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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??

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[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 month ago

Easy solution, report bad content. It doesn't matter if it's a bot or a tankie.

[-] YeetPics@mander.xyz 5 points 4 weeks ago

Report a tankie-post in a tankie-sub and watch as nothing happens.

Those mods love it when the correct genocide happens.

[-] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 2 points 4 weeks ago

This is wrong, silencing is not right. We live in a free society, and if they are shiti organic like the rest of us, then they should be entitled to express their opinion... they start doing genocide apologizing which where that convo ends every single time.

[-] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago

Just because it's not a bot, doesn't mean it's free expression. Several governments are paying thousands of people to push and argue propaganda.

[-] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org -1 points 4 weeks ago

If a person is ID as a bad a faith actor, then it is a different situation

[-] YeetPics@mander.xyz 4 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I can think of 4 users from memory who are outspoken propaganizers.

They're the champions of hexbear and .ml

They each post about every 90 minutes on average

[-] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org -1 points 4 weeks ago

I can't tell if ml tankies are a foreign threat actors tbh

They seem to engage but it is pretty easy to test limits of what they will discuss. They will revert back to copy pasting some poorly sourced bullshit about USSR great 🤡

They don't spam it, so I am assuming real people sitting in a weird ideological box.

If they take Russian money to do thisz they'd hould be banned

We recently had a thread about some alt right clown taking russian money for their "work"

Regime whores don't get second chances IMHO

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 weeks ago

I'm not saying they should be immediately silenced, but they should be reported. The moderators can then look at their post history and decide whether to ban based on instance/community rules.

[-] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 0 points 4 weeks ago

Report for express tankie opinion or commie genocide denials?

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 weeks ago

Hopefully, we pick decent enough admins and mods that we'll generally do the latter. But the former can be really annoying as well when it involves denying other facts.

[-] nadram@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

Other than the political misinformation, dangerous comments must be silenced, like ones recommending we drink bleach to heal ourselves... just an example. Free speech is not an open invitation to lie, misinform, incite wanton violence etc... The limit to free speech is that line beyond which we cause harm.

[-] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org -1 points 4 weeks ago

People repost fake news around here that fo all these things but because it is part of the political "process" we say that's fine 🤡

[-] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 4 weeks ago

nothing wrong with tankies, they just need to speak better LMAO.

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

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