Is the bot/troll situation getting worse?

It feels like the amount of both, divisive posts and ghoulish comments is rising again.

One could argue that the world has a lot of divisive stuff going on and lemmy just talks about it. But the way people post about stuff seems more oot and hateful than it has been in the past.

Not saying it is that but if I wanted to bring the Fediverse down or at least keep my customers from going there, I would sow this stuff as much as I can.

I'm blocking ghouls left right and center atm but if I ever asked a friend to join lemmy, I'd hate to think of what they would see that I dont anymore.

Do we need stronger moderation?

  • Maybe ban politics from c/memes?
  • Become a little more stringent on "dont be a jerk" rules in communities?

One thing that really bothers me is the collapsing "discourse". Trying to mend fences and keep the conversation between sides going ime leads to nothing but downvotes and shitstorm.

I feel like a little more interaction (instead of intervention, at first) of the moderators would do wonders there.

Thanks for reading this rant. Have a nice day.

ZILtoid1991 ,
@ZILtoid1991@kbin.social avatar

As the fediverse becomes more and more of a feasible alternative to corporate social media, it will be inevitable that trolls and spammers will use our platform for malicious things. All we can do is to get better at moderation, maybe somehow bust these farms.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Absolutely. Working on something to maybe detect bots and/or LLMs. Lets see.

intensely_human ,

Just so everyone is aware, this is the thread OP interpreted as so abusive it would warrant banning this person across multiple instances.

In this thread, you’ll notice that another user dares to disagree with haui_lemmy. haui_lemmy interprets that as trolling, and goes on a crusade to purge the entire lemmyverse of dissent.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Nice, so now you‘re trying to discredit me somehow for disliking your way of commenting? You need help, seriously.

intensely_human ,

You’re doing a fine job of discrediting yourself. All I have to do is show people what you said.

intensely_human ,

And no, I have no problem with you disliking my method of commenting. If that’s where you stopped it would be no problem. But your response to people saying things you don’t like is to start a crusade to eject those people from your world.

That is why you are worth the effort of opposing.

intensely_human ,

Bots are probably increasing in number. Even without improvements in technology, people’s adeptness at using robots will continue to increase.

Sekrayray ,

Totally true. I made a totally reasonable comment about a month ago (stated that women shouldn’t be hit on at the gym by randos), and I got downvoted to oblivion and the comment was spammed by 7 different users who essentially acted like I was Hitler. Then they started spamming my comment history and I had to delete all of my old posts.

Seemed like a real person was behind it, but may have been using bots to spam me.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

That sounds insane. No idea if this was just one person but it is totally possible. I havent thought of this yet. This has happened to me on multiple occasions. Where a handful of folks immediately jumped me and a lot more reasonable peeps later chimed in confusing me even more since I though my idea was outlandish at that point.

Sekrayray ,

Yeah, I think there’s a handful of toxic folks on here who are behind the bots or a series or alt accounts. I think Reddit probably had more infrastructure in place to crack down on stuff like that, but it’s happened to me (although less dramatically) in other threads here as well. But yeah, there’s no way my relatively normal comment got immediately downvote spammed and commented on by 6 different accounts. Definitely alts.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Jeez. I cant imagine how shocking that must be. I‘m shocked regularly by much lesser problems. The thing is I often cant see the underlying motives. If I do, its more a pattern that I recognize than a more obvious thing like sarcasm or bad faith arguments. They take a long time for me to show up.

Mechaguana ,
@Mechaguana@programming.dev avatar

Yeah we should have ignore and reporting lists that is on an invite only basis, which then can be shared by users of said list. If you didnt get invited then you should be able to copy a users reported/ignored list to make the whole fediverse more palatable.
Each bunch of list users can then cross reference each potential bad actors.
Then each month each admin could implement a ban of thoses accounts and perhaps try to filter new incomers.

dipshit ,

I’ve certainly encountered a few of them myself. I keep reporting them.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Good idea. Thanks for commenting. Have a good one. :)

blahsay ,

You're not imagining it. I'm pretty sure you can see regular work from propaganda teams on lemmy. I'd love to see the backed logs to confirm it.

