WTF is wrong with people?
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Photo hosting sites suck. Imageshack randomly deletes pictures I upload. Imgur randomly blocks sites that use "too much" bandwidth so using Imgur to post pictures to some forums no longer works. So I uploaded a couple of pictures to a site called Minus.com to see how they work out. I created an account with a fake name and profile picture that I've never used anywhere else and now, about 3 later, I just noticed that I have 15 "followers". WTF? Are people really that desperate?
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What makes you think they're humans and not spam-bots?
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@blakeyrat said:
What makes you think they're humans and not spam-bots?
I automatically assume that people are stupid.But seriously, on closer examination, it appears that at least some of my "followers" are bots, although I'm not sure I would call them "spam-bots" -- more like pointless-bots. They all have a page with a few random pictures, like this, but that's it. The larger WTF seems to be that many of my follower bots have followers who are bots, who have followers who are bots, etc., etc. I have no idea what they think they are accomplishing with this.
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The gimmick is that:
1) They follow you, in the hopes that:
2) You feel compelled to follow back, until:
3) The spammer gets a large enough count of follows to sell his services as a "social media expert", at which point:
4) Those idle accounts are then brought into service to send spam, and then:
5) Users mark them as "spammers" before 3 posts are up, and the account gets blocked and removed from everybody's feed.It's just the Twitter thing all over again.
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@El_Heffe said:
I automatically assume that people are stupid.
It cuts both ways: people like Blakeyrat assume that you are stupid.
@El_Heffe said:
hey all have a page with a few random pictures, like this, but that's it. The larger WTF seems to be that many of my follower bots have followers who are bots, who have followers who are bots, etc., etc. I have no idea what they think they are accomplishing with this.
I dunno, maybe sign up a bunch of bot accounts over time and then spam all at once?
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@morbiuswilters said:
@El_Heffe said:
I automatically assume that people are stupid.
It cuts both ways: people like Blakeyrat assume that you are stupid.
@El_Heffe said:hey all have a page with a few random pictures, like this, but that's it. The larger WTF seems to be that many of my follower bots have followers who are bots, who have followers who are bots, etc., etc. I have no idea what they think they are accomplishing with this.
@morbiuswilters said:
I dunno, maybe sign up a bunch of bot accounts over time and then spam all at once?
That's a possibility, although it appears that quite a bit of it will end up being spam-bots spamming other spam-bots.Not that there's anything wrong with that.
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@El_Heffe said:
Imgur randomly blocks sites that use "too much" bandwidth so using Imgur to post pictures to some forums no longer works.
If that were true, Reddit would be out of business. Or do they have some special "partner deal" where Reddit pays for part of Imgur's hosting costs?
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@ekolis said:
@El_Heffe said:
I don't know exactly how it works, but a couple of months ago it became impossible to post pictures hosted by Imgur on a forum I sometimes visit. The forum also has another URL that differs only by one letter and points to the same place. Using that lesser known/lesser used URL, people are able to post pictures from Imgur. There's something in Imgur's terms of service about hotlinking using too much bandwidth, or at least there was a couple of months ago. I doesn't seem to be in there now, just a general "don't post anything illegal, offensive, blah, blah, blah, or anything that we don't like for any reason, or we will ban you along with the site you're hotlinking from".Imgur randomly blocks sites that use "too much" bandwidth so using Imgur to post pictures to some forums no longer works.
If that were true, Reddit would be out of business. Or do they have some special "partner deal" where Reddit pays for part of Imgur's hosting costs?
One "conspiracy theory" is that Imgur gets money from Reddit (who violates Imgur's TOS a few thousand times a day) and so they banned a bunch of sites that don't generate any money to free up bandwidth.
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@El_Heffe said:
Photo hosting sites suck. [sites that suck]
I've not (yet) had problems with photobucket which I use here and else-where, but I'm sure there are horror stories about them...?
