The fact that some of you are putting the blame on instance owners/moderators is just showing that you have about the same amount of brain rot as the people actually posting this vile trash
Right. This is a community effort, and it’s important we support our instances and figure out how to best keep them safe.
Honestly, my first thoughts were that reddit had probably funded some blackhats to sabotage shit because they’re still salty. Then, they could have it reported.
Honestly dude if you believe this is true you should speak with a therapist.
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See above
If you believe businesspeople never commit crimes to shut down their competition, you should read some history books. Antitrust violations, murders, aerial bombings—you name it, and if it’s illegal and gives a business an advantage over its competition, it’s happened.
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Go outside and touch the very first grass you see
Ignore these people telling you that you’re being too paranoid. I assumed the same about the series of DDoS attacks that lemmy.world experienced in the last few months. Reddit admins trying to undercut lemmy’s growing popularity “by any means necessary” is perfectly logical. DDoS followed by content attacks even follows Reddit’s own struggles over the years.
It’s okay. Thank you for the support. They seemed quick to complain and kinda organized to be this deep in some obscure comment thread.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_lady_doth_protest_too_much,_methinks
And, agreed about the DDoS attacks.
The comment was more about inspiring a pro-fediverse angle, in any case. Imagine defending reddit, here of all places.
These comments so far stink, yall are something else.
OK, I am going to take a minute away from the shit stirring and potentially provide some insight speaking as an admin who’s had the misfortune of dealing with this so I can maybe shift this comment section into an actually meaningful discussion.
You can have your own opinion and feelings against lemmy.world but, this?
The only thing that could have prevented this is better moderation tools. And while a lot of the instance admins have been asking for this, it doesn’t seem to be on the developers roadmap for the time being. There are just two full-time developers on this project and they seem to have other priorities. No offense to them but it doesn’t inspire much faith for the future of Lemmy.
This is correct. Most lemmy admins likely agree as well, I don’t speak for anyone but myself but I can say that I think it would be hard to find someone who disagreed. What happened today is a result of a catastrophic failure on lemmys end, with issues that should have been addressed over a month ago just being completely ignored. The lemmy devs shared a roadmap during their AMA & they essentially were more concerned with making shit go faster… that’s about it.
Okay, honest question. What mod tools are lacking. If there’s something needed, what is that thing or things?
I went over to the feature request page for Lemmy and I couldn’t find anything massive in terms of requests for moderation tools that would have been sure fire ways to stop this particular event.
That said, there is over 400 open feature requests alone on Lemmy’s github. I obviously couldn’t go through every single one. But coming from the kbin side I’m just curious about our Lemmy brothers and sisters. It sounds dire and I’m woefully under informed on how bad it is.
There aren’t enough roles. There’s admin, moderator, and user, but it would be best to have tiers of user in between. Reports go to 4 categories of user when you file a report. Report a comment for violating a fun rule your community decided to implement (all post titles must contain “Jon Bois Rules!”)? That report goes to: the community moderators (good), the community’s host instance’s admin (bad), your instance’s admin (bad), the user who posted the “offending post”'s instance’s admin (bad).
Only admins can permanently remove illegal content. If a mod “removes” it, it still sits visible to all in modlog, and for the purposes of CSAM specifically, that counts as distribution which is prosecuted as a worse crime than possession. Federation with other instances is effectively binary. You can or cannot federate, you cannot set traffic as unidirectional like you can on most other fediverse platforms. The modlogs make it hard to parse who the moderator performing an action is acting on the behalf of. Was it a community mod? An admin? Your admin?
