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Bots copy pasting Reddit - is there a method to block them all? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by lemmyingly@lemm.ee to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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I've noticed we have bots copy pasting Reddit submissions. Is there a method to block them all?

I assume they mean good by 'generating' content in communities, but I don't see a reason why anyone would comment on them since the OP is on Reddit and will never read them.

I know I can block each individual account as I come across them but I'd just prefer to block them all so I don't see their content at all.

They appear to do the nice thing by adding a line in the submissions about it being an automated submission. Is there a filter for words/phrase found in the body of a submission?

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[-] lemmyingly@lemm.ee 22 points 1 year ago

I don't mind reposts when there is discussion on the reposts. When there is zero discussion, which is what's happening with the Reddit copy paste on Lemmy then it's just clutter.

If I sort by new, most of the submissions are reposts with zero votes and zero comments. If I sort by activity/hot then I see days old submissions. ... how engaging. I'd prefer to engage with new content but I'm not prepared to look over ~twenty submissions to only find one or two real submissions.

[-] Chozo@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

The lack of discussion isn't due to the bots, though. That's due to the users simply not participating. There's no technical difference between a bot-posted thread and a human-posted one; users can still engage in the comments section all the same.

Personally, I don't mind the bot accounts for the most part. There aren't enough humans posting new threads in some communities, so the bots at least offer the potential for discussions to occur, but it's up to the users to actually engage.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

That’s due to the users simply not participating. There’s no technical difference between a bot-posted thread and a human-posted one...

Sure there is: when it's a human-posted thread, it means at least one person participated. The difference between one and zero -- between talking to a single other person and talking to an empty room -- is very large.

[-] Die4Ever@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

The big difference is a human OP gets a notification when someone comments, and presumably the OP is usually interested in discussing the thing they posted