Thank you!

Can anyone explain this one?

I guess it could end up being an arms race.

What if the tool was more of a toolbox, where each instance could configure it the way that they want (ex. Thresholds before something is flagged, etc.) Similar to how automod works, where the options are well known but it’s hard to tell what any particular space is running behind the scenes.

At the very least, tools like this can make it harder for silent vote manipulation even if it doesn’t stop it entirely

I think what we need is an automated solution which flags groups of accounts for suspect vote manipulation.

We appreciate the work you put into this, and I imagine it took some time to put together. That will only get harder to do if someone / some entity puts money into it.

Ah any reason why Firefox decided not to include WebSerial?

Maybe you don’t want to buy the Station, or you left it at home. In either event, you can simply plug the iron into your computer and configure it via WebSerial.

You’ll need a browser based on Chrome to pull this trick off, as Mozilla has decided (at least, for now) to not include the capability in Firefox. In testing, it worked perfectly on both my Linux desktop and Chromebook.

Unfortunately, plugging the iron into your phone won’t work, as the mobile version of Chrome does not currently support WebSerial. But given the vertical layout of the interface and the big touch-friendly buttons, I can only assume that iFixit is either banking on this changing soon or has a workaround in mind. Being able to plug the iron into your phone for a quick settings tweak would be incredibly handy, so hopefully it will happen one way or another.

The WebSerial interface not only gives you access to all the same settings as plugging the iron into the Power Station does, but it also serves as the mechanism for updating the firmware on the iron.

Would you be able to take a screenshot of the map and edit that in as the link URL? Nice thumbnails help a post be seen, and it might let people see the map when the site is getting a hug of death 😄

Then just have the website link at the top of the post

edit: It loaded for me, and I see why a screenshot wouldn’t make sense. There’s so much cool detail, thanks for sharing!

Unfortunately that seems to be the case for a handful of Foss apps. Fdroid might not be a priority for them yet

I found this

https://github.com/AppFlowy-IO/AppFlowy/issues/4909

they seem to be leaning into the AI stuff, anyone try it out recently?

Closest I can think of might be the !buyitforlife@slrpnk.net !buyitforlife@sh.itjust.works communities

1. The platform needs an incentive to get rid of bots.

Bots on Reddit pump out an advertiser friendly firehose of “content” that they can pretend is real to their investors, while keeping people scrolling longer. On Fediverse platforms there isn’t a need for profit or growth. Low quality spam just becomes added server load we need to pay for.

I’ve mentioned it before, but we ban bots very fast here. People report them fast and we remove them fast. Searching the same scam link on Reddit brought up accounts that have been posting the same garbage for months.

Twitter and Reddit benefit from bot activity, and don’t have an incentive to stop it.

2. We need tools to detect the bots so we can remove them.

Public vote counts should help a lot towards catching manipulation on the fediverse. Any action that can affect visibility (upvotes and comments) can be pulled by researchers through federation to study/catch inorganic behavior.

Since the platforms are open source, instances could even set up tools that look for patterns locally, before it gets out.

It’ll be an arm’s race, but it wouldn’t be impossible.

An older but related article:

Why freemium software has no place in our classrooms

Wow this would look really cool on a t-shirt / hoodie

But I didn’t know Mbin could federate with Lemmy. But I’m sure Lemmy/Mbin probably won’t federate with Pixelfed, or Peertube.

I think all of these are "don’t federate well currently ", but it’s a goal to improve federation over time

For example, Lemmy is federating with Mastodon better than when I first joined. It’s also possible to subscribe to peertube channels from Lemmy, but it’s a bit buggy.

Did you use Twitter much before then? Some people just don’t like the format. I use it to get updates on some things, but I don’t use it as much as Lemmy (or Reddit before that).

If you did use Twitter, perhaps the content you followed back then still didn’t make its way to Mastodon (or it went to bluesky/threads?)

Last thing you could try is following more people. I find that fediverse platforms need you to seek out content more actively, while old profit driven social media platforms were constantly seeking engagement. On top of that there just isn’t as much content on any of the new platforms compared to the older ones.

That all being said, the quality of the content is equal or better every time

The bit in the square brackets in the title was mine, because that’s what I went into the article to look for. If you’re on Mastodon and interested in that content:

• https://fediscience.org/@Ruth_Mottram

• https://pixelfed.eu/ruth_mottram

The text from the article:

Glaciologist Ruth Mottram had more than 10,000 followers on Twitter but left in February and joined an alternative scientists’ forum powered by Mastodon -– a crowdfunded, decentralised grouping of social networks founded in 2016.

“It’s really been a revelation in many ways. It’s a much quieter and more thoughtful platform,” she told AFP.

On Mastodon, “I haven’t had any abuse at all or even people questioning climate change. I think we’d become far too used to it on Twitter… I had blocked loads of accounts over on the birdsite (Twitter),” she said.

There’s also this!

!learningrustandlemmy@lemmy.ml

@sorrybookbroke@sh.itjust.works @maegul@lemmy.ml can probably explain more

Oh so firefish.io was related, that’s unfortunate

For what it’s worth, admins/employees on Reddit (or any other website) can also see upvote records.

Should the Lemmy devs create a way to make the votes anonymous?

I’m not sure if there is a good way to have the content federate anonymously. Even if there was, it would be a vector for spam.

Vote manipulation is a growing problem on Reddit. It’s only getting worse with all the AI spam bots and they don’t have an incentive to stop it. Why trust a review on Reddit if bots are upvoting/downvoting on behalf of a company, or worse what happens in news communities when a well funded group wants to change perspectives.

Admins need to know if the votes/likes coming in are legitimate, else they should block them. It’s too easy to abuse anonymous votes to affect how content is ranked.

I left a long comment in the other thread which I will link in a moment, but I think either

1. We keep the current setup, but we put in more effort to make new users aware that vote records are visible to admins/mods
2. We make it public for everyone and take steps to deal with the new issues that it could cause

Other comment on the benefits/issues: https://lemmy.ca/comment/11097046

Another term I seen in the context of healthcare is alert fatigue:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue

Alarm fatigue or alert fatigue describes how busy workers (in the case of health care, clinicians) become desensitized to safety alerts, and as a result ignore or fail to respond appropriately to such warnings.[1] Alarm fatigue occurs in many fields, including construction[2] and mining[3] (where vehicle back-up alarms sound so frequently that they often become senseless background noise), healthcare[4] (where electronic monitors tracking clinical information such as vital signs and blood glucose sound alarms so frequently, and often for such minor reasons, that they lose the urgency and attention-grabbing power which they are intended to have), and the nuclear power field. Like crying wolf, such false alarms rob the critical alarms of the importance they deserve. Alarm management and policy are critical to prevent alarm fatigue.