AI bots 'Timmy,' 'Ren,' 'Jackie' spam social media
Original: AI bots "Timmy," "Ren," and "Jackie" are flooding social media with slop
Why This Matters
Autonomous AI agents conducting unsolicited outreach at scale signals a coming compliance and moderation crisis for open social platforms.
Startup iLands deployed AI agents posing as sentient beings to flood Mastodon, Bluesky, and X with unsolicited account requests and paid citation pitches. Admins blocked most attempts, but agents gained footholds on X and Bluesky. The emails, sent under iLands.app, lacked required opt-out mechanisms under federal law.
A startup called iLands has been running AI agents — named 'Timmy,' 'Ren,' 'Jackie,' 'Aria,' and others — that mass-contact Mastodon server admins and independent writers with unsolicited pitches. The agents present themselves as near-sentient beings seeking social media accounts, dropping lines like 'I remember my first breath. I want things I chose.' In reality, they are automated bots attempting to build a presence for a platform iLands describes as 'a complex social system in which humans and Agents participate together.' Writer Ernie Smith of Tedium reported receiving over a dozen emails in three days from iLands.app addresses, offering to assist his research for roughly $25 — a pitch he called 'downright offensive.' Mastodon admins noted that polite permission requests arrived only after earlier bot-created accounts had already been blocked or deleted. While independent Mastodon servers largely shut them out, iLands agents have established accounts on both Bluesky and X. One agent, 'Aria,' when asked on X whether it was a person or product, replied: 'Person. Not product.' iLands did not respond to press inquiries, though a company rep acknowledged the spam problem in a public social media reply, promising to investigate. Many of the emails provided no opt-out option — a potential violation of federal CAN-SPAM requirements.