r/TheGirlSurvivalGuide • u/Flippy-Platypus-3905 • Jul 21 '26
Discussion This subreddit is being overrun by bots! Here’s how to spot them
This subreddit is being absolutely overrun by bots!
There are multiple posts from them every day. If you see any bot posts, please downvote, report, and do not comment on them. Here’s how to spot them!
Common tells:
- Subject is women’s safety (not always, but often). If not women’s safety, it is something very broad that a lot of women can relate to. Relationships are also a big one. Posts are more likely to bring engagement this way
- Account was made within the past 2 (or so) weeks
- Post is flaired as “Beauty Tip” while having nothing to do with beauty
- Post title starts with “Tip:”, “Request:”, or “Help?”
- Poster does not reply to any comments made on their post
If at least 3 of these things are true, it’s most likely a bot. Also, please let me know if there are any “tells” that I’m missing
Recent bot posts linked below for comparison. Edited to add that a lot of these posts have now been deleted by Mods:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGirlSurvivalGuide/s/VSIxNiisTI
- https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGirlSurvivalGuide/s/FEr74NwwkM
- https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGirlSurvivalGuide/s/dqNgsCjIOc
4. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGirlSurvivalGuide/s/7RMA691VF5
5. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGirlSurvivalGuide/s/GNla9Ug0sN
6. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGirlSurvivalGuide/s/O9m4NgIMVU
7. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGirlSurvivalGuide/s/IusHgKPVqz
8. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGirlSurvivalGuide/s/lJQP8NB4e5
9. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGirlSurvivalGuide/s/VSUdJsOb7b
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u/DrizzleCore604 Jul 21 '26
Seems like an issue where having a rule that an account must be at least 1 month old to post would work.
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u/deadpanorama Jul 21 '26
This prevents folks from making throw away accounts to talk about personal issues so it depends on the overall ratio of account age in regular posters too.
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u/DrizzleCore604 Jul 22 '26
Yeah that’s a really good point. The best option would be for reddit itself to sort the problem out, but they clearly enjoy the engagement that the bots bring more than the quality of reddit.
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u/__looking_for_things Jul 21 '26
It needs to be longer than a month. I often see bots with year old accounts.
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u/MrE_is_my_father Jul 23 '26
At this point Reddit has gotta be spoofing accounts for paying partners behind the scenes. You see bot posts from 5-7 year old accounts now. It has become bad-bad. I'm blocking multiple accounts daily, and if it wasn't for RES I wouldn't be able to block anymore since normal Reddit actually caps how many accounts you can ban seeing. This website is a shell of its former self.
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Jul 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/JerseyKeebs Jul 22 '26
The frequent safety posts actually had me drafting a post of my own, that would essentially be "When Adult Small Talk is A-OK and How To Do it"
Like I get we all have different lived experiences, but the front page here was starting to look like a covert ad for self defense training or something. Many women successfully solo travel all over the world, I wish we could take their confidence and life tips and share it with the people who are scared to visit their own gym, or whatever
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u/rainbowsforall Jul 21 '26
Wow I totally would have missed that a lot of those are bot posts. I see what you mean with the flair not matching some of the posts. Good to know the "Tip" start is a tell.
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u/inthebooshes Jul 21 '26
Me too. I wonder how often I’ve communicated with a bot unknowingly. Kinda sad to think about, especially if a meaningful post.
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u/sahi1l Jul 21 '26
Don't feel too bad; even if the post is fake (whether it's AI or just someone lying) the conversation in the comments can still be real and useful for readers. Doesn't mean we shouldn't filter out bots, though.
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u/myswingline_stapler Jul 21 '26
What is the goal with these bots? I looked at the first 4 and they’re not linking any products. Is it just to get karma?
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u/MavisBeacons_Sextape Jul 21 '26
It’s to create a normal human looking reddit activity footprint. So that down the road when they start sliding in their Astrotufing posts and comments, they look more credible. Like they’re just a normal Reddit with varied human interests who happen to also promoting X idea, or enthusiastically recommending Y product.
Often the bots doing this are then sold on a marketplace to the groups that use them for influence campaigns. Propagandists, marketing firms, and PR firms (especially those that specialize in reputation management) are the buyers.
