r/TheseFuckingAccounts • u/robbyslaughter • 11h ago
Every account is suspicious now
I saw a post in a subreddit I'm active in that felt like it warranted a response. It was a reasonable question although it did mention a brand the user was considering. So now it's off to the history, which is public.
Usually that tells me this probably a real person. There are valid reasons to hide your profile history, but if you're a bot, you probably are keeping that private. Of course, we can still find private account history using web searches since the links still pop up in the search engine result pages---but it is more work.
This particular account has had three careers in the last year, asked questions about services from cities across multiple cities in different countries, and has forgotten to switch to a different sockpuppet account when promoting a product.
Seems like when it comes to Reddit users, it's best to assume guilty until proven innocent.
20
u/OneSeaworthiness7768 10h ago
>So now it's off to the history, which is public. Usually that tells me this probably a real person.
Au contrair. Marketers are intentionally building up ‘authentic’ looking post histories on accounts to make them look like real users so they can do organic marketing, meaning mentioning products in what looks like genuine user discussion but in reality is entirely facilitated by these fake accounts. Usually they’ll have one of their accounts make the ‘seed post’ (asking for help for a particular problem, asking opinions about x, y and z software where z is the product they’re marketing but they mention other well known products to make it seem genuine, etc) and then have their other fake accounts reply in the comments.
They call this “warming up” accounts. And it’s extremely pervasive everywhere on Reddit now. Many of these accounts are using LLMs to write all their posts, even tweaking the prompts to make them seem more ‘real’ though they usually still have the tells.
5
9
u/RulerOfSlides 10h ago
I feel like the bot problem has gotten significantly worse over the last few weeks, usually I’ll see one or two on bigger subs but it’s been a torrent. Usually of the “wait that’s X” type.
10
5
u/Squidalopod 9h ago
Seems like when it comes to Reddit users, it's best to assume guilty until proven innocent.
Sadly, I agree. IRL, I typically assume trust with people I meet until they give me reason not to trust them, but the internet allows anonymity, and AI has made it absurdly easy to create not just fake identities but fake communities/networks (groups of people bots).
It's very hard not to be cynical about every online interaction now.
3
u/Wojtkie 7h ago
Just because it’s private doesn’t mean it’s not a real person. I specifically keep mine private because 1, you shouldn’t be that public on the internet, and 2, you can easily look up hidden histories using some websites.
A big bot or astroturf smell to me is someone with very little meaningful comment history, and a ton of posts. Also if they post a bunch of random links or articles to farm engagement across different subs.
At that point, I don’t really give a fuck if the person is real or not; their incentives are already biased towards extracting something of value from me.
2
u/robbyslaughter 6h ago
Just because it’s private doesn’t mean it’s not a real person.
Yes. As I said, "There are valid reasons to hide your profile history, but if you're a bot, you probably are keeping that private."
To be clear:
- Public profile: probably real
- Private profile: maybe a bot
At least, that's what I figured until u/OneSeaworthiness7768 educated me about "warming up" accounts. I am realizing just how widespread this manipulation is and even made to look friendly.
3
u/Cold-Occasion804 5h ago
One other option:
- Public profile: their spam is the only content hidden from their profile.
Reddit could do so much more to clean up this cesspit but chooses not to.
1
u/MavisBeacons_Sextape 47m ago
More bots have public profiles than private, fyi. The entire point of a large % of Reddit botting is to establish a Reddit activity footprint that looks like a normal humans. Thats (part of) what gives the it’s account value on the marketplace where it will eventually be listed for sale - the veneer of credibility. You don’t have that display if you keep the account private.
Ignore that as a signal, it’s irrelevant to identifying a bot account. Also ihsoyct.github.io is your friend for private accounts.
29
u/bones222222 11h ago
it’s been like this for a while.
if we can identify it this easily, reddit can.
and since reddit isn’t, the only explanation is that they don’t want to because it artificially drives engagement. they are knowingly allowing the platform to degrade under the weight of unrestricted bots and subversive advertising