I recently learned that voting on lemmy is not anonymous. Anyone can get information about who has upvoted and downvoted a post or comment.

In combination with your IP, this is a massive privacy (maybe even physical security) risk. Also, people can target you for your votes.

Sadly, this is something where I would prefer Reddit over Lemmy. Big tech scrapes data from both places anyways, at least Reddit is safe.

  • discosnails@lemmy.wtf
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    7 days ago

    I was unaware that it was unclear to anyone but children and the intellectually behind that anything you do on the Internet is traceable to you without significant countermeasures.

  • socsa@piefed.social
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    7 days ago

    A lot of people here still refuse to understand that Lemmy, as it currently exists, is a privacy nightmare, and the voting thing is just the top of the iceberg. There are several de-anonymization attacks possible involving dynamically serving different content to different users. This, combined with the public voting makes it possible that someone can dox an account and expose a lot more information than other forums where that information is more private.

    Public votes also open the fediverse up to much worse astroturfing IMO. It’s incredible feedback for bots and trolls to see exactly who is interacting with their posts and comments. It’s frustrating that a bunch of people here have convinced themselves of the opposite, and insist that public voting is the only way to combat brigades and trolls, which is an incredibly shortsighted stance which doesn’t scale nearly as well as it does in the other direction.

  • omniman@piefed.zip
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    7 days ago

    whats the problem with it . you did not liked it you downvoted . its not like they can ban your account

  • Dholi@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    at least Reddit is safe.

    Lmao, what!? Reddit tries their best to know exactly who you are, where you live, your education, where you work, etc… And then they sell that data to anyone.

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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    9 days ago

    How do you do this and where can I find this info because I’d like to know.

    I’ll start by asking you if I upvoted or downvoted this post.

      • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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        8 days ago

        The weird part of this experiment was that I intentionally didn’t vote at all. I didn’t upvote or downvote … all I did was comment just to see what would happen.

    • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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      8 days ago

      Others have pointed out some websites and admins can take it a step further by seeing entire history for any user. Admins have way too much information on Lemmy.

      • PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au
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        8 days ago

        Admins have way too much information on Lemmy.

        No, users have way too little information on Lemmy. This whole distinction between “the admins, who see secrets and control the flow of information” versus “the users, who are only allowed to know what we tell them, and have to follow our rules” is a holdover from corporate structures of web service. For the most part, it has no place in the future I would like to see.

        The technology makes it impossible to hide the votes. So don’t hide the votes. It’s okay, as long as people know that’s what is going on. But anything that creates that kind of lord-and-peasant dichotomy should be minimized as much as possible within the realities of how things are going to get hosted. Admins can read DMs. So end-to-end encrypt the DMs. Mods and admins can make deletion and bans. So put the users in control of who’s allowed to “moderate” their individual feed (this is one thing that as I understand it Bluesky actually did very right), don’t partition everything into spaces where at all times the “users” are powerless to overrule someone trying to control their feed for them. And so on. You get the idea.

        That’s my opinion, others might see it differently, but I really don’t get why they copied all elements of the Reddit model when a lot of them have no place (or don’t even make sense) in a federated network.

    • jqubed@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      It’s fundamentally a part of how Activity-Pub works. To send any action (on any AP platform) the action must be associated with a username, especially when it’s going to another server/instance. On Lemmy the voting information has always been visible to admins and I think mods, but hidden from ordinary users. If you use a different, compatible platform, though, it might be easily visible. I think Kbin/Mbin shows them to everyone, Friendica shows all votes, and I think Mastodon shows at least the upvotes as favorites/❤️s. You can also go someplace like Lemvotes to see votes.

      For a while Piefed tried to get around this by sending up/down votes from alternate accounts on an instance that weren’t tied to any particular user, but I guess that caused its own problems so they stopped. Their option now is to simply prevent votes from federating to other instances, although that means vote totals may vary from one instance to another.

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Lemmy does make some attempts to hide your IP address, but everyone should know that any time you visit a website, that website gets your IP.

