Due to virtually no discussion/exposure of this problem on steemit I am reposting this
I don't know if this is common knowledge or not, but I have noticed that for the last couple of months there are some mysterious accounts which automatically start following posters within the first seconds of creating a post
This wasn't the case, say like a half a year ago.
Let me show you what I mean:
Using Steem Followers https://steem.makerwannabe.com/ you can see who has started following someone.
If you make a post and get a follower in the first few seconds chances are high that this following comes from a bot account, like @steveet, @samimi, @poro, @farad, @thome, @lenzy, @goddes etc.
There are dozens of these accounts (hundreds?!) with the only purpose of following authors of newly created content.
Some of these accounts follow almost 100k people!
In fact, more than 90% of my followers in the last few months are bots! 😳😳
Now the obvious question that I have is: why?
If the answer is that it artificially creates a feeling of being followed which in turn motivates people to create content, this is a terrible idea...
Sure, it is hard to stay with Steemit if you are new and trying to figure things out. But will this be fixed by fake accounts that are deluding people into thinking that someone is interested in their content? I don't think so... True power for a social media platform always comes from real people.
Yep, confirmed. I'm new here and i notice this. I didn't knew if this is new thing or it has been around for awhile.
as far as I can tell, it started a couple of months ago
This seems quite strange. I joined a few days ago and before I did anything I already had 6 followers. I checked out some of them and noticed they hadn't posted any blogs but had lists of Re steems.
After I did a couple of replies and a blog I suddenly had 159 Followers even though I only got 3 Up votes on one of my replies, 1 Up vote on the other reply and none on my blog.
exactly!
All the bots now. Instant and instant people are bots
what do you mean? Everyone/Everything are bots?
if we use the services of bots there must be his profit. though only for reputation only
You got a 6.33% upvote from @emperorofnaps courtesy of @tobetada!
Want to promote your posts too? Send 0.05+ SBD or STEEM to @emperorofnaps to receive a share of a full upvote every 2.4 hours...Then go relax and take a nap!