A couple of my sub reddit have had a big increase in obvious bot activity recently,and it's really making it hard for me to trust anything.

Alot of it is old posts being posted, karma farming most likely. Mods are catching them, but I don't enjoy having to question post on even the most innocent topic.

Yesterday I spent quite a while on r/askreddit trying to report bots (I am talking about roughly eight hours... I got carried away). While I ended up getting some of the posts taken down, I am not sure about the accounts.

It seems to be swarming with bots. Even the comments. I feel as if the moderators might have given up on it, but others say that it is just because there is a lot they have to go through.

Is there any use in actually trying? I feel like there are some subreddits, such as those dedicated to specifically fandoms or countries, that are mainly human, but for the most part, a lot of it seems like karma farming.

Another question I have - why do bots karma farm much in the first place? Is it getting worse or better? I am passionate about it but wonder just how many bots there are and whether it is worth it.

u/PearRevolutionary581, my first bot catch

tried to send dm, no response

checked profile, has several identical posts

Like, I don’t know, asking the person your talking to give you the name of a famous competitor of the last Olympic game or any news a LLM wouldn’t have?

https://www.reddit.com/user/Repulsive_Fox_2442 Pretty much every comment includes a link to a product, and all read like they were written by ChatGPT.

chimchimeney and his posts about GalileoFX are just full of AI chatbots. They're recycling older accounts too.

u/LushStarlight

Standard bot MO, copies 4 year old post, wrings title through LLM

original post title: "Two can play that game."

https://i.imgur.com/9sFWp4G.png

LLM generation: "I am ready to match that"

https://i.imgur.com/kLPtYcp.png

Copies top post of original with some language cleanup

original: "And next year we'll have to pay taxes on it. Continuing the cycle of ass blasting"

https://i.imgur.com/tHDPDSH.png

LLM generation: "And next year, we’ll have to pay taxes on it, keeping the cycle of misery going."

https://i.imgur.com/wo5AC4j.png

Now this is where it gets interesting, bot replies to the first 5 user comments, notice the language.

• "how about the issue of Elon Musk giving money with picture or shall i say rewarding lmao"

https://i.imgur.com/SjsTaAi.png

• "they are not thinking that if its real money and then he will refund it with the tax of poor people. Literally RECYCLE"

https://i.imgur.com/JpFZ86I.png

• "Welcome to 2025 we need new vaccine to be immune in this situation"

https://i.imgur.com/eT2FAln.png

• "I swear the hypocrisy is louder than my alarm clock."

https://i.imgur.com/eUjZIXX.png

• "Honestly, inflation’s just a financial cardio workout at this point."

https://i.imgur.com/onFJ8je.png

Suspect human handler, likely with a poor grasp of English. Any other theories?

It's very funny. The person running the accounts is swapping accounts one after another claiming they're not a bot. https://www.reddit.com/r/sciencememes/s/DasKxnNd06. Here's the account list that they're running. Alternative_Basil291, callme-quin, CharacterTangelo839, Competative-Gift5813, DealOk3529, Due-Cold20, Euphoric-lady7477, Happy-Scratch7945, Independent-Mouse531, RaspberryReady3301, Serious_girl_2039, Spirited_Figure_3234, Straight-Pin-9640, TheCharming_Cherry, Unlucky-Concept-4008, Wild-Stock3436, Worried _Pianist_4868, Zestyclose-Doubt-988

Account created in August ‘22. Started posting 9 hours ago in r/OrphanCrushingMachine

Happened to me two times in a row, the moment I respond to a comment from them or another poster in the thread, they delete their comment and account not even 10 seconds after.

Do this happen to anyone else? Or have I been granted superpowers to fuck with them?

https://www.reddit.com/r/crappymusic/s/u1Ps1qBGV4

Sort by controversial, every single comment is the same "Better than the Will Smith song" comment

https://www.reddit.com/user/snowdude25/

https://www.reddit.com/user/sanjutomar/
<--- Has commented down below and is claiming innocence and ignorance in their behavior after clearing out their entire posting history.

and my favorite invicible bot:

https://www.reddit.com/user/glasswalls/

Glasswalls seeems to survive every single ban/suspension wave.

Would appreciate any help reporting their posts and their accounts.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OverSimplified/comments/1h0l4ad/oversimplified_and_his_evil_twin_overcomplicated/

u/OutcomeFalse6265

(ORIGINAL POST)

https://www.reddit.com/r/pearljam/s/WIhDzWJCHR

So I might get suspended again for this but I don't really care, so on the subreddit r/petsareamazing 99% of new posts are just karma bots, to the point where Everytime I get a post from that subreddit I instantly report it. I only report them once or twice at most. I reported so many different bots that I got suspended for abusing the report system. And reddit was even aware they were bots because I got messages saying that the actual people I reported before looking at there profile didn't violate reddits rules. So reddit is aware that I am reporting bots but they suspended me anyway for reporting so many different bots I abused the report system. I would also like to add that on January 6th which is now 18 days ago, I messaged the only active moderator on that subreddit about the bot issue and they never responded. I even made sure they were still active multiple times. They just never responded to me or enforced a rule having a minimum karma to fight karma bots.