They tend to work in very hostile teams to brigade topics.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

I‘m encountering it this exact moment in a piracy discussion where some very abusive people start arguing for IP and excuse the blatant manipulation by calling limited licenses „buying“ and „owning“.

blahsay ,

It's interesting right?

I'm thinking the architecture of the fediverse makes it particularly vulnerable to these sorts of attacks.

I'm pretty sure I've spotted bots circle jerking on some subjects also which makes me think there's a few different sources.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Very interesting indeed.

I‘m starting to report, block and ban accounts from being viewed on my instance that use abusive language but from a systemic standpoint we should find a design solution to make this work.

Reddit had karma for this reason among others. People needed to make helpful contributions to prove they are able to function in the group.

For many reasons this is not implemented in the fediverse but a design solution would be good.

blahsay ,

If I was designing an anti troll/bot system I'd implement a few things. Let's call any bad actor on here a bot/troll or broll for ease.

  1. Reputation based posting isn't a bad idea if carefully done
  2. When a broll is banned any users from the same ip are flagged a suspect and a subsequent ban causes delayed posting from that ip. If a VPN the instance host list has the same effect applied. Exceptions based on Reputation.
  3. You can check if text is ai/llm generated and an automated api check before posting and immediate ban if found.
  4. Checks on if a user posts inhumanly fast or is oddly active etc would be sensible.
  5. Any broll system has to be adaptive and measures taken need to be kept secret (this post for example).
haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Very good ideas! Any idea if something like this already exists? If not, shall we work on something? I have some experience in python if that helps.

blahsay ,

Thanks but not sure what's currently implemented or even what the code base is written in 😅.

I might have a poke around and see if there's any low hanging fruit.

Call me crazy but with a 5b ipo about to start I'd be shocked if reddit wasn't paying some troll farms to brigade the fediverse and it'd be a shame if spez wins

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Thats an interesting idea! Thank you very much for mentioning it!

We can absolutely write a bot in python and could try to use it like that. I already made a discord bot so this shouldn’t be brutally hard.

blahsay ,

Awesome 👍 I'm more c#/Java, angular if there's anything I can contribute.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Well, I do know some c# but not enough for it to be functional.

You could hit me up on github or pm here to get a repo set up somehere and go from there.

What do you think?

blahsay ,

I'm currently on holidays but that sounds great when I return. I might even get started early. Can you pm the details?

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

The other person we came across now tries to somehow discredit me. Whatever their plan is. Jeez.

Sure, I‘ll send you a pm. Have a nice vacation.

blahsay ,

Thanks. Yeah that was odd

rimu ,
@rimu@piefed.social avatar

PieFed is an open source lemmy alternative (written in Python) that makes good use of karma/reputation, as shown in this video:

https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/system/media_attachments/files/111/648/646/494/228/522/original/02cb1b5182a1f9b6.mp4

Try the demo site at https://piefed.social and check out https://join.piefed.social. Also see https://piefed.social/c/piefed_meta for recent feature announcements.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

I‘m not searching for another thing to start but a way to make the current thing work. But thanks.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@discuss.online avatar

To be fair, Piefed uses Lemmy communities and comments, it's almost just another interface.

The reputation is indeed interesting, example in this thread with warnings "low reputation, beware!": https://piefed.social/post/27070#post_replies

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Ah! Understood. Thanks for clarifying.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@discuss.online avatar

Thank you very much for sharing, I'll keep an eye on it.

intensely_human ,

You can check if text is ai/llm generated and an automated api check before posting and immediate ban if found

If this LLM-detection function ever results in false positives, this system will be banning innocent people.

Also there are many, many cases where a person openly displays results from an LLM, without it being in any way antisocial.

blahsay ,

The odds of someone coming up with the same sentence as an llm within common sense bounds of time far exceed winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning.

Your second point is straight up nonsense. This platform is for humans to interact. The use of bots is inherently deceptive.

Fascinating to have someone argue for them. I think the backend logs will be pretty illuminating.

intensely_human ,

I don’t know what a person “coming up with the same sentence as an llm” would have anything to do with this unless the LLM detection is based on direct string comparison.