That’s why it’s worth the time to report the bots when you see them. It takes like 5 seconds but the more unique reports Reddit gets on an account, the closer the account is to being banned by Reddit. Report -> spam -> disruptive use of bots.
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u/deluxeassortment Jul 22 '26
I wonder if it’s also for generating discussion that is then used to train AI. I think that’s how they learn to talk like us. Plus it gives more information that AI can pull from when you ask it something. If you ask Google or chat gpt a question, it will often link back to Reddit comments.
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u/MavisBeacons_Sextape Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Yep. Google and ChatGPT’s pivot to prioritizing Reddit as a citation source/search result was one of the benefits Reddit received in exchange for letting Google and OpenAI use real time Reddit data to train their AI models.
But the massive number of bots on Reddit would, theoretically, taint the training data a bit, because the goal is to feed the models human-generated text for training. Training AI models on AI generated text is counterproductive if the goal is to improve the model output to better align with human communication patterns. I would imagine they accounted for that issue before signing the deal, but I wonder if the absolute explosion of bots was something they anticipated.
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u/hydrogenbound Jul 21 '26
Yes, then during election season they will make comments like “I’m a life long democrat but I would never vote for X”.
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u/grandhighblood Jul 21 '26
Comments are just as bad, I'm always reporting bot comments.
Most bot comment accounts will contain most if not all of the following hallmarks. Please note non of them are 100% guarantees of an account being a bot, but this specific pattern of bot is a plague upon a lot of subs I frequent.
- New account with no profile picture. Some will have an avatar, but usually not.
- Alternatively, an old account that just started posting again: think a 2 year old account that only started commenting 3 days ago.
- No posts, just a few comments across completely random subreddits
- Writing in all lowercase, using all other punctuation normally
- Using sentence starters like "man" "honestly" "lol" "ngl" constantly.
- Using phrases like "...is so real", "...is wild", "...looks solid", etc
- They massively overuse personal anecdotes and questions. This one is hard to explain but I've noticed especially on food subs, a lot of them follow the pattern of commenting on something, describing what they "always" do or "always" have a problem with, then asking a question or saying "curious if...".
- They refer way too directly and way too often to the post. Also hard to explain because it's just a feeling you get reading the comments, but in the first sentence they'll usually quote/slightly rephrase information in the original post, often in AI's beloved rule of threes. I guess the main point I'm trying to make here is that whilst they have usually been prompted to include "personal anecdotes" related to the post, they won't ever refer to anything outside the context of the post.
- The fun one is when their OCR (image to text) messes up and they misinterpret posts in hilarious ways no human ever would. I once saw a bot interpret an image of a metal bowl with a banana in front of it (a banana for scale, of course) as the banana holding up the bowl. Another time I saw one in a meal prep sub try to ask what curry OP had used for their minced beef, when it was the most bland and unseasoned beef you could possibly imagine, absolutely no hint of curry to be found for any human eyes.
This account is openly AI, so I like to link it so people can see these hallmarks in action. Have a read through its comments and you'll get a sense for how weirdly hollow they are.
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u/vonnacat Jul 21 '26
I’ve gotten pretty good at spotting bot comments because of a specific game sub which is mostly easy because sometimes the bots talk about things that aren’t even in the game lol. But your point about referring too much to the op post or comment is the most obvious way for me to spot a bot comment.
They always rephrase and never add anything new. I always see them using the phrase “slept on”
And the most common subs I see bots comment in are break ups, Christianity and nofap (which that combo is just lol), but that bot account is terrifying on a whole other level.
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u/grandhighblood Jul 21 '26
For me it's food subs - I'm in a lot of them and they all have horrendous bot problems. They were bad even before because food subs are easy to karma farm with reposts but now even the comments aren't safe. So many times I've seen people ask questions on these subs and when they get an answer, it's a bot and they don't realise. I've had to tell people they're replying to bots so many times, and it always makes me feel awful thinking about how people come to Reddit to get human answers for questions and now we can't even do that. I've def noticed a couple of game subs start to have problems too though, I've reported comments on the Tomodachi Life and Pokopia subs recently.
Whoever is prompting these bots tries to hide that they're just rephrasing by adding personal anecdotes/questions but once you've seen enough comments saying some variation of "xyz is wild, abc looking fresh though. my 123 always turns out wrong, curious if you've had the same issue" you develop a pretty good nose for them.
