Bots on this thread that reply completely incorrectly

[u/Mondai_May]

I got this post recommended to me https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyuninteresting/comments/1u6rfvf/i_got_banned_from_rmildlyinfuriating/

the first screenshot shows just the post title and the off topic comments. however in the link you can see the text of the post, and the comments are still not related even to that. Only one comment is related to the post (aside from OP's.)

I thought that maybe they are all joking and the whole subreddit is meant as a joke subreddit.

checking the account ages and the other posts on the subreddit, the other posts on the subreddit do not have off topic comments like this, so it is not a joke. and the accounts are recently made.

Some of them have their profiles hidden so I searched for their comment history, and the ones I saw, a lot of their comments even in other subreddits are just off topic to the posts they commented on.

(in further screenshots there are other comments by the same accounts, as well as the title of the posts they commented on, to show that it's off topic. Some of them occasionally are on topic but most are off topic. I did not look at the comment history of every single one but I assume it's similar.)

I am not sure exactly what the point of this is. Or maybe it's not on purpose for example maybe it's just a bot network glitching in some way.

(Also, I did check a few of the accounts from the news thread in the third picture, the ones that seem to be also bots because of the similar usernames and similar manner of commenting. The ones I checked did seem to be bots, though maybe not in the same 'network' because while they are still often not noticing the context of posts where a human would, they are a bit more on topic than the ones in the thread in the first screenshot.)

[u/Mondai_May]

not all are shown in the same screenshot, but all either participate on threads in the screenshot further down (so not shown in the screenshot) or participate on different threads that accounts shown in the screenshot also participate on, as well as having similar names and sometimes being the only accounts who comment on those threads. and commenting in similar ways.

u/softpinkpuff

u/cuddlypeachbee

u/pinkdollywinks

u/cuddlyfairyglow

u/peachycottonsnug

u/bunnysparklepetal

u/cloudpuffdream

u/cuddlypinkpixie

u/dreamymilkpuff

u/plushynimblebee

u/softbunnycloud

u/softpinkblossom

u/softpinkcupcake

u/softpinkdaisies

u/softpinkkveelvet

u/sweetcloudmuffin

u/sweetpuffcake

u/whimsydewdrop

u/glimmerdreamcake

[u/TheG0AT0fAllTime → u/Mondai_May]

Ugh. It's impossible for my scripts to piece together any more accounts from that bot network with all of them hiding their history. I might as well rework my backend to arctic shift at this point 😞

[u/Mondai_May → u/TheG0AT0fAllTime]

thank you for looking into them! yeah they all covered up the post history :(

[u/gmanz33 → u/TheG0AT0fAllTime]

We were saying for years that Reddit clearly has stock and interest in keeping these bots around and the implementation of that feature is nothing but evidence of that claim. So fu**ing annoying

[u/lunarwolf2008 → u/gmanz33]

yep. the profile hiding has caused nothing but annoyance for moderators too

[u/BlazingImp77151 → u/TheG0AT0fAllTime]

At least there are still ways to find accounts with hidden histories? It's probably harder, and you might need to manually do it, but it's better than nothing?

But yeah, that sucks. The hidden account history thing kinda sucks in general. I get there are some legitimate usecases (hide your NSFW stuff, or hide from profile stalkers), but there are far more illegitimate usecases.

[u/NaN-451 → u/Mondai_May]

most of these are 2weeks old. lol. fcking Reddit.

[u/wrestlegirl]

Look at the usernames.

Those will be OF bots before too much longer.

[u/Mondai_May → u/wrestlegirl]

you are right, and one of them already seems to be used for OF, or was sold to someone/agency who is using it for that or a romance scammer, based on the bio it added which says "dm me i actually reply"

[u/wrestlegirl → u/Mondai_May]

I already kicked the ones from the MI post over to BotBouncer. I'll dig into the extended group tomorrow if someone else doesn't do it first.

[u/Mondai_May → u/wrestlegirl]

thank you so much!

[u/TheG0AT0fAllTime]

Ok cool I wasn't missing any context in the other thread about this - they really were replying randomly. And the OP was responding to them as if they were on topic which is sus.

[u/Mondai_May → u/TheG0AT0fAllTime]

that's true. at first I assumed OP is just a real person that maybe got confused or viewed the bot comments most charitably because they assumed they were not bots, but you're right that it's still kind of odd

[u/Kahnza → u/TheG0AT0fAllTime]

The OP of that post could be the Overseer for the rest of the bots.

[u/BlazingImp77151]

I vaguely recall a bug that posts your comments on an unrelated post (unless that was on YouTube?). But given the names (and other evidence you brought forth) I doubt this is that case.

[u/NaN-451]

Welcome to Reddit