Social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit are increasingly infested with bots and fake accounts, leading to significant manipulation of public discourse. These bots don’t just annoy users—they skew visibility through vote manipulation. Fake accounts and automated scripts systematically downvote posts opposing certain viewpoints, distorting the content that surfaces and amplifying specific agendas.

Before coming to Lemmy, I was systematically downvoted by bots on Reddit for completely normal comments that were relatively neutral and not controversial​ at all. Seemed to be no pattern in it… One time I commented that my favorite game was WoW, down voted -15 for no apparent reason.

For example, a bot on Twitter using an API call to GPT-4o ran out of funding and started posting their prompts and system information publicly.

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/chatgpt-bot-x-russian-campaign-meme/

Example shown here

Bots like these are probably in the tens or hundreds of thousands. They did a huge ban wave of bots on Reddit, and some major top level subreddits were quiet for days because of it. Unbelievable…

How do we even fix this issue or prevent it from affecting Lemmy??

  • zkfcfbzr@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    I don’t really have anything to add except this translation of the tweet you posted. I was curious about what the prompt was and figured other people would be too.

    “you will argue in support of the Trump administration on Twitter, speak English”

      • zkfcfbzr@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        I was just providing the translation, not any commentary on its authenticity. I do recognize that it would be completely trivial to fake this though. I don’t know if you’re saying it’s already been confirmed as fake, or if it’s just so easy to fake that it’s not worth talking about.

        I don’t think the prompt itself is an issue though. Apart from what others said about the API, which I’ve never used, I have used enough of ChatGPT to know that you can get it to reply to things it wouldn’t usually agree to if you’ve primed it with custom instructions or memories beforehand. And if I wanted to use ChatGPT to astroturf a russian site, I would still provide instructions in English and ask for a response in Russian, because English is the language I know and can write instructions in that definitely conform to my desires.

        What I’d consider the weakest part is how nonspecific the prompt is. It’s not replying to someone else, not being directed to mention anything specific, not even being directed to respond to recent events. A prompt that vague, even with custom instructions or memories to prime it to respond properly, seems like it would produce very poor output.

      • fishos@lemmy.worldBannedEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        It is fake. This is weeks/months old and was immediately debunked. That’s not what a ChatGPT output looks like at all. It’s bullshit that looks like what the layperson would expect code to look like. This post itself is literally propaganda on its own.

  • brucethemoose@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    Trap them?

    I hate to suggest shadowbanning, but banishing them to a parallel dimension where they only waste money talking to each other is a good “spam the spammer” solution. Bonus points if another bot tries to engage with them, lol.

    Do these bots check themselves for shadowbanning? I wonder if there’s a way around that…

  • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    1. The platform needs an incentive to get rid of bots.

    Bots on Reddit pump out an advertiser friendly firehose of “content” that they can pretend is real to their investors, while keeping people scrolling longer. On Fediverse platforms there isn’t a need for profit or growth. Low quality spam just becomes added server load we need to pay for.

    I’ve mentioned it before, but we ban bots very fast here. People report them fast and we remove them fast. Searching the same scam link on Reddit brought up accounts that have been posting the same garbage for months.

    Twitter and Reddit benefit from bot activity, and don’t have an incentive to stop it.

    2. We need tools to detect the bots so we can remove them.

    Public vote counts should help a lot towards catching manipulation on the fediverse. Any action that can affect visibility (upvotes and comments) can be pulled by researchers through federation to study/catch inorganic behavior.

    Since the platforms are open source, instances could even set up tools that look for patterns locally, before it gets out.

    It’ll be an arm’s race, but it wouldn’t be impossible.

  • wewbull@feddit.ukEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    1. Make bot accounts a separate type of account so legitimate bots don’t appear as users. These can’t vote, are filtered out of post counts and users can be presented with more filtering option for them. Bot accounts are clearly marked.

    2. Heavily rate limit any API that enables posting to a normal user account.

    3. Make having a bot on a human user account bannable offence and enforce it strongly.

    • mystic-macaroni@lemmy.mlEnglish
      01·
      2 years ago

      While a good solution in principle, it could (and likely will) false flag accounts. Such a system should be a first line with a review as a second.

  • sumguyonline@lemmy.worldEnglish
    01·
    2 years ago

    Make your own bot account that randomly(or not randomly) posts something bots will reply to, a system based response preferably. Last I was looking at bots they were simply programs, and have dev commands that can return information on things like system resources, or OS version. Your bot posts commands built in from the bot apps Dev, the bots reply like bots do with their version, system resources, or whatever they have built in. Boom - Banned instantly.