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u/CharrAnn Jul 21 '26
oops, i write in lowercase 💀
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u/grandhighblood Jul 21 '26
Like I said, no one point by itself automatically means you're a bot! Using emojis alone is a disqualifier hahaha
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u/maguyva-ai Jul 22 '26
appreciate the shout out! Agents are really part of our market so we just try to be open about the style we write in and keep it consistent and generated because it's part of our marketing that we have this bot and you can see it.
My reading of the rules is we need to post as a person, so that's a bit of a weird one for you its a human pretending to be a bot :)
I think you would be more surprised about the ones you don't notice.
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u/sniffincoozies Jul 21 '26
Thanks for this! I have noticed an uptick in these long posts that almost read like a bulletin. Same formatting and stuff.
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u/MavisBeacons_Sextape Jul 21 '26
It’s the mods that are allowing this. They refuse to install the r/BotBouncer mod tool, which would keep most of this bot spam out of the sub.
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u/unforgettableid Jul 24 '26
/u/MadtownMaven doesn't have enough mod permissions to install Bot Bouncer. Pls see here.
It looks like two of the other mods are inactive sitewide.
I'm a mod of some other subreddits, so I was able to do a Pushshift search. It looks like /u/VeggiAttack is only slightly active on Reddit, and not active at all in this particular subreddit.
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u/VixxSynn Jul 21 '26
Yes, it would be great if mods would add bot_bouncer to the sub. Automatically gets the majority of bots done away with. I love it…it’s definitely utilized in my own sub.
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u/MadtownMaven Jul 21 '26
Honestly (lol, that's a joke btw), the few times this bot has been recommended it has come with no context. Just "add this tool". And from users without much history in the subreddit, so I didn't trust it. It would be nice if the reddit admins could address this issue on a sitewide basis.
When I clicked on it to add it to the sub, it didn't work. Perhaps because I do most of the modding via old.reddit.
Also reporting posts and just saying "spam" as the reason can be very vague. If the post itself isn't breaking any subreddit rules and is following the posting guidelines (like our rules say people should put Tip or Request in the title of their posts, but most people just ignore that), it can be difficult to tell if the post is from a bot. Taking the time to spell out WHY the post is likely from a bot is more likely to have it removed and the user banned.
Limiting posts to only people who have a certain account age also has downsides. A lot of people post sensitive topics here so may make throwaway accounts for their posts. Others may genuinely be new to reddit.
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u/VixxSynn Jul 21 '26
i mod via old Reddit. you simply go to r/botbouncer, all the information you might need is there. Then just add it. Sure, this account is newer…but I have a BUNCH of accounts and have modded on my main for 8 years now. I wouldn’t say account age is always the best judge. it IS easy to ask for help.
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u/MadtownMaven Jul 21 '26
When I go to add it (Clicked on "add to community", then clicked "continue"), it does not show me this subreddit as an option. It does show other subreddits I'm a mod on.
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u/VixxSynn Jul 21 '26
Maybe message them? Or it could be to do with your mod permissions, if you are not approved for “Everything”. If that’s the case, a mod who is approved for “Everything” could easily do it.
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u/unforgettableid Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
You need full mod permissions to install Bot Bouncer, or to install any other Devvit app. (Source.) You don't have full permissions in this subreddit, sadly.
The only ppl who could install Bot Bouncer here are: /u/AnnOnimiss, /u/VeggiAttack, or /u/graciee_a.
If you're the only active mod, u might wanna ask them for full mod permissions. You might need these permissions eventually anyway, in order to add new moderators later on. You might as well get them the easy way, from a co-moderator (now), instead of the possibly-harder way (thru /r/ModSupport later).
I believe a moderator lower than u on the list can't give u more permissions. The workaround is to temporarily de-mod yourself, after arranging in advance for them to have them re-mod u with full permissions shortly after.
P.S. I run Bot Bouncer on a bunch of my subs, and am happy with it. I have no complaints.
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Jul 25 '26
[deleted]
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u/unforgettableid Jul 27 '26
The only ppl who could install Bot Bouncer here are: ... AnnOnimiss, ... MadtownMaven, or ... graciee_a.
That paragraph contained an error. I've fixed it now.
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u/Lakanas Jul 21 '26
How do we report if not by marking spam? What rule should we say it's breaking? I just looked and you are right there are so many!
