I posted my first introduce yourself post to Steemit and seconds later received two comments from people that were obviously canned messages. Not the Steemit Welcome Bot, but users pretending to comment when they are not really doing it themselves.
These accounts are very easy to identify simply by looking at the introduceyourself posts and the first few comments. Check a few and then other posts. You’ll see the same accounts again and again. Go deeper into these accounts commenting and you’ll find the same comments again and again with just different user names they are welcoming to the community.
I’m very familiar with the takeover of bots on Instagram and other social platforms where the sole purpose is to act on behalf of a user to gain more followers. Instagram has taken steps to combat this by banning accounts and shutting down services that violate their terms of service.
Checkout https://instagress.com/ as an example of a service that did this for instagram users and you’ll see they are now refunding user payments because they were shut down.
There are plenty of accounts that I could callout here after searching for just a few minutes. I don’t plan on doing that since my intention is not to finger point to specific people just the problem as a whole.
If some people do it that’s an unfair to others, so others realize it and do the same to be on a level playing field with the cheaters.
It’s unfortunate this is already happening. Hopefully Steemit admins will realize the gaming of the system and do something about it. These type of accounts add no value to the community and only benefit the users themselves.
You are spot on. Bots can add to a system, but not the way it's happening right now.
The bots only respond to collect curator points and make money.
Unfortunately because of the way Steem(it) is set-up it's very difficult to stop these bots.
The programmers need to create an easy way to stop these bots, but I'm not sure if really high on their list of improvements.
I hear you, however If within my first 30 seconds on here and I can identify a handful of culprits then there must be an easy way to find them in bulk.
I would start by banning the ones that obviously do it and send a message to the community that it won't be tolerated.
I'm sure the programmers are aware, I'm still trying to find what they are working on for future releases. It would be very good to stop these bots, if we want Steem to really grow.
I forsee captcha type system. But for the love of all that is right . . . not Captcha!
Let's introduce banya (ban those that violate) :)
It definitely ruins the quality of any ecosystem when automated bots are allowed to reap havoc. Hopefully some smart systems can be put in place to make this more difficult.