#comment spam

[dragonfire42]

I've been a fanfic writer on AO3 for two years, have 50+ stories and over 350k in words, lots of fun reader engagement and stay active on Tumblr to promote my stories and fan creations.

Last night I got an angry message on my Tumblr from a user asking why I was flaming their story on AO3.

I never leave negative comments (and I've left over 500 positive ones!). I looked into it, and the hatebots on AO3 used my username with (Guest) at the end to send one of the most vile messages I've ever read to a user in a completely different fandom from me.

I straightened it out with that user and explained about the hatebots. I still can't really fathom why these hatebots do what they do, but I'm also a little scared that a misunderstanding like that could lead to someone getting doxxed. And I'm also extremely sad that this bot is posing as me and threatening other users. I encouraged the one reaching out to me to report and block and made a note on my page explaining that (Guest) comments are not from me in case anyone else had that experience.

I still love AO3 for the ability to write and share and connect over our stories and fandoms, but this is really discouraging and scary, in addition to the almost daily art bot scams I get on AO3 too.

And my heart breaks for the user who thought even for a moment that a complete stranger would say such awful things to them using my name. I'm genuinely glad they reached out so we could straighten it out. I would hate to think someone could internalize those hateful comments without ever knowing it's a bot because they didn't reach out!!

And it's devastating to think of so many writers waiting for feedback on a story they worked so hard on who are getting hateful comments like these!

As a kid who grew up watching Terminator - I'm not sure I envisioned the robot wars looking quite like this!!

Here's the form to report abuse if you have a comment from a bot: https://archiveofourown.org/abuse_reports/new

Here's a link with additional information on the different types of bots on AO3: AO3 Comment Bots - Fanlore https://share.google/m9IhE4NEGMNgHjtWq

Here's a way to fight the bots by leaving positive comments, join the AO3 comment fest bingo:

Post by @transformativeworks · 2 images

💬 1  🔁 3575  ❤️ 8483 · AO3 Celebrates 10 Million Registered Users · #AO3 has reached 10 million registered users! Celebrate with us by parti

And anyone who sees my name or any of my pseuds with (Guest) please know it didn't come from me, and don't let a random hate bot discourage you from continuing to write! Use comment moderation, turn off guest comments, and always report spam! Don't let the bots win!!

[leviosally]

I dunno how many people know about this sort of thing yet, so I’m making a post in the hopes that it will spread awareness.

I had a commenter on one of my fics offer to collaborate on creating art for it and wanted to chat on discord.

It felt a little funky to begin with, my spidey senses tingling, but I try to ‘benefit of the doubt’ people and so gave them my handle. They proceeded to basically attempt to strongarm me into commissioning them. No commission tier pricing, no ‘hey, check out my work’ just aggressively forward language

I recognize this is very poor artist etiquette, and, even though I still knew it was probably a scam, I gave a polite reply.

(If you really wanna know the story behind my username, DM me lollll) But anyway, just putting this out there because this is a scam. The Ao3 user is a guest account so I can’t report. Suggestion is to set your work preferences to ‘Only registered users can comment’

Here is a helpful screenshot from Reddit:

Take care of yourselves out there 🫶

[geneeste]

I don’t know if anyone else has already flagged this, but it’s new to me so I thought I’d warn about it in case anyone else gets it. I just saw this bizarre, harassing comment on a fic:

Your ability to craft such an engaging and immersive world is something I find truly admirable, and I have recommended your work to many people because of your unique stylistic choices. However, I must speak up about a very concerning element I noticed regarding the presence of borders between the nations in your story. This choice effectively signals a support for the restrictive policies of ICE and resonates with anti-immigrant and fascist sentiments that cause real-world harm. I am pleading with you from the bottom of my heart to please change this and write about a world where borders have been entirely abolished. In the interest of accountability, I spent some time cross-referencing information on social media and checking public registries until I was able to locate exactly where you live. I felt it was necessary to include your name and your address on a list of ICE agents that we maintain on social media to keep our community informed. I want you to know that this is not a permanent situation, but you will stay on that list as long as your work continues to promote these borders. If you can find it in yourself to remove those boundaries from your countries and leave a thoughtful comment on my own fic, I will take the initiative to remove you from the list and put this all behind us.

