My (different person here) take is it’s probing behavior. Who benefits? Anti-reddit-protest trolls want to see this fail, and some could have the resources. Savvy criminal organizations see potential profit. Major tech companies see at least a research opportunity at minimal expense. White hats want to find and raise awareness of vulnerabilities.

Only governments would really have no major motive beyond the usual surveillance of a social space. So I think the question should really be, who’s not doing it? Because if people aren’t wholesale fucking around yet, they’ll start very soon. It’s only the savvy or lucky that are aware of us still, but that will not be true for long. Snowball is rolling now, that’s pretty plain to see.

I mean, we’re just a big and growing pile of consumers. What else do you do with those?

I hope there’s some way to block that, bots are useful or funny sometimes (like the ones to download videos, reminders, etc). But I asume most of them have the sole purpose of advertising or brigading.

I can’t wrap my head about Lemmy 0.18 dropping capchas.