting service going overboard.

Fuck Reddit.

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[-] njm1314@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago

Its gotten really bad now that hidden profiles are a thing.

[-] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 6 points 2 months ago

Hidden profiles?

[-] njm1314@lemmy.world 17 points 2 months ago

Basically all comment history is hidden. Very popular with totally organic pro Maga accounts.

[-] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 5 points 2 months ago

Basically all comment history is hidden.

Oh, actually I was forced to do that myself due to the slight possibility of doxxing, etc. Ten-year account over there that I still use, and traditionally I practice complete transparency. But the times, they is be changing...

Oh, actually there is a workaround (or at least there used to be). Add the acct in question as a "friend," then click on the Friend stream. You'll be able to see their content.

[-] UnspecificGravity@piefed.social 7 points 2 months ago

Just delete your account and start a new one. There is literally nothing that you gain from using an old account apart from increased risk.

[-] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

One can get banned for that, as well as the fact that you're once again uploading info that might possibly be used against you in future. Even the Fediverse tracks its accounts as I understand it and makes one's history semi-permanent.

The only true alternative I know is to take part in an accountless system or one which is heavily anonymized, like the 'Chan' stuff or whatever. For me it's just far easier to tread lightly, and avoid certain topics.

EDIT: Downvote away, but give me a rebuttal if you can.

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[-] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 points 2 months ago

same, theres even more bots there now, because they banned or shadownbanned so many people.

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[-] AskewLord@piefed.social 54 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

No there is just a major world event, a war in Iran, and people want to dump their angry hot takes about it incessantly. So you are going to have a big influx of people grandstanding about it being good or evil.

The majority of posters are indistinguishable from bots, because well, just like bots, they are working off a contrived script about who is good and who is evil.

I've seen some pretty broad and good takes about the current conflict, but they are far and few and most of the replies are harassing them for not picking a side.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

The majority of posters are indistinguishable from bots

[-] kbal@fedia.io 4 points 2 months ago

Some of the bots, on the other hand, are very easily distinguishable from humans. The one who's profile I checked out was posting well-polished exactly bot-like political memes for the past few months at a rate that would be a full-time job for an unassisted human.

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[-] btsax@reddthat.com 35 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Everyone on the Internet is a bot except you.

[-] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 17 points 2 months ago

Safest approach to stay sane.

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[-] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 34 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I’ve not yet noticed any deviations from the norm

[-] mesamunefire@piefed.social 8 points 2 months ago

Yeah I cant tell. Lots of accounts have history that are talking...so I dont think they are bots.

You can report if you want. Different instances will take different approaches.

[-] potatoguy@mbin.potato-guy.space 17 points 2 months ago

I saw some obvious bots like a week ago, there are some among us for sure.

Maybe there's more than usual, because of the Iran related stuff.

[-] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 16 points 2 months ago

Maybe there's just a higer percentage of neurospicy people on the fediverse.

[-] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 8 points 2 months ago

I feel very confident this is the case. And I also suspect that most of the "bots" or "shills" or whatever other inauthentic accounts people think they are identifying are just these same types of people who have unusual posting habits or communication styles. I've yet to see one iota of evidence that there are any accounts masquerading as something they're not to influence politics. The only actual bots I've seen are the boring spambots who just post scam links at a rapid rate.

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[-] kbal@fedia.io 10 points 2 months ago

I saw a couple that were obviously bots, when I looked at a news-relevant hashtag on mastodon today. I only noticed two, but that's two more than usual.

[-] Widdershins@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

There is a bot that posts nothing but links to reddit threads. I could block it or bots in general but then I won't be able to downvote the posts it makes. It moderates the communities it posts to so reporting it would do fuck all.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

AFAIK that whole instance is nothing but Reddit repost communities and ought to just be defederated.

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[-] mriormro@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 months ago

Not this bot again.

[-] GreenShimada@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

Just my guess - meant to bait people into making various threats to see how well Palantir's social media monitoring works at the fringes.

Be careful out there, y'all.

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[-] ianhclark510@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 months ago

Either way that doesn’t sound fun :( stay safe!

[-] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 5 points 2 months ago

not as bad reddit

[+] Ryoae@piefed.social 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

[deleted]

[-] cm0002@lemmings.world 10 points 2 months ago

Lol nah, I just crosspost .ml (see below) and it's all done by human hands, I'm just hooked into the RSS feed to deliver notifications to my phone + a good workflow

Why am I cross-posting .ml content?

I cross-post from .ml to the nearest relevant non-.ml comm to reduce the influence of .ml comms and indirectly, the instance as a whole, to help vitilize non-.ml comms and make it an easier decision for other instance admins to defederate because one key reason I identified that admins don't want to defederate is because .ml still has some very large comms and some active niche comms.

Megathread on the issue

Some highlights from the link:

.ml admin, Nutomics continued transphobia https://lemmy.world/post/29222558 The original transphobic Comment from Nutomic: https://lemmy.world/post/18236068

"If you don't support Russia then you just don't understand geopolitics" ~dessalines, .ml admin, dev https://lemmy.world/post/27352415

"Don't worry guys, the Uyghur Genocide was REALLY just birth control! ~dessalines, .ml admin, dev https://lemmy.world/post/30580167

"See! nobody died IN Tiananmen Square, just AROUND it, so it doesn't count!!" ~ Davel, .ml admin https://lemmy.world/post/30673342

"NK is actually good and anything counter to that is Western propaganda!" ~dessalines, .ml admin, dev https://lemmy.world/post/31595035

General negative sentiment to other instances who haven't "seen the way" yet ~davel, .ml admin https://lemmy.world/post/27426510

And so so much documentation on clear heavy handed censorship and bias also on the link. So much I can't even put them all here because this comment would be really long.

I believe the behavior of its admins (the main admins are Lemmy devs) does harm to the overall growth of the Lemmy-verse and maybe even the Thrediverse (since Lemmy kinda kicked off the Thrediverse) because of its association with the devs of Lemmy and their insistence to use .ml as their personal political platform to spread harmful propaganda

On the outside, bringing up Lemmy frequently leads to comments like "Lemmy? Isn't that the place with a bunch of tankies?" Or "Tried Lemmy, but found it full of pro Russia crap so I left". The best way forward from that I see is to either widely defederate from .ml like the rest of the Triad, or pressure them to put a fair and unbiased as possible admin team.

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[-] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago

Some people block political threads, so all that's left are those that don't block them... which tends to be people who strongly believe in their opinions or want to use it as a soapbox to rant... so there's rarely any just "chill" opinions or nuanced takes. Almost everyone on a political thread is gonna be angry at something... against one side, cheering for the destruction of one side... or both sides...

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this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026

119 points (91.0% liked)

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