Conspiracy fact: A percentage of Reddit posts and comments are automated. Do you enjoy talking to bots?

100  2014-02-11 by [deleted]

/u/MuDDKyPZ is a repost bot. Check history. Screenshot in case.

/u/disalot and /u/RiotSnow are both comment repost bots. Both of these accounts have only top comments in the repost bot's threads. Screenshot disalot and Screenshot riotsnow in case.

Here are the duplicate posts with duplicate top comments:

Here's an instance where a bot was caught, but deleted the comment afterwards.

Here's a bot that was caught, and then shadowbanned.

I feel like this is going to be exploited really soon. This is obviously just beginner level automated web content, but imagine how complex this will get in the near future, especially for governments and major corporations who have tons of resources. Soon, you'll be arguing politics with a robot and you won't be able to tell if he's real or not.

  • Edit: I got a bunch of pm's from /u/duckvimes_ who is saying these bots were caught. I'll paste his comments here:

Here's some more confirmation that the OP and the top commenter in that thread are the same user:

On the submissions, do a text search for this character: "е". (You must copy and paste it from this PM). If necessary, you can search for something like "thе" instead (again, copy and paste).

That character is not a normal letter 'e'. It's different. As you can see from the text searches, that character only shows up in the submission title and the top comment. This holds true for all comments and submissions for these users, as far as I can tell. There's absolutely no way this is a coincidence. It also happens for /u/disalot, who coincidentally was also the top poster for the only submission from /u/MuDDKyPZ that /u/RiotSnow did not comment on.

See the post here for more info.

And they're busted. The reason they're changing the character ('е' replaces the normal 'e') is so that people can't use Google searches to find the original comments that are being copied. So if you search the text of the duplicate comment, you just get that new comment. But if you replace the weird character with a normal 'e', then a Google search gives you this.

36 comments

19  InternetPropagandist 2014-02-11

Most of the credit should go to the OP of this thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1xhntr/proof_of_an_elaborate_propaganda_operation_top/

All I did was dig around to verify a few things. I don't think this was a propaganda operation. I think the Bush thread just happened to be political in nature, and after the comment repost bot submitted his plagiarized comment, other redditors noticed and followed suit as a running gag. I could be wrong, but this seems to be the most likely explanation.

1  -moose 2014-02-11

i didnt realize /u/duckvimes_ had credibility

5  Ambiguously_Ironic 2014-02-11

Bizarre times ahead.

4  joseph177 2014-02-11

ha, well I dont doubt that some shills are bots and I have probably argued with a few of them. The responses are so canned and scripted it would be amateur hour to make one.

3  Oldenstein 2014-02-11

Yet another reason to be a sceptic and have an independent mind. Society is often wrong. Virtual society is even more so. It is all about the battle to keep public oppinion in check.

3  HS_00 2014-02-11

Soon, you'll be arguing politics with a robot and you won't be able to tell if he's real or not.

Then it will be a lot like talking an average American citizen.

0  ZapPowerz 2014-02-11

Nah. Robots are smarter.

2  mimiincognito 2014-02-11

how do we know you're not a bot outing other bots so that we will never suspect you?

2  danintexas 2014-02-11

Reddit is shit anyways. The ones that aren't bots are horrible human beings. If my job wasn't so damn boring I wouldn't bother coming here as a distraction.

2  modbuster 2014-02-11

Soon, you'll be arguing politics with a robot and you won't be able to tell if he's real or not.

I sort of got the feeling that solidwetstone was a bot. But maybe he was just autistic.

1  AssuredlyAThrowAway 2014-02-11

Trappedinreddit was also a repost bot.

1  djn808 2014-02-11

Can you expand on this please?

2  AssuredlyAThrowAway 2014-02-11

http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/v6wz7/worst_hunting_dog_ever/c51ycgu

Probably a bunch of power users who ran it. You can see the guy who caught T_I_R had a lot of trouble exposing it around reddit and his posts were being removed from subs ran by a small group of powermods.

1  [deleted] 2014-02-11

[deleted]

2  Traubster 2014-02-11

... you realize that all the grains of sand are actually tiny shards of glass...

1  [deleted] 2014-02-11

[deleted]

1  InternetPropagandist 2014-02-11

The only thing that is identical across the threads is that the first comment is duplicated and the post itself is duplicated. In the thread you're looking at where the following comments are duplicated, this happened after another commenter pointed out that the top comment was duplicated. Other members then copied this for karma.

I'll leave room for the possibility that they were all bots, but if you compare the histories of the bots, their only comments are reposting the top comment. The other members (who duplicated the following comments) look real.

1  [deleted] 2014-02-11

[deleted]

1  InternetPropagandist 2014-02-11

Comment repost bots are already a normal thing, so I figured that's the best explanation, especially since they have no other activity.

Second, I think they wrote into the repost bots that they only choose to repost after the other thread is 1 year old. I'm pretty sure this removes it from the "related tab." So people won't be able to easily see that they are reposts.

Could be karma whores too, but bots are not some crazy theory.

1  Amos_Quito 2014-02-11

Do you enjoy talking to bots?

Depends...

Is it over 18 - and HOT?

1  thetimeisnow 2014-02-11

http://www.reddit.com/r/botwatch/

0  [deleted] 2014-02-11

[deleted]

1  [deleted] 2014-02-11

Can I have Ashley's phone number?

1  Ashleysdad123 2014-02-11

no

0  master_baiter 2014-02-11

Magnets.

0  donaldtrumptwat 2014-02-11

I'm not automated

0  [deleted] 2014-02-11

In the future you could create bots that could argue on the internet all day for whatever position you wanted them to.

Watson winning Jeopardy is now years past. Being able to read a post, figure out what it's about and then respond in a way that seems human isn't that far from what Watson was doing.

The power you could generate would be insane. Controlling the media is one thing but being able to generate thousands of online personalities that all try to sway people to your way of thinking is pretty scary.

-1  djn808 2014-02-11

People should be figuring out what they want their Watson to do. soon everyone will have their own in their pocket I'm sure.

0  [deleted] 2014-02-11

I was really talking about government agencies and people with a lot of resources, I kinda used ambiguous terms there.

Commercial use should be starting very soon, taking over call centers and support.

One day it will be like your sarcastic reply, but obviously not for a long time.

1  InternetPropagandist 2014-02-11

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9239430/IBM_launches_Watson_customer_service_smart_bot

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/12/10/meet-the-robot-telemarketer-who-denies-shes-a-robot/

1  djn808 2014-02-11

I'm not sure what was sarcastic about it, sorry if I upset you

1  [deleted] 2014-02-11

Oh sorry, I thought you were just saying "oh yeah, everyone will have one, derp you dumb" lol

0  Sarah_Connor 2014-02-11

Look me in the eye and ask me again if I like talking to bots...

0  YELLIO 2014-02-11

Beep boop beep bop

0  bigdave1248 2014-02-11

10101 1010100001 01001010 10.... shit sorry forgot to turn my bot off

-1  juksayer 2014-02-11

How can our comments be real if our users aren't?

-1  cybercougar 2014-02-11

Don't argue on the internet and your problem is solved.

1  InternetPropagandist 2014-02-11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGQsoGtK7EY

For now.

-2  gonzobon 2014-02-11

There are a lot of useful bots.

1  thetimeisnow 2014-02-11

How do you feel about bots that are used to act as if they are people online?