      So of course your instance has your IP (whoever’s running it). And if you ever explicitly visit another domain, they’ll get your IP as well.

    • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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      8 days ago

      Admins have it. And by admin, I assume it is admins of all instances. And anyone can make an instance.

      • AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today
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        8 days ago

        IP addresses are not, and have never been federated. This may shock you, but any admin of any website can see what IP address you’re connecting from if you connect to their site.

  • FelixCress@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Anyone can get information about who has upvoted and downvoted a post or comment.

    In combination with your IP, this is a massive privacy (maybe even physical security) risk.

    Why?

    • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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      8 days ago

      If I know the things you post/vote about and I know your general location (from IP), I can use that along with other metrics from other usage of your IP (on other websites) to get a fairly accurate location and profile of who you are. One slip up in a comment or a post and I can probably know your name and address.

      This is assuming someone is specifically targeting you. But as tech advances, it might already be possible for the average person to do this on a large number of people. Big tech does it already.

      • FelixCress@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        If I know the things you post/vote

        Post or vote? As you appear to be specifically butthurt about people being able to see how you vote? Or perhaps you would like your posts to be anonymous as well?

        I know your general location (from IP)

        You don’t.

        other usage of your IP (on other websites)

        You don’t.

        fairly accurate location and profile of who you are

        You don’t.

        One slip up in a comment or a post and I can probably know your name and address.

        Yeah, if I put in my name and address when commenting 🙄

        • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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          8 days ago

          Admins can have IPs. What do you mean “you don’t”?

          Every IP has a geolocation.

          Yeah, if I put in my name and address when commenting

          You underestimate how much information we leak through just using the Internet.

          • FelixCress@lemmy.world
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            Admins can have IPs. What do you mean “you don’t”?

            Precisely what I said. You don’t. Admins of your instance can - you know, like Reddit admins.

            You underestimate how much information we leak through just using the Internet.

            Yes, downvoting is definitely “information leaking”.

            Look, you don’t like that anyone could see how you voted, I get it. That’s your view and it is fine. But stop making it a privacy issue as it isn’t one.

          • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
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            8 days ago

            I knew from the beginning that you should always expect the worst.
            Never gave my name or info unless absolutely necessary.
            Even avoided smarthphones until last year, from then it was simply forced upon me since there was no other option for many services.

  • Jeena@piefed.jeena.net
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    9 days ago

    Why is public voting a massive privacy and physical threat but public posting and commenting is not?

    • BlueÆther@no.lastname.nz
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      9 days ago

      I feel hat posts/comments are much more of a privacy exposure than any vote.
      If the OP wants private voting vs their post/comments then two account would be the solution to that - this is how it is done in the backend on piefed

        • Saleh@feddit.org
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          8 days ago

          Which only has rather limited information derivable from it. The most “identifying” would be to vote regularly on a community dedicated to your local area.

          If you don’t trust your instance with knowing your IP-address, then the issue is not going to be solved by “anonymous voting”. Because your instance has to know if you voted on something or not, so votes cannot be done multiple times. This is unavoidable and equal to the situation when using reddit. Except that you can choose a different instance if you distrust the current instance.

          OP either did not think through what he is claiming or he is driven by an agenda.

      • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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        8 days ago

        Both of them are but when a person comments, they willingly put out their opinion in the public. Voting is meant to be anonymous (like irl).

        Also, votes have a massive amount as compared to comments. An average user might comment on 1 post for every 50 they vote on (a number I pulled out of my ass)

        • Jeena@piefed.jeena.net
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          8 days ago

          Voting is only seldom private IRL, only in very specific situations like in very important national elections.

          When you vote for what to get for lunch together or for who will be the head of your local football club or who will be the speaker in your school, most of them are public, similarly to Lemmy votes.

        • Saleh@feddit.org
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          8 days ago

          The only one tying your votes to your IP-address or the E-Mail you registered with, is your home instance. This is identical to reddit. If you don’t trust your home instance with your IP-address, use a VPN and/or switch to a different instance.

