I can't believe I actually have to say this, but apparently I do: someone who is buying compromised Bluesky accounts from an account reseller marketplace is directly funding identity theft, fraud, and international crime. #BadActorBingo resurrection for an explainer of why:
@rahaeli.bsky.social have you ever done a thread on the “I want to help you with your GFM” scam in particular? I’m heavily boosting a GFM right now (which I absolutely can verify because CTV News vetted it before THEY promoted it) and we’ve already had one #badactorbingo rock up.
Rah *does* have several threads that talk about the kinds of pattern matching and analysis she does, including a whole #badactorbingo series training folks to spot inauthentic behavior, *including* considering posting patterns
(Health fuckery has knocked her largely out of commission for a sec)
yep. there are a distressingly enormous number of "reply trolls" on here, especially since last November. @rahaeli.bsky.social has a bunch of mutelists for these types of accounts, and also threads about them, check her hashtag #BadActorBingo . i use some of her lists & they do quiet my TL down
Follow farming is usually for the purpose of selling the account to someone who wants to inject their crap into a bunch of folks' feeds. FF isn't so much about collecting conversations (that's a different scam)
@\rahaeli.bsky.social talks a lot about this, especially her #BadActorBingo
Love for All @stoporangefascism.bsky.social 654 followers 1.1K following 672 posts 36 (They/them). +Sized: P. ADHU Y . Ace. Woke. Stop hate • Anti gun. Spiritual ©. College grad Empowering minorities B. Kink O. Gamer Pro joy. Blue wave c .. Ukraine 1. Trump is Hitler! #resist Posts Replies Media Videos Starter Packs Lists Ryan Emmons @remmons13.bsky.social • 16m I am begging y'all to read a book other than Harry Potter... Love for All (/ @stoporange... • 1h My grandfather fought against the Soviets in WW2. No. Full stop. 1 0 3 •.• Love for All (f @stoporangefasci... • 14m Drumpf is literally Voldemort
I am begging all of you to be more savvy about engaging on here.
This account is not a real person engaging in good faith. This is at best a casual troll, more likely part of an intentional campaign to whip up hostility online. You should be able to spot this! #BadActorBingo
#BadActorBingo heads up: it looks like there's a tool out there that people had previously authorized on their accounts that has now been compromised and is being used for malicious purposes.
Adding on a potential mark for #BadActorBingo :
bsky.app/profile/avat...
Thanks so much for this!! I absolutely love the phrase #BadActorBingo, gonna be incorporating this into my lexicon from now on, haha!
An excellent #BadActorBingo analysis from someone else! I've been falling down on writing these lately but this is a good explanation of the techniques you can use to find a whole network.
After reading @rahaeli.bsky.social's fascinating thread on #BadActorBingo, I got curious about my own stats. I don't think I'm prolific enough to be mistaken for a bot or a professional troll. My critter: "I'm a 🐝 The Busy Bee Connector! Position of arrival: #750,865 📎 skyzoo.blue/stats/saraha...
@rahaeli.bsky.social I'm looking for your #badactorbingo thread with all of the screengrabs of bot patterns shown on SkyZoo, but I can't find it amongst the other threads. Could you please assist?
I'm doing a low-politics day but I gotta say...
If your profile is just a string of memes with no alt-text you're not getting a follow back and may get a block
Alt text is all the letters in DEIA at once. If you really wanna fight the fascist clowns start there or I'll assume you're #badactorbingo
there are some good blocklists for those. check out @rahaeli.bsky.social 's lists & many threads about them, also her #BadActorBingo hashtag.
At best, they're sincere people who are just very uninteresting & have learned bad social media habits. At worst, they are malicious.
I block'em on sight
Interesting maybe #BadActorBingo for you @rahaeli.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/cmm....
bsky.app/profile/film...
These periodic accounts post lots of hashtags but all of them are invalid so go to # hashtag instead of the actual text.
Just content scraper or something more?
I have found #badactorbingo from @rahaeli.bsky.social especially useful for learning to spot stuff like this. There are also various tools there to help label or avoid further shenanigans ☺️
Foreign influence bot operations, yeah.
Check out @rahaeli.bsky.social 's threads about them for better explanations/details (a lot of these are under the #BadActorBingo tag).
The #BadActorBingo hashtag will provide some insights. 2/
I suggest you check out @rahaeli.bsky.social and her #BadActorBingo posts to make sure you aren't following any disinfo bots. Look at and use her blocklists
bsky.app/hashtag/BadA...
There's been some chat about this phenomenon on #BadActorBingo. People are making deliberately misleading moderation lists, maybe to sow mistrust in the moderation system here, but since few people subscribe to them you can safely ignore them, it seems.
@rahaeli.bsky.social has also written numerous threads anout this and other related T&S topics. She generally tags them #BadActorBingo i believe
The problem is that some of these are demonstrated to be bad actors who are generating fake profiles to mobilise later for spam or for political manipulation - see #BadActorBingo - as a 'bigger' account I try really hard to do what I can to avoid being part of these circles of problematic accounts.
If you're new here I suggest you check out the #BadActorBingo tag where @rahaeli.bsky.social does a lot of great education on this.
You can't meaningfully engage with 30k accounts but accounts that can build up that politically charged audience can flip to disinformation easily.
Another #badActorBingo? Romance type: bsky.app/profile/ttmo...
So one continue to use clearsky.app even if you don't follow the account to monitor if one is on these #BadActorBingo lists/users.
Again, folks can block me for ANY reason, but its a bit sus that I've ended up up on 2 lists and both of them use non-bsky pds's that are publicly available, and foodsky.social redirects to feedsky? So possible #BadActorBingo. I dunno.
So there's an thing that happened where I've been added to a blocklist by a user which, y'know fine? But it's a MAGA Trolls entitled list? And looking at it, it seems like it's a deliberate misnomer to trap folks? #BadActorBingo maybe @rahaeli.bsky.social? (Username & URL of list in reply)
lot of bots on bsky lately. I'd recommend people to keep a close eye on who follows them, and block/report any obviously synthetic profiles. #BadActorBingo is a good hashtag to follow if you need to see some examples of what bot activity looks like nowadays
@rahaeli.bsky.social when people get suspicious follows (eg. no posts and an OF link), what is the advisable action? Ignore, block, report? I feel report, except fear diverting limited resources from more urgent moderation.
#badactorbingo
