Warning: AO3 comment bot

[thisaintbc]

Hi all, there appears to be a comment bot working its way through due South fics in reverse chronological order. It starts off with a lengthy, praise-focused comment that uses words and phrases like "chaotic", "my heart", and "screaming" a lot - from the comments I've seen, it honestly sounds a lot like an attempt to mimic fangirl speak circa 2010 - and if the creator responds has tried to then get someone's Discord handle or email address.

Although there was some initial uncertainty over whether this is a bot, as it is commenting with an AO3 account and appears to draw on specific details in the work, the account it was using as of yesterday (Rosie79) appears to be brand new, comments on a stretch of works one after the other within a short time span, doesn't leave kudos, and consistently refers to everything as a "chapter" even if it's a one-shot. It currently appears as if the bot can only process text.*

While I don't want to encourage anyone to go on a comments section witch hunt and end up reporting legitimate users who just happen to sound a little bit like a praise bot, I do want to remind everyone that you can report suspected bots via the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports link at the bottom of every AO3 page. If an account is otherwise blank, newly-created, and appears to be trying to get you to move to the internet equivalent of a secondary location, it may be worth considering reporting it.

*I did not do any of the digging or conferring that discovered this bot or its characteristics, so if folks in the know from the dueSouthBound Discord server want to leave any significant aspects of this bot that I've missed in the comments, that would be very helpful.

Comments

[lomelinde_laurea]

Thank you for making this post!

One thing I noticed about the Rosie79 bot and art scam bots I’ve received recently: they only leave comments but don’t leave kudos. (Not everybody leaves kudos when they comment, or course, so it’s only one aspect to consider.)

The bot has not commented on vids, and while the comments on fics are very effusive and almost always identical in length—basically summarizing the fic with lots of over-the-top praise thrown in—the comment on the one art post on DSSS was simply “this is amazing”. So it appears it can only process written text.

In all cases when users have replied, they have followed up asking to make contact via email or discord (“email or discord works for me”).

[thisaintbc]

This is great info, especially that they've tried to get someone to move to email or discord multiple times. Thank you!

[lomelinde_laurea]

I reached out to several of then users who replied and gave them a heads-up, so most of these comments are now no longer visible. This is the text from one of them:

“Do you usually stay in touch with readers on another platform? I’d love to keep talking about the story. Discord or email works for me.”

(First the replied with this: “I’m really glad! You conveyed everything so clearly it definitely hit all the emotions you were aiming for. Thank you for sharing such a fun and impactful story; it was a joy to read ❤️”)

[thisaintbc]

I've updated the post with this info, and I'll go update the dsvb and noticeboard posts as well!

[alexandramrobertson]

It appears that this particular bot has been shut down. But there will, unfortunately, be more.

[alexandramrobertson]

Apparently I was searching the AO3 site wrong and the bot account still exists

[verushka70]

Huh. By the third comment on a third different fic, that was virtually the same - only rearranged - gushy word salad mentioning a chapter in a non-chaptered fic, I was beginning to suspect bot-ishness. (I didn't realize it the first time because it actually was a chaptered fic!)

Still, for once it's nice that a bot spam-commented with effusive praise rather than harshing on the fics and threatening to report the authors...

Though I suppose the true motivation was off-AO3 contact for purposes of scamming. I'm not sure if, in that context, the praise makes it better or worse. Sigh.

[feroxargentea]

I find the tailored nature of it (and that fact that it must have stolen the works to produce the comments) more creepy than the random abuse tbh

[verushka70]

So it intended to scam or further steal works off AO3 via email or discord and steal works from AO3? wtf.

Well, when you see a situation you can't understand (in a capitalist society), look for the financial interest. The rosie79 bot-creator must be training their, or someone else's, LLM/AI using fanworks.

This is one of those times when I kind of support, or at least understand, data poisoners trying to corrupt AIs that scrape/steal tons of user created content.

I don't think you can do data poisoning on AO3 (although I don't know the technical aspects; maybe it's really easy... I haven't investigated deeply, with written fanworks, anyway). It's probably a violation of the TOS.

But I sure understand why one would want to.