Fediverse @lemmy.ml koper @feddit.nl 2y ago

PSA: Lemmy votes can be manipulated

The best part of the fediverse is that anyone can run their own server. The downside of this is that anyone can easily create hordes of fake accounts, as I will now demonstrate.

Fighting fake accounts is hard and most implementations do not currently have an effective way of filtering out fake accounts. I'm sure that the developers will step in if this becomes a bigger problem. Until then, remember that votes are just a number.

364

You're viewing a single thread.

364 comments

The lack of karma helps some. There's no point in trying to rack up the most points for your account(s), which is a good thing. Why waste time on the lamest internet game when you can engage in conversation with folks on lemmy instead.
- It can still be used to artificially pump up an idea. Or used to bury one.
  
  This is the problem. All the algorithms are based on the upvote count. Bad actors will abuse this.
  
  So maybe more weight should be put on comment count? Much harder to fake those.
  
  That's where all the harm comes from
  
  Agree. Farming karma is nothing compared to making a single individual polar-opinion APPEAR as though it is other’s (or most’s) polar-opinion. We know that other’s opinions are not our own, but they do influence our opinions. It’s pretty important that either 1) like numbers mean nothing, in which case hot/active/etc. are meaningless or 2) we work together to ensure trust in like numbers.
- Maybe you move public perception of a product or political goal.
  To push a narrative of some kind. Astroturfing basically.
- Lack of karma is a fallacy. The default Lemmy UI doesn't display it but the karma system appears to be fully built.
  
  The data to build it is there. Ftfy
  
  Tallies are maintained in the db in real-time. No calculating needed
  
  I just mean that the karma system ala Reddit did more than just keep track of it and display it afaik. The data is in the db but a fully done karma system it is not. I could be wrong.
- Corporations could use it to push their ads to the top
  
  This is near inevitable if this platform takes off.
  
  Advertisers gonna advertise.
  
  Just rip them in the comments and boycott their brand
  
  This is exactly why they wouldn't risk officially advertising here. Not enough control over the platform leads to too much risk to brand perception.
  
  I was actually talking to someone that works in advertising and for big companies this is unlikely. Pepsi for example pays a lot for the guarntee that their product ads won't appear near posts they don't want them to. Since Lemmy advertising would only be through regular posts where they have no control over this, they likely wouldn't risk the potential detriment to brand perception.
  
  Now this can change if the potential reach of Lemmy is big enough but that size will be different for each company.
  
  Probably true. it's the agencies who are desperate and likely to be looking to chatGPT to outsource ad copy who are going to be looking to capitalize.
  
  No community is really above being targeted, because the good campaigns done by people in the niche tend to be indistinguishable from good posts.
- Maybe I'm misunderstanding karma, but Memmy appears to show the total upvotes I've gotten for comments and posts, isn't that basically karma?
  
  I don't think other people can see it though. On Reddit bot accounts would rack up karma so that when they switch to posting spam it looks like they have a lot of karma and are someone who posts worthwhile things.
  
  I’m using wefwef and can see what everyone score is on any given comment as well as their overall score when I go to their profile
  
  Yeah I was wrong. I use Jerboa mostly.
  
  same on Memmy for me
  
  I can click on you and see the same stats for you... though the numbers seems too low when I eyeball it compared to your comments, but I'm thinking maybe it's just total points for a single lemmy server?
  
  I guess I was wrong. I shouldn't have assumed. I'm using Jerboa.
  
  EDIT I was wrong! Lemmy does have karma, even listed in the API, though for some reason it doesn't show this to you itself. So, those of us just using Lemmy directly have been under the mistaken idea that it didn't do it, and those using third party apps are seeing it: https://lemmy.world/post/1250922?scrollToComments=true
  
  ~~That's interesting, because on the Lemmy website, there is no total upvotes number visible. It only shows the total number of posts and total number of comments. It then shows the list of posts and comments, and you can see the scores for each, but there's no total. Memmy must be calculating this itself. This seems to be something third party app developers are adding which is not present in actual Lemmy itself, in order to try to replicate Reddit Karma somewhat.
  
  As Lemmy works itself: On Reddit, in addition to your posts and comments having visible scores, your username also has an aggregate score, which Lemmy does not have. At least, when I go to your profile, I can see the scores for your posts and comments, but I cannot see any aggregate score for you as a user. That's what Reddit Karma is. I don't know what black magic formula Reddit calculates it from, as old Reddit and new Reddit show different Karma numbers for the same user, but whatever algorithm they use, it's an overall user score that Lemmy does not have (so far, at least). ~~
  
  While the Lemmy UI doesn't expose the data is available via the API. That's how clients like Memmy are getting it.
  
  Yep! I just saw this other post where I learned I was wrong. That's what I get for just using Lemmy itself. https://lemmy.world/post/1250922?scrollToComments=true
- The lack of karma also makes it worse. Usually if I saw a discussion that felt kinda off I'd check the accounts age and karma. Made it easier to sniff out bots.
- The karma though is what drove Reddit adoption to an extent. Gamification helps. It helped Reddit, it helped robinhood stocks app.
  
  Maybe fediverse needs some gamification.
  
  Or maybe not. Facebook and YouTube seem to be doing fine just using the line/unlike button.

364 comments