About using bots on lemmy.today

There has been quite a few reports lately about people using bots and llms to create and upvote content. I wanted to make a post to discuss this.

In my opinion, bots are a tool to quickly create or repost content. And its how users use that tool that is important for whether or not it will make lemmy a better or worse place.

Two examples:

User A

  • User A frequently visits reddit and would like to quickly share content that he thinks is actually good and would be liked on lemmy.
  • He uses a bot or some other tool to do this quickly and conveniently.
  • Most of the posts are generally liked by the community, sometimes ending up on the frontpage, with many comments from many different users.
  • A few users are complaining about bot content but the majority seems to appreciate the posts.

User B

  • User B also uses a similar repost bot or a llm to generate content, but they decide that lemmy needs a lot of content and it doesnt matter so much weather or not its actually good.
  • The main idea is to repost or generate as much as possible and lets users decide what they like.
  • They create 30 posts in a day, where almost none of them are actually interesting for the lemmy community. Posts have no comments, and most of them are only upvoted by other bot users.
  • Many users are complaining that they now see tons of low quality posts in their feeds because of this user.

How will we moderate this

In my mind, the lemmy community is fine with user A but not user B. So it requires moderators to make a decision about the content someone is creating. Does it make lemmy better or worse for the majority?

Thats how Im thinking about this, and if you want to share your own ideas or comments, I would love reading them. If you agree, easiest way is to upvote. If you dont, I would love a comment even more so I can understand some other point of view. :)

Thanks!

  • NewPerspective@lemmy.today
    21·
    5 days ago

    What if you keep all your the posts under your DonaldJMusk username, and not spread it out across multiple accounts. That solves a lot of problems. Users can decide for themselves if they like your content, otherwise just block you.

    Updated for relevance

    • PapaSkwat@lemmy.today
      16·
      5 days ago

      You should talk to that user if you have a problem with him. What your saying has nothing to do with me or the topic of OP’s post or the conversation.

      People can just block users they strongly disagree with, instead of being obsessed with them. Then the problem is solved. Good luck!

        • PapaSkwat@lemmy.today
          16·
          5 days ago

          lol I’ve never heard of those communities and have no idea what they’re about. I think mods should be free to ban whoever they want for whatever reason they want. I support Lemmy having all kinds of communities, and mods should be able to run them however they see fit. It doesn’t bother me.

          I’m not a bot, so nothing you’re talking about has anything to do with the topic of OP’s post or the conversation.

          • NewPerspective@lemmy.today
            11·
            5 days ago

            Every single upvote here is you pretending people don’t despise your content

            Who gives a shit if you’re a bot

            • PapaSkwat@lemmy.today
              14·
              5 days ago

              If you dislike what I post so much, then you should block me. I appreciate you being so obsessed with me that you follow me, but OP’s post is about bots. Nothing you’re saying is true, and none of it has anything to do with OP’s post or this discussion.