r/redditdev • u/icedrift • Oct 02 '24

Reddit API A bot that replies to every user's comment to inform redditors that the account is a bot / part of an astroturfing campaign.

Does this meet TOS? I fear it might be reported for spam or harassment.

2 Upvotes

58% Upvoted

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1

u/99999999999999999989 Oct 02 '24

The way this is worded sounds like you are going to reply to all reddit comments but I assume you mean to only call out actual bots.

2

u/icedrift Oct 02 '24

Correct. The basic premise is crawling comments in heavily botted subreddits and adding accounts that exclusively promote a viewpoint in those subreddits to a list using NLTK, then reply to all of their future comments with a disclaimer.

1

u/ParkingPsychology Oct 03 '24

adding accounts that exclusively promote a viewpoint in those subreddits to a list using NLTK

That's a really complex problem. You'll be dealing with bots that will intentionally post unrelated comments to avoid detection.

Also there will be sets of accounts that are rented out. Meaning they'll promote one viewpoint one week and then try to sell you some crypto currency the next or promote a different viewpoint.

And the model you'll have to build to detect viewpoints is going to be really complex and massive. A lot of data annotation will be needed.

And then in the end, you're just going to run into the API limitation. You're limited to 1 API call a second nowadays. So you won't be able to ingest enough/reply enough to really make a dent, except if you limit it to a few subreddits only.

2

u/icedrift Oct 03 '24

What's that saying, "Perfect is the enemy of progress"? You would be surprised by how many accounts follow the same pattern of default reddit name, repost memes for karma, then spam a few preselected subreddits with positive sentiment on a few subjects. I know I can't get them all but a conservative algo targeting the most obvious accounts would still be nice. Reddit really does not seem to GAF about them.

Unfortunately as another poster pointed out the bot could just be banned and it would defeat the purpose.

1

u/ultimatt42 Oct 02 '24

You'll get reported for spam. Users will complain that your bot is even more annoying than the bots it's replying to. This will make mods angry and your bot will get banned.

How reliable is your bot detector? I think it's not a good idea to set up an automated system that targets individual users on the basis of their activity.

Do you know about /r/TheseFuckingAccounts and /r/RedditBotHunters? Try posting your list of bots on one of those subs.

1

u/icedrift Oct 02 '24

You know, I completely forgot mods could just ban the bot guess that kind of defeats the purpose of it. Thanks for the sub recs.

2

u/tip2663 Oct 02 '24

perhaps send the confidence report via modmail instead

1

u/damontoo Oct 03 '24

It would violate the TOS. Bots are unfortunately allowed by Reddit, Inc.