this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025

86 points (100.0% liked)

The Agora

agora@sh.itjust.works

1,794 readers

394 active

37 users here now

In the spirit of the Ancient Greek Agora, we invite you to join our vibrant community - a contemporary meeting place for the exchange of ideas, inspired by the practices of old. Just as the Agora served as the heart of public life in Ancient Athens, our platform is designed to be the epicenter of meaningful discussion and thought-provoking dialogue.

Here, you are encouraged to speak your mind, share your insights, and engage in stimulating discussions. This is your opportunity to shape and influence our collective journey, just like the free citizens of Athens who gathered at the Agora to make significant decisions that impacted their society.

You're not alone in your quest for knowledge and understanding. In this community, you'll find support from like-minded individuals who, like you, are eager to explore new perspectives, challenge their preconceptions, and grow intellectually.

Remember, every voice matters and your contribution can make a difference. We believe that through open dialogue, mutual respect, and a shared commitment to discovery, we can foster a community that embodies the democratic spirit of the Agora in our modern world.

Community guidelines
New posts should begin with one of the following:

[Question]
[Discussion]
[Poll]

Only moderators may create a [Vote] post.

Voting History & Results

founded 3 years ago

moderators

TheDude@sh.itjust.works

imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works

Difficult_Bit_1339@sh.itjust.works

Seraph089@sh.itjust.works

InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works

kersploosh@sh.itjust.works

[Discussion] Defederation from chinese.lol and lemmy.doesnotexist.club (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago by kersploosh@sh.itjust.works [M] to c/agora@sh.itjust.works

20 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hello everyone. We recently defederated from the two instances below. In the interest of transparency, I am opening this discussion post as a place for our users to discuss any questions or concerns.

chinese.lol
lemmy.doesnotexist.club

Both instances were identified in a recent post (https://hackertalks.com/post/8713785) for harboring suspected vote manipulation accounts. The spoiler in that post names 49 suspicious accounts. A bit of database digging on our side confirmed that all of those accounts are being used solely for coordinated downvoting of a small number of Lemmy users. They are also only the tip of the iceberg; at least 92 other accounts on these two instances also match the same pattern of behavior.

We have reached out to the admins, and have not received a reply. Until we hear otherwise, these two instances are considered unmoderated and have been defederated.

That is all. Have a great Friday!

all 20 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 year ago

That sounds totally reasonable. Thanks for handling it well.

[–] PolarKraken@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Any interesting patterns in the users being systematically targeted for downvotes? Wondering if this is personal grudge or enemy action, basically.

hideshow 11 child comments

[–] kersploosh@sh.itjust.works [S] 17 points 1 year ago

The targeted accounts are all outspoken users with very similar political opinions. I assume whoever is running the downvote accounts doesn't like their politics.

parent

[–] UniversalMonk@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

Wondering if this is personal grudge

Definitely a personal grudge. It was against someone who the downvoter was convinced is an alt of mine (it's not).

Several months ago, I mentioned how weird it was for someone to have an ai girlfriend in general, not calling anyone out directly. One particular dude stalked me for months over that comment, and serial downvoted everything I did.

Then he put his sights on someone else (the subject of the scenario in OP's example), wrongly thinking it was me, and started stalking and harassing them, and calling them my name. Literally saying, "I know you're Universal Monk!" Over and over. Again, the person he thought was an alt of me, isn't me. I don't have any alt names. I just use my Universal Monk name on any instance I use.

As soon as it was mentioned that the serial downvoter guy may be involved in sending the Nicole fediverse chick spam (many of the same addys, obsession, etc), the downvoter deleted his account.

I have no idea if he was involved in the nicole spam, but the M.O. of revenge and obsession definitely fit the profile for both the incidents. Also pretty suspicious that the minute someone mentioned he may be involved in Nicole spam, he bailed and deleted his main account and a lot of his alt accounts. lol

parent

hideshow 9 child comments

[–] PolarKraken@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago* (8 children)

Oh wow, that is indeed pretty telling lol. Sounds like a pretty troubled and unhappy person, I hope they find peace (and stop harassing others, that's unacceptable regardless...).

parent

hideshow 8 child comments

[–] UniversalMonk@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

What’s also funny is that now that people are finally talking about “serial downvoters” being a problem—and now that more users can actually see who’s doing the downvoting—a lot of those serial downvoters have suddenly stopped.

Personally, I’ve noticed a huge difference. For a long time, it didn’t matter what I posted—no matter the subject, I’d get flooded with downvotes almost instantly. That’s just stopped.

