PSA: Repost bots in The Fence
Hello, Fence friends! There's been an uptick of repost bots in this community. I'm sharing some info so you can keep an eye out for them too.
What's happening?
Users are reposting well-liked memes and other images to farm for upvotes and establish a post history.
It's a funny picture, why is this an issue?
If a bot or scam account accumulates enough upvotes, they can choose to post in other communities that have required thresholds for participation. They go on to spam and scam people because they look like established accounts with experience. If they have a post history here with sufficient upvotes, a Coheed fan may be more likely to send them money for tickets or merch that will never arrive because of a scam.
How can I tell they're not interacting like a real member?
- They'll repost images that were previously highly upvoted. You may recall seeing it posted by another account.
- The accounts tend to be new, usually between 1 day and 3 months old.
- Images will sometimes be slightly rotated or flipped. The text may be skewed or wonky. They manipulate images to try to bypass Reddit's image recognition filter, which helps to automatically screen out reposts.
- They usually don't reply to people who comment on their posts. If they do, their comments may not make sense or they could drop a sketchy product link (don't click it!).
- Their profile's post history may be limited to reposting photos across a variety of communities.
- You can run a reverse image search, which can sometimes help to confirm it's a repost. If they have warped the image enough, you may not be able to easily find the original post with a search engine.
What can I do when I see a bot repost?
- Downvote a repost, since it will reach fewer people if it's ranked as unpopular.
- Contact The Fence's mods to let them know. Use the report option with Spam category; when you click next, choose "Excessive reposting to farm karma or manipulate conversations". Alternatively, send the mods a modmail message.
- Spread the word about this issue when you see people commenting on reposts.