hi all, it looks like there's been multiple posts about AI commenters here so i am beating a dead horse but this is a very specific scenario that i've been trying to figure out. i mainly browse the public health + data analysis career subreddits but i have been noticing from these subs a rise in a specific wave of AI users that i suspect is astroturfing in other career subreddits too. on r/publichealthcareers, we have a user named "chocolate_asshole" that has been responding to nearly every post with the structure of either "same, haven't been able to find anything in [career], job market is horrible right now" or "look for jobs in [list of job titles], job market is rough in general" while also changing its alleged job field depending on the subreddit and post. this user was found to be a bot that appeared in wildly different career and career region subreddits. another ai poster named "bootyhole_licker69" was also found.
what i have noticed among these bots among with a few other ones that i suspect to be bots is that the only job hunting tool they ever recommend is JobOwl. eg the "bootyhole_licker69" profile in the Construction and TeachersInTraining subreddits added random hyperlinks to JobOwl and also frequently mention JobOwl in their comments when their profiles are searched via google through the "site:reddit.com" prefix. the "chocolate_asshole" profile has also done this (ex. 1, ex. 2-which someone actually called out in the replies, ex. 3). i also noticed another poster right now in the newgradnurses subreddit named "i_own_5_cats" who had the same comment structure as the other ones that i mentioned and they, again, posted in disparate subreddits (e.g. nursing, paralegal, cybersecurity) while semi-frequently mentioning JobOwl(ex. 1, ex. 2, ex. 3).
has anyone else noticed profiles similar to these on other career subreddits? if so, do they also mention only JobOwl whenever they recommend a tool or do they also recommend other tools? it feels like a "cut one head off, two pop up" situation and i've become conspiratorial/paranoid enough to wonder if this is something coordinated