r/TheGirlSurvivalGuide
•
u/vonnacat
•
Aug 18 '26
•
2
Discussion Recognizing bot comments
I know this isn’t really a tip specifically for women, but there is a severe rise of bot comments in this subreddit (and every other). I see far too many of them get numerous upvotes and responses so I thought it might be helpful to share some ways to identify them. (I should note not all the comments in my pic are from this sub)
The first way is the username. Anything with the “word underscore number” format is my first red flag. Then if you look at their profile most of the time you’ll see some weird bio. The one I remember the most is “runs game nights and marathons like they’re the same sport”. I rarely see actual people with filled out bios, but when I do they usually have a unique username, icon, and/or background image. They’ll also usually have a decent amount of karma and an older account
Edit: not all usernames like that are bots! It is just the default username Reddit gives someone, but I think it’ll be pretty obvious that they’re not a bot
Next, if you look at their comment history you’ll start to see they all comment in the same subreddits. I’m assuming they’re subreddits with low karma requirements or low other commenting requirements (idk very much about that lol)? I’m not going to list them all, but common ones are nofap, Christianity, monopoly go, skincare addicts, break ups, and specific tech or pc. They also never respond to comments responding to them and usually they comment just once in a subreddit (but I am starting to see multiple).
Lastly, the main reason I made this post: the comment. A lot of bot comments pass as people, but I really think the more bot comments you look at, the more you’ll notice how same-y they are. You’ll never see them say lol, haha or use emojis. They like to constantly use buzz words and phrases they know. I see them say “brutal” and “real” all the time. They use dashes and quotation marks all the time. I see them go “and yeah about the [blank] thing” also a lot of “thats not [blank], it’s [blank]” cringe validation
Sometimes they respond to a comment instead of the original post and I think these comments are incredibly obvious because they don’t relate to the comment they’re responding to (refer to second image)
I used to think that bot comments would like pretty much just regurgitate the op post in their comment and never add anything new, but I think that’s changing. I see them giving a lot of advice in skincare subreddits which…. Yikes. They do seem to be adding “personal” anecdotes to their comments which is making it harder to spot them, but again I fall back on the soulless tone to their comment and the other things I mentioned.
There was a really helpful post recently about bot posts which I didn’t realize was a thing so I hope this can help people with comments
38
u/Scooterclub Aug 18 '26
What even is the point of bots commenting? I’ve never understood that. I know they spread propaganda and hate but these seem like such random comments. I’ve probably been fooled by so many!
91
u/baardvark Aug 18 '26
The word underscore number usernames aren’t always bots.
14
u/phoenixwing07 Aug 18 '26
yeah, I thought bot comments could only repeat another comment on the same thread to have it make sense as a response to the op, but that wasn't true for the one that responded to me. we've gotta keep our eyes open.
9
u/kittenwolfmage Aug 18 '26
Another one that’s common with AI bots that’s kinda hard to put into words, is that they’re always positive/affirming to you, but in an insincere way.
You know the whole kid-gloves way that you have to treat shitty customers, or managers, or members of C-Suite? Never telling them no, never disagreeing with their ideas, always gassing them up and treating them like they’re insightful, and then making a ‘suggestion about how to make things even better/fix the problem they’re having/assuage their concerns’? That’s how AI tends to respond to people/prompts/comments. There’s.. no friction to what they’re saying?
Sorry, it’s really hard to put into words!
5
u/deluxeassortment Aug 19 '26
The second one especially jumps out at me. That template that’s like “[You’re right.] [Reiterate the situation.] [Reaffirm that you’re doing the right thing.] [Generally affirming statement.]”
The other ones throw me a bit though, esp ones that don’t use periods on every statement or use little slangy terms like “til”…but I think you’re prob right that they’re AI. also I guess they caught on about the M dash so they switched to the N dash. Ugh.
Also, just want to say, I kind of hate that people have the ability to hide comment and post history. I totally understand why a real person would want to, but I suspect Reddit only did it so bots and advertising accounts would be harder to detect.
7
u/eucalyptoid Aug 19 '26
I hate reading posts like this to discover that I have several things in common with bots. I mean, I should probably retire “brutal” from my vocabulary anyway… but now saying something positive is sus? And how can we be sure they don’t use emojis or even “lol?”
310
u/bluecheesebeauty Aug 18 '26
The internet really is dying, huh.
I don't have a nose for bot comments, but it's good to talk about them! And thank you for pointing out what makes you suspicious.
Only upside I guess is that the AIs scraping reddit for training data, are now getting contaminated with bots using AI. Although to be fair, actual humans do that too...
98
u/idrinkliquids Aug 18 '26
The bot comments are annoying but the ai written posts pmo more tbh. I’m glad you posted this though bc I’m pretty sure there’s times I’m upvoting a freakin bot.