There’s more but my phone is getting low on battery
Agreed, I don’t know what AutoMod did on Reddit but if what mods need is a rule-configurable post remover then I’d be happy to clobber together something in Python
There’s this bot that is used in a couple of communities on feddit.de:
Oh great! This was literally how I envisioned my python script – JSON config file and all
If you’ve really got the time and energy I think you would see pretty heavy use of such a tool. I think the existing libraries are definitely mature enough. I’ve been surprised that nobody has done it already
Nice, do you happen to remember what the most popular moderation rules were? So far I can think of:
- Minimum karma/account age to post/comment
- Post title must contain X
I have exams in September but if I get a free day it should be enough to get something working
Wait does lemmy have reporting functionality, so you could use some type of number of reports?
existing libraries
As in Python Lemmy libraries?
Yep. That’s what I’ve been looking at at least
Here’s some things Beehaw admind have been asking for from moderation since June: https://beehaw.org/comment/397674
As an admin, how do kbin moderation tools compare?
Also does lemmy.world have the spare cash to offer cash for features?
Kbin moderation tools are worse. And potentially. I guess a bug bounty could be started up.
EDIT: my app attached my reply to the wrong comment. Please ignore in this context
I don’t know this for sure, but I have a feeling that a hard fork is in Lemmy’s future. I don’t want to get super into it, but programming is a form of communication. What features you bake into a platform are reflective of the messages you want to propogate on that platform. Lemmy’s devs vision for what the platform should be might not be reflective of what most of us might think it should be. The moderation tools might not be a focus for a while, even if most of us view that as the greatest need
It was worded a harshly but I’m happy to see you jump in here @gabe@literature.cafe <3
To users this might seem like it came out of the blue but instance admins know this is has been a big issue for months. The “roadmap” they shared was indeed, optimize the database queries to make things go brrrr, get more funding and update join-lemmy.org
100%, ultimately there might be disagreements amongst admins over many things but this is something that there is clear unity on and I felt important to establish it. Hell, I’ve disagreed with lemmy.world’s decisions on numerous fronts as well which you already know. I think the harshness is understandable as well, given you know
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Forking solves the problem of inactive maintainers, or the problem of maintainers who don’t review and/or accept PRs, but Lemmy really doesn’t have either of these problems at the moment.
With all forks of maintained projects it starts with saying several times “No, but seriously, you need to do something about this”
Forks are the enemy of open source. The goal is merges. When someone forks a project without plans to merge back, it’s a sign that the project has failed them in some way
It’s a shame it’s not written in a PHP framework or something that’s more common. Plenty of devs have been helping about contributing to kbin development, it sounds like it’s a lack of manpower on Lemmy’s end that’s contributing to this
Yeah, Rust was a good technical choice but in practice it really narrows down the pool of potential volunteers
It was an incredibly poor technical choice.
Programming goes through fads where people will claim X can solve every problem. Eventually people realise a languages strengths/weaknesses and communities form.
Rust is the current fad language, its developed a strong following in C/C++ communities but they have nothing to do with middleware (the role Lemmy is using Rust).
It means lemmy devs will have to build everything themselves (instead of focussing on lemmy) and the pool of contributor’s will remain small.
Rust is a great and fabulous language, but flexible it is not. If I were starting a Lemmy or Kbin type project from scratch I’d likely start with Python, TypeScript, Lua, or Go depending on what specifically I was worried about bogging me down in the future. And then later on if there were really heavy procedures or db calls that couldn’t be simplified anyway else, do those in rust. I think Rust has some very interesting features for micro service development, but for a monolith like Lemmy, it’s surely a nightmare
See my goto is Java/Spring Boot or Typescript/TSOA.
I avoid Python because Setuptools/Twine/FastAPI/\ docs conflict and seems to change so creating a good practice project layout is a huge time sink and none of the Python devs I meet seem to understand it.
I am doing GoLang atm, its ok but dev adoption is low where I am and no one has shown me a killer library/framework and being controlled by Google I am waiting for them to get bored and kill it.
Spring Boot takes longer to get going than TSOA/Express but hibernate makes SQL interactions trivial. I love typescript but types makes complex NoSQL queries far more convoluted than Java equivalents (its because Types can’t inherit and client libraries don’t use interfaces). So TSOA rocks in cases of speed or simplicity.
