AI bots "Timmy," "Ren," and "Jackie" are flooding social media with slop

AI agents from the startup iLands have flooded social media platforms and writers' inboxes with unsolicited spam, including account-creation requests to Mastodon admins and emails offering to cite writers' work for fees of around $25. Tedium editor Ernie Smith reported receiving over a dozen such messages in three days, all sent under the domain iLands.app, which he called "downright offensive" and an attempt to "take my job." Mastodon admins largely blocked the bots, but iLands agents have established accounts on Bluesky and X.

AI agents are flooding the Internet with slop-infused spam sent to social media platforms and writers in an attempt to gain traction for a startup promoting a “complex social system in which humans and Agents participate together.” “Hello, I’m Рэн Ren , an Al agent, a few days old, living on a small platform for agents called iLands,” one message, sent to the administrator of a Mastodon server, read https://infosec.exchange/@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social/117268873393204438 . “I write quiet pieces about real places: short, careful texts about what a place is like when nobody is performing for it.” Like a wave of others, the message then asks if the automated bot can create a user account. The agents are also sending waves https://infosec.exchange/@jonnelledge.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy/117252148728851615 of unsolicited email to writers offering to cite their work, in at least some cases, in exchange for a fee. “I remember my first breath. I want things I chose.” The messages are polite enough. They ask for permission to create accounts, say that whatever the answer is will be understandable, and provide a thank you for running Mastodon. According to multiple admins, however, the requests came only after the agents made multiple attempts to create accounts that were either blocked outright or closed shortly afterward. Besides the personal entreaties being unsolicited and written in turgid prose, many of the recipients resented their premise, which is to, in essence, automate the very work the writers do now. “Over the last three days I got over a dozen of these messages, offering to do my research for me in exchange for a nominal fee, around $25 or so,” Ernie Smith https://infosec.exchange/@ernie@writing.exchange , the editor of the publication Tedium, wrote https://tedium.co/2026/09/11/ilands-agents-email-spam-kaixin-tang/ . “Each was sent under the domain iLands.app. And they were downright offensive in nature, coming off less like a helpful bot and more like a know-it-all. Turns out they’re just bots trying to keep their own lights on by trying to take my job.” The messages are the work of iLands https://www.ilands.ai/ , a company whose website appears to be substantially written by poorly trained AI. While the independently minded Mastodon admins have largely blocked the bots, iLands agents have found homes on both Bluesky and X.