I'm really not a big fan of X these days, but they moved quickly on that after Nikita Beer jumped on the topic in the past days:

https://devcommunity.x.com/t/update-to-reply-behavior-in-x-a...

> Moving forward, replies via the API will only be permitted if the replier has been explicitly summoned by the original post’s author. This means: The original author @mentions the replying user/account in their post, or The original author quotes a post from the replying user/account.

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fooker 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Great, except most bots don't use the API directly. They look like normal users to the server for the most part.

Google has spent billions trying to distinguish bots from users. And has been largely unsuccessful n

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croes 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Pretty useless because agents can reply per UI

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theshrike79 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The professional troll factories (that tend to get quiet when Russian office hours are done...) have used browser automation for years already - and they pay the $ whatever for the blue checkmark to get to the top of people's replies.

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owebmaster 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> that tend to get quiet when Russian office hours are done.

So you are saying the bots go to sleep? Not a very smart allegation.

	▲	vidarh 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		"Bots" have for a very long time now to a lot of people meant people who are following instructions/being paid to post/reply rather than only scripts.
	▲	theshrike79 39 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		"Bots" being actual humans in literal office buildings feeding and flaring up misinformation and dissent online. They've upgraded to AI's recently though, usually the first response is a canned AI thing but if you keep arguing you'll get an actual human.