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Welcome! You may be here following a link from one of my bot-busting comments. Below, Iâll list some tips for how to identify bots in the wild, and I will describe some of their purposes. Note: the tactics of these bot-makers change from time to time, so I will try to update this post as promptly as possible when I notice new techniques. ââââââââââ
Why Do Bots Exist?
I should write this first, because itâs crucial that we understand what these bots are here for. They are commenting to gain karma, to have the ability to post/comment in subreddits that require a certain amount of age/karma score. Once theyâve done that, the majority of these bots will perform scams. Some will be purchased for nefarious reasons, such as political disinformation, or downright sowing division/trolling.
The most common scam youâll see includes âBot Aâ posting a trinket like a mug, toy, shirt, etc. Then, âBot Bâ will comment something like âomg cool! Where did you buy this?â. Next, either âBot Aâ or âBot Câ will reply with a website link. Unsuspecting human users will follow the link, attempt to purchase, and sadly, have their identity and credentials stolen. There are many scams, but this is what youâll see the most.
Our goal is to prevent these bots from getting to that point.
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How To Identify Bots:
There are a few ways to determine if an account is a bot, but the main ones I will be focusing on, are account-names, and comment contents. Before I do, I will mention that usually, bot accounts are fairly new. Theyâre almost always less than a year old, and youâll find some patterns. Many are around 90 days old, which is an easy identifier, but the general rule of thumb is less than 1yr old.
By Name:
One tip to keep in mind, is that there are a handful of different bot-makers, which use different names and techniques. \ The most common bots youâll find will simply be named with a random string of letters/numbers; for example:\ -UcGhz6NmE\ -BuYtlpHEq\ -GHJKxse7y\ -lkmnIUPoq
Also, youâll find many bots that use two human sounding names, often female names, and often with a string of certain letters afterwards (currently, âsâ is the letter I see the most). These names look like:\ -MariaJamesss\ -MeganAnthonyss\ -OliverWilliamsss\ -WhitneyJoansss\ *Note: sometimes the string of letters (sss) wont be there. From what I can tell, there is about a 30-40% chance for the name to be missing the letters.
And lastly, the third most common bot names are simply the default Reddit-given account names, which consist of two words, separated by hyphens, followed by a string of four numbers, like so:\ -Vacuum-Wonder7569\ -World-Chimpanzee4581\ -Custom-Department1725\ -Wild-Laundry5628\ Note: itâs important to remember that itâs far more common for these default usernames to be human users, than bots. For fully identifying bots, youâll need to use context clues, such as their comment history, and the way they behave.\ Note #2: from time to time, youâll find them with names that are simply *designed to look like** default Reddit names, and theyâll be missing the hyphen in between the random words, or theyâll be missing the numbers at the end. This is more uncommon, but has been popping up more in recent weeks.*
By Comment Contents:
Sometimes, the easiest way to determine if a suspicious account is a bot, is looking at the way they comment. There are a few easy to notice things to look for.
Before getting into examples of the types of comments bots will write, one must look at where these comments mostly appear. They most likely will be on new, rising posts (sort by: rising), with at least 10 prior comments. Also, they almost always will reply to the top or second most highly upvoted comment in the thread. Lastly, they will mostly be a direct reply to the original comment, meaning they wonât reply to a longer comment chain, but they will be only one line deep.
Now, what do they say? First, and most often, bots will say very short, inconspicuous, common phrases. More times than not, something will seem off about the comment, as in, it wonât fit the conversation. The following are some examples of these types of comments:\ -âI agree dudeâ\ -âYes you are rightâ\ -âWell saidâ\ -âTotally agreeâ\ Note: the bots that are named with two human names, like âJackieDarcysssâ will also use these vague comments, but theyâll kind of speak like yoda, for instance:\ -âRight you areâ\ -âWell spoken, you areâ\ -âPerfectly said this isâ
Secondly, youâll find what I call the âcopy/paste/changeâ type of comment. These bots, again, will reply to the top couple of comments in a post, however, theyâll simply copy the comment theyâre replying to, and paste it. Theyâll usually delete or alter a word or two (like using synonyms), or sometimes theyâll just add âYeah,â before the pasted comment.
Another copy/paste technique youâll see, is where they reply to the top comment, but they will use copied text from some completely different user, somewhere lower in the main thread. These comments tend to stand out because they donât make contextual sense. These copy/paste bots are easy to spot, as there will be a human user in the thread who has said a nearly identical comment, but the human comment makes sense.
Finally, the hardest copy/paste bot is one youâll find on reposts, especially those made by repost bots. These bots will actually copy a top comment from a previous (often the most recent) time that the repost was posted. These take a little more digging to verify, but a quick search will usually make it clear that youâre dealing with a bot.
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Thank You For Reading!
Keep in mind, these are just the basics of bot hunting. As more super-common techniques appear, I will amend this list.
Why is this worth it? I think of it like this: it takes a very small effort on my part to copy/paste a bot-busting comment and get a bot banned. However, this tiny effort on my part could save some folks a heck of a lot of problems down the road, if they are unlucky enough to get scammed or have their ID stolen. To me, that makes the 5 seconds on my part worth it.
Thanks again,
Cheers!
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