The use of bots is inherently deceptive

Nope. I can say:

Here’s what GPT-4 generated when I gave it that prompt: “[some LLM output that would get them banned by the machine we’re proposing to build]”

That is not deceptive. But it would be detected by this system and result in them being banned. Because you guys are gung-ho to build a powerful head-cracking machine and didn’t think of an obvious edge case.

blahsay ,

You're wrong and don't have the technical knowledge to understand why and I can't be asked explaining it.

Relax, it won't affect that case.

ikidd ,
@ikidd@lemmy.world avatar

I followed the thread you're talking about, you might be a bit overly sensitive to what constitutes a conversation on the internet. I don't find the trolling any worse or better today vs. last week or last year.

You might want to make an account over at beehaw, they like to stay pretty sheltered over there and have defederated from, well, pretty much everyone.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Well, I‘m not a bit overly sensitive I just dont like to be manipulated and insulted. It frankly do not care how people treat their family and friends. Having a discussion without personal attacks is normal and everything else is normalized abuse.

intensely_human ,

You mentioned them calling something buying and selling. Did they also insult and manipulate you?

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Not sure if this is a sincere question.

Manipulative and degrading rhetoric is what I‘m talking about. Bad faith arguments, assuming that someone arguing in a certain way must be naive or stupid, etc.

blahsay ,

He didn't seem very sincere tbh. Odd

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Do you also get the feeling that this might be what we were talking about?

intensely_human ,

What you’re talking about is banning people across many instances at once. Please don’t do that to me.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

We will see. Especially if someone behaves like you, engaging someone over multiple threads without actually being interested in their opinion or trying to sincerely interact with them, they are prime examples for the „noise“ I‘d like to reduce.

intensely_human ,

I engaged you over multiple threads specifically because I am interested in your opinions.

intensely_human ,

The question is definitely meant to highlight that I think you may be exaggerating, but in that purpose it is sincere.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Sincere trolling you mean?

intensely_human ,

No. Sincere use of a rhetorical question to make a point. While also leaving the door open, via format, that you might actually be telling you the truth. I purposefully leave both those avenues open because I don’t try to control the direction a conversation will go.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

So instead of stating your honest opinion, you use rhetoric, something people will likely misunderstand, in a situation like this, where very many people are in fact trolling? Did it occur to you that this isnt the most promising approach if you actually want a meaningful discussion?

intensely_human ,

So these trolls’ tactic is to disagree with you about semantics?

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

No, not really.

intensely_human ,

Okay here. Since you want to mark me as a troll now, I’m just gonna stop being polite about how I do this. Because the polite way Om trying to do this is coming across to you as inauthentic, and the inauthenticity is coming across as trolling, and now you’re talking about applying this proposed mega ban hammer to me.

I don’t believe that you’re capable of seeing this clearly, and I won’t believe it until I you have linked to at least ten comments, in other threads, that you think represent this particular type of toxicity you’re complaining about.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Whatever you think mate. Feel free to imagine anything you like.

If you have arguments, feel free to argue. If not, just go somewhere else.

intensely_human ,

Here’s the thread. The readers here can judge for themselves how much abuse haui_lemmy was receiving: https://lemmy.world/comment/7230392

intensely_human ,

Do you have evidence of this? Same users showing up at the same times, that sort of thing?

cashews_best_nut ,
@cashews_best_nut@lemmy.world avatar

Only the wet-lipped and dry-eared are upset by trolls.

optissima ,
@optissima@lemmy.world avatar

What does that even mean.

MaximilianKohler ,

if I wanted to bring the Fediverse down or at least keep my customers from going there, I would sow this stuff as much as I can

Agree. And that's been my experience here too. I made two posts critical of reddit and they each seemed to have been astroturfed by toxic reddit shills.

I think it would require a lot of active and dedicated mods and admins, which I'm doubtful is doable. I don't know that there's a fix for this but a "true block" (instead of the current "mute") might help; but there are major downsides to that type of feature as well. I wrote in a blog that it might require an advanced AI to moderate everything.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

That might be an idea. Humans are infamously bad at tone policing. An AI cant possibly make it worse. (I‘m kinda kidding but not really)

p03locke ,
@p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

It's either that or, gasp, actually paying moderators.

