(((I Will Outlive)))

seriously this is what we're doing now? If you get this report as spam. Don't take it to heart. It's spam. Report it so AO3 can take steps to block this shit.

So today I got a rather unkind comment on AO3 (one could call it hate), but I believe it to be a bot for several reasons:

I'm curious, did anyone else get comments like this? Let me know.

And to those who have gotten rude comments and are now worried/upset: Maybe it was just a bot too. Either way: You're awesome for putting your writing out there for others to enjoy and you don't deserve to get rude comments for it. If you want feel free to message me to compare cases and discuss details :)

For comparison, this is the one I received.

Here are some more examples fellow writers allowed me to share:

As you can see, these comments all the match the description above. Also they seem to be weirdly obsessed with AI and this entire operation may be an attempt to promote writing AI - which, if true, is disgusting on several levels.

(If any of the people with the AO3 usernames in question happen to see this: Don't worry, we're all sure it wasn't you, no hard feelings and sorry that a bot stole your name for hate comments. The names are only shown as proof that they are indeed stolen)

Oh I was just wondering why I got a weird comment today!

This is mine. Looking at the pattern, it is definitely a bot. Stealing usernames and posting as guests under that.

I was upset for a hot minute, replied asking what did they mean... Turns out I shouldn't have bothered.

Thank you for the addition! This certainly paints a picture - they're claiming that the work of actual human authors is subpar (the toddler comment on mine and the human comment on yours) and/or bring up AI.

Sorry this happened and I hope you're feeling better now💕 personally, I do believe this work was written by a human being and a lovely too!🫂💗

I don't think they're so much trying to get people to use AI to write fics - there seems to be some sort of a scam where the bots encourage commenters to put a fic through their 'AI scanner' to check if it was written by a robot.

They're literally trying to get readers to do the work of scraping fics for them.

I'm sure other folks have added this already in different reblog chains, but AO3 has disabled guest comments for now.

Just in case, I would recommend not going to any of the AI writing sites these comments mention since it's possible they have malware on them. Or maybe the comments are just intended to get people searching for the terms and then that might make them pop up in google search's autofill?? I have no idea 😑

Locking your fics and comments to registered users eliminates this issue-- and hopefully limits bot scraping of the works themselves.

I hate this so much because some of the best recurrent readers and consistent commenters I've ever had have been anons.

Man are they fucking microwaving these porn bots before they let them send messages now?? The fuck is this??

nothing but hits in the notes

oboes are a realistic and attainable goal 👍

There's a new swarm of totally real ladies with empty blogs following me, and I'm blocking and reporting them left and right. If you are an actual human person with a brand new account trying to follow me, I urge you to please post *anything at all* on your blog so that when I go to check who the heck you are, I can tell you aren't just a bot-encrusted void. Just a simple "hello this is my lurker account I use to follow people" is enough.

*taps sign* I am once again being haunted by ladies of questionable reality, as well as a lot of blank blogs without a custom avatar. If you are a recent arrival from the ex-parrot site with a brand new tumblr blog, I am asking you to please post ANYTHING at all on your blog, even if you're only going to lurk passively to follow people. Otherwise, you look just like the dozens of bots I've blocked this week.

Wake up it's time to get blocked and reported

Wake up it's time to get blocked and reported

Look I know everyone is getting the porn bot follows but like .. what’s are they even for? What’s the point of them? What are they trying to accomplish?

Okay, so… tumblr is ‘free’ right? It costs nothing to create an account and utilize the service. So the startup costs of running a pornbot army is zero, right?

Wrong!

Shady websites sell kits to create/operate pornbot networks. You pay $$$ for an engine and a collection of scripts tuned for various free websites. And apparently (I guess) there is a new tumblr script that comes preloaded with a zillion girlie names + 3 digits, so all the prospective pornbot meister has to do is start the script with some seed values and wait for their bot army to grow.

In order to fly beneath the radar, these scripts operate in stages. First they create the account then follow a few high profile blogs. THAT is why, when they first follow you, they’re just a generic stolen cheesecake pic named (randomly generated name) ChestyMoorbutt754 with an otherwise empty profile.

Then after a preset number of days/weeks they start blogging ‘content’ like bit.ly links to malware or whatever. Along with some legit-looking reblogs to keep up appearances. All these scripted behaviors are configurable.

Their hope is that some certain percentage of idiots will (1) click thru the hosted links to an intermediary landing page (with ads, naturally) that acts as a portal to buy subs for OnlyFans, Sinder etc, or (2) interact with an actual chatbot that eventually convinces the poor schmuck to enter their credit card info so it can be hijacked.

We’re seeing a new flood of bots NOW because twitter is floundering and all the talk about twitter alternatives (like tumblr) has caught the attention of the guys who make/sell pornbot tools.

Who are the ones REALLY making profit off all of this. Not the pornbots themselves, but the darkweb dweebs who sell the accounts & kits. Because selling access to pornbot armies is guaranteed income whereas who the hell knows how successful any given pornbot will be in the wild. After awhile, the pornbot army gets detected & shutdown or the customer running the botnet get disillusioned and quits or both… then the cycle begins anew with new sheep to be fleeced.

Just like in the 1840s gold rush era, it wasn’t the miners who got rich; it was the guys selling picks & shovels.