A few more #PicSpam accounts I recommend limiting/blocking:

@[email protected]: while there does seem to be a human at the wheel, primarily posts ~*~viral/cool~*~/engagement-farming content indiscriminately scraped from other networks, including other content scrapers. This leads to them posting fake AI-generated videos, incorrect/misleading descriptions, etc., which only gets addressed when *other* people point it out.

@dbattistella: more of an edge case; she does post plenty of links to actual news articles and her own genuine commentary, but also posts quite a lot of populist and engagement-farming stuff copied verbatim from other networks with cursory credit (e. g. handles with no indication of what platform they're on and no links to the original posts), if any. As a result, posts regularly include misinformation, a surprising amount of conspiracy theorist-adjacent libertarians, uncredited text and media that readers may take to be her own work, etc.

Basically, these are accounts where you should double-check literally every single thing they post. Personally I think this is more work than people should have to put in, and therefore such accounts are worth blocking/limiting server-wide.

Also, a must-block: @[email protected], one of the most prolific scrapers/picspammers, if you haven't already.

#FediBlock

Another nature/wildlife #picspam account to block: @[email protected].

Most of their animal photos are taken from Pixabay (which lets you use photos without credit: https://pixabay.com/service/license-summary/) and are, as far as I can tell, mostly accurately identified. However, they also:

- link LLM-generated articles (https://ohai.social/@tangledwing/116508513820316616, https://ohai.social/@tangledwing/116423175725416201)
- link LLM-generated articles on scammy sites (https://ohai.social/@tangledwing/116496161607225619, a degree mill)
- post AI-generated videos (https://ohai.social/@tangledwing/116389578007720215, originally from https://www.instagram.com/wildanimalverse/reel/DW31A1Mj389/)
- get stuff wrong which could have been avoided or easily checked by linking to the source (https://ohai.social/@tangledwing/116381546945554882, wrongly identified as a purple finch [a North American bird]; original photo https://pixabay.com/photos/natural-outdoors-wild-animals-bird-3283205/, as indicated in the tags, a long-tailed rosefinch [a Eurasian bird] photographed in Japan)

In general, accounts that only post other people's unsourced/uncredited photos because they look cool or make people feel good are vulnerable to posting misinformation and AI-generated content, whether they intend to or not.

#fediblock

So, about this thread from @CiaraNi (https://mastodon.green/@CiaraNi/116452475774038820) about a fake wildlife image that's either AI-generated or Photoshopped: a few people in replies linked to the account that posted it, @[email protected]. I checked in mod dashboard and I suspended this account just shy of *three years ago* for being a #PicSpam/viral repost bot.

When you come across these accounts, preemptively suspend them (if you are a mod/admin) or report them (if you are a regular user) and you'll save people a lot of headache.

I wrote about this a while back: https://out.flipping.rocks/blog/why-picspam-and-repost-accounts-are-bad

In the next post I'll explain why this account immediately stood out to me as inauthentic.

#FediBlock #MastoAdmin #FediAdmin

Picking off some picspam:

@[email protected]
@[email protected]
@[email protected]

#picspam #FediBlock

Suspended @[email protected] from flipping.rocks after seeing one too many stolen photos. Their content is virtually all uncredited scraped/stolen/reposted from other social media platforms, and I seriously doubt they are an actual human being. I recommend other admins also suspend them.

Why-is-nature-picspam-bad FAQ:

- look, i'm not the copyright police or anything, but artists and photographers deserve to be credited for their work
- taking images out of context/scraping text often leads to propagating misinformation or unwittingly showcasing animal cruelty or irresponsible treatment of wildlife
- inauthentic viral-reposter accounts can easily be turned into spam/monetization/misinformation vectors

don't let the robots win. support real nature photographers, block fake-ass picspammers.

#fediblock #picspam

sorry I'm just looking through my old hard drive

#picspam