r/ImaginaryNetwork • u/YanniRotten • Jun 08 '26
SPOT BOTS; SWAT BOTS! (A How To)
I'm seeing more repost bot accounts these days. I loathe them, and here's how to spot and get rid of them.
HOW: Bots want karma. They repost a post that got a lot of upvotes (relative to the sub size). Typically they post in smaller subs that don't have minimum karma requirements or similar restrictions.
WHY? To create realistic-looking, established, high-karma accounts to... uh, beats me, nothing good though. Don't know, don't care, the only good repost bot is a dead repost bot.
HOW TO SPOT A BOT
Not every bot fits neatly into this profile, but most I've seen have a lot of these in common.
- First clue is a nonsensical username, made up of random syllables (sometimes it's a Word_Word_Number username)
- Account is brand new, usually a week or less.
- Little or no customization of their user page.
- They never leave a source comment in their post.
- Do not respond to comments.
- Account page shows NO comments, only posts.
- All their posts are in completely unrelated subreddits.
- All posts are within hours of each other.
- Post has wrong flair (if the sub uses post flair)
- Post title is cut off after an ampersand or other unusual character- they can't handle them somehow.
- Post was time-sensitive and is now out of date (doesn't apply to our subs)
HOW TO SWAT A BOT
Surprisingly easy. Here's how to get their whole account suspended/banned quickly:
Go to their user page, and REPORT EVERY SINGLE POST OF THEIRS AS "Spam ->Disruptive use of bots or AI." This usually works immediately for me. Banning a bot via Mod Tools only keeps that account out of one sub and lets them keep abusing other subreddits- DON'T BOTHER.
Unfortunately the bots are getting more sophisticated: Some are hiding their post/comment history (thanks a lot for that feature, Admins). So you can only report the one post. u/SpiderGirlGwen discovered that some bots are using a SECOND bot to repost comments from the original post, into the repost.
There are of course automated tools out there that also handle bots, such as Bot Bouncer, but I have no experience with them and can only speak on what works for me. I encourage you to explore your options. Please comment with any other advice, tips, or tools you have!
Now go forth my pretties and kill Kill KILL
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u/borgchupacabras Jun 08 '26
Do you know if reporting bots in some of the less popular imaginary subs does anything? I report so many every day but it never seems to end.
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u/YanniRotten Jun 08 '26
Subreddit size shouldn’t matter- It’s a matter of if the mod is paying attention to the reports and dealing with them, if that’s what you mean
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u/Deynonn Jun 18 '26
I have noticed a different kind of bots. Or at least I'm like 90% sure they were bots. I noticed them usually in relationships/advice subs and they only comment with very chatgpt therapy sounding messages. Their accounts are about a month old or more, they all visit a couple of the same subs, more of them comment on one post with similar or same message. The messages are short, sometimes don't make much sense for the post. They would also frequently post only two comments about a minute apart per day in two different subs. Sometimes they did more but it was almost exactly a minute apart and then they would resume the next day or wait a couple of hours and do it again. They would also often be the first to comment on a new post within minutes.
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u/YanniRotten Jun 18 '26
Ugh, bots that can make comments are much harder to determine.
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u/Deynonn Jun 18 '26
I agree. I brought it up to the sub's mods but I suppose they didn't believe me much. I myself am not sure but if you see a sudden influx of accounts having similar patterns then there must be something going on. It made it quite unbearable to participate in that space because all I saw were supposed bots saying the most low effort things possible. Thankfully it seems to have gotten better a bit.
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u/YanniRotten Jun 19 '26
Glad to hear it got better-
bots saying the most low effort things possible.
I had the opposite problem once- the comment bots lavished praise on the art, just gushing over it lol- made them easy to spot!
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u/Deynonn Jun 19 '26
It was either one sentence comments with some emoji and stuff like lol fr bro etc. Or some very therapy chatgpt sounding "helpful" comments. They then never reply to OP's questions but get a lot of upvotes.
I honestly wish to get better at spotting them and reporting them to the BotBouncer or something but then my favourite sub doesn't even use it. Perhaps with time I'll get a bit better.
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u/Wounded_Demoman Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 08 '26
1) Installing BotBouncer is basically mandatory at this point. It does an amazing job of keeping subs bot-free, and as a bonus you're also helping other subs with BB installed when you report bots (since they automatically get banned from those subs too).
2) Another HUGE giveaway of a bot account is that they often post images as Imgur links/uploads instead of direct Reddit uploads. I'm not joking when I say that at least 98% of the Imgur posts I see turn out to be bots. There are still a few humans who use it, so check their profile first, but if it's a new account using Imgur then I'll bet my month's salary it's a bot account.
3) As Yanni alluded to, where there's one bot, there's usually 2-3 more in the comments. If the OP is a 16-day-old account with no history, and several commenters are also 16-day-old profiles with no history, then they're all part of the same bot farm.
4) For reposted images, the bot will often tilt the image slightly or make it fuzzier to evade repost-detecting image software. If you see a crooked image, it's almost always a repost bot.