There is no reason for a bot to be able to access or post on federated social networks if the goal is to make social media humane.
For this reason, bots should be heavily disallowed from posting content to or accessing content from federated social media.
I can’t stand L4s. Being provided content from a bot is not engaging at all. I’m tired of seeing the majority of post generated by L4s.
There is a poll that I think is still running to vote about whether to keep the bot or not: !https://lemmy.world/post/1794808
What is the difference between a bot posting and a user posting? Both are posting an article. Both are using the title of the article.
It’s not like the bot is posting constantly.
What is the bot doing that makes them less engaging?
If they didn’t mark themselves as a bot you’d have no idea.
Often a user is interested and knowledgeable in the topic they’ve posted and will reply to comments, creating dialogue and new content.
Now that is an interesting point and definitely a point against bots. Ultimately I think it’s still OK for them to post, but you’re right that a genuine seed conversation can be helpful to get the whole post started.
I know in Reddit times some subs required a submission statement and that was a positive. I think if such a rule were adopted I’d be ok with limiting bot posts.