As some of you may be aware, over the past few weeks there have been an increasing number of what I suspect are bots which will share one or even a few posts, all relevant to the communities they are shared in, at which point the account self-deletes. I’m torn as the stories are relevant, but they give me the impression of a narrative attack. I’ve seen only one of these accounts actually comment before deletion, otherwise they post and immediately nuke the account.
I have tagged mods and admins but have not heard any recognition on the problem. It’s also notable that by my impression this issue is getting worse. I noticed yesterday that communities I subscribe to which previously have not had this problem are now starting to receive these kinds of posts.
I want the fediverse to be a place to communicate with real people in good faith; this manner of posting runs contrary to that. So that begs the questions, is this actually a problem, and if so, what can be done about it?
What about putting a delay on the beginning activity of an account? Maybe a 2-4 hour timer on new accounts where their new posts are only available to certain users. Once the account has matured, the restrictions can be lifted.
That would be a fun way to implement a quarantine… Posts and comments by new users are only available to other new users. 😉
Kind of like the “Hide Bots” toggle. “Hide New Users”.
As far as THEY know, they’re active participants.
I think the admins have a lot of ways to approach it, the question is the applicability to the problem, which can quickly change as bots adjust their approach, whether it will affect regular users negatively, and how it herds scripts into patterns that are immediately recognizable when it doesn’t fully work.
Fair, and I was considering that. This could be reviewed with heuristics and instead of instant bans, apply a review. If the admins don’t respond, then it’s not addressed.