Bots in YT comments

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laoghaire

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Bots in YT comments
« on: March 07, 2020, 02:33:17 PM »
After Code asked for some YT gems to add to the playlist, I was looking at various videos. And I noticed something relatively new, and that I'm not seeing in other categories of videos that I've been watching lately.

Comments under different names are repeated over and over on U2 videos. Often two comments are combined randomly. The original comments appear to be real, but the bots are grabbing and copying them.

Okay, I know bots exist but I started wondering why I am seeing them on U2 videos, and across different posting accounts, but not elsewhere. Are U2 paying a really bad and shady social media marketing company?

A really obvious example, Sweetest Thing off U2's official channel.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5WybiA263bw
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Codeguy

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Re: Bots in YT comments
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2020, 02:48:50 PM »
U2 wrote Miami
-------

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Pride

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Re: Bots in YT comments
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2020, 07:01:05 PM »
After Code asked for some YT gems to add to the playlist, I was looking at various videos. And I noticed something relatively new, and that I'm not seeing in other categories of videos that I've been watching lately.

Comments under different names are repeated over and over on U2 videos. Often two comments are combined randomly. The original comments appear to be real, but the bots are grabbing and copying them.

Okay, I know bots exist but I started wondering why I am seeing them on U2 videos, and across different posting accounts, but not elsewhere. Are U2 paying a really bad and shady social media marketing company?

A really obvious example, Sweetest Thing off U2's official channel.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5WybiA263bw

One of the bots is "Beulah D. Titsworth". What a name.
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kango

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Re: Bots in YT comments
« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2020, 08:36:24 PM »
I've seen this recently and not only on U2 videos. I think it's just a glitch that is causing replies to appear as new comments with a quote.
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laoghaire

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Re: Bots in YT comments
« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2020, 09:03:48 PM »
No way is it a glitch. Those are separate accounts (bots).

Good to know it's not just U2 videos, though. So far for me it's just been U2.
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Loyal Deserter

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Re: Bots in YT comments
« Reply #5 on: March 08, 2020, 12:13:51 AM »
It's obviously not U2 doing it.  It's probably based on a comment that got a lot of likes, so the bots swarm it and try to get likes by copying it. 

I had a video get a decent number of views once a while back.  There are now multiple copycat videos with an identical title and similar thumbnail.  Bots try to take advantage of everything.