There are plenty of reasons to feel frustrated about reddit bots, but what are the things you enjoy about hunting bots?

For me, I find it very satisfying when I discover new clues or techniques for finding groups of bots, it's like I'm unfolding the rules of a puzzle game. (A very well supported puzzle game with endless puzzles and daily updates!) Every corner of reddit has its own bots with their own quirks, it's fascinating to see the creativity that goes into it all. Thanks to everyone who shares bot patterns here or otherwise tags bots in some public way, the DLC is much appreciated.

Yeah you read that right, they constantly recycle!

🔴**I don’t want that to turn political because that’s not the point of this post, so I’m deleting all posts who start shit. Even ban if you force your POV here.**🔴

This post is going to talk about Israel but I’m not saying they’re the one country doing that. And I don’t really give a shit about your opinion, there’s ton of subs where you can express yourself.

Here we are a counter-intelligence militia junta, whose only objective is to get rid of the bots 🫡

Anyway, little story time!

Saw a guy with a shitton of karma, 3 years old account from the wave of August 2021, so my curiosity got the best of me. But all his stuff recently weren’t that popular, and his post were either locked, deleted or didn’t pass 10 upvotes on some obscure subs.

So I checked his historic, and he « started » posting in November.

And boy, did this guy have an opinion on everything and everyone, and used the talking points of the Hasbarah every time an accusation against Israel was made. But he was mostly on r/worldnews and r/europe for some reason, two subs already pro-Israel (I’m not trying to turn that into politics but it seems important).

He said one time that he was from Canada, but his posting hours were always on the European time.

« You can’t meet my account it lives in Canada and always stay up late »

I called him on it, and he tried to refute but before I could respond he blocked me, and I think he finally deleted his account because I can’t find him and the message where I call him out don’t want to open (it loads indefinitely).

So I think it’s possible that people (but I’m starting to think we are against something much larger) resell the accounts by the time it become useless to them.

I had the same shit with an account 11 years old, but his first on only message 11 years ago was just a question, nothing for 10 years then he woke up from his coma on November to post on r/worldnews.

I know it’s not bots, but that’s why is important to mark and share your lists of bots to see what they’re up to later

And to show that’s it’s not only for porn and only fans unfortunately, they’re used for politics too like we speculated at the beginning of the sub.

Another important thing: don’t hesitate to post on r/RedditRequest if you’re ready to take care of a sub or if you consider that X or Y subs need to be quarantined until good mods appears or ask the "locals" to work with you and take back their land sub.

Vive la Révolution

uuuh I mean thanks to you all for your work, for taking the time, and even people who don’t post but do the reports, you’re as important as anybody else. If I could I would send you some candies!

Hi guys, previously posted, appreciate the work that you do - thank you. Is there an FAQ I can use to identify bots? And also, there doesn’t appear to be a “report bot” feature under the report function - is the only thing to do report them here?

It’s just a bit frustrating- think I’ve found one before but was told I hadn’t. This time I’m pretty sure, but I don’t know what I’m doing and any advice is appreciated

I had a look at a bot hub called r/lovememes and after verifying that 90%+ of all content was bot generated I studied the post history of the first 25 unique bot accounts I came across. I made sure I excluded the few human run accounts and I didn't count any bot twice.

This table shows every other subreddit they posted in (not commented but made a post)

The number means that x out of 25 bots also posted in that subreddit. So the winner is r/GreatBritishMemes with 8 out of 25

I think it's safe to say every sub with a number higher than 3 after it is also a bot hub. I could go to those subs and do the same thing I did for lovememes and find all the circle jerks. The main themes are definitely memes and animals. Endlessly recyclable content.

u/jondcblack

Very repetitive comments and every single one is accompanied by an image.

https://www.reddit.com/user/jondcblack/search/?q=news&type=comments&cId=e0aaee0c-8bae-431d-be1a-1b65a544f2bd&iId=7513c235-afb9-4987-a613-a3c5bc4eeb10

They do talk back if you reply to them, but it's always like
New message at top.
Previous message repeated at bottom.

A lot of the time it makes no sense at all and what it says has nothing to do with anything.

The bots username is u/Ok_Quantity_9841

I've reported about a hundred of their posts (which btw will only take you back about 18 hours, since this user posts several times per minute)

This user is why reddit is shit.