Yo. So, apparently, there are some spam accounts in this group.

They're honestly being pretty subtle about it, but this thread was what finally tipped me off to them, personally. I thought it was weird that a spam account would be made months before the spam thread in question, so I went digging. I found out something a bit concerning: This has been going on for over a year.

About half of the group's threads for the last couple years have been these spam threads. This is the earliest such thread I could find, which shows that this has apparently been going on since fall of 2020.

Interestingly, or perhaps not, the oldest thread was made by the oldest account: ignacio, who was the only spam account I found made in 2019. Despite having been on the site for over three years, the account still has an empty library, and no blogs, stories, or follows except this group.

The format for the spam threads is pretty simple. One spam account asks a seemingly innocuous question, then the second spam account replies with a link to a service. The spammers do not seem to respond to any replies from legitimate accounts.

There are dozens of these threads, and they're always carried out by two or more of the following accounts:

luckypenguin, pixie2, archybows, haruto, hackinggate, ignacio, jojos, alanz, Olive25, Zelodubb44

Notice how the accounts follow the same pattern: All accounts were made in fall. Some from 2020, some from 2021. (Except ignacio.) Empty library. No stories or blog posts. Not following anything except this group. Some write with grammatical errors, and some do not; but all of the accounts post with the same, weirdly stiff and to-the-point writing style.

Funny thing is, they're subtle enough that I don't think they're bots. I think they're all sockpuppet accounts made by one person who is being paid to shill random junk.

Here's one thread showing that the spammers aren't even keeping it to their own threads. One of the spam accounts threw out a link to a random, barely-related product, even though jimerjam apparently isn't one of the spammers.

What should we do about this? Should we ban them? Report them to the site admins? Any other spam accounts I missed?

If I listed you as a potential spam account, do you have anything to say about it? Not trying to start a witch hunt, I just thought people should know about this.

Useful and good to know

Holy shit. Great internet sleuthing, I would never be able to spot something like that.

As for reporting and banning, you'll have to look at the rules for the the Humans are Superior thread and the FimFiction website to see what rules are broken and then maybe report this to one of the site admins so that they can be aware of this, because I doubt that this is exclusive to this tread.

ok...then a little weird but ok

7620316

Some write with grammatical errors

I assumed they were non-native English speakers, but if they are bots this also makes sense.

7620316
Damn nice investigation work

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Can't take all the credit. If Reganadex hadn't pointed the suspicious behavior out, I wouldn't have gone digging.

That's hilarious. I really want to know why, of all places, they decided to shill on a random group on a pony fanfiction site.

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Well I’m glad that my suspicion led to a thorough investigation. Hopefully this leads to more awareness of the problem that might be happening across the site.

7620316
Yeah to be honest I was finding it a little weird that this group was turning into Google for some reason.
I'm glad someone took time to work it out.
Unfortunately, I think the moderators of this group have long since left the building.

I quite honestly don't see the point of those accounts doing this

7620316
There’s Shesin
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/198573/humans-are-superior/thread/481715/help-in-choosing-solar-panels#comment/7629431

7620316
I'm surprised I never noticed this earlier. I see them in Youtube Comment sections all the time. Here, I just assumed that they're just weird

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Primarily, I think it's to attract other people to click the links as well. Either for data-collection purposes, scams, or something more malicious.

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Yep. That's another one that fits the bill.

Just gonna pin this thread, due to spammers and potential spammers. Most of them are gone, but they’ll be back. Keep an eye out for them, everyone.

And yep, I’m back.

7620316
As if things could not get anymore pathetic with these shill spammers.

A couple of sock puppet accounts made a group account for a fucking kitchen repair service.
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/215849/cook-tops

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That's actually really funny. I can imagine some advertisement company being like:

Guy 1: "We've infiltrated the brony site. What do we spam them with?"

Guy 2: "I dunno... Bronies like kitchen appliances, right..?"