Commence the Botwatch
Bots were already a pain online when they were little more than if-then
scripts. Now a tidal wave of slop is swamping the internet as big tech
companies profit. OpenAI and the rest would love for you to believe they
care about "alignment" and "values" while their AI models damage our
communities, both online and off.
It's time to fight back.
Enter Botwatch
Under assault, we need to strengthen our connections with each other. Botwatch is a new way to share knowledge with your community. By publicly verifying real people and flagging bots when you see them, you can help build a valuable foundation for moderators and developers. Give a Bot Score of 100% to obvious bots and -100% to humans. If you aren't certain, give a score somewhere in the middle. Currently scores are for atproto identities (Bluesky accounts), but the ability to score accounts on other social media platforms is on the way.
Bad Guys Beware
We can't stop bots and villains from lying via bot scores. We can punish them for it. Publish a Trust Score of 100% for anyone whose scores you trust completely. Give them -100% if we shouldn't believe a thing they say. When you spot someone calling real humans bots or vice versa, tell the world that they can't be trusted. Consider alerting those that trust the culprit.
Alpha Roadmap
This is Botwatch's alpha release, meaning it's far from done. You can already publish trust and bot scores, explore what others have published, and view a simple average of the bot scores published for a user. More sophisticated bot score estimations are coming soon, as are visuals to help you discover misplaced trust when the estimation is wrong. Bluesky labels for estimated bot scores are in development and bot-resistant custom feeds are in the works as well. Down the line, a browser extension will integrate Botwatch into existing social media platforms.
It's time to take back the internet. Join the Botwatch now.
If you encounter any issues, reach out to @7hird.dev. Developers, you don't need permission to work with Botwatch. If you'd like to know more on what the estimations will look like, check out the proposal.
Let's build trust.