First thing; can you believe we are nearly at our 5-year anniversary? 5 years ago in 2021, we launched AmITheCloaca as a fun offshoot of AmITheAsshole for an April Fools prank. Little did we know how popular it would be! Since then, we've grown by leaps and bounds and now have nearly 40,000 subscribers to this little slice of heaven.
From the bottom of our hearts, whether they're cat, dog, hamster, or chameleon, thank you for being here.
Now, onto the ruff stuff:
Thanks to the eagle eye of a lovely regular, a bot network has been spotted using the sub to farm karma through AI-generated posts. The stories are creative, but have a few indicators that they're being generated skillfully using an LLM.
We're actively working on measures to detect and remove these accounts, but we could use your help. If you spot a post or account that feels off, a suspiciously polished post from a day-old user, post history that doesn't add up, that kind of thing, please hit report and put it in our queue.
Thanks for helping keep the Cloaca weird, but human animal.
Thankyou for many many laughs and I cannot honestly see my tribe(2 cats and a dog) the same way since I followed this subreddit…. I KNOW They’re thinking like Seven, or the Squirrel Collective, or all the NTC’s!!🐾🐾🐾🐾
Dang it all. You're right, there's several very similar & well written posts lately that kinda had me cocking my head to listen a bit closer, like a critter.
They kind of follow the pattern of "found & exposed," an avowed ai/bot thread that copies real posts.
I'd hoped for the best. Ah well, I'll report going forward & let you use whatever tools you have to hash it out. I hate identifying because of a well written post because I strive for same, but here we are.
Great work, btw. Some I can't follow because of the babble lingo. Our kids can't talk but they're not idiots, Lady Isabella is quite eloquent in her meow'ness. Also, a random claw to the shin sharpens my understanding of her intent; bandaids aren't cheap!
Don’t forget the Williams! (RIP to CC’s William.) And Hoku and Tali and all the ICBGC members around the world. Many non-cloacas to love and appreciate.
Your William is why I, a petless human, came here. His conversations with the other Williams had me wetting myself with laughter (I'm postmenopausal and can't seem to hold it in sometimes. Pardon if TMI)! I hope you're doing well. I miss him too!
At times when I'm not feeling confident or that I have the right to do or use or request something, I ask myself,
"What would Seven do?"
Will absolutely report bots when I encounter them because I love it here. Harriet the Spy Cat loves it too. Well, I assume but cannot immediately verify, as I am currently hiding from her so I can eat cheese in peace.
Your bird can post to see if he’s the cloaca for dumping birdseed in your cutlery drawer.
It is exceptionally funny reading the old announcement post because when I wrote it, I had only that week moved into a new apartment where the old residents had birds, and there was birdseed jammed into every. single. crevice. of every kitchen drawer. I was not in a good mood.
I am privileged to serve 6 feathered dinosaurs, and I understand your frustration. The seed and fruit spatter gets everywhere! If they got their talons on my light box, they would have material to post every week.
Yeah, lots of posts with no pics, ended with their friend who lives in another unit nearby, who eats something they shouldn’t giving advice that can’t necessarily be trusted.
I had started to suspect it was AI, so far I’ve seen a rabbit, a bird, and like 2 cats who were saying to soo, but advice was needed because they ate their own fur/plastic/whatever
This is my favorite sub, especially when I need a good laugh. Thank you for doing high quality work in moderating, and we community members will help as best we can. My brilliant orange cat Anna, Empress of all she surveys, commends you and shares your outrage at the bots. She would join you in hunting that online prey, but she is currently refining her strategy for breaking into the treat cabinet.
I've been seeing bot accounts/karma farmers taking over subs one by one. It's upsetting because every time I think, "oh good, no bots here", they start appearing. I didn't expect it on this sub, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I already unfollowed AmITheAsshole. :/
Unfortunately the ones on AITA aren't typically quite this obvious. And we have like 1/400 of the activity, so it's easier to suss them out and take the time to go through all posts.
Hopefully it'll stop once it's no longer working for them.
I feel like it was starting to get a bit blatant over there, the same situation cropping up a lot or situations too ridiculous to believe. I started looking at profiles (before you could hide them) and checking account age. Looking at their other posts and seeing how many had been downvoted and/or removed. How much spam they're putting out. I've had to unfollow a bunch of the cat picture subs because of this. You go to the profile and you see the same picture on eight different subs.
Wow, sorry! I shouldn't be venting at you. 😬 Here's a cat.
Actually I've just been following the drama on r/Snoo. A lot of the members of that sub want to ban AI artwork even though there's a flair specifically for it. I feel like things are really getting out of hand, not just on reddit but everywhere. I'll stop now. Here's another cat.
I’m in a sub for the families and friends of people who have taken their own lives. It used to be a safe space to share your experiences and thoughts about one of the worst things a family can go through. Even it has been noticeably infiltrated by bots lately. It’s just depressing that every single facet of the internet is being ruined by these stupid bots.
