people should describe shit they link to, but this is actually good
etiquette, and here is a non panicky explainer about pornbots, thank you
OP, i really like my tins to be labeled so i know it's what it says on the
tin, i hate mystery meat, if rickrolling taught us nothing it should at
least have taught us this
via https://ift.tt/MDbReZL
The bots are not directly harmful to you if all the are doing is following
you. What they are doing is, the owners of the porn sites who have created
the bots want it to look like their website is getting a lot more human
traffic than it actually has. This is because the more popular a website
is, the better the chance of it ending up on the first page of a Google
search. However, Google’s algorithms are smart enough to identify a real
human being’s patterns online from a bot designed to artificially create
clicks or traffic.
So these websites make bot accounts on tumblr, which is linked to their
websites, and then they have those bots interact with YOUR blog, because
Google’s algorithm then sees YOUR activity and it is linked to the porn
site. And Google thinks “Oh! This blog is run by a real human person
judging by their online behaviour! (like how you type and construct
sentences etc) So this website must be popular!” and then the site gets
pushed up as a search result. And if a site is on the first page, then it
will be the most likely site to get clicked on by somebody googling for
porn, which increases chances of the site getting clicked on, generating
income for the site via clicks or advertising.
This does not do anything to your tumblr account at all, except give you a
false number on how many real human followers you might have.
HOWEVER
there are other porn bots on tumblr which are WAY WORSE, but they do not
seem to be the kind of bots designed to follow blogs.
These bots will reblog popular posts (over a certain amount of notes)
usually a picture, and delete the OP’s text on it and replace it with a
link to an external porn site. (sometimes advertising what it is and
sometimes just posting up the link without explanation)
Other bots will directly IM you with messages along the lines of “Hey I
just got home. You wanna video chat?” with a link that will either go to a
pron site or, more often than not, a hack that will rob your account and
possibly use it as a porn bot, locking you out by changing the username and
password.
To stay safe on tumblr, the best things to do is block and report any
accounts you see reblogging pictures and adding the same looking link to
all of them. As well as messages left on popular posts linking to porn
sites.
NEVER click on a link sent to you via IM if you don’t know the person. Even
if it LOOKS like a youtube link or something else like a discord link. the
links are specifically designed to look as legit as possible. Luckily the
text itself is usually easy to stpo, even if it’s from a person you
recognise or a mutual. It’s usually something like “Here’s something just
for you, dear” or something weird like that. NEVER CLICK LINKS FROM PEOPLE
YOU DON’T KNOW! And DO NOT interact with IMs asking you to video chat.
It is a good idea to block and report porn bots that follow you, however.
This is because the more pron bots you have following you, the bigger your
chances of getting MORE porn bots following you. And it hurts the people
who create bots which deters them from focusing on you.
So porn bot followers don’t hurt you directly or puts your account into
direct danger. Mostly it’s just annoying :/ and it IS harmful in a general
way? Like it harms tumblr as a social media hub because it annoys users and
drives them away, but it’s not directly harmful to your blog in a way that
should worry you.
It’s best to block and report the ones you manage to see and catch.
(Your picture was not posted)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
