I was checking if Relay still works for me (it does), and happened to see this post at the top of my feed calling out bots on programming: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/14trtla/the_ai_bots_have_arrived_at_rprogramming/

First off, I was surprised that programming was allowing posts again; last I checked it was restricted. Judging by timestamps, it looks like it opened up 2 days ago.

The weird thing is that most posts since reopening have negative scores and no comments. Screenshot example with several 0 karma posts.

Is this a continuing protest by r/programming users? Are they calling out bots and astroturfing with a scorched earth approach? I haven’t checked the 0 karma posts closely to see if they are all bots, but that would make sense since not all posts are zeroed.

Have been avoiding reddit in general so I’m out of the loop.

  • Yeah2206@infosec.pub
    1·
    1 year ago

    I looked. I’d guess the ones with 0 votes are posts done by bots, possibly powered by AI. The one I looked closely posted and commented to get karma points to get past the filters to post promotions/scams in other subs. The mods, including spez himself, are not doing any filtering. I am not sure if any is done for protest, but I only looked closely at one.

    edited: grammar

    • Paradox@lemdro.idEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Tbh the “mods” of programming haven’t ever done much of anything. Check the sub for even 3 minutes and you’d run into tons of gitconnected spam