Lemmy has multiplied it's number of users (maybe more accurately accounts) in just few days. How much do you think is the percentage of bot accounts? Is Lemmy having problem with bot farming?
this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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I think the growth in the last couple of days has been mostly bots.
l can see a sharp decline in real sign ups on my instance after the initial big wave before and during the 3 day Reddit blackout.
Maybe there will be another wave early next month but currently it has nearly completely dried up.
Why do you think it's bits? I haven't noticed any bot activity.
They are currently dormant, but those thousands of new accounts on some instances clearly show every sign of being auto-generated.
The admins and mods are keeping them at bay, but it could easily get out of control. At this point it's transparent which it normally is when mods and admins are holding the line, but the soldiers are at the gates.
I think this cements worries that some people who are trying to run these servers don't actually understand the severity of the bot-problem online and aren't doing enough to protect themselves, not even the basics. It makes you wonder what kind of other basic cybersecurity protections they haven't set up on their servers, or if their servers are even hardened at all.
I wonder how much (if any) of this is driven by reddit to create more ambiguity to people's feelings about the fediverse? It's totally possible it's all "organic" bot growth, but if they're willing to go to the lengths they have against their own users, I also wouldn't put it past them to be trying to destroy the credibility of any "competitors" in the space.