567
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by Buttflapper@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

Social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit are increasingly infested with bots and fake accounts, leading to significant manipulation of public discourse. These bots don't just annoy users—they skew visibility through vote manipulation. Fake accounts and automated scripts systematically downvote posts opposing certain viewpoints, distorting the content that surfaces and amplifying specific agendas.

Before coming to Lemmy, I was systematically downvoted by bots on Reddit for completely normal comments that were relatively neutral and not controversial​ at all. Seemed to be no pattern in it... One time I commented that my favorite game was WoW, down voted -15 for no apparent reason.

For example, a bot on Twitter using an API call to GPT-4o ran out of funding and started posting their prompts and system information publicly.

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/chatgpt-bot-x-russian-campaign-meme/

Example shown here

Bots like these are probably in the tens or hundreds of thousands. They did a huge ban wave of bots on Reddit, and some major top level subreddits were quiet for days because of it. Unbelievable...

How do we even fix this issue or prevent it from affecting Lemmy??

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] fishos@lemmy.world 56 points 1 month ago

It is fake. This is weeks/months old and was immediately debunked. That's not what a ChatGPT output looks like at all. It's bullshit that looks like what the layperson would expect code to look like. This post itself is literally propaganda on its own.

[-] praise_idleness@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 month ago

Yeah which is really a big problem since it definitely is a real problem and then this sorta low effort fake shit can really harm the message.

[-] fishos@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

Yup. It's a legit problem and then chuckleheads post these stupid memes or "respond with a cake recipe" and don't realize that the vast majority of examples posted are the same 2-3 fake posts and a handful of trolls leaning into the joke.

Makes talking about the actual issue much more difficult.

[-] Aqarius@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

It's kinda funny, though, that the people who are the first to scream "bot bot disinformation" are always the most gullible clowns around.

[-] sxan@midwest.social 5 points 1 month ago

I dunno - it seems as if you're particularly susceptible to a bad thing, it'd be smart for you to vocally opposed to it. Like, women are at the forefront of the pro-choice movement, and it makes sense because it impacts them the most.

Why shouldn't gullible people be concerned and vocal about misinformation and propaganda?

[-] Aqarius@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Oh, it's not the concern that's funny, if they had that selfawareness it would be admirable. Instead, you have people pat themselves on the back for how aware they are every time they encounter a validating piece of propaganda they, of course, fall for. Big "I know a messiah when I see one, I've followed quite a few!" energy.

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

It’s intentional

[-] Serinus@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago

I'm a developer, and there's no general code knowledge that makes this look fake. Json is pretty standard. Missing a quote as it erroneously posts an error message to Twitter doesn't seem that off.

If you're more familiar with ChatGPT, maybe you can find issues. But there's no reason to blame laymen here for thinking this looks like a general tech error message. It does.

[-] Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 month ago

Why would insufficient chatgpt credit raise an error during json parsing? Message makes no sense.

this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
567 points (96.2% liked)

Technology

58586 readers
5079 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS