What's with automated downvotes? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 months ago by MrOtingocni@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Why does it seem that on larger platforms there are bots that downvote comments?

You can tell it's bots because all the downvotes happen at the same time. I can guess for astroturfing purposes one would want to upvote their targeted comments and downvote all others but on lemmy?

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[-] Arcanepotato@crazypeople.online 6 points 3 months ago

The instance admin can see votes. If you are noticing a pattern maybe ask them to confirm? There can be delays in federation so you might see them all come in at once even if they occurred quite a bit earlier.

I know your question was "why" but maybe confirming that is that is happening vs a different cause can be the first step.

[-] CameronDev@programming.dev 10 points 3 months ago

Everyone can see votes: https://lemvotes.org/

[-] bountygiver@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 months ago

Unfortunately it doesn't work, returns 404 for everything

[-] CameronDev@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

It has definitely worked for me in the past, maybe it broke recently :(

[-] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I'm convinced its often the admins that the bots belong to.

this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026

15 points (80.0% liked)

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