Go to any major post on reddit, especially crusty old reposts, and the thread will be filled with one sentence replies. Stuff that’s so generic it makes you fall asleep reading it, or just cringe from the fake enthusiasm. Sometimes there’s really good comments, but its because it was scraped from the comment section of the last time the image or meme was reposted. Sometimes, the comment will have nothing to do with anything at all because the bot had bad data. It’s kinda wild how awful some of the comment sections have gotten lately on there.
My personal theory on why bots are rampant now is a twofer. One reason being people leaving the platform, because of reddit api bs, or because of subs shutting down to protest, etc. And the other reason is that some folks are trying to get back at reddit by spamming bots, increasing how many there are.
Basically they make a reddit account, let it age like milk. You know, keep it in the basement with 0 post history of any kind for half a year or so. Maybe multiple. Than they activate it, it spam posts, and it never responds to users like a human would. Even stealing comments and such.
Those are the main symptoms. OP not responding to being called a bot is especially the major red flag most use.
Edit: When I say OP, I’m using it to refer to reddit users in this case. Not the OP of THIS post. For him, thank you for the laughs:)
How do you know which accounts are bots?
Go to any major post on reddit, especially crusty old reposts, and the thread will be filled with one sentence replies. Stuff that’s so generic it makes you fall asleep reading it, or just cringe from the fake enthusiasm. Sometimes there’s really good comments, but its because it was scraped from the comment section of the last time the image or meme was reposted. Sometimes, the comment will have nothing to do with anything at all because the bot had bad data. It’s kinda wild how awful some of the comment sections have gotten lately on there.
My personal theory on why bots are rampant now is a twofer. One reason being people leaving the platform, because of reddit api bs, or because of subs shutting down to protest, etc. And the other reason is that some folks are trying to get back at reddit by spamming bots, increasing how many there are.
A quick rundown.
Basically they make a reddit account, let it age like milk. You know, keep it in the basement with 0 post history of any kind for half a year or so. Maybe multiple. Than they activate it, it spam posts, and it never responds to users like a human would. Even stealing comments and such.
Those are the main symptoms. OP not responding to being called a bot is especially the major red flag most use.
Edit: When I say OP, I’m using it to refer to reddit users in this case. Not the OP of THIS post. For him, thank you for the laughs:)