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[–] 70 points 1 year ago (15 children)

What does the comment history look like on those accounts? I’m guessing when you pay for the spam package, they create fake comment histories for the bot accounts.

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  • [–] 93 points 1 year ago (4 children)
  • [–] 41 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

    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 spool up another batch of bots.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    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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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Who's Yamamoto and Nimitz in this situation?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year 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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  • [–] [S] 66 points 1 year ago

    First guy has a short history within one post five months ago, then 3 years prior. Second guy and third guy has a big gap 3-7 year gap in history then suddenly a lot of comments. So yea, bots.

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