Currently nothing but once activated they may start spamming stuff everywhere. Owners can decide what gets upvotes and what gets downvotes which gives you a lot of power on a platform where downvotes/upvotes mean everything.
Sure, but do you like ads that masquerade as posts? Because if you do then you'll love the delicious taste of Diet Coke, grab one today! (16900 upvotes)
Oh boy, I, for one, love the taste of Diet Coke, the perfect refreshing drink when you and your family watch my new movie, "Barbie", only in theaters July 21st.
IM IN YOUR AREA
IM IN YOUR AREA
I KNOW THE FIRST THREE NUMBERS, IM IN
I KNOW THE FIRST THREE NUMBERS, IM IN
TEACHIN BITCHES HOW TO SWIM
TEACHIN BITCHES HOW TO SWIM
It will change enough minds on enough issues that this can be both very profitable and very significant for those using this for some kind of benefit to themselves or their organization. This is not a small effect when doing this on a large social media site (which isn't Lemmy yet).
No doubt they are available for sale to some company or individual that wants to buy them wholesale and start spamming or astroturfing.
Who created them and why?
People wanting to sell them for $$ mostly. In some cases, people biding their time to use them for mass spam, social misdirection, opinion forming, etc.
I don’t understand the purpose of bots.
In social media, a common and concerning use of them is to use them wholesale (comments, posts, and votes) to try and sway mass opinion on some issue to something the person responsible for the bots wants.
If it's anything like Reddit's bots, they'll probably post copy-pasted comments to gain upvotes, then they'll start spamming advertisements and scams once they have a good amount.
I would not be surprised if that's what they'll try to do, especially with Facebook apparently trying to enter the fediverse. They'll probably try to destroy the instances that aren't part of a big corporation.
I'm hoping their project (and other companies' similar projects) never takes off.