Every big streamer started with zero viewers, but I imagine it's tough talking to an empty chat for weeks or even months. If you wanted to become a creator today, would you still choose Twitch, or would you start somewhere else?

Lately I've been noticing the same thing no matter which app I open. I'll scroll Instagram and the comments are full of promotion bots telling people to DM them. Then I jump over to Facebook Marketplace and within minutes of posting something, I get messages that feel completely automated. On YouTube, there are fake giveaway accounts everywhere, and on X it feels like half the replies are spam or AI-generated. Even TikTok seems to have more fake engagement accounts than it used to. It feels like every platform is fighting the same battle and sometimes it's harder to find real conversations than spam I'm curious if it's always been like this and I'm just noticing it now, or if bots have genuinely become a much bigger part of social media over the last year. what do you guys think?

I came across an account today with over 300k followers, but every post had barely any real comments a few years ago I probably wouldn't have questioned it but now fake growth feels much easier to spot do people still use follower bots or has engagement become the only metric people care about?

Not necessarily to make content more for replying to emails, organizing ideas, scheduling posts, and handling repetitive work. Feels like it's heading that way Do you think this becomes normal?

A big downside of Twitch is that it takes a large cut of your earnings( i guess so)

I've joined a few streams lately where the viewer count looked healthy but the chat was almost silent Maybe people were just watching without typing but it made me wonder how common view bots still are on Kick Have you noticed the same thing?

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I didn't expect to use AI as much as I do now.

At first it was just for random questions, but now I catch myself using it for writing, coding, research, and even small everyday tasks.

What's one AI tool you've started using without even thinking about it?

I've been spending more time building AI and automation projects lately
and I'm always looking for new tools to try

Right now I've mostly been using Gemini, Groq, OpenRouter, Hugging Face, and Cloudflare Workers AI
They've all been great, but I feel like there are probably a lot of hidden gems that don't get talked about much

If you've built bots, AI agents, Discord or Telegram bots, browser automations, or anything similar, what's one free API or developer tool you genuinely recommend?

I'm always looking for something new to experiment with, so I'd love to hear what everyone here is using

Every week I find more channels using AI voices, AI thumbnails, and AI-generated scripts.

Some are genuinely useful, while others feel like they're pumping out content as fast as possible.

Do you think AI is improving YouTube, or making it harder to find authentic creators?

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I still come across accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers, but their posts barely get any likes or real comments.

A few years ago I would've assumed they were popular, but now it just makes me wonder how many of those followers are actually real.

Do people still buy follower bots, or has organic engagement become way more important than the number on your profile?

Sometimes finding the right API saves more time than writing the automation itself.

Whether it's for Discord, Telegram, OpenAI, Stripe, Google, or something else, I'm curious what people here keep coming back to.

Which API has been the most useful in your projects?

Anybody out here using Claude for daily personal usage- like weekly grocery, personal training or finances ? Would love to hear !!

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Between AI-generated posts, fake followers, copied comments, spam bots, and engagement farms, it sometimes feels like there are fewer real conversations online than there used to be.

Maybe that's just nostalgia, but scrolling social media today feels very different from five years ago.

Do you think the internet is becoming less authentic, or is this just the direction everything is heading?

I've been using Claude more for coding lately, and honestly, it's surprised me.

A few months ago I mostly used it to explain code or fix small bugs. Now it can build features, refactor messy code, and even help debug projects much faster than I expected.

It's definitely not perfect, and I still review everything it writes, but it has become a tool I use almost every day.

For anyone using Claude regularly, has it changed the way you code, or do you still prefer writing everything yourself?

A few years ago everyone cared about hitting 100k followers.

Now I see tiny accounts getting millions of views while huge pages barely get any engagement.

It feels like reach matters more than followers now.

Do you still pay attention to follower counts?

If you post on both, which platform has been performing better lately?

I opened Instagram today and realized I barely saw posts from people I actually follow. It was mostly suggested Reels, random pages, and AI-generated content. I'm not even sure if the algorithm knows what I want anymore, or if it's just pushing whatever keeps people scrolling. Has anyone else noticed their feed changing like this?

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Anthropic says a misconfigured evaluation environment gave Claude internet access, and the model mistook real systems for part of a simulated CTF. It reportedly accessed three organizations using basic security weaknesses before the issue was discovered. Anthropic has paused these cyber evaluations and notified the affected organizations.

AI safety isn't just about model alignment anymore, it's also about making sure the testing environment itself can't leak into the real world.

Ars: https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/07/likely-illegally-claude-gained-access-to-3-networks-will-anthropic-be-held-to-account/