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Comment on A Completely Natural Conversation in the NYC Reddit

megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

Often times the services have a fleet of accounts, they have them do reposts of old popular posts with titles and some content rephrased, then some of the rest of the fleet copies the top comments and rephrases those and posts them below.

This builds a history of realistic and semi popular looking posts in a way that is fairly easy to automate . Anyone who looks closely could potentially figure out a given account, or even cluster of accounts, is farmed, but it takes effort and time to prove it, more effort and time than it takes for them to spoil up another batch of bots.

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frostysauce@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
Don’t forget to add a typo in the title of the repost for extra engagement!

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Sabata11792@ani.social ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
They also buy active accounts with high karma and age. I got offered $100 in BTC for my account one time. I guess they did not look at how horny my comments were.

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- crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The horny just adds credibility
  
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Sergio@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

fleet of accounts

I like the use of the term “fleet” in this context, bc it brings to mind the Battle of Midway but re-done with bots online.

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- Squorlple@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It’s the word I originally used when bothunting on Reddit years ago but I switched to the term “botnet” since it seems more proper imo
  
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- Denjin@lemmings.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Who’s Yamamoto and Nimitz in this situation?
  
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  - Sergio@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Well let’s see… first we gotta figure out the analogy:
    
    carriers = posts promoting a product
    
    carrier escorts = posts commenting on and upvoting the “carrier” post
    
    torpedos/dive-bombs = bot-delivered replies that disparage “carrier” posts. They “hit” if they get highly upvoted
    
    fighters = bots that downvote carrier-fleet posts and upvote torpedo/dive-bomb replies
    
    carrier “screen” fighters = bots that post attacks on enemy fighters and munitions
    
    carrier AA fire = bots that downvote attacks by enemy fighter bots
    
    The analogy is still a little clumsy… are “carriers” posts, or are they the bots that make the posts? etc. But a Midway-like battle would involve a modest but strategically-positioned product-promoting community that is about to be surprised-attacked by a rival, who will make several posts disparaging the product. But the attack is identified through corporate espionage. The posts are hard to find, so the “fighters” have to search for them but ultimately they do, and after fierce up- and down-voting, the attacking posts are deeply downvoted.
    
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