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I'm at the point where I suspect someone following me with a freshly created generic female profile, 0 posts, 120 follows, 2 followers and a 45 in the username as being a maga troll/bot trying to build some legitimacy. (I do know 45 as a dogwhistle for the 45th president of the US)
Need a #fedicheck here... Am I suspecting too much? Or should I just block and report any little dogwhistle? I mean, I'd rather avoid reporting fresh legitimate fedi users...
@anathem I don't report such users, but whoever follows me with an empty profile receives a block.
I want to be able to tell who follows.
@mxk It's not empty, it's just generic. Tradwife-generic, it feels.
The last one I blocked (and did not even get to reporting it, it was deleted while I was writing the report) had one "flirty" line in the profile (just mentioning they're single); I now suspect they're trying again after realizing that fedi moderators get very suspicious on any bait in the profiles.
@anathem I have to approve all my followers manually. So anyone that looks even slightly suspicious just gets their follow requests denied. If they are obvious bots/bad actors they get an instance wide block. If they are on a small instance (less than 10 users) I also defederate the instance, because either the admin is doing a really shitty job, or they are in on it.
I have no patience left for any of this crap.
@sebastian Yeah, I am basically asking "is the 45 dogwhistle suspiciously enough?"
@anathem Personally I'd say yes. Especially with the kind of profile you're describing.
Also following 120 sounds like this odd pattern some bot accounts have, where they follow multiples of 40 (probably some pagination in some API endpoint that lists accounts).
Another good check might be looking at the followed accounts. Are they fully random or do they have some common themes. Many bots just follow a bunch of random accounts with no connection at all. Humans are usually more selective.
@sebastian Except... there _are_ starter packs to follow by now. If ~120 follows is a common result for doing that, I'm back to square one on this aspect.
@anathem Starter packs... Newfangled stuff 
I guess it's not an exact science. I mostly decide based on gut feeling and I'm personally fine with some overblocking.
Conversely I wouldn't hold it against anyone if they blocked my instance because it looks fishy. I mean it's basically a single user instance (not really but it mostly appears like one) with a weird domain and no public rules.
@sebastian Thanks for that discussion! By now, I have reported that account, citing all points from my original post. Account is now suspended, so I gather that the mastodon.social admins do agree on my analysis.