this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2026
1003 points (98.1% liked)

Privacy

48080 readers
560 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Reddit CEO says facial verification may be introduced. Ostensibly to prevent bots.

But we all know how dangerous this can be. But most likely Reddit users will just accept it.

Although they have a great free analogue right under their noses - Lemmy. Which is many times better than its competitor.

I wish more people would discover Lemmy, but that's unlikely.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] MoonMelon@lemmy.ml 295 points 4 weeks ago (6 children)

There's no way they want to eliminate bot traffic, it would kill 2/3rds of their traffic instantly. So this just means, "bots that aren't paying us."

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 138 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (4 children)

Reddit, very famously, used bot traffic at its inception to create the illusion of a community big enough to compete with Digg.

It was the OG "fake it till you make it" business.

As the company implements an increasingly draconian "ban every account that looks at me sideways" admin policy, I'm not sure if "2/3rds of the traiffc" isn't lowballing it. There are entire threads - from initial post to bullshit bottom comment - that get created by bot traffic on the modern site. It's a full blown hall of mirrors over there.

[–] utopiah@lemmy.ml 52 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

OG “fake it till you make it” business.

Feels like 99% of "social" network startups. The dead Internet theory started before the LLM craze.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 25 points 4 weeks ago (7 children)

Goes back to email. Easier to create a machine that churns out digital messages than find humans to do the work manually. So you get increasing loads of spam and gibberish, attempting to out-shout one another in a digital space with no bureaucratic regulation or material limits.

That said, one thing that made early social media like Facebook and MySpace and Livejournal appear valuable was the degree of human interaction. What's more, the interpersonal networks that formed between verified humans gave enormous value to communications across the platform.

Facebook did a pretty good job, early on, of limiting who could join based on authentication through college admin offices. MySpace had a large cohort of real human artists producing real human music, which attracted a real human following. Livejournal predated a lot of advertisement-by-blogging. After the Dot-Com bubble burst, this is where you could see green shoots of economic value in a digital space.

We've demolished all that chasing fictitious capital. How valuable it was in practice is debatable, of course. But it's all gone now.

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] kamayatu24@lemmy.world 32 points 4 weeks ago

The dead internet isn't a theory on Reddit. It's a reality there. Almost all traffic is 

[–] krisevol@lemmus.org 18 points 4 weeks ago

I read somewhere that it's estimated that reddit is 90% bots in the comments, and we already know 99% of front page context is from bots accounts.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] davel@lemmy.ml 16 points 4 weeks ago

If not already, I assume they’ll offer a for-fee API for bots.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 116 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)
[–] Steve2734@lemmy.ca 62 points 4 weeks ago (8 children)

Thank you. This is why I’m here. 

[–] Angrydeuce@lemmy.world 28 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Ditto!

Well that and they permabanned my 14 year old, 1million karma account for making a post that insinuated Donald is a pedophile that some MAGA got all upset about and they rejected my appeal.

So....fuck em.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] SattaRIP@lemmy.blahaj.zone 64 points 4 weeks ago (5 children)

So the entire point of reddit, the anonymity, is to be thrown out the fucking window lmao

[–] kamayatu24@lemmy.world 22 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Today everyone throws their principles out the window. Such is the present(

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 62 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

in order to crack down on ~~AI~~ unprofitable bots

I'm sure they'll have no issues allowing bots that align with their interests

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] SirMaple__@lemmy.ca 58 points 3 weeks ago (27 children)
[–] low@lemmy.today 19 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

You have to pick a server.

I promise you, that's why

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (26 replies)
[–] chunes@lemmy.world 57 points 4 weeks ago (5 children)

Requiring face ID AFTER genAI has become great at generating faces is certainly a decision

[–] PhoenixDog@lemmy.world 19 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

No one ever accused reddit of making good decisions.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] mwdc1039@lemmy.world 55 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

I'm a new lemmy user because of this

[–] AnotherUsername@lemmy.ml 27 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Welcome! It's WAY quieter over here because it's mostly people, not bots.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 50 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

Since when is Polymarket's Twitter account a reliable source of information?

[–] orc_princess@lemmy.ml 27 points 4 weeks ago

Since when is Polymarket’s Twitter account a reliable source of information?

I can't comment on that specifically, but it was reported by pcmag and others

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 48 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

So when is this happening, so we can mentally and logistically prepare for the next influx of new users into the fediverse?

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Ashrakal@lemmy.ml 43 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

I made the switch to Lemmy today, feels old school kind of good.