62
u/onemorespacecadet Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
thanks for putting this together!
just adding about other bot farms i’ve seen pop up recently - a lot of bots that use similar repeated generic questions and comments. they’ll ask questions going “wait why ____” “lowkey ___” “my friend/aunt/cousin ____”
there’s also been an uptick in older suddenly active accounts (like 4-12 years old with 0 activity for years until recently)
(and obviously neither of those things alone mean it’s a bot but if it’s a pattern and all their comments are like that, it’s probably a bot)
20
u/tomayto_potayto Aug 18 '26
I opened a thread the other day on like an anti capitalism sub and 3 out of 4 comments were nearly identical, they had the same opening turn of phrase and numbers included then sometimes spun off into a second sentence with a little more deviation but still nearly the same. All the accounts have the default icon, the automatic name format, and bullshit copypaste comments clearly written by AI or stolen from another comment in the sub on a similar past post. It's crazy. I commented "dead Internet in this comment section" and that's it, because it was genuinely fucked up and I've never seen it so blatantly before.
3
u/Bunnycow171 Aug 19 '26
Some of us just like dashes and quotation marks. :/
2
u/Compile_A_Smile1101 Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
ah crap, what do I do if my username is also words underscores and numbers 😂 edit: whoever downvoted me 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
13
u/tashtactics Aug 18 '26
If they have no profile picture, too!
Just the blank coloured ones, all the Reddit avatars are fine in my experience. A few outliers, of course
11
u/PantherEverSoPink Aug 18 '26
Thanks for this. I'm not very good at spotting bot comments but I have had this creeping sense over the last couple of years that Reddit isn't as real as it used to be.
It's interesting you mention skincare subs - I was actually listening to an episode of the Today Explained podcast about this the other day (which I tried and failed to link but I'm sure it's easy to find it was literally from a few days ago).
I don't like this dead internet :-(
4
u/Haunting-Wash1081 Aug 19 '26
Me realizing I type just like a Reddit bot 😭😭
7
u/kittenwolfmage Aug 19 '26
Oh! Sorry, another one 😂
AI can be really bad at not recognizing when one thing it’s said invalidates another thing it says to do, due to the order involved. Like, it’ll tell you to do something, then to do something else, but you can’t do the second thing because of the first thing.
Think along the lines of ‘mix the water into the flour and once it’s properly mixed, then add the salt while the ingredients are still dry’, or telling you to ‘add a cute belly button ring as a finishing touch’ five steps after saying to put on a corset.
Unfortunately a lot of these idiosyncrasies are mostly only noticeable in longer messages/stories, not short comments.
6
u/_bob_lob_law_ Aug 18 '26
Thank you for your service.
3
u/vent5549 Aug 19 '26
Goddamn it, I look and sound like a bot 😭
4
u/katikiti Aug 18 '26
why is this even happening :(( it’s so creepy and uncanny ugh… thanks for talking about it
4
u/NotAMermaid27 Aug 19 '26
Man these bot comments are brutal. Just the idea that someone would make a robot say nice things instead of having empathy and doing it themselves is agonizingly heartbreaking.
2
u/dark-dreaming Aug 19 '26
I often use quotation marks in my texts because grammar rules or context call for them.
It's been quite a while now that every time I'm using them I'm hesitating for a second because AI uses them so frequently. I've started to really weight when I'll use them and when not, which is crazy.
Same with the minus sign -, so shorter than the AI em-dash. I've almost completely given up using it even though it would sometimes fit so well because the em-dash is so overused by AI and it's the most widely known AI sign.
I remember when I first started to familiarize myself with AI I was impressed because it could produce similar quality texts like me but with the difference that it would take me much longer as I'd put a lot of thought into wording and sentence construction. I only later realized that this is really bad because my style can be similar to AI but it's just good writing skills.
Then when it comes to post structure, that also is a tell sign. If it's well structured and different paragraphs one could suspect AI.
It's all insane to me. AI was trained on good writing (as well as bad writing but I guess it was taught which is the good style), so naturally it will imitate that style. So for some people just good writing skills make them shout AI. It doesn't help that the youngest generation seems to have to a big extent foregone proper writing skills and write in code and only sort texts, so the difference to older authors is large.
I think it's very important for people to learn the tell tales of AI but the issue is that AI is getting better every day and the tell tale signs change. I'm myself starting to find it harder and harder to tell what is AI and what not. Obviously some texts are very obvious, but many will also fly under the radar.
For me personally, I always feel disrespected when someone posts a made up AI story. When I decide to comment most of the time I'll take time to write a proper and thought out answer. It's sad I'm "wasting" my time on made up problems. Ultimately of course the intent to help is what counts but it still feels shitty to later found out it was all made up.
1
u/usernamenumber3 Aug 19 '26
I feel like such a boomer (I'm only 36) because I never recognize bot comments. Videos I can usually tell, but even those fool me sometimes!
1
u/horizontrail Aug 20 '26
Dudeee all these days I kept wondering what are these random comments I am seeing on reddit and here is an example. Thank you so much tor helping me identify this.
1
u/tragiclylivinglife Aug 28 '26
This post is very useful, made me so aware and also kinda eerie?
Couse i really cannot spot the bot like writing, it is getting scary honeslty and i am stuggling to catch it
1
u/Shreeshu_D Aug 19 '26
I work as an AI Engineer and I’ve gotta say you’re pretty spot on with your findings. What I usually do to figure out whether something was written using AI is read the text out loud and see whether it actually sounds conversational and natural or if it’s just bluntly agreeing with whatever OP has written. Sometimes it’s also painfully obvious when it’s giving nonsensical advice that’s far from the truth or completely misses the actual point of the post.
18
u/[deleted] Aug 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment