There have been a number of comment spam attacks in various posts in a couple of /c’s that I follow by a user/individual who uses account names like Thulean*
For example: ThuleanSneed@lemmy.tf in !coffee@lemmy.world
and ThuleanPerspective2@eviltoast.org in !anime@ani.social
edit: Also ThuleanSneed@startrek.website in !startrek@startrek.website
The posts have been removed or deleted by the respective /c’s mods, and the offending accounts banned, but you can see the traces of them in those /c’s modlogs.
The comments consist of an all-caps string of words with profanities, and Simpsons memes.
An attack on a post may consist of several repeated or similar looking comments.
This looks like a bored teenager prank, but it may also be an organization testing Lemmy’s systemic and collective defenses and ability to respond against spam and bot posts.
This user is just the latest in a series of spammers since Lemmy has grown in popularity. It’s hard to tell if they have some vendetta against the platform or are just maladjusted and want to annoy people having a good time.
As someone who posts across Lemmy a lot, I am usually made aware of the spammers almost immediately, because my inbox will be full of the same spam comment replies all at once. I just report them up to the various instances when I see it.
Cynical tinfoil hat theory: there’s now a financial incentive to harm alternatives to a certain website that recently had their IPO. The timing does kind of fit, at least.