this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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[–] SouthernCross@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

One bot's review is referring to Reddit as Tripomate. Lol oh reddit...

[–] 99nights@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Lol that's hilarious!

[–] XiELEd@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Lmao I saw a 5 star review that said the official app was "better than any 3rd party app", that it had "non-intrusive ads", and asking for an ads toggle for premium users to be able to support reddit. I can't even tell if it's some sort of elaborate sarcasm. Wild.

[–] faltuuser@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This reminds to give reddit 1 star on Playstore.

[–] adinfinitum@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I gave it a 1 star review. I'm doing my part o7

[–] WolfhoundRO@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I gave it also a 1 star review with the mention "One of the apps ever. Very popular and well-known". Also doing my part o7

Just left mine. Fuck u/spez

[–] nostalgicgamerz@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Ironic that the FTC is going to likely make these illegal soon. Anyone want to save screenshots?

[–] cyd@vlemmy.net 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

After seeing this, I thought I'd go over to the Play Store to leave a 1 star review. Then discovered I had already left a 1 star review (complaining about their shitty interface) a few months ago, which I'd totally forgotten about ;-)

[–] Urbanfox@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I did exactly the same.

Went in with a "fuck spez" attitude and turns out I'd already had a fuck spez moment when I picked up sync after finding the Reddit app garbage.

[–] damnYouSun@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

I never managed to get it to load anything on my 380mbps internet connection. Every 3rd party app (and the website) loaded fine.

[–] PMmesexypajamas@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That was exactly what I did too

"Oh...I already gave it 1 star...good"

[–] magikmw@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Past-self high-five.

(my first lemmy comment let's gooo)

[–] Paws@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Currently 2.4/5.0 on the Play Store. Wasn't that long ago when it was around 4.0. Their rating has taken a beating over the last few weeks.

[–] marsokod@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Before the API pricing change, the Reddit app could be considered an internal hobby project made by a handful of employees on their spare time.

Now that this one is mandatory, it can be rated for what it is.

[–] Luovahulluus@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I for sure helped with the beating.

[–] Qantifanon@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Reddit is completely astroturfed now. Nothing but bots and humans that act like bots.

[–] Korkki@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

it's not just that reddit turned into a huge greedy corpo-clusterfuck when they went public, it was kinda bad before that too and held bad practices. Lemmy has a lot of the same features that made reddit shit on a fundamental level.

The up-vote downvote system itself is a both a curse and blessing. it's sorts things decently but it encourages mediocrity and bot like behaviour in people, if one likes to put it that way. It makes discussing anything controversial and where the issue isn't black or white, impossible. Good for cat pics and tits, but really bad for politics and the like, because everything eventually floats towards some status quo and everybody and everything else is sidelined and encouraged to shut up or go with the flow or face downvote barrage.

Also the bots are here, not yet, but they will be. Bots are easy to make here too. If this place ever gets even decently popular this place will get astroturfed and up-vote manipulated just like reddit. it's too easy to manipulated community opinion or shill for issues or things in site like this. Federated structure might help or make it worse.

[–] pankkake@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I hear that instances can disable downvoting in Lemmy's configuration. Maybe this is some solution to this issue.

[–] Paradox@lemdro.id 1 points 1 year ago

They're not even public yet lmao. And reddit got started by using bots to post content from RSS feeds to make it look busier than it was.

[–] lycanrising@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

what i fear is that reddit will take completely unnecessary but effective potshots at the fediverse and take down instances or fill them with bots just to punish those who made a point of leaving.

[–] krackalot@vlemmy.net 1 points 1 year ago

I expect it from reddit, Twitter and Facebook. This is a competitive service, and it's not backed by a rich person that can swing money around to discover their behavior and sue them. They'll likely be doing some shady stuff to make sure this either doesn't work, or is under their control.

[–] python@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're also definitely doing some sort of keyword manipulation, cause the official Reddit App is fairly high in the result list when searching for Lemmy.

