Judith Butlerian Jihad: Scraper accounts make the internet worse. Stop following and reposting them. In the post-Twitter internet, choose people not automated theft.

Scraper accounts make the internet worse. Stop following and reposting them. In the post-Twitter internet, choose people not automated theft.

Block these on sight.

If you’re unsure whether an account is one of these spammy scrapers, check for a few clues. Does it use alt text? Does it include credits where possible? Does it have a line in the bio like “all credits to original owners” or “DM for content removal”?

I'm guilty. I'll go unfollow right now. Please define "scraper" tho?

Scraping: copy (data) from a website using a computer program. They automatically download images from other websites and repost them as their own with no credit. It’s not a person posting these funny images they found. It’s just copy-paste.

Instead of asking the author for permission to repost their images, they have this cheap “DM me to have your content removed” so it’s the author’s responsibility to find that their content was stolen and ask it to be removed which is not how copyrights work!

Thank you for explaining. I admit I was just enjoying cute pictures. I will do better!

It's ok, there's no shame here. There are plenty of better ways to find cute pictures too! Pretty sure there's an entire bluesky feed for cats.

Watching someone criticize AI art as theft in one post and boost these accounts in another is always a surreal experience.

just realised, they follow my account here already. Blocked them on twitter for scraping. Uff

Yeah, I'm sure I have a few following me too. They're like mosquitos.

Skywatch lists were a big help getting rid of bots and scrapers.

Never came to mind tbh, and I follow some bc I like the content 🙈. So thanks for highlighting 👍🏻

That’s just the thing, most people absently think “oh, cat pictures, I like cat pictures” without noticing what the account actually is.

I have blocked them all even though the content they scrape is absolutely enticing. There are legitimate accounts posting top notch content we all can follow though. @catsofyore.bsky.social comes to mind.

That’s me, too. I usually follow back because I like the photos. I’m still unclear what a “scraper” is.

Scraping is using a computer program to crawl the internet and automatically download data for you (in this case pictures).

Thank you for answering that! I appreciate it.

Very welcome! *bows*

🙁🙏🏻

👍🏻

Yes…this was me. Thank you.

It's ok, I think we've all been fooled by them in the past. I know I have been on Twitter before

I block those accounts. It's obvious what they're doing and they kept following and unfollowing me to farm for that follow back. Not happening.

This is the way.

I have a mute list specifically for when I encounter these >_o

A wise decision

But they’re the only accounts that will follow me

They also post animal cruelty at times

This one followed me today They sucked me in originally because, animals. I didn't know what they did until they started posting stuff that didn't work here, ending in a picture of something like a pool, and nothing else. Huge disappoint.

I've been wondering why I had so many random followers on here.

I was wondering what these were.

I can't tell which accounts are scraper accounts.

They're bots that use an automated follow/unfollow trick to amass an inexplicably large number of followers by relying on enough people to follow back. Their posts tend to be automated, often hourly, and usually just contain a random image they acquired elsewhere, uncredited and without context.

If you’re unsure whether an account is one of these spammy scrapers, check for a few clues. Does it use alt text? Does it include credits where possible? Does it have a line in the bio like “all credits to original owners” or “DM for content removal”?

Don't they make a scraping noise?

The nice thing about searching “shouldhave” is that I was able to block four of these parasites all at once! A good day!

I suggest users watermark their content with their social media handle or name. I know it's a bit time-consuming to edit the photo or video, but at least it will make it easier to identify the content.

Any other ones of this ilk that I should be aware of?

I'm not sure without searching for any. I think @skywatch.bsky.social is a good place to check for this kind of thing?

These accounts keep following then unfollowing me 😒

I don’t know if they unfollowed me because I block them on sight. I’m worried they’re following me to scrape my stuff!

Mostly, I think they're trying to farm a large number of followers, probably for dubious reasons

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