I'd rather just automate the solution. It's still going to run into some amount of human tweaking and biases, but at least it won't require the massive amount of manpower that moderation requires right now. Something that requires so much manpower that no corporation is willing to actually pay the workforce.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Besides the fact that mods could and should be paid if the platform makes money, the job itself is kinda gruelling and either breaks people or attracts assholes (with some in between but not many.

Therefore I agree. Automate it.

p03locke ,
@p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I made two posts critical of reddit and they each seemed to have been astroturfed by toxic reddit shills.

Here or at Reddit? I have never ever ever seen proof that Lemmy is pro-Reddit at anything. Like, most of the people here migrated from Reddit on bad terms with them.

MaximilianKohler ,

Here. Strangely, on Reddit I get much more support. Lemmy is either filled with trolls or is being astroturfed by people who don't want to see it thrive.

I have never ever ever seen proof that Lemmy is pro-Reddit at anything.

Here's the latest time it happened: https://lemmy.world/post/11328086

The previous one was deleted, which unfortunately covered it up.

Zuberi ,

Yes, lemmy.world is a mess right now

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

I‘m very happy that I‘m not totally alone with that opinion.

p03locke ,
@p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

It turns out that trying to push one server to be the by far the most popular Lemmy server, maybe, just maybe, might be antithetical to the concept of a Fediverse.

Welcome to The Consequences of Their Actions!

TexMexBazooka ,

Lemmy.world is absolutely wild. I had a comment deleted that was a response saying we shouldn’t nuke innocent people, I had a comment removed saying confederates are bad. I don’t know what the fuck their mods are smoking.

Ignacio ,
@Ignacio@kbin.social avatar

I was about to left Lemmy/Kbin for good when some stupid fascists from Lemmy(grad).ml called me names and harassed me, despite the fact that I'm neurodivergent (like that would stop them from doing such actions, but anyway). And then I started blocking every community and user from those places, as well as any community/magazine about US politics or about any US topic because I don't give a damn heck about that place. And my experience improved really well.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

While I sympathize with a fellow ND, I dont think calling lemmy.ml fascist is a great idea. They might be tankies from what I hear but thats the other extreme.

Still, thanks for sharing your opinion.

awwwyissss ,

Well said. Lemmygrad.ml and lemmy.ml are malicious misinformation factories supporting authoritarian governments, namely the Kremlin and CCP.

They're worse than garbage and I'll never recommend the fediverse to anyone, or even admit to using it, while they're so prominent.

mozz ,
@mozz@mbin.grits.dev avatar

A lot of it depends on the instance. I think there's a little bit of a smartest bears type of problem going on, with a lot of the bad-faith content coming from just ignorant and abrasive people being sincerely ignorant and abrasive, not anything that's a bot or a deliberate troll.

Personally, I've done some rounds of unsubscribing from tech and politics subs on lemmy.ml and lemmy.world, and when I've done that my amount of toxic content and interactions went way down. I think the prevalence of the exact same thing on the tech subs points to it probably being just a bad-person problem in large proportion, although I'm sure deliberate malfeasance is at the root of some of it also.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

I agree that some people just are original jerks. But those still cant roam free in a community. Its like making a bar and knowing that people are getting mugged in the restroom. The bar owner or personnel (even if its a coop) need to intervene.

mozz ,
@mozz@mbin.grits.dev avatar

Well.. that's why I used the smartest bears analogy. I've noticed the mods are usually pretty on top of removing content that's genuinely personally insulting or racist or what have you. But there's a wide, wide grey area of someone whose post is discussing "the issue" in a technical sense, but just comes at it from a perspective of "here's why I am right and you are wrong and not only that you're clearly not smart enough to see my side and I can't believe I need to explain it to someone again" with 0 interest in learning anything on their side. IDK if it's reasonable to try to remove comments or ban people for that behavior, but it definitely doesn't lend itself to a good discussion, and it's common (probably majority) particularly on lemmy.world and lemmy.ml.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Thats pretty much how I view it as well.

Being a jerk can have many faces and there are a lot of people right on the edge of getting in trouble but not quite. Those are also the worst people to work with IRL. They fall up the ladder and are usually pretty incompetent.

If they are repeat offenders, I confront them in the places I mod since I dont want them hollowing out the community by this constant low key abrasion.

Others who just have a hot temper I leave mostly alone until they really go overboard.