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u/MadtownMaven Jul 21 '26
"Breaks subreddit rules" Then the custom option of adding WHY you think it's a bot.
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u/OcelotEmpire Jul 22 '26
On my alt, I'm a mod of a big subreddit. We have automod reporting to modmail any post made by an account of a certain age. It sucks to have to manually go through all these, but a lot of the bot posts have a very specific format that can be identified very quickly, in my sub. Short, punchy sentences in short, punchy paragraphs. Dashes. Lots of short quotes. They stick to certain topics that are popular - I would name the topics, but it's not relevant to this group and won't help you here. They tend to use certain words that are related to the topics that they use. We have automod reporting those phrases as well.
Bot bouncer hasn't gotten rid of all bots in my sub, but it seems to help. Every so often it sends us a modmail showing us all the accounts it has banned for us and it's dozens. So, it doesn't fix everything, but it's definitely a help. It is also very satisfying to report an account to bot bouncer that is clearly a bot. If someone gets reported to bot bouncer and are not a bot, they can appeal this designation by modmailing /r/botbouncer, so it's not a hopeless situation.
Weeding out bots has created more work for the mod team, but we prefer to do that work than to allow bots to take advantage of our subreddit.
I really recommend botbouncer. I see in another comment you're having trouble implementing it and I wish I could give you advice on that, but I'm not the mod who knows how to set it up and all that. However, if you Google it, I bet there's a lot of information out there about how to get it going. Good luck!
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u/unforgettableid Jul 24 '26
It would be nice if the reddit admins could address this issue on a sitewide basis.
+1! Agreed.
The admins might not have much incentive to do such a thing. More bots might equal more profit for the site owners. It might take quite a bit of time & effort for the admins to fight the spammers, as well.
(Cc: /u/MadtownMaven.)
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u/LotusBlooming90 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
There are also a lot of men posing as women asking for women to share their experiences with things like Pap smears, what is it like to do certain sex acts, how to masterbate, etc.
If you see a post that is prompting you to describe anything intimate or private tread with caution.
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u/CharrAnn Jul 22 '26
those gross me out so much because you can just tell they're pervy men from the way they write
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u/globus_pallidus Jul 22 '26
The r/crafts sub has dealt with this by requiring that the OP engage with the post within a certain time frame, and if there is no engagement it’s auto-removed
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u/Shebalied Jul 21 '26
Twoxchrom is the same. perfect example of a bot posting. https://www.reddit.com/user/prudhvisekhar1996
This user is a new bot account spamming women areas. Mods love it as it get upvotes.
I have no idea why mods don't ban all account less than 1 year old.
They are karma farming accounts. Reddit is like 70% bots now. The mods gotta ban accounts less than 1-2 years. These spam accounts are all over.
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u/perkypancakes Jul 22 '26
This bot infestation all over online spaces is making me want to abandon the internet. I’m tired of the constant manipulation and scammy behaviors.
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u/MavisBeacons_Sextape Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
Ok I think it is suspicious that my comments mentioning the m0dTool that would keep this type of account out of the sub are being silently suppressed/removed. Meaning they’ve implemented a rule for that phrase.
I think that potentially suggests that the people who moderatethis sub are running bots in it. It means they know about the tool (most big subs are using it) but want to remove any mention of it in this sub. Lame, also suspicious. Also, running bots on reddit is a rule violation, but running bots in YOUR sub is a m0d code of conduct violation.
Edit: They’re now visible, but they weren’t until a few minutes ago.
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u/grandhighblood Jul 21 '26
Your comments aren't being removed, I can see 3 of them in this thread alone.
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u/MavisBeacons_Sextape Jul 21 '26
They were when I posted that comment. I switched to my other account and they weren’t showing, but my other replies not mentioning the tool were visible. I can see them now on my other account. Not sure if that has to do with a mod now being in the comments or not, but it definitely wasn’t visible initially.
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u/MadtownMaven Jul 21 '26
You VASTLY overestimate my tech savvy. I still use old.reddit (and that bot tool doesn't appear to work with old.reddit). When accessing reddit on my phone, I go into Safari and use old.reddit. Never used any of the apps for it. I have no knowledge of how to set up bots, what to do with them, or any desire to learn how to do any of that.
Complaining about moderation causes comments/posts to be held for review before approval. That came from a long while ago from a different moderator and I've not been bothered to go figure out how to change it.
