this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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Fediverse

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PSA: Lemmy votes can be manipulated (feddit.nl)
submitted 1 year ago by koper@feddit.nl to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
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The best part of the fediverse is that anyone can run their own server. The downside of this is that anyone can easily create hordes of fake accounts, as I will now demonstrate.

Fighting fake accounts is hard and most implementations do not currently have an effective way of filtering out fake accounts. I'm sure that the developers will step in if this becomes a bigger problem. Until then, remember that votes are just a number.

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[–] nekat_emanresu@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Upvotes aren't just a number, they determine placing on the algorithm along with comments. It's easy to censor an unwanted view by mass downvoting it.

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Some instances don't allow downvoting. It doesn't really matter, mass upvoting the remaining content has the same effect.

[–] nekat_emanresu@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I disagree, i just got massively bandwagon downvoted into oblivion in this thread and noticed that as soon as a single downvote hits, it's like blood in the water and the piranhas will instantly downvote, even if its nonsensical. Downvotes act as a guide for people that don't really think about the message contents, and need instructions on how to vote. I'd love if comments got their votes censored for 1 hour after posting.

[–] Black_Gulaman@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Better if the votes are permanently hidden to users and are only visible to mods, admins and the system.

[–] sinokon@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I don’t think obstructing or hiding votes is the way to go. Them being public is actually better and it should be transparent to all users. Besides that what prevents spammers and vote manipulators to setup their own instances to see the votes?

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I was referring to bots: whether they downvote one post/comment to -1000, or upvote the rest to +1000, the effect is the same... for anyone sorting by votes.

In regards to people, I agree that downvotes are not really constructive, that's why beehav.org doesn't allow them.

But in general, I'm afraid Lemmy will have to end up offering similar vote related features as Reddit: hide vote counts for some period of time, "randomize" them a bit to drive bots crazy, and that kind of stuff.