It's an instance that crossposts posts from Reddit, except it also makes a new user for each Reddit account it came from. So if /u/hello123 made a post, it makes that post under a new account called hello123. That makes it impossible to block posting bots.

Not only that, it makes posts look like they're posted by real people, with many question and text posts being copied as well. I was very confused as to what these posts were until I realized they're crossposts.

Examples:

https://alien.top/post/263029

https://lemm.ee/u/pocalyuko@alien.top

https://lemm.ee/u/ItzMeRocket@alien.top

https://lemm.ee/u/CaptainCapp-n@alien.top

I strongly believe Lemmy isn't the place for mirroring content from other websites. You can host your own alternate Reddit frontend like LibReddit, there's no reason to spam the posts to everyone using Lemmy just because 5 people asked for it. Not to mention there are already enough instances mirroring posts, this is getting obnoxious.

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[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 31 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (13 children)

Can you please add a note to your original comment please?

alien.top misreports its instance name and can confuse client blocks. In some cases you have to manually add "selfhosted.forum" for blocks to work correctly. I know this is an issue with Lemmy Connect specifically and I have left a note for the dev about this. If alien.top is misreporting its name like I suspect, it could cause issues for other clients.

I requested my home instance (lemmy.ca) defederate from alien.top, but my cries went unanswered.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (8 children)

I'm from lemmy.ca too, and while I'm conflicted about the project, I'd rather limit defederation unless it's about something very clearcut

After v0.19 drops, users can block instances which should fix the problem for everyone that might want it gone

[–] ZeroCool@feddit.ch 39 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I’d rather limit defederation unless it’s about something very clearcut

Alien.top is a spam instance. This is as "clearcut" a reason to defederate as it gets.

[–] OmanMkII@aussie.zone -1 points 11 months ago

While it likely is spam for the majority of users, I imagine the mods are looking at de-federating an instance that fulfills a specific need for a small number (keeping alien.top users updated on reddit). Because of that, it will likely have a bit of push back to de-federate entirely vs. a request to create the ability to block users/platforms. Think of it like newsletters, we need the ability to unsubscribe/block them, but we shouldn't necessarily ban them outright.

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