What’s the point of paying bots to join Lemmy instances?
I assume to then post from those instances.
Yes but why? What do they gain?
I assume we’re talking about spam bots, not bots whose entire purpose is to reupload content from elsewhere into here (i.e. reddit reposter bot).
Most likely, spam. Spam and scam has been quite a problem on Mastodon, so I wouldn’t be surprised if bad actors want to bring them here.
But since they’re mostly being added to small servers where the signup security is bad, couldn’t the main servers just defederate those small bot-filled instances to reduce spam?
I imagine this will happen, and the bots will move to larger instances where they can hide among the crowd.
Because even bots are so sick of reddit’s shits and want to migrate
It’s marketing, it’s propaganda, it’s psyops. Influencing what posts make it to the front page, what posts stay in hot, what opinions get upvoted or downvoted just to make them look popular or unpopular. Mass reporting for posts that offend them. Having entirely fake, scripted conversations to convey points in a more trusted manner in order to influence the reader.
Remember, nobody is immune propaganda.
Maybe for future astroturfing?
I wonder that too since according to present statistics (the-federation.info/platform/73) there’s over 1.2M Lemmy accounts. The 6mo active users count is a little over 40k. Now I know many of those may be lurkers or people like me who have logins on other instances, but a good number of those would have to be bot accounts. So what are they laying in wait for? Could be shameless promotion and upvoting, but I’m not seeing any of that yet. Hope we’re not in for a shitstorm.
spam, agitprop, whatever
