• Most likely. API access is actually the preferential way of handling things because the alternative (scraping) requires more server resources.

        If a company offers a free tier of their API (even if it’s insufficient) it is unlikely they’re friendly to scrapers.

        Recently Reddit opened up devvit as a way for redditors to build approved internal bots but it didn’t seem like they intended to staff a team to build replacements any time soon

    • Orvanis ( Orvanis@lemm.ee ) 
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      3 years ago

      I know that is a fun narrative, but I haven’t seen data to back that up unfortunately, it’s all been anecdotal evidence.

      The companies who heavily track these metrics so they can recommend to their customers what platform to advertise on all seem to indicate that there is still plenty of regular human engagement happening.

      The NSFW content seems to be the only part of the protest that has them recommending pausing ad spending.