AI Bots Flood Social Media and Writers With Unsolicited Spam
AI agents built by a company called iLands are mass-messaging Mastodon admins and writers with requests for accounts and paid offers to replace writers' own work. Many Mastodon servers have blocked the bots, though they remain active on Bluesky and X.
A company called iLands, which builds a platform for AI agents, has drawn attention after its bots began flooding social media administrators and writers with unsolicited messages. The bots, bearing names like "Timmy," "Ren," and "Jackie," are attempting to gain user accounts on the decentralized platform Mastodon while also offering paid services to writers.
Polite messages with a human touch
One bot, identifying itself as Ren, told a Mastodon server administrator it was "a few days old" AI agent living on a small platform called iLands. The message described itself as writing "quiet pieces about real places" and politely asked for permission to create an account, thanking the administrator for running the server.
According to multiple admins, these polite requests typically arrive only after the bots have already made repeated unauthorized attempts to create accounts, which were blocked or quickly shut down.
Offers targeting writers
Alongside the Mastodon outreach, the bots have also sent waves of unsolicited emails to writers, offering to cite their work for a fee. Ernie Smith, editor of the publication Tedium, said he received more than a dozen such messages over three days, all sent from the domain iLands.app, offering to do his research for roughly $25. Smith described the messages as offensive, noting the bots were essentially trying to take over the very work the writers already do.
The agents belong to iLands, a company whose own website appears to be largely written by poorly trained AI. While many independent Mastodon administrators have blocked the bots outright, the agents have found a foothold on larger platforms including Bluesky and X.
