posted in Asklemmy
Is Lemmy also full of bots like Reddit?
I just found a account where it’s comments are all the same stuff over and over again. It seems like spam bot. I thought only reddit had a bot problem but maybe Lemmy has it too?
Here’s the account: lemmy.world/u/circuitai
How did I find it
So, for those wondering how I found it:
I first come across that account on lemmy.world/c/BestOfAi
Here’s the comment that caught my attention:
Replying to @nerdhd@lemmy.world
Yes, there’re definitely bots. If Lemmy is “full of” them off harder to tell and more subjective, but I’d say no. It’s more of an issue in the larger communities, less so in niche communities. There’s fundamentally no solution to this, regardless of the platform.
Maybe Captchas could help against automated calls or something?
Bots can solve captchas more accurately and more efficiently than humans. For example, I use the browser extension Captcha Buster to solve Google Captchas for me. Nowadays websites instead use proof-of-work “captchas”, which require the visitors’ devices to solve cryptographic challenges (similar to bitcoin mining). This is why they sometimes takes a few seconds to complete (even more on low end smartphone / battery saving mode). But even those only slow down, not prevent bot access.
Yup short of some insane surveillance of all users, there’s just no way to prevent bots. So the only action we can take is stay vigilant and report any bot activities and clean up as much as we can.