For the threads with the older one on the left: https://lemmy.world/post/14859950
(Thank you @Nelots@lemm.ee )
Never trust a default username
[adjective] [noun] [3-4 digits] is always a sign of bad news, on social media and Xbox Live
Cutesy auto generated names are too useful for bots, the lazy, and fans of cutesy name combos.
Should have made defaults your approximate IP geolocation. I’m kidding of course for privacy reasons, but a little similar motivation to think about a better name during creation couldn’t hurt (looking at Reddit here).
Edit: but hey - maybe it’s not desirable for one to be able to distinguish users. I wonder… nah, Reddit would never… 😒
My understanding of how this works is that that left one is real accounts making real comments, at least in the majority.
Then when the link gets reposted, either by a bot or naturally, potentially depending on the title, the bots scrape the old comments and post them.
It’s content farming. And Reddit is probably okay with this.
The right one is the “real” accounts. Notice how the left one is newer and all the accounts have names ending with four digits, except where they aren’t copies from the right.
