Very strange that OP joined Lemmy barely an hour ago and hit the ground running posting rapid fire articles within minutes of each other or within the same minute, targeting multiple states and countries (So far, Alabama, New York, Ohio, California, Canada, and Ireland). Just very odd behavior for a new account.
Check back in a couple of hours to see that the account will have been deleted. It seems to be a pattern of accounts being created, posting a bunch of news-like links, and then being purged. It is probably to make it impossible to filter out whatever it is they’re trying to push.
propaganda bots on reddit does that, they do alot of AI, or post certain controversial topics and then delete thier accounts so reddit doesnt catch on immediately and ban the pattern of bots later on.
or less likely is spammers/botters (like OF or link farmers)
This is new to me—how long has such activity been occurring on lemmy? Is there any way to spot such bad actors? Is this sort of thing happening all over the fediverse?
Really seems like there’s basically no places left on the web where big forces aren’t swaying the minds of the innocent…
Lemmy is absolutely inundated with bad faith actors who seem suspiciously intent on sewing as much division as possible, getting the left to be as politically ineffectual as possible, and never offering anything as a viable solution. There’s no meaningful barrier for entry so it’s pretty trivial to make a bunch of accounts and push an agenda.
That’s by no means limited to Lemmy, but Lemmy is absolutely littered with them. It’s been like this for quite a while.
another forum i am in casually mentioned lemmy as one of thier targets for spamming thier businesses, but its far less than they do on reddit though, which is still a large market for them.
i seen them crosspost, or post something from reddit verbatim.
Annnd they deleted their account again
4 hours later.
“400 couldn’t find person” when looking at the account.
I remember Hexbear admins flirting with a system to throttle new accounts, because they experienced a similar problem (troll accounts posting “Fuck Tankies!” as many times as possible before they get booted).
I know a few forums simply won’t let you create an account without an admin’s permission, which seems heavy handed.
Feels like there should be a good technical framework for addressing this. Idk what that is, though.
Welcome to the fediverse, where there’s no central authority on account creation, and users can create 1 account at time on different instances and there’s nothing you can do about it
As of writing this, it’s been 5 hours since the users posted this and attempting to go to the OP’s account page redirects to an error page. Very strange behavior indeed.
guess lemmy is popular enough now to attract the bots, propagandists, and various other types of “influencer”
A good one is to check beforehand if the account’s new, hijacked, or such, and then not respond on them in any way other than blocking and reporting.
I try to post interesting content and articles from serious newspapers.
Not BS
Ha. Sure you do.
You have been blocked from The New York Times because we suspect that you’re a robot.
Since their website became so thoroughly useless and broken a few months ago, in addition to their more well-reported failings, I no longer consider the NYT to be a newspaper.
NYT sucks and I canceled my subscription, but the third archive link on removepaywall.com still works to get around their robot messages and puzzles.
Well, they’re better than WaPo now. The only real issue I have with the NYT is their Israel bias.
The only issue?
deleted by creator
https://piefed.zip/comment/2434168
I have a feeling it’s the user mentioned in this comment.
What a bizarre pattern of behavior, though I guess I can see the angle they’re going for in terms of ban/block evasion. Just seems like a massive waste of time.
Though I also recall thinking the same thing when I first came across the bots on reddit years ago… Ugh, it’s coming full circle.
Gettin real sick of this shit
They’re right about the Russian shit, though.
I absolutely HATE Reddit and I post a shit-ton of content because I want to see Lemmy thrive.
If you wanted Lemmy to thrive then your accounts would exist for longer than they do and you wouldn’t be ban evading. Point of all this?
deleted by creator
Dumbest reasoning ever. What metrics are you attempting to gather? Surely there are smarter ways than degrading the Lemmy experience.
Btw, he said he “deletes the account at the end of the day because he feels guilty and wants to limit his online exposure” i lost brain cells repeating it
sounds like a spammer trying to gain some engagement for eventually peddling some kind of thing people will buy, they do this early on as a farm “Warming up accounts and gauging responses” then when they get more trusted they will start to become more aggressive.
We’re all tired of you doing it. Please stop.
Ya but when ya fling shit every where…it tends to start to smell.
It’s totally anecdotal but suddenly there was a rise in cottage corp, trad-wife content that led me to far right streams just as fast as watching a Rogan clip.
I know the algorithm is based on what I watch and in this case that’s cooking channels and weapons (vehicles, infantry, civilian, sci-fi). That last one really confuses the algorithm.
I never saw it as trad-wife being a coordinated attack on feminism but like, damn. Now I can.
Yup. Putin is the prime cause behind much of the world’s reactionarism, in my opinion: he is a despot and oligarch, and has helped other dictators into power.
He’s certainly not helping, but prime cause? No way. The prime cause is that the system is fundamentally broken. The last round of fascists didn’t need Putin’s help, and it’s odd to think this batch is somehow different.
I agree, not the prime cause. Israel also participates in the same tactics. If you call them out on reddit, your attacked by zionists.
Thank you.
I’ve been thinking this for a decade+ but absolutely no one seemed to have figured it out!
I bet the kremlin sponsored the anti nuclear in 1980 sweden, it all makes so much sense.
Like the NYT suddenly cares about Palestinian women.
For more than a century, Russia and the Soviet Union sought to weaken their adversaries in the West by inflaming racial and ethnic tensions.
FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF, NYT. DID YOU FORGET FRED HAMPTON? DID YOU FORGET THE FBI BLACKMAILING MLK?
Yeah, like the US needs help inflaming racial and ethnic tensions. It’s literally been the goal for 4+ decades.
Curious given how Putin publicly considers feminism/LGBT rights/general progressivism as western weakness and degeneracy, you think he’s support feminism in the West if it’s soooo bad for us
The goal is to divide, not actually support.
Functionally Russia is doing the same thing the Thalmor did on fucking Skyrim. (Where they actively worked to inflame tensions and ensure a stalemate in the civil war.)
What feminist movement? The Women’s March was able to achieve every single thing it set out to do.
