I don't know how spam bots work. Are they site specific? Did someone create a Lemmy spam bot? Or do the bots attempt to create profiles all over the Internet?

[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago

Yea someone had to make a Lemmy spam bot, they tend to just go wherever people go, like pigeons lmao

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I always experience a weird sense of sonder^[1] when I see spam bots, because even if it's a huge, highly automated network of bots, there's at least one human involved if you could trace the bots back to their source.

I wonder what kind of person they are, and how the hell they make a profit from the spam. They surely must have a non-zero return rate, but how well does it work? Are they making bank from the task, or barely scraping by? Are they surviving on the scam income, or is it just a bit extra on top of a regular job? Do they enjoy the work, or are they as much of a wage-slave as I am, just in a different way. Were they themselves a victim of some scam, perhaps? I'll never know, hence the sonder.

[1]: Sonder, noun, neologism. "The feeling one has on realizing that every other individual one sees has a life as full and real as one’s own, in which they are the central character and others, including oneself, have secondary or insignificant roles" (dictionary.com)