
Is Tumblr a bot fest? - ofca
http://svenduplic.com/post/11777048272/is-tumblr-a-bot-fest
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shortformblog
From what I've heard (I know a couple of guys that work there), Tumblr is
working on the spam and has made large amounts of progress.

I made a couple posts about this earlier this week. My site has nearly 15k
Tumblr followers, so as a result, I see some of this stuff more acutely than
most people.

[http://shortformblog.tumblr.com/post/11645079360/tumblr-
like...](http://shortformblog.tumblr.com/post/11645079360/tumblr-likespam-
problem) (on a couple of methods I've been seeing a lot)
[http://shortformblog.tumblr.com/post/11654489531/tumblr-
fake...](http://shortformblog.tumblr.com/post/11654489531/tumblr-fake-
profiles) (on how the empty profiles have a payload)

I think a big part of the problem is that there's an easy-to-exploit black-hat
SEO technique that many like spammers have been using. (To put it simply: You
can be guaranteed that the phrase "liked this" shows up on most Tumblr pages.)
Since I implemented the technique I mentioned in the first post — which I
admit isn't entirely desirable, because it also blocks some relevant content
too — my Tumblr spam has gone down significantly.

Also, note how, in that first post, I've gotten some spam notes in the past
few days. It's because it contains the phrase "liked this" right in the post.
I have the search analytics to prove it.

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brackin
The author may not realise how big tumblr is with teens. It's huge, in my
community far bigger than Twitter.

Most use it to repost, like and consume. It's the same with Twitter, they got
so big in the UK because of celebrities. A lot of people use it to follow
celebrities and maybe sometimes tweet them or friends.

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codezero
A lot of people that fit the profiles described are lurkers. Content
consumers, but not creators. That's a pretty common thing on most social
networks.

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asfkrs
Seeing the same as well. If I would have been conspiracy theory sort of guy I
might have thought it as a strategy to gain confidence in beginning writers so
they would create more and more content that eventually will make their blog
substantial. Or it's just spam.

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socialmediaking
Tumblr isn't a bot fest necessarily, but the fact is that any site with a
large amount of traffic will generally become a target for bots. It's almost a
compliment to a website, but at the same time it can be a nuisance. The Tumblr
bots I'm familiar with follow by category and tags, not necessarily post
content. The reason the author's blog gets autofollowed is likely because he
is in a lucrative niche.

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kodisha
My stats

\- Member since 25/6/2009

\- 7,500 posts

\- follow ~ 400 people

\- ~ 400 followers

\- post mostly photography / design / fashion

\- bots seen - < 5

[ same username there :) ]

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sgpl
Just for other's reference the tumblr mentioned is NSFW.

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cing
I have a small tumblr and I notice a lot of action from one particular spam
bot, sometimes my posts are liked or reblogged like 60+ times by different
accounts with sites that have the same template and advertisements. I've
flagged them as spam through tumblr's built in system and it seems to have
decreased.

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tobylane
(as I see it) Tumblr is/was kind of a clean 4chan, some memes/internet
traditions, even some real world may get started there, or start in NY and get
exposure there. Same with Twitter, same with anywhere you call good one year
and bot infested a subsequent year.

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nickmolnar2
We've been testing a new startup with a hacked together Tumblr, to simulate
the app we're building. Because of this we've been monitoring our Tumblr
traffic & interactions closer than most casual bloggers.

We have 300 followers right now, and I'm going to about 15% of our Likes are
SPAM. A problem, but not completely overrunning the system. They seem to also
be using Tumblr tag pages to find articles to like. Articles tagged with
common product keywords like handbags, shoes, or a brand name get much more
SPAM Like activity than other posts.

Tumblr does seem to be hiding the entries in the Dashboard for some of these,
indicating that they have some sort of system in place for isolating spammers.

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davidu
I've not seen this on my tumblr...

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codejoust
I also have not seen this on my tumblr blog. I've only stumbled across one or
two bot-like blogs.

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mbesto
I get them ALL the time. At least 1-2 likes from bots per post.

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dougaitken
it depends on what tags I use, iPad is a popular one obviously.

Also, soemtimes I'll see a like of an ancient post with no rhyme to why. I'll
agree though that a good percentage of likes / reblogs are spam / bots. They
also often have ads on the blog so whoever is running it will get credit when
you visit the blog to see who just liked / followed / reblogged you.

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mbesto
#triathlon mostly as its just my blog for talking about triathlon related
things.

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momoro
I think sites like quantcast, compete, google analytics etc tend to not
include bot traffic b/c bots often don't evaluate javascript, and those
tracking services often use toolbars/ajax requests that bots don't have.

So, pointing to pageview graphs that track ajax requests / toolbars and
assuming that it's mostly bots is likely to be a false assumption b/c bots are
likely not included in those pageview sums.

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teaspoon
The "Like" and "Follow" buttons on Tumblr require JavaScript, probably to make
CSRF harder. A bot that automatically likes posts would need to evaluate JS.

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citricsquid
Liking a post on tumblr is just a POST request; it doesn't require Javascript.
You can scrape the page (for the content id and authentication key) and submit
the POST request to like the content without ever running Javascript.

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Meai
I'd be more interested in knowing how Tumblr instantly knows just from my
email address that I'm interested in following software developers. I didn't
share that with them. I hardly use that gmail address for anything outside of
google groups and github.

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naner
_I hardly use that gmail address for anything outside of google groups and
github._

Tumblr probably has an "invite friends" feature where it offers to suck up
your address book. Maybe a few software developers you corresponded with in
the past used that feature.

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Meai
edit: I didn't consider that they may have just randomly picked any category
and getting "Developers" was random. It just surprised me, out of ~40
categories.

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sabret00the
I've seen bots on Tumblr but far less than I've seen on the likes of Twitter.
If you want to see a true botfest look no further than Tagged.

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ortusdux
Would it be outlandish for investors to request a one-time site-wide captcha?

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socialmediaking
Captchas won't really stop them, it just adds expense and time. Many black hat
tools integrate captcha breaking services. Cost is somewhere around $2 per
1000.

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jonnyf
Twitter is a botfest too - post anything with the phrase SEO in it and you get
a bunch of followers with no icon, no tweets and no value. This is where
Facebook has a big edge, the focus on real identity and the crack down on API
use has kept Facebook much cleaner than the others

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_delirium
I don't think it's the focus on real identity for facebook, so much as the
segregation of the network. Since most status updates aren't public by
default, you can't use the equivalent of search.twitter.com to find all recent
people posting about a keyword. This has good effects (no spam every time you
mention 'iPad'), but also bad effects (no easy way to find people you don't
know talking about topics you care about).