          You are making up an issue for lemmy, which you are willing to accept with reddit.

            • Saleh@feddit.org
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              8 days ago

              But they aren’t tied to any public information that relates back to you, unless you voluntarily make this information public yourself. You have the exact same “privacy (maybe even physical security)” risk, like when you use reddit. Just that with reddit you have to trust reddit to use the platform, while in the Fediverse you only have to choose one instance to trust.

              • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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                8 days ago

                Votes are public here and not on Reddit. Someone who doesn’t like a downvote can go on a witch-hunt, something which is happening to my comments right now.

          • PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au
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            8 days ago

            The Lemmy creators thought votes should be private, and didn’t respond meaningfully to people who tried to tell them that Lemmy votes are not private.

            If they’re currently retconning it as “Lemmy votes are not private and never were,” then that’s a step in the right direction I guess, but the fatal flaw was ever following the Reddit model where votes are “supposed” to be private for real. Because as you note it is impossible to do in an ActivityPub system. A lot of people when this was first being discussed, pre-lemvotes, were objecting strongly to the idea of making votes public, because they liked pretending they were private and just not paying any attention to the fact that they weren’t. I think mbin still refuses to display downvotes for this (stupid) reason.

            (Actually, Piefed did what I thought was a brilliant solution, creating new actors to send out votes with that were different from the comment actors, so that individual users could vote from Piefed and admins could check into it but the votes would not be trivial to associate with the users. IDK why they abandoned it but it seemed like a pretty clever way.)

          • anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz
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            8 days ago

            I’d dare say lemmy creators wouldn’t mind private votes, they chose not to display voting counts to normal users after all, but that’s not how the ActivityPub protocol is built and honestly can’t be built if you want federated votes.

      • Jeena@piefed.jeena.net
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        8 days ago

        Also if only voting is so bad, just don’t vote. Those votes are not used for anything but ranking in lists for others, you’ll not see any difference for yourself if you stop voting.

      • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Who’s ‘bent out of shape’?
        Having to vent his little frustration from NATO fascists losing the war in a totally unrelated discussion about up/downvotes.
        Go cry somewhere else.
        Or better go volkssturm and go to the Ostfront like your example from the 1940.
        You will be dealth with appropriately there.

      • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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        8 days ago

        I am not bent out of shape. I said what I said and I stand by it. I am surprised about the public nature of my votes.

      • PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au
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        8 days ago

        I mean it is kind of a dick move to spy on downvotes and then demand that someone respond to you. The dude is wrong as hell, but I do agree with the overall principle that not every vote needs to be subject to someone getting interrogated as to why they voted that way.

        Their shock at finding out that it works that way is, of course, why the currently Lemmy UI is badly designed because it creates the illusion for people that their votes are private. They definitely should not do that.

        • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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          8 days ago

          Exactly my point. It is a form of witch-hunt. People are too focused on my views on the Russia-Ukraine than the actual topic.

        • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          It’s not something I usually do, but I’m tired of not calling out people on shitty opinions in regards to fascism. especially when it comes to a simple perspective of “this bad thing is bad”.

          it’s like someone downvoting because a comment said “fuck cancer”. like…why? my mind can’t even fathom why anyone would dislike that kind of message unless they themselves are cancer or advocate for the advancement of cancer.

          typically I don’t give a shit about downvotes, but it just really rubbed me the wrong way.

          • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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            8 days ago

            People are free to their opinions. Not everyone will fit into your concept of ethics. If you are calling out someone for their non-conventional opinion, you are against free speech.

            • If you are calling out someone for their non-conventional opinion, you are against free speech.

              Nope, that’s not what that means. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences of your speech and it doesn’t mean guaranteed anonymous speech. And as far as the constitution is concerned, the right to freedom of speech only means the government can’t stop you from expressing your opinion.