Now the voting feels way more natural and organic—based on content, not just someone hating me and hitting downvote the second they see my name.

parent

hideshow 4 child comments

[–] PolarKraken@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

That's definitely an improvement, I'd hate to see Lemmy get co-opted, but I guess it'll happen in various ways if it gets big enough. One concerning trend I think I've noticed is bad faith arguments (trolling, in a word) against leftist talking points. Could just be sincere disagreement and I'm chasing ghosts, but I've seen some stuff that looks REAL fishy.

parent

hideshow 3 child comments

[–] UniversalMonk@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Could just be sincere disagreement and I’m chasing ghosts, but I’ve seen some stuff that looks REAL fishy.

Agreed. But another problem is that some people think anyone who disagrees with them is a troll.

Just today, I got banned from two communities. The reason? According to the mod: “known zero-sum narcissistic troll/spam user.” Which is wild, because I’ve barely posted in either place. I never said anything political or controversial as far as I can tell—and none of my comments were even removed.

And I think the last time I posted there was a few weeks ago?! LMAO.

The only thing I can figure is that some mod or admin saw me posting elsewhere, remembered they hated me for being a Socialist, and made up a reason to ban me. Totally random. Totally ok, their community. Their rules. Just like my community, my rules (as in I ban serial downoters).

No real loss—I rarely comment there anyway, and apparently nothing I said was bad enough to delete. Still, banned.

Lemmy’s a strange place. The echo-chamber mentality might be what kills it in the end though. If it turns into Reddit 2.0, what’s the point? And I am adding to the echo chamber by banning serial downvoters. So, meh...

I love Lemmy, but I can totally see it withering if it becomes harder to navigate and more toxic than Reddit. That said, I refuse to be bullied off the platform. I’ll be here until the servers go dark.

But I'm on PieFed, and really loving that platform too. So no big loss if Lemmy goes away, because I'm already on the Lemmy replacement. :)

parent

hideshow 2 child comments

[–] PolarKraken@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

Apologies I'm so late, didn't really have anything to add. But I've noticed your comments since this wee little exchange more and more, esp. on db0, and I like how you get down.

Sell me on PieFed if you feel like it!

parent

hideshow 1 child comment

[–] UniversalMonk@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 year ago

But I’ve noticed your comments since this wee little exchange more and more, esp. on db0, and I like how you get down.

haha, thanks, friend!!

Careful though, saying that you even kinda like Universal Monk on Lemmy these days puts ya at risk of "guilt by association." lol They'll probably just say you're an alt of me and that I'm talking to myself, so...

I see soooo many people accuse of being an alt of me. Someone made a list of names and said, some variation of, "Here's a list of all Universal Monk's alts so you can pre-emptively block:..." And none of them were me. lol

As for selling you on PieFed. Hmm, I don't really have the knowledge base to do that. I do like it though. It uses much less resources/memory. Community is growing. And it's a good backup for when/if Lemmy fails. It does the same thing faster and quicker.

I personally don't catch as much hate there, and the admins seem to be much more "as long as you aren't breaking any laws, you do you" in attitude.

Way more options for organizing your the communities you follow, what you wanna see when you log on, etc.

I think if you do a quick search for "piefed vs Lemmy," you'll get much better feedback about both platforms than I can give you.

parent

[–] UniversalMonk@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, I feel the same. So sad that they are so obsessive that they let things like posting on Lemmy take over their lives. I'll never understand people like that. It's just Lemmy and none of this is real life. lol

parent

hideshow 2 child comments

[–] PolarKraken@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

You do you, but I've learned not to be critical of that kind of scenario. It may not be the majority of folks who are kind of "terminally online" but there's enough people out there that would really love a greater IRL social life and simply cannot have one, either due to disability or other reasons. For plenty of folks this is as real as it gets and my heart goes out to them. We don't have to be mean to those folks to call out this one :)

parent

hideshow 1 child comment

[–] UniversalMonk@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

Good points!

parent

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 1 year ago

Good work and good comms.

[–] Draconic_NEO@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago

Yeah I think defederation is probably a good idea here, especially given the fact that these instances in addition to being used primarily for vote manipulation, seemingly also have no legitimate engagement whatsoever. Can't think of any reason why we shouldn't really.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago

Sounds like a good call, thanks admin team.

[–] sorrybookbroke@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the transparency. Always sad to see a defederation but this seems justified. Thank you for your work mods

[–] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

Sounds good to me - thanks for looking out!

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the update.

[–] UniversalMonk@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 year ago

Awesome news. You guys are rockstars. This is legit the best instance on Lemmy!