Thats how I do it and thats what I think is best. Obviously not everyones opinion though.

mozz ,
@mozz@mbin.grits.dev avatar

I have a dream of creating a community where people can argue about factual questions and give citations, with an AI moderator that will award points for things that are demonstrated based on solidly factual citations and no points for things that are someone yelling with increasing firm confidence that their opinion is the right one. My dream is (a) the AI moderator could be made to work and (b) it would cause people to lose the "me and my agreeing-people are right about everything by definition" mentality that's pretty easy to develop in a forum where you can literally say anything at all without getting any feedback aside from other people telling you they agree or disagree.

Probably my dream on counts (a) and (b) both is incorrect, but it is my dream. In my dream it works.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

I find that an insanely good idea. Let me know if it works out. I‘d join.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@discuss.online avatar

Personally, I’ve done some rounds of unsubscribing from tech and politics subs on lemmy.ml and lemmy.world, and when I’ve done that my amount of toxic content and interactions went way down.

Maybe that's a recommendation we should make to everyone

Black_Gulaman ,
@Black_Gulaman@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I browse All and block any subs or users that are toxic. After a month. My All feed is enjoyable and I get the benefit of not missing any new subs or content that pops up.

Scew ,
@Scew@lemmy.world avatar

Another place I frequent got rid of the downvote so if people actually disagree with you they have to use words to make their point. Kinda funny how that solves a lot of issues.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

I did exactly that but I wasnt allowed to federate with the others until I enabled it again…

Blaze ,
@Blaze@discuss.online avatar

Really? I thought that Reddthat and Beehaw disabled down votes while still being federated

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Dont know. When you have your own instance, you get admin settings. If you disable downvotes, it says others might not federate with you or such. Its been a couple months since I last looked in there.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@discuss.online avatar

I'm pretty sure those two are fine without downvotes, if that can help

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Yeh, probably. Have a good one. :)

Blaze ,
@Blaze@discuss.online avatar

Thanks, you too!

TORFdot0 ,

Maybe because I don’t use Lemmy at real bot hours, I haven’t seen them. Maybe see a spam bot every other day.

I also tend to sort by top 6 hours or top 12 hours so a lot of low effort content gets filtered out.

I also don’t consider people who make off the wall comments or hold opinions I disagree with or think are uniformed or stupid as trolls.

The other thing is that I comment with the philosophy that not every comment signifies a response and so if a reply is a troll or in bad faith, I just keep scrolling.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

I agree with most of this. Some might just be my hours being spot on.

But trolls and other idiots often dont turn out to be just that in the first response. I often give people the benefit of the doubt. If they start splurging no thought opinions or such I try to understand, maybe try to debate them. But some people repeat the same stuff over and over as if putting fingers in their ears. If I point it out it gets worse quickly.

So I‘m not exclusively dealing with bots and trolls. Its also very ignorant people who very much dislike being proven wrong or get their opinion challenged.

CherenkovBlue ,

Out of curiosity, can you specify the topics or give specific examples of this shitty behavior you speak of? Without examples it is impossible to determine if you are discussing behavior that is straight-up pathological (e.g. name-calling) or people having a different opinion.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Okay, I did mention it in another comment but I didnt do so in the main post. Thanks for pointing it out.

I‘m talking about name calling, ad hominem attacks, ridicule, twisting words, bad faith arguments. So, mostly abusive language/rhetoric, not disagreement or different opinions.

umbrella ,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

how do you differentiate what you perceive as bad faith vs disagreement and differing opinions?

i frequently see simple disagreement here being painted as bad faith when its just... disagreement.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Wikipedia:

Bad faith (Latin: mala fides) is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another. It is associated with hypocrisy, breach of contract, affectation, and lip service.

Here are some nice examples. I can’t come up with a perfect example rn. https://www.grammarly.com/blog/bad-faith-good-faith/

It boils down to essentially playing devils advocate just to shut someone up.

umbrella ,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

i know what it is, i was asking for more specifics about what you see on lemmy.

haui_lemmy OP ,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

I‘m not sure I understand your question. Do you want me to come up with examples from lemmy?

CherenkovBlue ,

Yes

MaximilianKohler ,

And to the contrary, I've seen people claiming blatant bad-faith behavior as "just disagreement".

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