Mastodawn

I'm suddenly seeing a lot of bot accounts using the hashtags I use on a regular basis. For example the bio will read

"Follow me if you're interested in the castanwyddeneccles hashtag. I'm a global hashtag sharing bot from tags.pub. When content with the castanwyddeneccles hashtag appears on the Social Web, this account will re-share the content to its followers."

Is this a thing now? I don't think I like it, and I'm blocking them as they pop up.

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Janet 3d ago

@suearcher I think there’s a few automatic sharing bits on the sewing hashtags too. Not sure I see the point since that is what the hashtag is for..,

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Alfred Chow - Maker of Things 3d ago

@Janet_52square @suearcher
I feel like they pull followers into following bots rather than people and # tags. It generates traffic in the wrong direction.

That made sense on Twitter, to make your bot account look popular, but I don't quite see a point to it here.

I block bots when I come across them.

Edit: just wondering if the bots are sharing the # tags across platforms so that Bluesky etc. also see them, and then you have no idea what folks there are doing with your toot.

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ticho 3d ago

@Maker_of_Things @Janet_52square @suearcher Yes, I'm blocking all of those as well, often their entire instances (since they're usually instances dedicated for these data harvesting bots).

The last one I blocked just this week even had "we respect #nobot tag in your profile!" blurb on their instance page, BUT THEY DIDN'T.

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Sue Archer 3d ago

@ticho @Maker_of_Things @Janet_52square

Ah I did wonder if I could block the whole instance, I'll try that, thank you.

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ticho

@suearcher @Maker_of_Things @Janet_52square I'm just happy someone else is bothered by these foul practices - until now, it seemed like I was just screaming into the void about it. :)