Hey folks! Just realized something that makes Lemmy different from Reddit. Because of the federation, your votes are not technically anonymous on Lemmy. At least, I think.

Although there’s no UI to look at a user’s voting history yet, one could conceivably be built by an instance. Perhaps coincidentally, I hear there’s instances out there populated by mostly bots?

  • atocci@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    They’re definitely not anonymous, and Kbin actually does have the UI to show who is upvoting and downvoting any post if you view it on there.

    • BasicWhiteGirl@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I love it. I’ve already used that feature to block someone who was stalking my posts and downvoting them. Then I got curious and checked out a bunch of posts on the front page that had downvotes but didnt really warrant them. I found there were about 5 accounts who were heavy downvoters for apparently no reason. They also got blocked.

      • atocci@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I agree, I think it’s useful! I also blocked a person yesterday who was downvote stalking me, they clearly didn’t want to see the things I was posting anyway.

        • abff08f4813c@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Can someone show me how to find this? I can’t figure it out.

          Also curious if it’s possible to see who is subscribed to a magazine or who is following me.

  • AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Because in order to federate, user data needs to be shared, including the username. It prevents double votes from the same account and also allows votes to be rescinded at the user’s discretion, at which point the instance will send effectively an undo signal for the activity.

    The first rule of the Fediverse is to make sure you’re perfectly okay with the entire internet seeing your account activity, including votes and favourites. If you’re unsure or are worried you might regret it, best not to post it at all. This is equally true on all social media but the way the Fediverse works just makes it more obvious.

  • corytheboyd@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I didn’t know, that’s awesome! Downvote shouldn’t be the “fuck you I disagree” button, save that garbage for Twitter and Reddit. Downvote is there for democratically killing malevolent bullshit. Expose the names!

    • John937@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      It’s sometimes hard to separate those feelings

      Maybe a 3 button setup

      • Agreed and acceptable content
      • Disagree and acceptable content
      • Bad content

      Default Rankings are based on minimum bad-content/maximum agreed count
      And controversial ranking is based on minimum bad-content/maximum good-content count (agree+disagree)

      This way even comments that people disagree with can be exposed so long as it’s still good content

      Brigadiers who blindly vote everything bad content to maliciously influence rankings can be identified and removed for manipulation, while people who vehemently disgree with an idea can still have that outlet without influencing the community/magazine haphazardly

      • socsa@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Yeah I never understood to pearl clutching about downvotes. It just reeks of “everyone who drives faster than me is a lunatic, everyone who drives slower than me is a granny” mentality.

  • UrbenLegend@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    From a technical standpoint, it’s not different from Reddit. The only difference here is that normal people can host their own instances, whereas Reddit is only hosted by the company and they can keep it under wraps.

    • o_o@programming.devOP
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      1 year ago

      Agreed from a technical standpoint.

      But the implications are still interesting. One might (big might) trust Reddit as an organization not to use this data for evil, but with federation, there’s nothing stopping an instance from simply releasing all users’ voting history to be public.

      Of course, my instance didn’t even ask for an email to sign up, so my entire account is anonymous that way.

      I wonder if there are technical ways to federate votes anonymously?

      • WalrusDragonOnABike@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        but with federation, there’s nothing stopping an instance from simply releasing all users’ voting history to be public.

        Which kbin.social does.

  • rglullis@communick.news
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    1 year ago

    When us older folks say “Anything you put on the public internet should be considered public and recorded forever”, it’s because of that.