I have been working on Lemvotes, a tool to check who voted on a Lemmy post. In this blog post, I will describe how it works and the ethics of such a tool.
  • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
    5·
    2 days ago

    I want to remind everyone that since users overwhelmingly don’t want their votes snooped on (for good reason), we will never add anything like this inside lemmy, lemmy-ui, or jerboa.

    While there’s nothing we can do to snoopers making tools like this, it requires a lemmy server admin login.

    If you know of servers which are giving admin access to this tool, let us know, so we can add it to our blocklist.

    • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      Maybe federation should be based on allowlisting, instead of allowing instances by default.

    • JRaccoon@discuss.tchncs.de
      1·
      2 days ago

      That’s reassuring to know. What I don’t understand is why you have the /api/v3/post/like/list route. You say you don’t want votes to be snooped on, but then you add an endpoint that makes it very easy for instance admins to do exactly that if they choose to? Also worth pointing out that the tool linked here wouldn’t work in its current form if this route didn’t exist.

      • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
        1·
        2 days ago

        Read the issue above for why. Vote manipulation is a real problem, but making all votes public is not the solution anyone wants. Limiting vote viewing to admins and mods is decided on as the best of both worlds.

        Also that tool can only be used by specifically malicious instances whose goal it is to snoop and expose all votes. Those instances can and should be blocked.

      • Rooki@lemmy.world
        2·
        2 days ago

        This is for admins to see easier vote manipulation. I think mods can see that on their communities too.

        For admins its like… they could literally just look into the database, so it doesnt make any difference. Mods in the other hand should rather not snoop around i guess.

        This tool just simplifies the process instead of creating an open federated instance yourself and see the votes.

  • Global_Liberty@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    Votes should be anonymous.

    This is the first step toward monetizing Lemmy for multinationals.

  • drspod@lemmy.ml
    1·
    3 days ago

    I will describe how it works and the ethics of such a tool.

    Where in this post do you describe the ethics of such a tool?

    non-technical users believe that their votes are private, which is far from the truth. This attitude could potentially lead to harassment of Lemmings (yes, that’s what we Lemmy users call ourselves) for upvoting a particular post. Lemvotes makes it clear that votes are not private, which could help bring a more accurate picture of the way votes work on Lemmy to its users.

    This is what needs discussion. It is this tool which will lead to harassment due to the way someone votes. And the threat or spectre of harassment will lead to the Chilling Effect, ie. self-censorship (of voting) to avoid harassment.

    The chilling effect this causes will make communities even more like echo-chambers, as dissent will be pre-emptively squashed.

    Without a tool like this existing, people have to go out of their way to find out this information (setting up their own instance, or finding someone who already does this surreptitiously). By making such a tool available to the lemmy community at large, you make it extremely easy for anyone to do this, and so the chance of harassment occurring is much higher.

    You might think you’re being clever, or on some kind of crusade to educate the uneducated. But actually your actions are making this (community-built) platform worse. Compare your actions to releasing a 0-day exploit for a security vulnerability instead of responsibly disclosing. It doesn’t help, it just causes chaos until the people who do the actual work can figure out a solution.

    Think about how your tool existing now changes the dynamic of Lemmy as a whole. Is it better, or worse? How would you actually solve this problem in Lemmy, instead of exploiting it?

  • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
    0·
    2 days ago

    Having access to information about who voted on a post would allow people to locate brigading1 efforts and detect bots spamming down/upvotes on posts. Currently, only admins can access this information, which makes it harder for users to report such behaviour to them.

    Or provide the empire controlling most of the bots, extra ammunition to have AI determine a social credit score for everyone. Winner gets a free trip to El Salvador.

    • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      2 days ago

      I find this whole thing weird because some federating platforms (like mbin I think) already show voting users publicly

        • Bogus007@lemm.ee
          02·
          2 days ago

          IMHO the entire voting thing is useless. If you don’t like a post, don’t read it. If the post is aggressive and very harmful (racist, fascist), inform the admin to remove it. If the post is interesting, read it and mark as done. So, why voting? In Reddit and even here on Lemmy, I saw critical comments - which I myself sometimes do not like, but did not downvote - that were heavily downvoted by others (though it was just a critical view). What does this mean? That a user has to play according to the rules of the masses? That he/she cannot express his/her different views? If you don’t like or think a comment is weirded, ask why. Engage the person in a discussion (which may be promoted by the lack of a voting system). Perhaps you can convince him/her, or perhaps the other user can show you a different perspective, which may turn out to be a bit extreme, but not that wrong either. Right?