Are you experiencing AI based spam?

Community
,
10

Actually, I just stumbled on a user who slipped by and is posting with ChatGPT or other AI. There might be more spam accounts that I’ve missed.

Some ideas on how to fight it:

  • Make a database of VPN providers. This one’s IP address is from “M247 Europe SRL” which is a VPN service provider. I’ve always wanted some kind of notification that a new account is using a VPN. I have to do it manually at the moment.
  • Keep track of read time, days visited, topics/posts read. This user spent 8 minutes reading the site but posted 6 comments, and only visited 3 times on the day of their registration. The user is actually still TL0 naturally, because they haven’t really done anything except post comments.
  • I wrote more ideas in comments on this page.

I wonder if it’s possible to roughly classify users by the ratio of time spent on the site vs. number of words written, plus other signals like VPN, pasted content, injected content, etc. Suspect accounts could be marked for review.

Edit: this quick Data Explorer query turned up a few more, though some of them were already suspended.

SELECT
    u.id,
    u.created_at,
    u.username,
    u.trust_level,
    us.time_read,
    us.days_visited,
    us.topics_entered,
    us.post_count,
    us.topic_count
FROM users u
LEFT JOIN user_stats us
ON us.user_id = u.id
WHERE u.trust_level < 1
AND u.created_at > '2023-01-01'
AND us.time_read < 1000 -- seconds
AND us.post_count > 1
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