"Report abuse" button not workin on spam and other abusive comments in Yahoo Finance Conversations
Dear Yahoo Staff, there have been an increasing amount of spam and other abusive comments throughout the Yahoo Finance conversation boards. I have repeatedly tried to use the "report abuse" dropdown option on the upper right-hand corner of the posts to no avail. These spammed and/or abusive posts are still around months later. Below are a few of the examples:
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GLD/community?guccounter=1
Please look at the post history of the user Bullrage1. It is full of multiple years of youtube link spamming among other abusive posts. Many of his comments look like they're outright written by a bot.
"The Spooks have been raging this year!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEvB_ZIWtAg"
"Albert Collins at Carnegie Hall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpoPXpet-Eg"
"The season is somewhere in the late stages. And, it is all water lily pads out there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyKYusP81rY"
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/JPM/community?p=JPM
See the post history of 'Bruce'. His entire history consists of dataunion.tistory.com links concatenated with bot like comments.
"Error is the discipline through which we advance. http://dataunion.tistory.com/7878"
"Immature love says: "I love you because I need you." http://dataunion.tistory.com/7346"
"It is happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust. http://dataunion.tistory.com/7851"
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/APRN/community
See the post history of 'nieroda'. Full of lion stocks spammed comments.
"I started following "Lion - Stock - Aletrs" (Gooogle it - off course without any space or dash in between the words) and their notifications are better than anyone else."
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/LITB/community
See the post history of 'Taylor'. His comment history is chalk full of spammed SeekingAlpha links with some bot like comments in between.
"Digital Health and Digital Therapeutics are the hottest new areas in healthcare and HLYK is leading the pack and about to rocket to new highs. Timing is perfect for 10 bagger!
https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/21922151-bioresearch-alert/5214171-neogenomics-success-story-happening-healthlynked-s-digital-health-ai-diagnostics"
"Digital Therapeutics is the hottest new area in healthcare and HLYK is leading the pack and about to rocket to new highs. Timing is perfect!
https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/21922151-bioresearch-alert/5214171-neogenomics-success-story-happening-healthlynked-s-digital-health-digital-therapeutics-ai"
"Been following COLL and this AI Healthcare company is just beginning to get a lot of attention and buying. HLYK is a repeat or even bigger than NeoGenomics (NEO) going from $.20 to $15.00. That was 75 times investment and it is happening AGAIN!
https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/21922151-bioresearch-alert/5209038-healthlynked-ceo-dr-michael-dent-repeating-neogenomic-meteoric-growth-easy-use-powerful"
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/LLY/community?p=LLY&guccounter=1
See the post history of 'Al'. It is also full of spammed SeekingAlpha links with some bot like comments in between.
"Lilly wins review of Teva migraine patents in U.S. https://seekingalpha.com/news/3434551?source=ansh $TEVA, $LLY"
"FDA tentatively OKs Teva's generic Farxiga; shares up 2% https://seekingalpha.com/news/3429697?source=ansh $TEVA, $AZN"
"Teva launches generic version of Elidel cream in U.S. https://seekingalpha.com/news/3419430?source=ansh $TEVA"
If you fix the "report abuse" function, it would go a long way in getting all this spam and other abusive content can be addressed. Some of these spammers / abusive posters have already dropped hundreds if not thousands of these abusive comments over the course of multiple years already. I would certainly volunteer some time to help Yahoo clean up the boards by flagging the abusive comments and I'd imagine some of the other community members would be willing to help out as well. Thank you Yahoo Staff for your time and effort in providing these valuable discussion boards.
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Derick Sullivan commented
I've tagged a spam bot going by Yahoo Finance Insights with a staggering 300,000 spam posts. See his post history of "Yahoo Finance Insights":
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Gary M commented
The Youtube link spam bot Bullrage1 that has been spamming for multiple years is back too. Look into his post history. It is full of multiple years of youtube link spamming with botlike comments in between:
"The Garden of Eden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpyuqKLh6QU ""Can we set aside one week for a full-on manipulation tarde catharsis festival?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXIBW30J1B8 ""My catatonic Goldbulls are locked-in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKOuf7ZKWeI ""This monkey says the Old Money tricked him into dragging the country into the Great War. And when he tried to create the League of Nations, the Old Money turned on him and burned him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGRHafQFZAs "There are many more spam posts from this bot.
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Jason Statham commented
I've reported spam posts many times. I still see the same spam posts. Nothing ever happens.
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Mark commented
Reporting abuse is not doing anything.
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Kyle Soto commented
Dear Yahoo Employees, I have attempted to report the below fresh generation of spam bots to no avail. Note that you can exploit a common behavior characteristic among this generation of spam bots to easily discover more spam bot accounts along with their linked ip addresses. I noticed all these spam bots immediately upvoted itself while downvoting some top posts in the respective boards. These downvotes and upvotes happen almost immediately after the bot makes the post and it seems to finish within a few minutes. If you can track which accounts have been supporting these spam bot posts with upvotes and downvotes, there is a much larger number of bot accounts and possibly ip addresses you can ban all at once. The post history of these spam bot accounts all contain highly questionable links:
"This is my BIG SECRET to hitting Triple & Quadruple-digit percent gainers!
https://hot-stocks.market/free-newsletter-signups-limited-time- ""Do the U.S. Stock Markets have more upside? Probably not. It's been roughly twelve (12) years since the last recession, and we're coming off record highs. I believe we are very close to the top being in. Either way it goes, I got a secret to making HUGE GAINS in a Bull or a Bear market. If you like Triple & even an occasional Quadruple-digit percent gainer, then you need to check this out: https://hotstocks.watch/triple-digit-percent-gainers "
"Chart Analysis & Market Research | www.BullishCharts.com "
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Jason Stewart commented
I tried reporting these very obvious spam bot accounts but nothing happens:
"Bartholomeus 7 minutes ago
Do the U.S. Stock Markets have more upside? Probably Not. I got a secret to making HUGE GAINS in a Bear market. We are heading into a recession if you didn't already know. Do you like Triple digit percent gainers? If so, you need to check this out: https://hotstocks.watch/triple-digit-percent-gainers"
"Geri 12 hours ago
Chart Analysis & Market Research | www.BullishCharts.com"
See their post history, it is full of bot like comments with sketchy links.