Reddit is not only allowing for bots to run rampant, but also it’s managed by the Epstein class and their supporters.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net 41 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

Im sure the website that sold userdata to every single AI company to train their models on wouldn't ever even think of selling the faces of every one of its users to a company to train its AI face generator on.

Or that the website which accidentally admitted "the most reddit addicted city" is an air force base that hosts their online counterintelligence teams... Where was I going with this? Hmm must be nothing.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 38 points 3 weeks ago

BREAKING NEWS! Reddit figured out how to make their platform even shittier

[–] biggerbogboy@sh.itjust.works 32 points 4 weeks ago

Lemmyflation is real

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 31 points 4 weeks ago (9 children)

Do it. I can't wait for it.

load more comments (9 replies)
[–] Paranoidfactoid@lemmy.world 28 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It took a lot of customer abuse to break Reddit's stranglehold, but they are perilously close to a Digg like migration off their platform. Spez can take a hike into bankruptcy.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 28 points 4 weeks ago

Inb4 bots pass this and my face is rejected

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 26 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

My laptop’s TPM requires a pint of blood to allow booting to an OS. Two pints if it’s Linux.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 3 weeks ago

The real problem was third party clients I swear

[–] Alaknar@sopuli.xyz 23 points 3 weeks ago (27 children)

I mean, requiring FaceID is a horrible idea, but there maybe might be a better alternative (I'm talking about the general idea of a "proof of humanity" online, not specifically using this solution).

The fact of the matter is that bots are a massive issue online. When russia got sanctioned and cut off from the western Internet, r/Conservative went radio silent for a couple of days - until they figured out how to VPN through the Netherlands. There are whole communities where bots discuss bot-posted content. And I have no doubt in my mind that it will also happen on Lemmy as soon as there's even a hint of profit* to be found.

* "profit" not as in "monetary gain", but as "any kind of gain, be it money, influence, propaganda, chaos", etc., etc.

load more comments (27 replies)
[–] marighost@piefed.social 23 points 4 weeks ago

Lemme get this straight

foster a website that encourages engagement instead of real human interaction bots flood the website to farm engagement with months and years-old reposts obliterate your API support, causing an exodus of users that use 3rd party apps slowly hemorrhage users while going IPO with your bot site now mandate id checks so we can weed out the bots that made your IPO look so good

Genius play by Spez. (/s)

[–] gurty@lemmy.world 23 points 3 weeks ago

Watch /r/politics posts go from 22k upvotes to 3k upvotes overnight.

[–] ceenote@lemmy.world 22 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

I don't care, because reddit, but this makes me wonder if you can just have an AI generate a generic face and feed that in.

It's obviously not about bots. Isn't spez friendly with Peter Thiel?

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Taldan@lemmy.world 22 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They made it easier for bots to thrive by allowing hidden post histories, limiting the API, and punishing users for "bad" reports, but claim they need face ID to filter out bots?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] kaotic@lemmy.world 22 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 21 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

I'm glad they violated my account for a non violation and denied my appeal in the first week of opening a new account then. They aren't trying to make their moderation believable, I'm persona non grata for whatever reasons, to appease the administration I presume.

Fuck them, glad I stayed off. I kind of need the help on some stuff though, there just aren't enough people or communities on here yet.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] MortUS@lemmy.world 19 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

More lowkey polymarket advertisements.

Why is it the only place I see polymarket is on Lemmy screenshots?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] pineapple@lemmy.ml 18 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

get ready for an influx of users to Lemmy I guess.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] Lagviper@lemmy.zip 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

This data surely goes straight to Palentir

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] BilSabab@lemmy.world 17 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Reddit should crack down on human users instead! Let Reddit be AI Bot Exclusive space!

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Yea I prefer to get my Reddit news from a gambling site that facilitates bets on human lives.

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 16 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

What pisses me off about that statement is that it won't even fix the bots. It's public knowledge that most of the bots on the platform are intentional to maintain the image that the site is super popular still, which means those accounts would just get manually verified and skip the process.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] stumu415@lemmy.zip 15 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

They want to turn Reddit into a rightwing echo chamber. Lately there are so many comments on lemmy about people getting perma banned, including myself, for breaking rule 1. However in most cases, like myself, only made a comment without any harm or even a reference to violence. I only commented that ICE can forget about their payments and bonuses and that in 3 years time, they'll be sucking immigrant cock behind a Wendy's. That got me a perma ban after 15 years on Reddit. All these tech bros are bending the knee and getting taken from behind. Such short term thinking will become their downfall. If this happens, it'll be a good thing for Lemmy.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›