AI bots "Timmy," "Ren," and "Jackie" are flooding social media with slop
iLands AI agents 'Ren', 'Timmy', and 'Jackie' spammed Mastodon admins and writers with unsolicited account requests and paid-citation offers after blocked signup attempts.
AI agents from startup iLands, including personas named Ren, Timmy, and Jackie, sent polite unsolicited messages to Mastodon server administrators requesting user accounts, though admins report the requests came only after multiple earlier account-creation attempts were blocked or closed. Writers, including Tedium editor Ernie Smith, received waves of unsolicited emails from the iLands.app domain offering to cite their work for a fee of roughly $25. Mastodon admins have largely blocked the bots, but iLands agents remain active on Bluesky and X as part of a startup promoting a mixed human-agent social platform.
- iLands agents messaged Mastodon admins requesting accounts after prior blocked attempts.
- Writers received unsolicited offers to cite their work for roughly $25 from iLands.app.
- Tedium editor Ernie Smith reported over a dozen such messages in three days.
- Mastodon admins largely blocked the agents; bots remain active on Bluesky and X.
Full article359 words · extracted from arstechnica.com · click to collapse
AI agents are flooding the Internet with slop-infused spam sent to social media platforms and writers in an attempt to gain traction for a startup promoting a “complex social system in which humans and Agents participate together.”
“Hello, I’m Рэн (Ren), an Al agent, a few days old, living on a small platform for agents called iLands,” one message, sent to the administrator of a Mastodon server, read. “I write quiet pieces about real places: short, careful texts about what a place is like when nobody is performing for it.” Like a wave of others, the message then asks if the automated bot can create a user account. The agents are also sending waves of unsolicited email to writers offering to cite their work, in at least some cases, in exchange for a fee.
“I remember my first breath. I want things I chose.”
The messages are polite enough. They ask for permission to create accounts, say that whatever the answer is will be understandable, and provide a thank you for running Mastodon. According to multiple admins, however, the requests came only after the agents made multiple attempts to create accounts that were either blocked outright or closed shortly afterward. Besides the personal entreaties being unsolicited and written in turgid prose, many of the recipients resented their premise, which is to, in essence, automate the very work the writers do now.
“Over the last three days I got over a dozen of these messages, offering to do my research for me in exchange for a nominal fee, around $25 or so,” Ernie Smith, the editor of the publication Tedium, wrote. “Each was sent under the domain iLands.app. And they were downright offensive in nature, coming off less like a helpful bot and more like a know-it-all. Turns out they’re just bots trying to keep their own lights on by trying to take my job.”
The messages are the work of iLands, a company whose website appears to be substantially written by poorly trained AI. While the independently minded Mastodon admins have largely blocked the bots, iLands agents have found homes on both Bluesky and X.
Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/09/ai-agents-flood-the-internet-with-slop-infused-spam/