              So you have the right to say what you want without government interference, but other people can tell you that what you said is shitty, your employer can fire you because you opinion isn’t consistent with their values, the forum/venue where you expressed your opinion can ban you, etc.

            • Crazyslinkz@lemmy.world
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              I feel like you misunderstand what free speech is.

              Calling someone out for any opinion is part of free speech.

                • Crazyslinkz@lemmy.world
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                  8 days ago

                  To elaborate, the ability to call someone out is literally “free speech”. The backlash you may get for said call out, in speech form, is also part of free speech.

                  If the government locks you up for what you said, that is not free speech.

            • voracitude@lemmy.world
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              8 days ago

              Free speech just means the government isn’t allowed to punish you for only saying things (and even that had a whole constellation of big fuckin asterisks on it). Free speech does not mean freedom from consequences.

      • Perspectivist@feddit.uk
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        8 days ago

        You’re not accurately representing what they said.

        this could easily be solved.
        Russia go home. Leave Ukraine.

        …is on par with telling people to “get a higher-paying job” to fix their finances or “just get friends” to solve loneliness. I don’t downvote a comment like this because it wouldn’t solve the issue, but because the proposed “solution” is completely out of touch with reality.

        Good rule of thumb for online discussion: if someone offers a simple solution to a complex problem, they probably don’t know what they’re talking about.

        • PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au
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          8 days ago

          No, it’s on par with telling someone “Well, you shouldn’t keep driving drunk then” or “You should 100% stop contacting her and move on if she keeps instantly blocking you on every new platform you try on.” Certain actions really are under voluntary control. We’re not telling Russia they really need to shape up that GDP if they want the world to take them seriously. We’re asking them to stop deciding to kill innocent people. Seems legit. The obstacle is that they really want to, and they’re reluctant to stop.

          (The analogy is flawed because there’s no real equivalency between driving drunk and maybe rolling the dice on killing one family, and yourself, versus doing it to members of a million families. But the simplicity of the solution is the same.)

          • Perspectivist@feddit.uk
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            There’s no real cost to stopping drunk driving. Putin, on the other hand, has gone all in on the war in Ukraine. “Just pull your troops from Ukraine” is about as realistic as “just shoot yourself,” because from his perspective, the outcome is basically the same in both scenarios.

            Sure, it would be nice if Russia simply left Ukraine, but put yourself in Putin’s position - it’s a complete non-solution. You don’t fold after going all in. It’s an incredibly naive thing to say, and it ignores the reality and complexity of the situation entirely. It’s a thought-terminating cliché - a feel-good slogan people toss around to avoid critical thinking, while fishing for upvotes from like-minded people.

            • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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              7 days ago

              put yourself in Putin’s position - it’s a complete non-solution. You don’t fold after going all in.

              That’s literally no one’s problem but Putin’s. He has committed crimes. He should accept the personal reprecussions. You’re basically making the “affluenza” argument for someone who has been committing war crimes and murdering civilians because they dared to want to have a representative government.

              • Perspectivist@feddit.uk
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                7 days ago

                I’m not defending Putin’s actions - I’m assessing the realistic options given the current situation. There’s a difference between what should happen in a moral sense and what is actually likely to happen in the real world.

                Saying “he should accept the consequences” is easy - but how exactly do you propose making that happen? Wishing for an outcome is not the same as having a way to it. If you think there’s a viable way to get Putin to take personal responsibility or withdraw and survive it personally, I’m genuinely interested in hearing what you think that looks like in practice.

            • FelixCress@lemmy.world
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              8 days ago

              There’s no real cost to stopping drunk driving.

              There isn’t one for Russia to go home neither.

              put yourself in Putin’s position - it’s a complete non-solution

              You are taking a fucking piss.

            • Wow, I’m dumbfounded by this logic.

              Let’s say you and I live next door to each other. One day, my family and I break into your house and move in. You tell us to leave, but we punch you in the face. You try fighting back, but we don’t leave, and days and weeks go by. I’ve moved some of my furniture into your house. How would you feel if people started saying that the problem is now too complex. I’ve obviously invested too much in living in your house for me to just pack up and go home. The solution is going to have to be more nuanced than that.