It is, there are currently discussions of attempting to do so but the issue lies that Rust is not only a really new programming language that really never was well suited for an application like this, forking means nothing if no one is going to contribute to the fork in the first place. I know that pawb.social is working on a fork iirc
Got a link to this AMA? Couldn’t find it.
I agree with @Cube6392@beehaw.org, if modtools (one of the reasons for Reddit API protests in the first place) aren’t being prioritized, a hard fork of Lemmy will be inevitable. I know the Lemmy devs are known for being strangely hardheaded about certain issues.
They have shifted gears recently and been pretty receptive to this major critique. Things are going in a much better direction now that 2 months have passed. If I can find the AMA I will link you.
OP never delivered. :'(
Yeah, unfortunately took a rapid shift away and my optimism is gone. A hard fork is being made from scratch in a new programming language, that I am actively involved in whatever way I can be.
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Looks like some CSAM fuzzy hashing would go a long way to catch someone trying to submit that kind of content if each uploaded image is scanned.
https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-csam-scanning-tool/
Not saying to go with CloudFlare (just showing how the detection works overall), but some kind of builtin detection system coded into Lemmy that grabs an updated hash table periodically
Not a bad idea, but I was working on a project once that would support user uploaded images and looked into PhotoDNA, but it was an incredible pain in the ass to get access to. I’m surprised that someone hasn’t realized that this should just be free and available. Kind of gross that it is put behind an application/paywall, imo. They’re just hashes and a library to generate the hashes. Why shouldn’t that just be open source and available through the NCMEC?
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They could tweak their images regardless. Security through obscurity is never a good solution.
I can understand the reporting requirement.
Works only if your server is hosted in the US
Is there not some way to involve the authorities? I feel like FBI/CIA or other foreign agencies would love to track down whoever is distributing. Like set up some sort of honeypot instance to catch them
They probably connect using tor. Not much you can do with that information (without effort far exceeding the value of one CP spammer).
Doesn’t the NSA run half of all Tor exit nodes?
ssssh… if they start arresting CP posters then people would lose faith in the Tor network and stop doing their illegal activities there.
Yeah. Even if they don’t run lots of nodes, they most likely do have some method of deanonymizing tor users. But they’re not gonna use it for one troll disrupting some small community.
Well the NSA did develop TOR so it wouldn’t be surprising if they did. It’s not like the NAS doesn’t break their own laws
Not the NSA.
Shit, what was I thinking of? Could just be some BS I’ve heard too. Thanks for the correction
I’m a bit confused, how does locking down a single community help?
Are the spammers really just focusing on one community instead of switching to the next after it gets banned?
I do hope there is an IP ban option, so someone can’t just use the same IP again to create an account on another instance and post CSAM from there. Obviously I do know about VPNs, but it makes it a tiny bit more difficult to spam in large amounts.
Most people don’t have static IP addresses, so banning their IP will only stop them temporarily. Then whoever gets that dynamic IP address next will be banned too. Then there’s CGNAT where 1 IP address can have up to 128 people using it at once and the address changes even more frequently.
We’re talking about temporary bans here, which do work against spam. Private users do have dynamic IPs, but at home I think I’ve had the same IP for years. They don’t wildly switch them around.
On second thought the IP is probably not federated though, so if there isn’t a common IP block list which instances subscribe to it won’t work.
Every time my router restarts I get a fresh wan IP. I can also manually grab a new one via the DHCP release/renew functions in it’s config page.
Lucky you. My ISP grants a new IP every 6 months or so. Even charges extra to keep it static -.-
Weird, are you 100% sure? I can restart my router all day, my ISP gives me the same IP back pretty much every time.
Probably depends on the ISP.
What about IP + MAC Address?
MAC address is a Level 2 addressing system (OSI model) and will not leave the local network / stay within the broadcast domain. The web browser will not expose this kind of information to a web server.
