Wondering if the fediverse - and Mastodon in particular - is undergoing a major spam / bot signup wave at the moment.
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Wondering if the fediverse - and Mastodon in particular - is undergoing a major spam / bot signup wave at the moment.
I'm noticing an uptick in people following me who have weird usernames (lots of numbers), no profile photo, and 0 followers - I'd say 90% of new followers from the past week or two. (Disclaimer: I don't like the word "follower", it sounds cultish)
What gives?
Treasuring the human connections I've made here and this is a bit unsettling TBH.
I may turn on manual approvals 🥲
@_elena Depending on the Fediverse API, server settings, your profile settings, etc., it is possible to see your friend list and their posts and build a network profile. These bots may not immediately engage in it, but in consort with other bots, can do some odd kinds of scraping, profiling, etc.
It's easier to profile you and your friends as a friend rather than from outside.
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@MichelPatrice awww brilliant move by @docpop
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@KasTasMykolas true but some of these people have a name followed by a long string of numbers or random characters, no profile picture and no activity. from my dead bird site days (rip twitter), they make me think of spam accounts
You gave 1 example, but overall its big LLM spam wave. Especially on servers with open registration (still exist)
Not all admins takes care of their servers. I just seen LLM accounts on one such server discussing chat control vote, posting images, videos. Its getting increasingly more sophisticated. Some of your followers might be LLMs, and it will be increasingly difficult to notice. Its noticeable for admins themselves, but they may not care.
One tech solution is web of trust (qouted https://mastodon.0011.lt/@mindaugas/116812601404089404)
Another solution is small communities like @Bonfire recent feature https://bonfirenetworks.org/posts/bonfire-social-1-0-5-archipelago/
And practically it may be non-technical adhoc solutions here and now (as talked in that thread).
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Wondering if the fediverse - and Mastodon in particular - is undergoing a major spam / bot signup wave at the moment.
I'm noticing an uptick in people following me who have weird usernames (lots of numbers), no profile photo, and 0 followers - I'd say 90% of new followers from the past week or two. (Disclaimer: I don't like the word "follower", it sounds cultish)
What gives?
Treasuring the human connections I've made here and this is a bit unsettling TBH.
I may turn on manual approvals 🥲
@_elena Haven't been here for long, but I've noticed this as well. Expecting to see bots pushing political and corporate agendas similar to other platforms any time now. Hopefully Mastodon's bot detection can take care of it...
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An update: I wonder if #agenticAI has anything to do with the uptick in suspicious, bot-like accounts that have been following me lately.
One such follower had picked as username "agent_test".
I like that I can manually remove them. I guess I'll need to go on a cleanup spree soon 🥲
And yes I turned on manual approvals...
@_elena why do they do that? What's the point? It's very frustrating. Can't we have a nice, human-only corner on the internet?
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@_elena Haven't been here for long, but I've noticed this as well. Expecting to see bots pushing political and corporate agendas similar to other platforms any time now. Hopefully Mastodon's bot detection can take care of it...
@0xAyanC for what it's worth, in the long list of new weird accounts I spotted, many of them were suspended by Mastodon...
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@_elena can't speak to the weird usernames part but I'm new to mastodon and your account was recommended in the onboarding flow right after sign up. maybe that's why you're getting brand new accounts?
@boraginoru aw this makes sense! thank you so much for letting me know
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Wondering if the fediverse - and Mastodon in particular - is undergoing a major spam / bot signup wave at the moment.
I'm noticing an uptick in people following me who have weird usernames (lots of numbers), no profile photo, and 0 followers - I'd say 90% of new followers from the past week or two. (Disclaimer: I don't like the word "follower", it sounds cultish)
What gives?
Treasuring the human connections I've made here and this is a bit unsettling TBH.
I may turn on manual approvals 🥲
@_elena@mastodon.social that's the exact reason I have manual approval
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@_elena I also wonder if we should try to figure out a way to make follows less proeminent/important. It should not matter to you if a lot of no-activity accounts are following you, as it does not change anything to your experience.
I wonder what makes you want to curate the list of followers, while you post in public and everyone can read your posts anyway? Or is it because you sometimes post to followers-only (but as anyone can follow you, this does not really change much)@renchap I promise it doesn't bother me that much, it just makes me sad about the health of the network... And the mental load of admins who have to deal with this non-sense.
I see the fediverse as this organic garden with genuine connections, so seeing weeds spring up makes me feel instantly protective of this space. If it makes sense?
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@_elena why do they do that? What's the point? It's very frustrating. Can't we have a nice, human-only corner on the internet?
@pierre_pebble my thoughts exactly
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Wondering if the fediverse - and Mastodon in particular - is undergoing a major spam / bot signup wave at the moment.
I'm noticing an uptick in people following me who have weird usernames (lots of numbers), no profile photo, and 0 followers - I'd say 90% of new followers from the past week or two. (Disclaimer: I don't like the word "follower", it sounds cultish)
What gives?
Treasuring the human connections I've made here and this is a bit unsettling TBH.
I may turn on manual approvals 🥲
@_elena I’ve done a lot of pro-Ukraine posting and for that reason have had manual follow approvals on for years. (Russia’s bot war is well alive here as well as elsewhere) Never looked back!
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@_elena@mastodon.social that's the exact reason I have manual approval
@Stomata I learned my lesson!
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@_elena I’ve done a lot of pro-Ukraine posting and for that reason have had manual follow approvals on for years. (Russia’s bot war is well alive here as well as elsewhere) Never looked back!
@gimulnautti wow!
and yes, even if it takes a bit of work, I prefer going through the manual approval process 🥲
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@_elena I also wonder if we should try to figure out a way to make follows less proeminent/important. It should not matter to you if a lot of no-activity accounts are following you, as it does not change anything to your experience.
I wonder what makes you want to curate the list of followers, while you post in public and everyone can read your posts anyway? Or is it because you sometimes post to followers-only (but as anyone can follow you, this does not really change much) -
@rstub same. I've also read that AI agents may be contributing to lots of signups, ughhhhhh
@_elena Another point where AI is poisoning the surroundings. I am so sick of it ...
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@renchap I promise it doesn't bother me that much, it just makes me sad about the health of the network... And the mental load of admins who have to deal with this non-sense.
I see the fediverse as this organic garden with genuine connections, so seeing weeds spring up makes me feel instantly protective of this space. If it makes sense?
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Wondering if the fediverse - and Mastodon in particular - is undergoing a major spam / bot signup wave at the moment.
I'm noticing an uptick in people following me who have weird usernames (lots of numbers), no profile photo, and 0 followers - I'd say 90% of new followers from the past week or two. (Disclaimer: I don't like the word "follower", it sounds cultish)
What gives?
Treasuring the human connections I've made here and this is a bit unsettling TBH.
I may turn on manual approvals 🥲
@_elena I even got a porn site on my feed here!
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Wondering if the fediverse - and Mastodon in particular - is undergoing a major spam / bot signup wave at the moment.
I'm noticing an uptick in people following me who have weird usernames (lots of numbers), no profile photo, and 0 followers - I'd say 90% of new followers from the past week or two. (Disclaimer: I don't like the word "follower", it sounds cultish)
What gives?
Treasuring the human connections I've made here and this is a bit unsettling TBH.
I may turn on manual approvals 🥲
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@_elena Another point where AI is poisoning the surroundings. I am so sick of it ...
@rstub I know!!!
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@w_b #NotAGirl, and you can see all of them at bunnyalice.com or ##CAPTCHAlice here 🩷
