Yes but if you reply to a clone bot, it’s not like the clone bot is going to reply to you back. The fact that replies are cloned doesn’t change the fact that noone is actually there and you’re just talking to a wall. I use social media to interact with people. If I wanted to see redit posts and not interact with people then I would just browse reddit without an account.
It has been done several times and the concensus has always been that people hate it. Check out lemmit. They do exactly that and because of it most instances have defederated from them.
Lemmy doesn’t have the userbase of reddit. If you start just cloning posts from reddit then pretty soon everyones all feed only consists of dead bot made posts. Cloning shit from reddit just turns lemmy into a ghost town.
If he had the right plumbing then a zip tie would have also worked.