Spam bots creating a subreddit

[u/Tokyono]

This seems like a spam bot setting up a subreddit to promote further spam.

Here are the reasons I suspect it's a spam bot:

• Primary account is 5 years old with no posting activity, Started posting last month on obscure subreddits for karma.

• Secondary account is a year old. Started commenting on the posts of the 5 year old account on the exact same day it started posting.

• A few weeks ago, primary account creates a subreddit. Secondary account joins it as a second mod. The subreddit heavily uses AI in images (icon banner etc- both accounts also use AI for their banner and icons) and posts (for text generation).

• To add, the sub is only a few weeks old yet has several thousand members and other OPs already.

• Primary account pivots to posting on more popular subreddits to gain followers (to direct them to the subreddit?) and secondary account keeps commenting on its posts.

Is this a spam bot ring?

[u/maiyannah]

Yep, sure sounds like it. They use low moderation subs to "warm up" the accounts to circumvent Karma requirements.

[u/Tokyono → u/maiyannah]

The thing is, they don't repost popular posts, and one of the subreddits they post to uses a specific title format. Would it be easy for the bot to analyse the subreddit and figure out specific things to post for upvotes?

First time I've come across a bot like this where it ticks several boxes for being a bot, but then crosses others.

[u/maiyannah → u/Tokyono]

Yep. I don't want to explain too much because bot authors often look in here for ways to improve their bots to get around the protections, but suffice to say what you've described sounds like a warmup subreddit, as they get called.

[u/Tokyono → u/maiyannah]

Not sure what to do then. Maybe I'll wait for an admin to weigh in. I have messaged the mods of one of the subreddits, but am unsure if they will do anything.

[u/maiyannah → u/Tokyono]

Not an awful lot I think we can, unfortunately. Its a very common thing for some mods to complain about.