AI Bots Invade Gaming DMs, Promoting OnlyFans Accounts

AI chatbots are nothing new. In fact, since Artificial Intelligence’s lightning fast expansion, they’ve become somewhat of an expected nuisance on the internet. And now, some of them are being used to promote OnlyFans pages through chat features on popular games. Regardless of whether the page being advertised is legit or not, gamers are growing more and more frustrated with this invasion of their online experience.

The whole scheme has been most widely reported on League of Legends, an online multi-player game where players fight each other on a magical battlefield. Players can chat with each other while playing against one another and after the match is over, which is when the bot usually first interacts with the human player. Notably, the bot’s username doesn’t match any of the players playing the game. Sometimes bots use stolen accounts, but often, they use a “throwaway account”, one that looks on the surface to be brand new to the game; that is, until you realize the bot has never played the game at all. 

Things start relatively inconspicuously, with the bot paying the player compliments like “you played rly well last game honestly” or “i liked your playstyle”. These are designed to avoid arousing suspicion through use of casual text lingo like “u” in place of “you” or “acc” in place of “account”. Once the player notices the username mismatch and raises the question about their identity, this initiates the next phase. The bot will either claim to have been on a different team, blaming technical difficulties, or they’ll blow right past the scrutiny and “admit” to being a woman looking for a partner. Nothing too flirty just yet, but certainly enough to pique one’s interest. They then send a Discord link for further communication.

Once on Discord, things rather quickly escalate. The bot sends some sexually suggestive (but not explicit) pictures, aimed at building trust - and lust - until the bot finally reveals the OnlyFans link. The bot pretends to be nervous, sending a playful photo and generally saying something like, “ok here goes, basically i have an onlyfans page and its really fun talking to you and i wanna send u some actual n*des”. 

That’s where it gets weird. After the bot sends the OnlyFans link, most people realize they’re not talking to a real person, and won’t respond. The bot sends another photo, the previously-playful expression replaced with one of worry. “Why are you not replying?” the bot asks. 

The tech-savvy amongst us are usually able to get the average chatbot to give up the game pretty quickly. Most AI bots are wired to respond to specific messages, worded a specific way, from their “system”. When the user types in a message following this format, the bot essentially “breaks character” and reveals its true identity. The tech community calls this a “jailbreaking technique”, and it’s become a common way to thwart bots. Interestingly, however, this particular League of Legends / Discord bot is immune to this strategy, meaning the bot’s owners have specifically added protection against this Jedi mind trick-esque scheme.

To be clear, there’s technically no scam here. The end goal of the bot’s communication with the player is to get the player to subscribe to an OnlyFans account, but whether or not they subscribe is still the player’s choice. No malicious links. The accounts being promoted - at least some of them - appear legit. But the gaming community has made it clear it’s the emotional manipulation and the sheer quantity of messages being sent by these bots that are the problem. League of Legends gamers are averaging a message a match from these bots, sometimes more. Riot, the platform’s messaging client, has no way to distinguish bot from reality. It’s theorized that whomever operates the bot is tracking League of Legends games through third-party platforms and targeting participants whose game has recently ended.

For now, League of Legends users who have been turning on “streamer mode” on the platform have managed to avoid or at least limit the amount of bots they’re harassed by. Basic internet safety principles can help, too. Don’t send anyone any money if you don’t know them, be suspicious if you’re asked to move the conversation to another platform and don’t click on anything from anyone you don’t know. Until Riot schemes up a way to stop these bots, it’s better to be safe than sorry.