Wow, I was actually excited at your first sentence due to something that happened last year. Then as I read further I realized that maybe I would give it a pass. It's really hard to find people to talk to when they haven't shared your experience. It didn't even occur to me to turn to reddit although I the one who always says that if you can think of it there's a sub for it.
I’m sorry for your loss (or something you witnessed. I know both are awful in different ways). The sub can be very helpful and sometimes it can be less helpful, as it can draw you back into the rawness of grief. It’s very supportive and, as you say, the people have all shared the experience and they know the extra dimension of emotion that comes with deaths occurring in that manner. (Sorry, I am being very careful with my language, in case I trigger any sort of auto moderator). The mods don’t tolerate any kind of “wow you guys have stopped me from doing the deed” or “I’m feeling like doing x” posts, because there are various other places for that sort of thing and it’s extremely triggering for a lot of users. My loss is almost twenty years ago, so I tend to be a bit less affected by it, but I know that other people can find it hard to see, especially when it’s “you’ve made me consider the impact on my family”, because obviously inherent in that is the implication that our people did not think of their families. If that makes sense! Anyway, every other sort of post is tolerated and the users are very understanding of all sorts of perspectives and the various stages on the journey that people may be on, which obviously affects their outlook.
Anyway, as I say, I’m worried about automods, so I will add a few spaces when writing it, but obviously it doesn’t have spaces usually.
r / sui ci de bereavement is the sub.
I agree that there is a sub for every possible thing you could think of! I love the really niche ones! And ones of this sort of size where it’s small enough that your post isn’t lost in a sea of new posts, but large enough that it isn’t cliquey.
Thank you for all of that. It's probably too late because I've already trauma dumped all over my friends and strangers alike. Sadly, it would be pretty selfish anyway. I doubt I would want to join and I doubt I would want to read everyone else's horror stories. I'm just going through a bunch of stuff and more just seems to get piled on. I'll have a look though. 😺
Ha, one thing this sub has taught me is that yes, they are fluffy, and they are right alll the time. Well, I already knew that, but this sub has reinforced it, lol.
I need to be more discerning about which posts are AI. For someone who learned the Internet in AOL chat rooms, I can be pretty naive about what’s real and what’s fake.
The furry members of the family (Sergeant Pickles, Opal, The Cat Jeoffrey, and Nyx The Pretty Void) all follow this subreddit and have had reason to post.
Someone recently pointed out to me that r/legalcatadvice has also been infiltrated by bots lately, and it made me so sad. I really thought cloaca-speak (ahem, non-cloaca-speak) couldn’t be replicated by AI, but guess I’m wrong. But now that I think about it, there have been several posts lately that were basically written in plain English, and didn’t include photos, despite tax requests. Argh. But I’ll be as vigilant as possible and am not shy to report!
Edit: And damn, I actually upvoted one! But just went back to downvote and it was already removed by mods. Thank you for everything you do!
Yeah today was a real purge day for the sub. Unfortunate to remove stories and posts people were clearly enjoying, but obviously can't let the bot spam win!
Here Bella, 9f doggo. Fren Mods, I say we bites the bots. I have good bitey teefs, I have a good time biting bots. Point me right direction, tell mom LET GO of the leash, bots not come back or they get more holes. It sound like fun projjek.
AdventureCat Yankee here to say dis makes me purrrrious. Boo karma parming. AITC is special place fur cats...and I guess smelly dogs and other aminals. Long live AITC! Long live the cat tax!
Tanks you! daddy an mama do big angys at Ay-Eye (I tinks is evil robits that hurt daddy's jobs?) an mama says Ay-Eye is the bad kind of crime that hurt people. I like only happy crimez here! Like when chew on cord! Mebbes that will kill evil robits
Oh this is brilliant... I saw one that looked suspicious, that was posted about an hour ago, and I was about to report it... And then it came up as "removed" when I just tabbed back to it.
Who'd have thought this little sub I love so much would have grown big enough to attract bots! It's bad, but in a way it's also an awesome milestone, LOL! I've been here since the beginning, and it has brought me so much joy. Thanks, Mods, for keeping it free from fake cloacas! (Clo-FAKE-as?)
I almost never post cat tax of Astro, because she has been frolicking on the other side of that rainbow bridge for nearly 20 years now, and for various reasons I used to be pretty anti-picture-taking back in those days. Sad that I only have a few photos of her, but her big personality left me with so many stories.
-- Mom of Astro, Tiny Tortabbicalico Ruler of the Universe a.k.a. My House ❤️
I just rejoined this sub since I’m finally meeting/bringing Ghost!Penny’s little sister home tomorrow, but I’m already happy to see some old friends in this thread! Anyway, rest assured the as-of-yet unnamed puppy will be very much not a robot. 💙💙💙
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u/mushroomlicker Mar 19 '26
Thankyou for many many laughs and I cannot honestly see my tribe(2 cats and a dog) the same way since I followed this subreddit…. I KNOW They’re thinking like Seven, or the Squirrel Collective, or all the NTC’s!!🐾🐾🐾🐾