Since early December, someone has created 65+ accounts with variations of the same name, and they have used those accounts for vote manipulation.
We reached out to the admin of the instance 4 weeks ago, recommending that they enable registration applications, upgrade the captcha difficulty, and/or require an email address to prevent this. We have not received a reply.
When we checked the logs this week, we saw that a new chain of accounts was created. This is creating extra work for our admin team to find and ban these accounts.
Defederation will block the instance, their communities, and their users from everyone on lemmy.ca and piefed.ca. Similarly, it will block content from lemmy.ca and piefed.ca from going to their instance.
Currently, less than 10 users from lemmy.ca are subscribed to a community there, the majority of which are subscribed to 1 community max.
You can view their communities here: https://lemmy.org/communities
Please share your feedback about this action in this thread.
47 Comments
kunstbanause@lemmy.ca · 76 pts · 196d
Sounds reasonable, thank you for informing us. I support the proposed move.
Curious_Canid@piefed.ca · 46 pts · 196d
I very much appreciate you communicating about this.
I agree that defederating seems like the right solution.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca · 44 pts · 196d
No objections. It looks like a small instance. Can refederate if improved.
The admin seems related to some AI ad tech firm. Also I'm curious how they got lemmy.org. It was registered in 2020. I imagine it was registered speculatively.
squirrel@piefed.kobel.fyi · 28 pts · 196d
I found a mastodon account with the same tagline. Everything including the avatar, uploaded media and toots seem to be AI generated.
AzuranAurora@piefed.ca · 20 pts · 195d
Seems we won't be losing anything of value from defederating, then. That shit doesn't belong here.
RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com · 5 pts · 195d
The first entirely ai generated lemmy instance.
Today we see history being made, fellas.
JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca · 40 pts · 196d
breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca · 31 pts · 195d
Four weeks with no reply? Fire away, I say.
slothrop@lemmy.ca · 24 pts · 196d
Don't delay, defed today.
AzuranAurora@piefed.ca · 22 pts · 195d
Go for it. They're not bringing anything positive to our experience.
Shadow@lemmy.ca MOD · 20 pts · 195d
This is now done.
MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca · 19 pts · 196d
Absolutely, seems like they're making the fediverse worse.
Thanks for your work and letting us know/vote!
CanadianCorhen@lemmy.ca · 17 pts · 195d
Sounds like a great reason, and i doubt any of the 10 users will notice.
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca · 14 pts · 196d
Doesn't look like the negative impact would be very significant - thumbs up from me.
engene@lemmy.ca · 14 pts · 195d
Yes please! Part of the reason to move to this platform is the content and more importantly spam and bot manipulation.
Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 195d
This is the beauty of federated services. If someone is making more work for you, you have every right to defed.
veeesix@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 196d
Why not? A quick glance shows it’s basically one guy spamming links to…himself?
k_rol@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 196d
Seems like a good enough reason to defederate.
FreeBooteR69@lemmy.ca · 10 pts · 196d
If they are acting against the interests of the community de federate.
Luci@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 196d
This is why we can defederate. I’m for it
yeather@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 196d
👍
SethranKada@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 196d
I vote yes
WizardGed@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 196d
Go for it. if you're running a lemmy instance and cant manage simple comms between other instance admins you really can't complain if they defederate from you. It doesn't seem very busy either with most of the posts being mirrors of other instances.
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 195d
Do it.
MasterOKhan@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 196d
This is the way, defed until they update their settings.
RollingZeppelin@piefed.ca · 6 pts · 195d
Sounds good to me! The fewer bots, the better.
Aarrodri@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 196d
Imagine a gif of ben Stiller saying "do it ".
P.s. how can I add gif responses?
otter@lemmy.ca · 16 pts · 196d
You can find a link to a gif, and then add it with the image formatting
For example:
Or
Which becomes
MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca · 6 pts · 196d
Amazing, I've wondered about that!
MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 196d
Okay, thank you for doing this!
recentSlinky@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 196d
Yes, i agree too. Defederate!
julian@activitypub.space · 4 pts · 196d
The unfortunate thing is that this has a negative effect on the Lemmy brand, even if not affiliated.
This gets into copyright enforcement territory, though, which I don't know if Lemmy is interested in doing.
4am@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 196d
It’s a trademark thing, not a copyright thing (those work differently) but you are correct that it will be brand-damaging.
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 195d
The customer is always right, used to be a thing.
juspie@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 194d
I support the proposal to defederate.
Thank you admins for your efforts, and also for soliciting this feedback before taking the proposed action!
ech@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 195d
It looks like ttrpg.network is also being used. Will that instance be blocked as well?
otter@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 195d
If we do, we will reach out to them first with any concerns and then make another post here prior to blocking them.
Based on the time stamps, it does look like the same person made 17 accounts on
ttrpg.networkon December 8th before going back to making them onlemmy.org. Running a more robust query, in total I'm seeing 88 of those accounts onlemmy.organd the 17 accounts onttrpg.network, all of which are banned on here.Right now I'm thinking that we will keep an eye out for more accounts, and then reach out to admins if it becomes a problem on another instance
ech@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 195d
That sounds fair.
nevyn@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 15d
otter@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 15d
Are you seeing the errors on our sign up page too? Our captcha difficulty is set pretty low
nevyn@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 15d
Bonus@lemmy.ca · -1 pts · 195d
It's CM002, isn't it?
otter@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 195d
I haven't looked into CM002, but this is a different situation.
For this one, all of the accounts were made on that instance and follow a format of
phrase01,phrase02, etcpixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 195d
No, he does accounts on different instances, these are all on the same one
Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca · -1 pts · 195d
I am on more than one lemmy.world group. To say that your community won't feel an impact is disingenuous.
Shadow@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 195d
Lemmy.org not lemmy.world
Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 195d
My bad, I misread
k0e3@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 195d
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding something, but aren't lemmy.org and lemmy.world two different things?
Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 195d
My bad. I misread