#spambots

[prokopetz]

Them: Why do you respond to so few of your DMs?

The DMs:

[ofishal-fish-posts]

[to the tune of "100 bottles of beer on the wall"] 100 spambots on tumblr dot com, 100 spambots on tumblr dot com... take one down, block it around , 110 spambots on tumblr dot com

[tinypinkmouse]

I got the most hilariously batshit spambot comment on a fic. It's like holy guilt trip, batman.

What makes it so much more funny is that it's on the college AU. You know the one set in a fictional world, and with the rather explicit point of not being based on any US college experience. The one that's mostly silly, and romance. Like I know these are random but still.

Sharing mostly because this one is so over the top people need to see it. But also to say that if you get comments like this don't take them to heart, and report them (since it's not a logged in user there's a handy spam button to click on the comment).

[sunsetsands]

Just a warning to everyone: There is a new type of spambot barraging the ace and aro tags. They advertise opportunities to work for FedEx.

Please report any accounts you see making posts that look like this. It’s unlikely that staff will actually do anything, since they seem far more preoccupied with banning trans people and Palestinians, but it’s better than doing nothing.

[creature-wizard]

So, I've seen two blogs responding to random people's posts with a long screed that starts out with:

[username redacted] [username redacted] you didnt cause all of my suffering,but you caused MOST of it. You dont listen, you don't care what YOU DID to my life. Permanent seizures, beatings, PTSD: abuse is abuse. Youre rich and dont have to care, but it was everything to me [url redacted]

If you see these blogs, please report them for spam.

[tearinmyside]

what is with all of these spambots trying to scam people into "getting paid to read poetry"? i get one every frickin' day. tumblr needs to clean this shit up.

[foiazoli]

Tutorial for how to report spambot comment accounts on AO3

There's been an uptick in spambots on AO3 recently, and I think most of us are getting good at spotting them now. I realized recently that while I had been blocking these bots and deleting their comments as they came up, I hadn't been reporting them to AO3. Because I didn't know how.

Turns out it's really easy.

Go to AO3's abuse reports page linked here for your convenience, and fill it out. It asks for

Your email

A link to the page you are reporting (the bot's profile)

A summary of your report (think email subject line)

A description of what you are reporting and why. For spambots, AO3 requests that in your description, you include both the username of the spambot, and the word "spambot," itself.

That's it!

Maybe I'm late and everyone else was doing this the whole time, but if you are like me and didn't remember to do this/realize it was an option—here you go. Have fun smacking bots with hammers!

[bebe-benzenheimer]