I am steadfastly refusing to deal with content scraper accounts except in the context of follow spam and engagement hacking, so only one of these accounts landed on my lists, but I did see a bunch of you following them. Please do not follow content scraper accounts! #BadActorBingo - ThreadSky

rahaeli.bsky.social • 97 days ago

I am steadfastly refusing to deal with content scraper accounts except in the context of follow spam and engagement hacking, so only one of these accounts landed on my lists, but I did see a bunch of you following them. Please do not follow content scraper accounts! #BadActorBingo

Reposted from Wynn Thornton (Needs-a-job arc)

Fun experiment: Look at BlueSky in a private window, without being signed in. It’s flooded with this stuff, among others. This is all in less than 30 seconds of scrolling. These accounts are primed for the flip if they want to.

Comments

thejennster.bsky.social•97 days ago

Im pretty sure I've seen one of those block lists for content scrapers, definitely a great investment because they're annoying on the best of days

rahaeli.bsky.social•97 days ago

Yeah, there are a bunch of them (and at least one labeler), I just steadfastly refuse to enter the arena because everyone would be mad at my definition, heh

museepunk.bsky.social•87 days ago

Thanks for this! I have blocked a couple of accounts I was following for this kind of behaviour, including the funny-but-actually-never-posts-about-ANYTHING-else World Bollard Association.
Next time I wanna see a police car stuck on a rising bollard, I'll search for it the old fashioned way

mefoxmi.bsky.social•89 days ago

📌

toobigtofail.bsky.social•85 days ago

Intellectually I know it's bad, but as a matter of practical reality every time I see the Hourly Raccoons pop up in my feed I immediately send the picture to my wife, who wants a pet raccoon.

hauntedtoasters.bsky.social•97 days ago

I've been getting more follows from suspicious cat accounts and I even followed one of them back after vetting it because it looked genuine... but then a bunch of other clearly manufactured cat accounts started following me so I went back and blocked it.

dcwcomp.bsky.social•97 days ago

So the Kamala Harris Page? Just followed me with one post following a couple of thousand and tens of thousands of followers?

rahaeli.bsky.social•97 days ago

It's one of these: https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3lblgwe2mfk23

markesienko.bsky.social•85 days ago

Good advice,. thank you!!

rahaeli.bsky.social•97 days ago

Any account that regularly posts pretty photos of a thing, unless they are genuine people working hard to credit sources and also use their account for other things (like @catsofyore.bsky.social !) has a very high chance of being a bad actor building an account in anticipation of selling it.

dildo-baggins.bsky.social•85 days ago

I know you’re right but that doesn’t make unfollowing the account that serves up pictures of raccoons every hour any easier

rahaeli.bsky.social•85 days ago

Yeah, like I said, there's a reason I don't do "pure content scraper with no associated follow spam or engagement hacking", heh.

dildo-baggins.bsky.social•85 days ago

It dates back to early bluesky, so I’ve been cutting it slack for a long time. But, yes, goodbye raccoons

rahaeli.bsky.social•97 days ago

They pick a topic everyone likes to see pretty pictures of, like animals or nature or space or paintings or whatever, and automate posting those photos regularly. Then they follow a bunch of people, see who follows back, unfollow the ones who don't and follow more people, etc ad nauseam.

rahaeli.bsky.social•97 days ago

Once they have a large enough audience, they either directly sell the account to someone who wants a pre-built audience, or sell it to a grey-market account resale marketplace for someone else to resell it.

rahaeli.bsky.social•97 days ago

The new owner changes the name and starts using it for whatever. Sometimes it's disinformation, sometimes it's publicizing bigotry, sometimes it's "just" commercial advertising.

rahaeli.bsky.social•97 days ago

Almost every time you see someone posting "ew how did that get in my following, I never would have followed that, the site is fucking up", it's because they followed a content scraper years ago and the account just pulled the flip.

rahaeli.bsky.social•97 days ago

If you've seen recent accusations of "Bluesky is biased against X group! An employee was following a bigot account on Twitter and that proves it!": the "bigot account" in question was a flipped account that the employee followed long before the flip and they had no idea it had pulled the flip.

mikesapoz.bsky.social•97 days ago

When a content scraper follows one of us boring people, should we block or can we just ignore them?

rahaeli.bsky.social•97 days ago

Block! (And report to Bluesky as engaging in follow spam for a content scraper account so they can evaluate against their current policies.) The more people who block an account the less valuable it is, so every person who blocks it lowers the resale value.

archangelbeth.bsky.social•97 days ago

Plus we aren't tempted to repost from it if we see it cross our feed! (Me. This is me.)

katherinevillyard.com•85 days ago

Huh.

