#bot comments

My latest chapter of Parasite got 5 abusive spam comments. And although I roll my eyes and delete them because I know they're rubbish and I'm confident that I'm a decent writer, it makes me really worry about newer writers, because some of this stuff is brutal and cruel.

Please please please combat this by leaving positive reviews for your writers on their work, especially if you know they're new to writing - it doesn't have to be long! A smiley face or a heart, tell the author that you enjoyed it or loved it, or quote your favourite line. Something to combat these abusive nasty bot comments.

We are going to lose new authors to this. We will. And it's not fair that people pouring their heart and souls into writing might only be getting these comments.

New AO3 Spam comment style

Saw this over on bluesky. Concern-trolling plus vague threats. Current thinking is it's an effort to make the trans community look weirdly confrontational, though as one person pointed out the "looking you up in the phonebook" thing is weirdly outdated.

Dear Readers,

Last night a longtime reader left me a comment on a wip. This is not unusual because I have amazing readers.

What has been unusual however is that over the last few days, I received 11 comments that were all scam bots. These more sophisticated bots are on registered accounts and can generate comments that look like actual excited happy praise about the actual fic and its contents (which also means that someone's also fed our work into an ai to form a summary review, another thing to be upset about).

Over the last few days I found out that I'm not the only one who's dealing with this, many other writers are currently being harassed and catfished by these more sophisticated bots.

But to have a real human reader leave a gem of a review was healing after days of finding out the excited happy reviews were just lies. The timing was wonderful, and I appreciate my reader so much for this meaningful kindness that inspires and keeps me going.

So please leave a comment for authors and creators on ao3 for the works you're enjoying or have enjoyed in the past. You don't have to do much, just leave them a little emoji heart ❤️or something. Or maybe a "Thank you for writing this, I look forward to more!"

Whatever you say, reach out to give our creative community some love so they know that actual people out there still care.

A little support goes a long way.

eag

I heard about bot comments sweeping through Ao3, and just had another example to look out for. They cut quotes from your fic and add a vague comment after it that could loosely be related to the words??? I guess???

Then it tried to reference another fic I've written [getting the name wrong] in an attempt to evoke.... I don't even know. Anger? Engagement?

i was very much ecstatic & was overjoyed that someone commented on my fic, so i opened the email & it was from a guest user saying quote:

"I think with a bit of work so we could shape it into something even more memorable. I’d honestly enjoy sharing ideas and hearing your thoughts as well. Let’s take this conversation to [blank] with a same username [blank] Remove all spacing from the username, please"

i deleted the comment, but i still just- didnt really know how 2 feel, tbh. like, i was happy that someone had left a comment on my fic, & i opened the comment & it was basically just a bot saying that it could be better & more memorable. it kinda ruined my day & even though i knew that it didnt matter & was left by a bot, it still upset me a bit, yknow?