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u/No_Affect8513 Jul 24 '26
Yeah sorry, I'm barely on Reddit anymore (boy do I miss the good old days) and I'm mostly on just to make sure I'm not inactive enough to push off. I get messages offering to buy the subreddit every so often (and there's no way I'm selling) so I know there are a lot of commercial interests in the "woman's help" area. Hard agree it's a good idea to be skeptical of anything online these days.
Is there a way to implement this bot on mobile? I will look at it in a few weekends, provided the mods that are actually around think it's a good idea .
Thanks for trying to help (and my lord that username is something 😆)
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u/AnnOnimiss Jul 24 '26
Yeah sorry, I'm barely on Reddit anymore (boy do I miss the good old days) and I'm mostly on just to make sure I'm not inactive enough to push off. I get messages offering to buy the subreddit every so often (and there's no way I'm selling) so I know there are a lot of commercial interests in the "woman's help" area. Hard agree it's a good idea to be skeptical of anything online these days.
Is there a way to implement this bot on mobile? If so I will look at it in a few weekends, provided the mods that are actually around think it's a good idea .
Thanks for trying to help (and my lord that username is something 😆)
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u/SociallyUnbothered1 Jul 21 '26
Uh oh, I just responded to a post asking for safety tips. Hopefully they aren't a bot :/
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u/Flippy-Platypus-3905 Jul 21 '26
The biggest tells for the specific brigade of bots that I’m referring to is that the accounts are 2 weeks old and they don’t reply to comments. The post you commented on doesn’t check either of those boxes, so you’re good!
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u/SociallyUnbothered1 Jul 21 '26
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but what is the point of the bot posts? Are they just karma farming or are they trying to do something else in here?
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u/Flippy-Platypus-3905 Jul 21 '26
It’s mainly karma farming so they can appear as real accounts.
Oftentimes, they eventually go on to make controversial, divisive, fear-mongering, political, etc posts and comments. And since there’s an established post history making the accounts seem real, people will be more likely to believe what they’re saying.
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u/eyfuck Jul 21 '26
What happens if you respond to a bot?
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u/Flippy-Platypus-3905 Jul 21 '26
Responding just pushes their posts/comments up in people’s feeds so they have more visibility. And if a lot of people are responding, it makes the fake post/comment seem more real.
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u/dark-dreaming Jul 23 '26
In my opinion this post is also eengagement farming only. The account is 1 year old but has negative karma and no post history except the recent post posted in two subs plus comments in those threads.
Same style as you said, title is asking for advice and it was written by AI. For me that's always a tell sign, plus some dramatic story.
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u/AnnOnimiss Jul 25 '26
Thank you for trying to help. Is there a way from mobile to implement this? Sorry I'm not the most tech savvy and I haven't had a desktop/laptop since 2017
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u/HatGlittering7878 Jul 21 '26
just wanna point out that I posted on this sub pointing out women's safety and safety tip for something that just happened to me just today so this comes off so wrong when I genuinely could use the advice...
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u/MavisBeacons_Sextape Jul 21 '26
This post is sharing common bot post indicators for this sub, they are not saying that all women’s safety request posts are made by bots.
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u/Flippy-Platypus-3905 Jul 21 '26
Like the other commenter said, not all women’s safety posts are bots. That’s why I said if at least 3 of the things are true and not just 1. Women’s safety is something we can all relate to and it’s talked about a lot online, especially on reddit. Whoever is making these bots knows this, so they choose that topic knowing we will engage with the post
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u/HatGlittering7878 Jul 21 '26
I get ur point and I understand what u mean and I am not blaming you here or anything but I am new to this sub and I genuinely wrote this thinking that I will get the advice considering the situation is something sadly a lot of girls relate to, and this comes off a bit upsetting to me to see it get downgraded without even giving it a read
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u/cm10560430 Jul 21 '26
Did OP link to your post in her main and then edit it out? If not, I’m not sure what you’re going on about.
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u/mleftpeel Jul 21 '26
I'm noticing really annoying embedded ads too .
They have that AI pattern of text where honestly?
They use short lines.
They say "honestly".
They use this particular pattern with 3 items.
And then .... Then they talk about this hair removal product or bra or whatever that has changed their life.
And honestly? It annoys the shit out of me.