Good news: I was added to a starter pack!
Bad news: I was also followed by a bunch of people with no posts who have 100 followers and are following 10,000,000,000 people!

I’ve been blocking ones I’m sure are scammers and muting ones I’m unsure about. I even followed back some humans! 🤦‍♀️

rahaeli.bsky.social•85 days ago

Yeah. Starter packs are one of those "has incredibly useful effects on the system and also incredibly unhelpful effects on the system" features. You will no longer show in the pack if you block the creator, FWIW.

riverdaleboy.bsky.social•94 days ago

People buy them?

rahaeli.bsky.social•94 days ago

Oh yeah. You'd be surprised what you can sell a social media account with a pre-built audience for

archangelbeth.bsky.social•94 days ago

...curse my ethics.

rahaeli.bsky.social•94 days ago

A thing I say SO OFTEN

archangelbeth.bsky.social•93 days ago

Using techniques you have described as Bad Ideas, I could totally do some unethical profitable crap. >_<

capnhapster.bsky.social•89 days ago

That's why I only post pretty pictures of things no one gives a shit about lol 🎨

the-real-kdemoro.bsky.social•85 days ago

I am not sure i know the definition of "content scraper account " But. I might have an idea--accounts that use other folk's content without attribution? I see that ALL the time on Insta and I don't like to follow them back. Must be the photographer in me. Attribution 4 creators of images is a MUST

rahaeli.bsky.social•85 days ago

Yes, that's part of it! These accounts assemble collections of pictures they steal from everywhere and post them regularly, then go out and follow thousands of people in hopes people will follow them back. The point is not them posting the content:

rahaeli.bsky.social•85 days ago

the point is to get all the followers who like whatever that thing is, and then eventually they'll sell the account to someone else, who will change the name and delete all the past posts, then start using it for whatever purpose.

rahaeli.bsky.social•85 days ago

I explained a lot of the tactics people use for artificial platform manipulation in a thread a few days ago, and here's the bit of the thread that starts getting into this tactic in the next few posts: https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3lcqw5klgzi2h

rahaeli.bsky.social•85 days ago

A lot of content scraper accounts are run by "marketer" freelancers who offer "full account setup" services on sites like Fiverr! They get an unsuspecting client who wants a social media presence and pull this. https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3lcqw5kljxf2h

orpach.bsky.social•85 days ago

Being able to see the historical handles on an account on this site, using something like clearsky, is a godsend on this site.

I expect it to be invaluable when I eventually get stung by one of these operations.

the-real-kdemoro.bsky.social•82 days ago

That is so damn stupid of them, and I wish them allll the best. My main pet peeve with these accounts is that they'll share something and say "all credit goes to original creator,please contact for attribution " or something similar. If they found it, they likely know who 1st posted. Lazy poseurs!

the-real-kdemoro.bsky.social•82 days ago

It is nevertheless fascinating to me.

ohdystopiaaano.bsky.social•95 days ago

You’re a fxckin rock star for doing this. As a good deed never goes unpunished, I’m humbly requesting that in your next bout of insomnia, you might a take a quick look at a thread where some of us could use some brief expert guidance in a few #BadActorBingo case studies:

https://bsky.app/profile/ohdystopiaaano.bsky.social/post/3lc6wu2n2ok2l

ehyde.bsky.social•96 days ago

Does an account like this https://bsky.app/profile/sffreview.bsky.social have a similar end goal? It's interacting with a specific tag, trying to seem personal but is clearly automated, but it seems like a lot of effort (compared to content scraping or follow farming) if the goal is just to amass a lot of followers

rahaeli.bsky.social•96 days ago

Oof, that's borderline. It reads more to me as a real author someone's hustle culture project to try to get prominence in the sff community, since they see other authors who are also bloggers, but that's a tough call.

rahaeli.bsky.social•96 days ago

I won't list it right now because it's not spamming or churning followers, but that's one of the cases where I murbled grumpily under my breath at it for 30 seconds before making that call

ehyde.bsky.social•96 days ago

(thank you for all the recent education about spammers and scammers!)

chrisvonsimson.bsky.social•93 days ago

Excellent logical information on the methods of the scrapers. (Thanks also to @pdb.codes for the re-post)

dragonquill.bsky.social•85 days ago

📌

deadling.bsky.social•84 days ago

Before Elon turned off the ability to view someone's likes, many of them consistently liked literal nazi content. That Historic Vids acct is one I remember for certain as liking nazi content all the time.

robdickinson.bsky.social•94 days ago

@contentscrapers.bsky.social for the win

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