Comment on Opinions wanted: defederating with bot spam instances
jordanlund@lemmy.one 1 year ago
Repost bots are no better than spam bots IMHO, but I think defederation needs to be based on bad behavior by the admins, not the accounts themselves.
In the case of lemmit.online, yeah, they are creating a bunch of communities that ONLY the bot can post in, and the posts get no replies because what’s the point in replying to TIFU or AITA if OP will never see it?
That’s clearly the fault of the admin, but OTOH, blocking bot@lemmit.online solves the problem without full defederation.
There’s a food community I read that gets spambots from lemm.ee all the time only posting affiliate links.
Those get reported for spam and blocked, but it’s clearly not the policy of lemm.ee so no reason to defederate.
TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I’m going to keep echoing this argument: just blocking the user is a shitty solution, because now new users are going to be alienated, especially if they browse by new.
Your example of spambots posting from lemm.we break down fast because, you said it: we ban the spam bot. Lemmit.online is nothing but spam, all the time
jordanlund@lemmy.one 1 year ago
Oh, I definitely see the argument, but I’d start by blocking everything by the bot, then if the admins decide to skirt the block with bot2@lemmit.online then the only real answer is defederation.
TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee 1 year ago
“Let me tell you about this thing called Lemmy, it’s great! But first, here’s a list of users you need to block to make it useable. Also, you have to do it from a web browser on a decent computer with decent internet because you’re going to try and load a profile with 1000000 posts.
Once you’ve jumped through those hoops you’ll be able to see the actual content that’s posted on Lemmy”
^this is not a good way to bring someone into the fediverse
jordanlund@lemmy.one 1 year ago
Blocking them on Voyager on Android works for me. :)
But I think it’s reasonable to tell people to use the search to find communities that interest them, curate your home feed, and be aware that diving into the “All Federated Content” feed will show you stuff that’s a) not particularly useful or b) potentially offensive to your sensibilities.
It took me way longer to get fed up with bot@lemmit.online than I’d really like to admit, and I only blocked them when it became clear they weren’t going to stop. I could see other people enjoying the feed… but then why don’t they comment? 🤔