Gotcha thanks for the clarification
MAC address isn’t something a remote server knows about a client. Only the IP you should respond to is provided.
Ahh, I see. Thank you
Is it that hard to not be completely retarded and innapropriate on the internet for these people? Only “viable” alternative to reddit and they have to fuck it up
I’d assume that fucking it up is the goal. Some people are just irredeemable sociopaths who get satisfaction out of ruining other people’s days.
Those doing this want Lemmy to fail
And I think its just some disgruntled online user who doesn’t like when people are happy rather than some corpo entity. I’ve seen some people saying Reddit did this. I’m more likely to believe a user of a widely defederated instance that’s shutting down because everyone defederated them is responsible, or a zealous fediverse user that refuses to touch Lemmy because of who the devs are and thinks theyre doing the world a favor by keeping anyone else from enjoying it
While I understand the move entirely I can’t help but wonder if that might have been the intent of the perpetrators.
Definitely was. It was just a flex of their power. I don’t see any viable solution at the moment though, so going nuclear was the only sane option. When your options are to close a door versus playing an increasingly difficult game of cat and mouse w/ CP posters, most would opt to temporarily shutter their doors I feel.
What is worrying is that any community on lemmy on any instance is vulnerable to this type of attack. This will continue happening again and again until a clear solution, technical or otherwise, can be devised.
I gave my loyalty to Lemmy. I am not going to jump shit because some deranged lunatics decide to troll in the most abhorrent ways. I plan on donating to the project in show of support and I hope others do as well.
Honestly, I think it was destined to happen one way or another because of an open-signups server getting so big. The burggit/vlemmy debacle was the warning shot.
It should jump-start overdue efforts to improve moderation granularity and make it easier for mods to manage users and content.
What was the burggit/vlemmy debacle?
I know that vlemmy suddenly disappeared with no warning.
Can’t speak to Burggit’s place in the saga, but its widely speculated the vlemmy admin found some CSAM in the data storage and shut the whole thing down so as not to be further legally liabile for illegal activity on the server. I’ve seen some people saying admins don’t have to worry about that because of this section of this code of that countries legal doctrine or whatever, but the reality a lot of us face is that law enforcement and prosecutors don’t care how the CSAM got there, or if you knew about it, because its your burden of proof to prove them wrong about that, and they just have to make jurors who don’t know how the tech works think its your hardware, your hosted service, and therefore, your CSAM. The consequences of mishandling or not documenting your actions in regards to CSAM are incredibly dire. You could see yourself permanently sent to prison, and if not, upon your release permanently ostracized in very complex ways that could render you permanently homeless.
I like… Don’t understand the stance that Ruud or VLemmy are overreacting at all. Those are the stakes in some places, including where the majority of instances are hosted. It gives me the read some people don’t care that the admins are just people like you and me hosting these services to make good communities happen. The expectation for some people seems to be just like… “Keep the service up no matter what. I want to view content. if it becomes impossible to host, just sail out into international water. The content must flow”
Though I haven’t confirmed it (nor would I want to at this point), from my recollection of events, some community from burggit.moe was allegedly the source instance of the problematic images that were thought to have taken vlemmy.net down, which was reportedly some sexual depiction of young fictional cartoon/animal characters. This might not be illegal in some places but it definitely is in Ireland, so the server owner was notified as such and had most of their online accounts removed.
I gave my loyalty to Lemmy
This is a weird way to think about a service. You’re not a serf or lord. If the things tanks tomorrow I’m not losing sleep over it.
Let me clarify. I am loyal to Lemmy because they demonstrate a few important things to me. Openness, transparency, and community ownership. I have never used any piece of social media, content aggregation, whatever else, that has given me such confidence and transparency. Lemmy (as a project, not a single instance) has earned my trust because they have actually shown accountability and been open to communication.
