this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023

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Detecting vote manipulation or brigading (example) (yiffit.net)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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After reading this post here I took a deep dive into the database and ran a few queries to see if I could use it to detect some basic manipulation such as brigading or other types of persistent hostile behavior.

I'd describe this as people who could have blocked a certain community but instead seemingly dedicate themselves to continuously downvote posts, maybe because they don't like furry stuff in general.

Each line in the image corresponds to one person and how many times they have downvoted posts in a given community.

I won't take any actions right now, this is all very experimental. I just wanted to share this with y'all to let you know that we admins have tools to give us clues about whether some sort of brigading is going on.

Interesting stuff. Personally, I'd urge people who don't like furry stuff to just block a community and carry on. There's nothing to be gained by obsessing yourself with stuff you don't like.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not universal but it's the unfortunate reality that people obsess over stuff they don't like as a form of internalized repression. They better be careful though, looking at so many furry images while downvoting they may eventually catch the pathOwOgen.

It's nice that you can get this information by querying the database directly but it would be nicer still if it was built into the admin or mod interface somehow. Although I imagine in order to compile that information you used some sort of DB aggregation which could be unexpectedly resource intensive on larger instances so perhaps not.

I wonder how possible it would be to create some sort of plugin system for lemmy to add functionality like this and more that would only be of interest to particular lemmy instances. That could help to keep the core of the server small and lightweight while giving people the option developing and installing server resident bots, additional functionality, and user interface enhancements as they see fit.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I had to join something like 4 database tables together.

I'm interested in seeing if someone could develop a statistical model that could accurately detect certain behavior. I can query the data but I don't know enough statistics to really make use of it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I've been thinking about this most of the day. This represents, like you said, people with nothing better to do, grouped by how much the user dislikes a community.

You could take action targeting these users. BUT, what about sneakier brigading. For sure there will be users with even MORE nothing better to do.

For example, if they have multiple accounts spread across multiple servers and automate downvoting?

Maybe, a super simple solution is to rate limit downvotes? I mean it's not elegant, but if it were slow enough, it prevents burying things.

[–] Zeth0s 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

What action can you take? Your problem is that 99% of the population is repulsed by furry stuff, you'll always get tons of downvotes if your posts end up in the "all" feed. Because it is quick for users. Instead of checking who downvotes furry stuff because they dislike it, threatening ineffective "actions", you should ask lemmy devs for a way to avoid that your community to end up on "all" feed, similar to reddit where sub can opt out of r/all

Edit. I saw this post on the "all" feed that's why I am commenting

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That's not exactly my concern. The top users in that list seem to systematically engage in downvoting everything instead of simply blocking the community.

This does not seem to be mere stumbling upon something in All.

[–] Zeth0s 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hide from them moving out of "all" feed, they'll forget you. You can later ban those that won't

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I have a plan for that, but it needs to be implemented in coordination with other instance admins. Anyways this post is just an example, not a rant.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I... Really don't understand why people would browse the "all" feed with NSFW filters disabled, it just doesn't seem to be a pleasent experience. There's much worse than a dog man with his dick out that'll be on that feed. Violence, gore, scat, extreme porn, politics and the full range of offensive comments. Or even, depending on who your instance federates with, stuff like loli and bestiality.

People browsing "all" should be willing and ready to blacklist communities that post things that they find objectionable, rather than deciding that the "all" feed should be automatically curated for their preferences.

Would be nice if there was a seperate "NSFW" toggle for the "all" feed, full instance blocks or even specific, blockable NSFW tags.

[–] Zeth0s 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Tbf, in the current state of lemmy, everything is pretty vanilla with the exception of furry stuff. Once gore will become a thing on lemmy, I am pretty sure it is going to get downvoted as well, likely much more

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

um no. its not just furry stuff. I have not blocked any furry stuff as its not that bad so far but I have blocked fuckevil, fuckbully, fuckfacist or something akin to that where the evil, bully, facist is what its all about despite the titles that would make you think otherwise. but with really disturbing porn.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's clear that lemmy still has some major work to do yet on this front. The fact that you have to visit the community first in order to block it seems like quite a flaw. And there is no way, to my knowledge, to deemphasize some content on the front-end without basically purging it completely. Not exactly ideal solutions for those that don't want to be blasted by scat or gore, but also don't want to live exclusively in their subscribed tab.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I think one thing that would help is an off by default. So all federations and all magazines except for some default feed off and you go to enable them as you want with the area always having an allow all and allow button. My hope is that the federation gets to that point at some point. I think the moment is there for this to become one of the massive gamechanges like gpl, linux, wikipedia, etc.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wow, a perfect example of how people make up statistics from nothing. Maybe the better option is to find a way to reverse block the childish babies who decide to go and downvote everything on furry instances.

[–] Draconic_NEO 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's already a thing, it's called banning them from the instance. Though I can understand why they wouldn't want to start banning people for downvoting alone, it might be seen as extreme, but it also could be seen as necessary since these people are brigading the instance.

[–] Zeth0s -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I clearly made that up, who has ever done such a real stats? In real world furry is such a niche that 99% is likely an underestimation. What I am trying to say is that you guys will always get downvoted, because most people genuinely don't like furry stuff. The best way for you to avoid it is to stay out of majority of people's sight. Out of "all" feed. You win, average lemmy user wins, all are happy. All subscribers of your community won't anyway join from all. You don't lose anything. Visibility is more of a problem than a benefit for this sub. Ask the developers for an option to opt out of "all", and your problem will be gone

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"In real world furry is such a niche that 99% is likely an underestimation"

In the real world, animated furry characters, anthro or not, are among the most popular and beloved and have been for decades. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is the most recent breakout success amongst the general public. Furry characters are loved by the general population.

[–] Zeth0s -2 points 1 year ago

Are you really comparing disney's robinhood with the content that appears on "all" from this instance?

They are 2 very different things

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Furry stuff is cute. Why would 99% of people dislike it? I'm not gonna join furry communities because I'm not a furry, but I'd probably upvote furry content if it appeared on all and I'd think it would be sad to keep it off there.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To be fair in the context of the main topic here, it looks like all the communities being down voted are porn. Not quite the same as seeing a beloved furry character from a hit movie if they are engaged in lewd behaviour.

But they can always block them and forget about it than go looking specifically for it and down voting it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Such is censored generally, so they have to go out of their way to see such.

Also don't get why people would have a problem with seeing such unless it was like gore, but I acknowledge that often people do have a problem with such.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Yours is not a common opinion, but that's beside the point.

The issue here is a combination of end users not using the block functionality, and a major flaw in how it's implemented (you have to visit that which you want to block.)

You're never going to change end users' behavior, so the beatings will continue until blocking functionality improves.

[–] Shortbus 2 points 1 year ago

Good point. I'd imagine if the same stuff showed up on r/all the same would happen.

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