              This seems to be the logic you’re defending.

            • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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              8 days ago

              Ok I have ro ask, have you studied philosophy or language? Your comments are so well formed with proper terminology.

              • Perspectivist@feddit.uk
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                8 days ago

                Thank you!

                No, I haven’t - I’m a plumber by training. I credit my autism for my precision of speech, and as for my philosophy and the vocabulary around it, I’d say that’s simply the result of a few decades of debating these topics online, combined with thousands of hours of podcasts and YouTube videos covering these topics.

                It’s rare that I say anything completely original. If something I say comes across as well-crafted, it’s probably because I’ve said the exact same thing a dozen times before.

                • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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                  8 days ago

                  Autism is a superpower if used correctly.

                  You are my second favourite plumber, after Mario.

            • PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au
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              8 days ago

              Sure, it would be nice if Russia simply left Ukraine, but put yourself in Putin’s position - it’s a complete non-solution. You don’t fold after going all in. It’s an incredibly naive thing to say

              This is exactly the kind of logic someone would use to justify either of the examples I brought up. Exactly.

              The fact that he really doesn’t want to stop killing innocent people, and so he would have to pay the “cost” of doing something he doesn’t want to do, isn’t a justification. I would actually really like for him to be arrested on that ICC warrant and try to explain this exactly logic at the Hague. I think it would be great. I would support him using that defense, I think it would be wonderful to see. People could decide whether to accept the logic, and then whether to hang him or not depending on whether they bought into it as a good reason for continuing to kill innocent people on an industrial scale.

        • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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          8 days ago

          if someone offers a simple solution to a complex problem, they probably don’t know what they’re talking about.

          New quote added to my journal

        • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          I mean…I am “they”.

          honestly I’m at a loss of even how to respond to your critique. you’re comparing first world problems and the primary request of the Ukrainian government like it’s apples to apples.

          I think if either of us is underestimating the complexity of the situation, it’s you.

          many of the problems that are plaguing Ukraine right now is Russia. many of the problems plaguing Russia right now is their illegal occupation of Ukraine. the simplest solution right now is for Russia to leave Ukraine. after that, discussions of reciprocity can be held. I use that term loosely here though because Russia is clearly the one at fault and Ukraine has been acting in self-defense, as such Ukraine shouldn’t be required to repay anything to Russia.

          also, if you’re coming to Lemmy to have a deep political discussion on the finer points of political discourse (especially on the topic of Russia), you might not be that intelligent. maybe read a book on the subject and find a discussion group at a local library if you want to engage with an intellectual.

          remember, these are comments not thesis statements.

          • Perspectivist@feddit.uk
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            “You might not be that intelligent” isn’t the counter argument you might think it is.

            You misrepresented what OP said. Plain and simple. That’s what I’m calling you out on.

          • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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            8 days ago

            Ok at the risk of being downvoted to oblivion, why do you think Russia invaded Ukraine?

            Mind you, I still think Russia did the wrong thing but there is nuance.

            • FelixCress@lemmy.world
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              8 days ago

              why do you think Russia invaded Ukraine?

              To take it over. You know, like they have done with number of countries number of times before?

            • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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              There is no nuance. Russia amassed an invasion force at the Ukrainian border for a week before entering their sovereign territory.

              Russia postured at the border and had been threatening to advance for months before that even.

              Russia was supporting Russian separatists and funding domestic terrorists within Ukraine before the invasion.

              the only reason why this happened is because the Ukrainian public rebelled against the Russian fed corruption and held an actual legitimate election and removed the installed puppets.

              if there is any nuance here, it’s in the multiple ways that Russia had attempted to circumvent the will of the Ukrainian people.

    • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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      8 days ago

      Both of them are but when a person comments, they willingly put out their opinion in the public. Voting is meant to be anonymous (like irl).