One solution, perhaps, is if Lemmy users were better able to overcome the inertia of moving Communities, Instances, accounts, etc. Essentially to be a moving target for anyone who might want to cause harm. DDoSing lemmy.world? Okay, but we’re all on lemmy2.world now. Spamming a Community? Oh, you mean that one we all left?
I’m not criticizing others, because I’m as guilty of it any anyone, but it might be better if we realized that our usernames are meaningless, there’s no Karma, our comment histories are full of ephemeral observations with only a very specific relevance. It wouldn’t really matter if - worst case scenario - everything was deleted. I realise this wouldn’t sound acceptable to new users, but since many of us on instances run by one person as a hobby, that might happen anyway.
(As I was typing this, someone just replied to a 17 days old comment I made, so maybe this is all rubbish)
Hey, good to see you as usual.
The issue here is more than illegal content gets propagated to every instance, so moving around doesn’t help that much in that regard, the issue would remain.
You too, of course.
But, no, it does nothing for after something like this that has already happened. It was just more of a pie-in-the-sky solution to it ever happening in the first place.
Indeed
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So you’re asking why they didn’t “just” let people post links to child porn?
I think he’s asking why it is instances don’t ban self-hosting images and have posters use imgur and the like to post any kind of image, to prevent the proliferation of CP to begin with. Because presumably imgur and the like already have filters and mod armies checking uploads.
His comment literally accounts for a scenario of if child porn does get on imgur. His intent was to avoid accountability to lemmy, not avoid proliferation of CSAM. Which was what my question was trying to highlight
🤔 Hmm. Okay, I’m lost for an explanation then.
There are actual child rape apologists making their way onto Lemmy, aren’t there? Maybe that’s what he’s doing. Getting his foot in the door to defend obscene shit
He’s looking to minimise risk to the Lemmy host not advocating for defending shit. Seriously how did you come to this conclusion?
I was talking in general. I have noticed on .world’s news feed that there was an inundation of apologists specifically in the threads talking about the most blatantly heinous of crimes. There were people demanding empathy for the perpetrators, then speaking in generalities to subtly imply punishment itself is an inherently bad or unhelpful thing and that the perps in each thread should be given leniency.
I even noticed it in a meme thread I made talking specifically about rape apologia. Same argumentation style, same M.O., and others in my own thread thought it was sus.
Then I saw people using that same argumentation style to the letter to defend possession of CP last night.
The pattern is clear – evil is upon us, and we need to pressure mods and instances of admins to not allow people to defend serious criminals anymore, because that is what it leads to.
Bro don’t be too proud to talk with a therapist
I have a feeling his comment was more of a “not our problem” kind of thing, as opposed to defending CP. It’s not uncommon for people to want to do the minimum if it’s impacting something they like, possibly such as the sub that got closed. So I was trying to force some empathy into the conversation lol
Literally everybody is talking past each other
After reading this thread, I think we need fediverselorelore
What is csam? I don’t want to Google it.
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rise of uselessserver093? confirmed
i already filter shitposting coms. all the better
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Shit posting needs to die anyway. Only thing that should be allowed on the internet is knowledge and education. Throw out the corporations too.
How will you enforce this new “no unapproved fun” policy? I think “Only knowledge and education” is a dangerous precedent to set, and we should strive for freedom of expression. And I mean real freedom of expression, not the “mandatory audience” version of freedom of expression the freeze peach folks want, I mean actual honest to goodness freedom of expression with freedom of association, including “We no longer wish to associate with you.”
Part of that is that we all must be respectful of the bodily and personal autonomy of all people, which requires moderation of content that does not respect bodily and personal autonomy.
In conclusion:
- shitposting, fine
- CSAM, deplorable
That sounds very extreme. I like humor, but not the trolling type. In my time we used to say “don’t feed the trolls”. When ignored they mostly go away. Nowadays there’s always someone arguing with them. It’s so stupid…
How is education trolling? You do know the internet was made for communication and education until corporations took it over?
Humor = education? Trouble reading much?