On another note: hi, I just came here today after RIF stopped working 👋

[–] Xylinna@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] ThatSandwichGuy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I'm here full time too since I got connect.

[–] Xylinna@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel like I must be crazy but these reviews do not read like 5 star reviews. Seems super suspect.

[–] vanillacadmium@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You’re right. One specifically mentions ‘would rate this 0 if I could’ so in lieu of that option, they selected a…5?

Have they gone through and scraped the text from a bunch of real reviews and are reposting them with 5 star ratings to make them look organic?

[–] Xylinna@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

That honestly sounds to be the likely scenario. If someone saw the review they might shrug it off as an error or mistake.

[–] First@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I was seeing this today too! I’m reporting all those comments to the App Store, I hope it does something

[–] schpooopy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Just left a 1 star review and reported a bunch of their obviously fake 5 star reviews

[–] TonyOstrich@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Am I confused, or isn't this a duplicate post in this same sub/instance?

[–] Pika@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They also blocked rating the app on mobile, I had to go online and rate it via google's site, and im not sure it actually stuck.

[–] evdo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 year ago

My negative reviews of any app are usually deleted, even if I take the time to write out a lot.

[–] pythonxy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Just leave my first 1 star to reddit app

[–] WrittenOnMyiPhone@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

just left a 1 star review, because it honestly deserves it

[–] pacology@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

No. It’s the new bot users rating their new favorite app.

[–] spacemanspiffy@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Isn't buying reviews/fake users something a struggling new startup does, not something that has been around for > 10 years. This is kinda sad (if indeed these are bought reviews).

Is this screenshot from Apple or Google stores (I don't know what either look like to be honest). I wonder if the same thing is happening on the other store now too.

[–] JasonDJ@vlemmy.net 1 points 1 year ago

Older than that, my account is 16 years old…I came from the Digg exodus and it existed for a short while before that.

[–] Determinator@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can't say I'm even remotely surprised. It's unfortunate that even user reviews have become all but useless on most platforms due to corpo bullshit like this.

[–] esadatari@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (6 children)

good things corporations are people too so their votes they paid for count right?

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[–] Kuinox@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The last time it was posted I investigated the reviews on Google play, and every rating was made by a real person, or a bot impersonating the real person. There is no way to tell appart except by contacting the person.
Avoid falling into a circle jerk, we are better than this.

[–] Liz@midwest.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is that second one not what you would do if you were trying to generate reviews that would pass automated checks? The hard part is deciding if the fake reviews were requested/bought/generated by Reddit or if they're an independent bot network trying to establish legitimacy or mask directed action.

[–] Kuinox@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Or just when there is a movement a protests there is always a bunch of people against the protest.
Bunch of redditors are pissed off that we ruin their addiction.
In the account I checked, somes had a selfie of themselves that werent indexed on google yet. To me it point out it's more likely a genuine account

[–] Liz@midwest.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The real people I'm not commenting on, I'm commenting on the bots. The question is why they're reviewing the Reddit app, and that's basically unknowable without an investigation well beyond my skill level and pay grade. They could be a bot network trying to build credibility or a bot network cashing out and leaving paid reviews.

[–] Kuinox@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You seems to miss my point from the very beginning: I'm saying it's maybe not bots. Don't fall into confirmation bias.

[–] Liz@midwest.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're the one who said some of the reviews were copies of legitimate reviews! What else would that be besides bots? I'm not making any definite conclusions about why those bots are there, in fact I was trying to be explicit about the fact that we can't assume intent, but the bots are there.

[–] Kuinox@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I did not said that. I said it was legit reviews OR bot impersonating users, and there is no easy way to tell.

[–] Liz@midwest.social 2 points 1 year ago

AH, I misunderstood what this meant, then:

The last time it was posted I investigated the reviews on Google play, and every rating was made by a real person, or a bot impersonating the real person. There is no way to tell appart except by contacting the person.

I read this to mean that you were finding duplicate reviews where one set seemed to be bots impersonating the other set. But, your comment clarifies what you meant. My bad.

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