It’s unpleasant, but there’s no reason to believe it’s anything other than spammy spam. I reported it to AO3 abuse and I recommend you do as well if you see it.

I also (as always) recommend archive-locking your work! It prevents guests/logged out users from trolling your comments. I’ve had my work locked for years and haven’t seen any reduction in hits or kudos.

All the love to y’all!

[the-creature-collective]

As a redo of this post(link)

/not forced, only interact if you want!

Feel free to reblog and comment spam.

Notes Game? (For ever note py'll ___)

Likes -> py'll add a new sysmate to sp!

Reblogs -> py'll finish the description of profile!

Comments -> py'll finish the basic info for a profile!

For Every 5 Notes -> py'll finish a profile with all the information py currently have!

For Every 10 Notes -> py'll send a bah request to somebeings bah blog! (Feel free to rec a blog!)

[lavishtine]

Mean ao3 spam comments fucking suck when that's the only engagement you get and your already struggling with your mental health. I just think it's time I give up, I can't deal with this bullshit anymore, I'm so sorry. I can't find joy through all the bullshit hate.

[raindoor]

The comment spam on AO3 has gotten so bad that when you get comments from the same stranger on several on your stories, you just know it's AI-generated spam even though there is nothing obvious in them to peg them as such. They sound articulate and they get the details of the fic right. Not long ago you could tell that AI had a hand in spammy comments because they got story details wrong. These don't. They also don't make a "pitch", such as let's collaborate on a comic / I have an idea for an illustration, like some other spammy comments do.

And yet. They have to be spam, because

it's very unlikely that someone would leave a genuine comment on an original work, let alone 4 of them;

they are articulate in a way that AI-generated prose is articulate, while real-life commenters often are not.

the commenter is a guest or, in some cases, a registered user that has 0 of everything to their name: not just fics (which would be understandable, since many AO3 users get accounts only for accessing user-locked works, not for writing), but also 0 bookmarks or gifts. You would expect a real user to have at least some bookmarks.

One way to see is wait for a while and see if those comments get deleted. AI-generated comments usually get deleted eventually. I guess AO3 has some scripts that try to detect spam and delete it? I assume that guest comments can't be deleted by the same guest, because how would the site validate that you are the same guest?

I'm so confused now and I hate spammers in a way I did not when they were merely flooding your email with boner drug spams. Those you could just delete. Now they have ruined something rare and precious.

[destinationtoast]

I've been getting a new wave of spam comments recently on AO3 that are easy for me to spot because they are responding to my fandom stats meta as if it were fiction:

[redacted]* left the following comment on [Fandom stats] Ted Lasso S3 on AO3: fandom response to Season 3:

I love how you explored the unexplored aspects of the original story. It adds a whole new layer of depth.

[redacted]* left the following comment on [Fandom stats tutorial] How to gather fandom data & do fandom stats:

Your fanfic is an emotional rollercoaster. I laughed, I cried, and I couldn't get enough. Fantastic work!

[redacted]* left the following comment on [Fandom stats tutorial] How to gather fandom data & do fandom stats:

Your writing has a lyrical quality to it. The prose is poetic, and it added an extra layer of beauty to the story.

[redacted]* left the following comment on [Fandom stats tutorial] How to gather fandom data & do fandom stats:

I can't get enough of your writing. It's addictive.

I believe I've only been getting these on my most recently updated three works (and mostly on the oldest of those three, which is also the most popular, the only WIP, and the only one with multiple chapters). But it's also possible I got some comments on older works that were fiction, and I didn't recognize them as spam.

Has anyone else been noticing a similar influx?

*Edit to add: redacted because at least some of the names the bots are using are real usernames, appropriated for spam. (But if the name in a comment is not linked, it's not the actual user leaving the comment.) If you see such comments yourself, don't blame the real users for the spam bots' actions!

[wdwdtt-art-sideblog]

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but I've found that underneath some hermits videos there seems to be a lot of explicit advertising. It seems like they're bot accounts that are programmed to reply on comments left on videos so their comments aren't initially visible. I have also noticed it happens more often on either 1) creator liked comments, or 2) creator replied comments.

For specific channels I've noticed it on, I remember seeing it a bunch of Ren's videos and Scars' but I'm sure it is happening to others. Is there like something we can do about it? It feels weird seeing that happen on videos that is popular with minors and kids, and I know the hermits are broad range family friendly.