Is Anyone Else Seeing This Too?

There's something that has been going down on Vocal which has confused me for a number of reasons. I think everyone else is seeing this same issue and yet, nobody can see why it's happening. One could call is shameless self-promotion, but in self-promotion the person doing the promoting knows they may get some traffic out of this. What we are seeing is self-promotion where you are left thinking 'you actually cannot be serious, right?' Let's break down the problem.

The problem is this: there are people on Vocal who are publishing unattributed AI writing and then commenting on top stories with badly worded messages stating that they would like people to read their stuff and subscribe to them.

There are three key parts of this discussion:

1) Do these people not realise that people on Vocal don't want to read unattributed AI writing?

2) Why do they comment on stories that are perhaps a month or so old which have tons of likes and comments? Do they realise that only the author will be informed of their comment?

3) What is the end-goal if they are aware of 1 and 2?

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Part 1: Do these people not realise that people on Vocal don't want to read unattributed AI writing?

These people must know about the unattributed AI writing scandal that hit Vocal in the past few months and if so, why are they trying to promote themselves? Do they realise that if people like us get wind of what they are doing then we will report them to Vocal?

I think they are aware and are shooting their shot anyway. Why? Well, because they can't seem to get the views that others are getting and are trying to game the system. They have run out of ideas. They aren't being promoted by Vocal, they aren't able to get views on their Facebook pages and some of them have even been banned from the VSS Facebook group (by me). They also believe that others are just as stupid as they are and that we won't realise that their work is unattributed AI.

I've written about this before. The fact that these people aren't writers but would like to be part of the writing community because it looks 'clever'. The truth is, most people can actually write something. It's just those who can be bothered to do it are more than often the ones who get reads, who get promoted, who form circles on Vocal. Wanting to deceive your way into these groups will get you found out really quickly.

So, to conclude this section - these people genuinely believe that others cannot tell that they are publishing using unattributed AI. The best way to tell - their comments are one of two things:

1) a badly worded 'subscribe to me' comment which asks you to support them as a new creator or something

2) an unattributed AI comment that proves that they haven't actually read your piece

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Part 2: Why do they comment on stories that are perhaps a month or so old which have tons of likes and comments? Do they realise that only the author will be informed of their comment?

Yes, they know. They aren't hoping for engagement from the other people who have commented. They are hoping for engagement from the author who has all those likes and comments because they want to get them by proxy. I'm still getting comments on a month or so old stories that got on the leaderboard or in the top story section and every single new comment asks me to read their work. It's got to the point where I simply ignore the comments if the story is more than a few weeks old unless it's made by someone I know.

From what I can see, these people go in to the top story section and often comment once or numerous times, some of them even reply with copy and pasted comments. For example: a top story from late-July that I saw had multiple 'subscribe to me' comments and then had some unattributed AI writer commenting on them with a copy and pasted comment. It was odd but there was no more engagement so perhaps letting them engage with each other is for the best.

All in all, these people know and they are hoping to get the attention of the author, hoping for a connection from a genuine writer who has some success on Vocal. It's deceptive in the stupidest way I've ever seen someone try to be deceptive.

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Part 3: What is the end-goal if they are aware of 1 and 2?

Well, as we have established, they are aware of what they are doing - so the question now is: why?

Running out of ideas for promotion would be one. But the main reason might be the same reason people do silly things in public: any attention is good attention for these people.

Some of them perhaps think that other people are as stupid as they are, but I guess that many of them want at least one click on their stories. To avoid doing that, look out for some clear markers of AI in their bios and profiles. Normally they either have the wording of ChatGPT creating a profound bio line for them that doesn't match the language they use in comments, or they have copied the bio of an actual Vocal writer. (This happened to me before I chased the guy off the platform).

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Conclusion: What Now?

So, if you're wondering what you should do, you should by no means try to fight these people because all they want is engagement. If you want to ignore them entirely, that is definitely a good option. But if you want to engage and report, do this:

- Reply to their comment with:

It has come to my attention that your account is publishing unattributed AI content and this is against Vocal's guidelines. I will be reporting you to Vocal with immediate effect.

- Email Vocal on [email protected] with:

"(unattributed AI account URL)" is publishing AI content without attributing it with an AI tag. I understand this is against Vocal's guidelines. Could you please take the appropriate action against this account?"

- Be patient

Vocal has a lot to deal with. I email them most days with something about unattributed AI and often, it can take a few days or sometimes even a week or so for them to do something. But that doesn't mean that nothing is being done.