alien.top is a new level of Reddit crossposting spam

simple@lemm.ee to Fediverse@lemmy.world – 620 points –

Whoever is in charge of that instance, STOP.

It's an instance that crossposts posts from Reddit, except it also makes a new user for each Reddit account it came from. So if /u/hello123 made a post, it makes that post under a new account called hello123. That makes it impossible to block posting bots.

Not only that, it makes posts look like they're posted by real people, with many question and text posts being copied as well. I was very confused as to what these posts were until I realized they're crossposts.

Examples:

https://alien.top/post/263029

https://lemm.ee/u/pocalyuko@alien.top

https://lemm.ee/u/ItzMeRocket@alien.top

https://lemm.ee/u/CaptainCapp-n@alien.top

I strongly believe Lemmy isn't the place for mirroring content from other websites. You can host your own alternate Reddit frontend like LibReddit, there's no reason to spam the posts to everyone using Lemmy just because 5 people asked for it. Not to mention there are already enough instances mirroring posts, this is getting obnoxious.

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I was fine with the helpful bots here and there, but if someone is going to abuse it like this may as well just ignore them all. This is why we can't have good things.

I remember reading in some other post there was a global setting in the Voyager app to block all bots, but I cannot find it now. Does anyone know where?

I believe you can do it in the Lemmy account itself, try the web interface

It should work for all of Lemmy afterwards

Thanks! You're the best!

... Can I be second best?

Why not be the best at something instead? I believe in you!

Why not be the best at something instead?

I aspire to be like Eratosthenes, nicknamed "Beta" for his ability to always come second - Never first. But in basically anything he ever tried. Not too bad I'd say.

Even the helpful bots get annoying after a bit. You submit a post, and immediately get linked bots that show you five alternative sites, three units of measure you already know, and one bot that has absolutely butchered the synopsis of the article posted and left out important details that then derail the conversation.