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?
I’m unreasonably annoyed by the ones that target the comicstrips community.
I have noticed the bots behaving differently. At first the posted a lot, for shorter amounts of time which got them found out quickly. Now they post once or twice a day for arround a week, then gone.
I’ d like to know why the do it. What’s the point? But those posts get a lot of engagement so I feel conflicted about it.