this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
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It should be noted that anyone can set up a Lemmy server and track votes already. For instance, for this post, I see this screen:
This is available for both comments and posts. The database itself contains even more details, such as time and date of when the server broadcast the vote (which is often immediately or a few seconds later).
It's not as easy to do for trolls to set up a server, but comments, posts, favourites, votes, edits, and deletions should be considered public when it comes to most fediverse protocols, unless the server does not federate (like truth.social) or only federates with a few select servers. It's trivial to edit software like Lemmy to keep every edit or undone vote, and there's nothing your server admins will notice.
No need for a Lemmy server, kbin/mbin put it in their interface
https://kbin.earth/m/[email protected]/t/267356/Lemmy-devs-are-considering-making-all-votes-public-have-your/favourites
Saying the fediverse is good for privacy is just plain false, that's the kind of information anyone can acquire, even an ad company. All they have to do is federate a silent instance and see all you do.
Kbin/Mbin show votes too.
Edit: But I think downvotes are hidden by default now.
This is not the case. What percentage of the population could set up a Lemmy server, do you think? 1%? 0.1%? Of those, what percentage have the time to set up a Lemmy server? 1%?
As I've learned from this thread, it's actually easier: copy the link to a post or comment into the search bar of any connected mbin instance and you can see all downvotes. If you can find a kbin instance that's still up, you can also see the downvotes.
See this link, for instance.
Yes I know. Mbin and Kbin should be encouraged to change this. We're currently in a fairly benign environment so it doesn't really matter but if the threadiverse ever got big then this could become serious enough to be a cause for defederation.
Who are you to impose how others run their instance? Clearly this should be an option that each instance can set by itself. You are of course free to defederate, but that's kinda like an instance that has downvotes disabled defederating from instances that have downvotes enabled. You can do it but it's kind of arbitrary I would say.
That's way too much work. I just logged into my original account on kbin.social and tapped on the activity button to see votes before that instance went down. If I want to see votes again I can set up an account on any kbin or mbin instance in less than a minute and do the same thing.
Huh, I didn't know kbin did that. Useful!