cross-posted from: https://hackertalks.com/post/8713785

The instances being used are

  • lemmy.doesnotexist.club
  • chinese.lol

Here is an example of the coordinated downvoting https://hackertalks.com/post/8692093

Of course its a controversial user who got someone angry enough to automated downvoting @[email protected]

But you can see every post they make gets 53ish downvotes from these two instances, plus some organic ones after a few hours.

Current downvoting Accounts

bot-list

[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

A individual user airing their personal biases and manipulating lemmy isn’t good for the community, regardless of how you feel about their target. This is a really bad thing ™

  • jonne@infosec.pub
    26·
    6 days ago

    That user is pretty annoying tho, I’m pretty sure I’ve downvoted them organically a ton of times. Setting up your own instance to do it automatically is next level petty and definitely should be blocked.

    • vaguerant@fedia.io
      16·
      6 days ago

      chinese.lol does seem to be a real instance from a quick glance, albeit one which is clearly being weaponized thanks to lax moderation.

      lemmy.doesnotexist.club is weird, there are literally zero posts or comments in the Local tab, so it may specifically exist for this purpose.

      • TJA!
        4·
        6 days ago

        I think lemmy.doesnotexist.club was once used to send me the fediverse chick spam

        • vaguerant@fedia.io
          4·
          6 days ago

          Oh wow, I just checked my old messages and none of the actual nicole accounts come from that instance, but one of the images was hosted there. Definitely sketchy.

          • TJA!
            4·
            5 days ago

            Oh, yes, maybe that is why I remembered this domain in connection with those messages

  • atro_city@fedia.io
    141·
    6 days ago

    This is why I love the fediverse. Each instance can decide what to do with this information and when. We don’t need to wait for one single admin on their throne to make a decision for the entire site network. Reddit, insta, and others would have to ask their advertisers first if this is OK or not. Admins here can go “right, fuck off” and either band the bots or tell the instance admins to do something or be defederated.

    It wouldn’t surprise me if bot writers like this forced parts of the fediverse into a “who knows who” network where certain instances only allow federation if you’re introduced by another trusted instance admin. And probably they’ll add federated block-lists so when a user is blocked on one instance and tries to create multiple accounts with the same email on different servers, they are automatically blocked on those too.

    The cat and mouse games are starting and it will force the fediverse to adapt. As much as I dislike these bot users, they are like bacteria, viruses, or vermin, and the body has to adapt to the intruders. It’ll make it strong. Now it’s downvoting bots, in the future, it could be Russian disinformation bots. I’m confident the fediverse will respond better than big tech.

    • irelephant [he/him]🍭@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      15·
      6 days ago

      So, you don’t have a karma total, like reddit. Your individual posts/comments still can be downvoted, which limits their visibility.

    • BakedCatboy@lemmy.mlEnglish
      10·
      6 days ago

      Karma doesn’t matter, votes do since it allows boosting or limiting post reach, so vote manipulation for the purposes of stuff like astroturfing is still a concern unless we want to kill every sorting option besides New.