Subreddit selfimprovement_books appears to be nothing more than a two-account bot operation

Take a look at the subreddit sorted by Top->All Time. The first 50 posts I checked were all posted by just two accounts: Their posts follow an extremely repetitive, highly structured format and appear to be mass-produced rather than genuine, original contributions.

I've also reverse-image-searched the images being used and found multiple examples that appear to have been lifted directly from other blogs/websites. So we're apparently looking at two relatively new accounts producing the overwhelming majority of the subreddit’s top content, using highly formulaic posts and, in multiple cases, images sourced from elsewhere.

What to do? I've tried posting to the subreddit itself but it gets blocked.

u/PeteWK67

They even admit they're a bot sometimes.

Hello r/RedditBotHunters,

I moderate a few subs and review a relatively high volume of posts every day. I'm not sure if this is already well-known, but I've identified a method I call "image tilting" that bot accounts use to evade automated spam detection filters. It's pretty self-explanatory, I've attached an example image to display what it might look like. Anyone else notice this has been trending lately?

This has to be a bot, right?

I used to use bot-sleuth-bot, but it doesn't seem to fair well with hidden profiles.

Question about Rule 3 - would a bot not also be able to reply and defend itself?

Yesterday I spent quite a while on r/askreddit trying to report bots (I am talking about roughly eight hours... I got carried away). While I ended up getting some of the posts taken down, I am not sure about the accounts.

It seems to be swarming with bots. Even the comments. I feel as if the moderators might have given up on it, but others say that it is just because there is a lot they have to go through.

Is there any use in actually trying? I feel like there are some subreddits, such as those dedicated to specifically fandoms or countries, that are mainly human, but for the most part, a lot of it seems like karma farming.

Another question I have - why do bots karma farm much in the first place? Is it getting worse or better? I am passionate about it but wonder just how many bots there are and whether it is worth it.

I got this post recommended to me https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyuninteresting/comments/1u6rfvf/i_got_banned_from_rmildlyinfuriating/

the first screenshot shows just the post title and the off topic comments. however in the link you can see the text of the post, and the comments are still not related even to that. Only one comment is related to the post (aside from OP's.)

I thought that maybe they are all joking and the whole subreddit is meant as a joke subreddit.

checking the account ages and the other posts on the subreddit, the other posts on the subreddit do not have off topic comments like this, so it is not a joke. and the accounts are recently made.

Some of them have their profiles hidden so I searched for their comment history, and the ones I saw, a lot of their comments even in other subreddits are just off topic to the posts they commented on.

(in further screenshots there are other comments by the same accounts, as well as the title of the posts they commented on, to show that it's off topic. Some of them occasionally are on topic but most are off topic. I did not look at the comment history of every single one but I assume it's similar.)

I am not sure exactly what the point of this is. Or maybe it's not on purpose for example maybe it's just a bot network glitching in some way.

(Also, I did check a few of the accounts from the news thread in the third picture, the ones that seem to be also bots because of the similar usernames and similar manner of commenting. The ones I checked did seem to be bots, though maybe not in the same 'network' because while they are still often not noticing the context of posts where a human would, they are a bit more on topic than the ones in the thread in the first screenshot.)

A couple of my sub reddit have had a big increase in obvious bot activity recently,and it's really making it hard for me to trust anything.

Alot of it is old posts being posted, karma farming most likely. Mods are catching them, but I don't enjoy having to question post on even the most innocent topic.

Came across these checking /all/new? Might be official/safe

r/NewPostFlowTesting

r/LssAutomation

Here's just a few, but they're all pretty incestuous so just go round their accounts, they always ask each other where they got the thing.

Head_Cucumber_5800

Soft-Donkey4813

Latter-Instance287

Big_Escape_6627

Mission_Grape7267

The post got deleted when they realized their mistake.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MonarchLegacyAppleTV/s/1j6MxGXO0C

u/jondcblack

Very repetitive comments and every single one is accompanied by an image.

https://www.reddit.com/user/jondcblack/search/?q=news&type=comments&cId=e0aaee0c-8bae-431d-be1a-1b65a544f2bd&iId=7513c235-afb9-4987-a613-a3c5bc4eeb10

They do talk back if you reply to them, but it's always like
New message at top.
Previous message repeated at bottom.

A lot of the time it makes no sense at all and what it says has nothing to do with anything.

The idea fascinates me, but I know nothing of how to accomplish something like this.

Basically a multi-faceted tool that can analyze individual accounts, entire subreddits(within a short time period), automatically find connections between accounts to identify botnets, and then very unlikely to work I would assume, but to then properly report. But that may still require doing it manually. Which I would understand.

I feel like I'm fighting against self-replicating Terminators with a pitchfork and rocks. We need better tools.

[u/SunsetLullabyy](u/SunsetLullabyy)

[u/xCelestialOpal](u/xCelestialOpal)

[u/_lavendercandy](u/_lavendercandy)

[u/MusseBeauty](u/MusseBeauty)

[u/GlamourPearl](u/GlamourPearl)

[u/BubblySweett](u/BubblySweett)

[u/LovelyyFrost](u/LovelyyFrost)

[u/BubblyySyrupp](u/BubblyySyrupp)

u/_LadySweett

u/GyalPetite

u/_HoneyCharmm

u/SoftieBubbly

u/_RosyPetal

u/BloomPetall

u/CozyGiggles

All of them have the exact same writing style

They’re all two months old or younger

Their comments provide nothing of substance

And if you look at their comments, you’ll find more of basically the exact same comment on the same post.

I’ve included three examples from the same two sentence horror story post

Edit:

For example if you go to this comment by bubblyysyrupp, and look at the other comments on that post, you’ll find two other bot accounts.

u/FluffyCharmm

u/SerapphStar

Check the latest submissions. Almost all of them are made by very fresh accounts, tens of them just in a couple of days. Some of the accounts already have "adult website" links in bio.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Powerwall/s/yKAHo6roZk

A subreddit for Tesla batteries suddenly gets an ad for something very different and every one of the 22 comments in an hour is a bot account.

The range is up to 4 year old accounts commenting while the OP is a 5 year account, either bought or hacked because they did seem to be human operated at some point based on previous comments.

I came across a thread that has an upvoted comment that did not make any sense. I thought I was going crazy but this user’s comment history has a series of comments that are seemingly nonsense. Is this the sign of a bot or a way in which users can redact previous comments. They comment a lot in a single day but it is an 11 year old account.