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Kreuger commented
Yes, I've never seen Yahoo remove any abusive posts outside of spam either.
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Jeffrey Nelson commented
I've only seen Yahoo remove the most obvious spam posts. Never for any abuses such as personal attacks, stalking, impersonations, smears and other toxic nonsense. Yahoo has done and continues to do a very poor job in this regard.
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John Greig commented
I have tried to use the "report abuse" option on a persistent abusive stalker for months but nothing happens. Muting also does nothing. This guy has at least 15 accounts. He will even change his ID and picture to match yours before following you around to smear you. Here is an example:
This is the original guy:
This is one of the most persistent aggressive stalkers on the Yahoo boards with at least 15 accounts. How do you deal with someone like this?
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Anthony Rochte commented
So I've tried reporting some clearly abusive messages that were clearly against Yahoo's Terms of Service. Two of these messages disappeared but returned a few hours later. I'm not sure how Yahoo's abuse processing system works but is someone actually reading these messages? Or did these two clearly abusive messages return automatically because no Yahoo staff was available to process them?
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Alex commented
Allowing users to just block other users from viewing their posts and threads would solve many issues and save everyone a lot of headaches. I recently saw a perfect example of an obsessive stalker who has been stalking and harassing other users for years. "Contrary is Smart" constantly claims people are shorts / clones and harasses them over it. Look at his post history. Here are just a few of his thousands of stalking and harassing posts:
"I am soooo disappointed, only 13 down thumbs so far! Get the bots working clones! Are we about to smash through the 52 week high and make Kram and clones sad and losing more? Stay tuned! LOL Just think, if they short even more this could move to $30 ! LOL"
"@Matt Hardly Matt. I would say you and fellow clones are the scam. Gold is real and will be here when you are gone. Simply reality."
"And poor Kram did not buy ZYME as recommended at less than half today's price.LOL"
"@kram I doubt you have any holdings, just a cubicle and .25 per post!"
"@neil I suggest, yes, read back my posts for years and then read Neil's! I post about what I like or do not like. Neil and clones, endless nonsense about others. Zero content on companies. Neil and clones are obsessed loser shorties. EOS"
"Huntr. Sorry you are that kid. can I offer you a job or take you for a ride on one of my horses? Will that help? LOL"
"The only one trying to fool anyone here is YOU KRAM. I just say exactly what I am actually doing and my consistent opinions, while you a very funny obsessed fool under MANY NAMES, tries to fool folks. I have no problem with anyone having any ****** preferences, my little jab at you was because you sound like you are a jilted lover of MINE, so I asked if you were gay! Get it? I doubt it, a bit too complicated for you I suppose! LOL By the way, latest analyst moved his target for Detour up to $20 from $16, after visiting the mine. Does he know more than you? Lets wait and see! Sorry if you are jealous and obsessed, but you will get over it once this is $20 plus."
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RuleOf72 commented
I read through a lot of comments here. Since the 2016 US election, I have seen an uptick in AI, Bot types posts on Yahoo Finance, as well as more emotion tugging, juvenile type posts. I agree with most of the comments here, but I will go one step further. I believe Yahoo Finance is being used as an AI testing ground for Russian, Chinese, and North Korean AI bots to improve their "humanistic" responses, to make them more believable. They are learning more and more how to sound more convincing, and how to get the most replies. Essentially, I think AI profiles on Yahoo Finance are refining the process here, and getting ready for 2020 and beyond. We humans tend to respond the most when someone insults our intelligence, our emotions, our finances, our choices, our politics, or our families. Please filter for bots, foreign agents, and pump and dump schemes. Oh yeah, your charts suck since Verizon took over. MAX timeline charts are NOT accurate. Please fix.
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John Greig commented
I'd say it is long overdue for this feature. Please implement it Yahoo.
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Matt Jaeger commented
I seriously don't understand why Yahoo does not already have this simple blocking feature in addition to allowing people to actually unmute someone if they muted someone by accident. These are some of the most basic features in a discussion forum.
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PK CFA commented
This would be useful.
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Tim Velazquez commented
Looks like you are right. For some reason, I always thought muting also prevented people from following you too but it seems this is not true.
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Joe Steiner commented
The mute feature is not sufficient. It would be incredibly helpful to get a new feature that allows you to completely block stalkers from viewing your threads and posts. This is absolutely necessary to prevent stalkers from sabotaging your threads.
Even after muting, these stalkers can still see your posts and follow you to the threads you are in. They disrupt discussions, force responses from other participants, drive off potential participants and eventually kill the discussion altogether. Muting the stalkers does nothing here as you can see after you log out of your account. I've witnessed this happen many times already and there is no doubt in my mind that it will continue to happen. It would be greatly appreciated if you could grant everyone this full blocking feature. There would be higher quality discussions within Yahoo Finance conversations with this feature in place.
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N Unyabidness commented
It will work only if it's evaluated by a human being. if it's automated or done by AI then it will be used by the bad people to get the good people thrown off the system.
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PK CFA commented
The mute option does not prevent stalkers from viewing and sabotaging your threads? Anyone know?
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Jim Rayford commented
Good idea, this will definitely help.