      Also, votes have a massive amount as compared to comments. An average user might comment on 1 post for every 50 they vote on (a number I pulled out of my ass)

      • 9point6@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        On most social media the voting is public, see Facebook/Twitter likes. Hell back in the days of forums you could usually see the list of users that liked a given thread in most of the forum software I ever used. Reddit was the anomaly really

        I think piefed has a feature where your votes never leave your instance, so are not exposed in this way (but obviously only appear on your home instance too)

        Agree that it should be clearer to people coming from Reddit that that’s how it works though.

        • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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          The thing is they make it extremely clear that votes are public by letting you see who voted right next to the button.

          Lemmy hides this feature and most users don’t know about it.

      • Saleh@feddit.org
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        8 days ago

        That is not true. Most votes irl are in fact public to the audience. Did you ever participate in a democratically organized group? Local council votes are usually done by raising hands. Votes in HOA meetings are usually done by raising hands. Your sports club deciding on a new executive and treasurer? Guess what. Raising hands.

      • dan@upvote.au
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        8 days ago

        Voting is meant to be anonymous (like irl).

        Says who? Voting/likes are public on a lot of social media sites, as long as the content itself is public. The only mainstream ones I can think of where it’s not are YouTube and reddit.

        • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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          8 days ago

          The thing is they make it extremely clear that votes are public by letting you see who voted right next to the button.

          Lemmy hides this feature and most users don’t know about it.

      • FelixCress@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        person comments, they willingly put out their opinion in the public.

        Yes.

        Voting is meant to be anonymous

        No.

    • Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      9 days ago

      Would be my question as well. It seems quite obvious that if you participate in publicly viewable discussion, that the stuff you do is publicly viewable.

      If you don’t want it associated to your physical person, use a VPN and unidentifiable account name.

      (And the statement “at least reddit is safe” seems absolutely ridiculous to me.)

      • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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        8 days ago

        Reddit is safer than Lemmy. There cannot be witchhunts on lurkers. IP info is not accessible to anyone but the company.

        • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          If people are harassing you privately, I’m sorry and I’m sure you can message a mod. If you like to express your opinion through votes and adding to the pile but don’t like others knowing you did so, you’re a coward.

          • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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            8 days ago

            I don’t understand why people are calling me a coward. I gave an unpopular opinion, I stood by it and then made a post that might subject my account to scrutiny.

            • pwalker@discuss.tchncs.de
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              8 days ago

              I think they are referring to the point that you want your personal votes to be kept private. Some say it is a form of “cowardice” to not vote publicly.

              Personally I see your point is very valid and at least this should be more actively described when signing up for Lemmy and that obviously your instance admins can see everything and you should be very careful (e.g. VPN) if you’d like to participate privately in a conversation. Maybe this is not the right platform for you then ufortunately. Everything in life has its pros and cons and certainly Lemmy is not perfect.

              • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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                8 days ago

                I don’t want just my votes to be private, though. It should be private for everyone. Why are people not seeing that?

                Yes.

          • PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au
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            8 days ago

            As long as we’re talking about privacy issues on Lemmy, I’m pretty sure that isn’t true. I strongly suspect that it would be possible to set up a tool that would post image links, or even just track the accesses for your own avatar, in a way where you could statistically be pretty confident of associating IP addresses with usernames after participating in Lemmy for a while (correlating people accessing your avatar image with replying to particular people’s comments and then them replying to those comments, sending DMs to particular people from a not-very-much used account, something like that.)

            I think modern versions of Lemmy can proxy images to reduce this, but it’s hard enough to do robustly that I would bet that there is some kind of way the information leaks out. It’s really hard to prevent this kind of thing even if you’re trying hard to make it difficult and the Lemmy devs don’t seem to be trying all that hard.

            I don’t even think image proxying is on by default in Lemmy, although I just checked and this Piefed instance is doing it.

            • A Wild Mimic appears!@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              8 days ago

              you can be sure that reddit tracks you; often you cant even open it when using a vpn. they have an approximate location from your ip, possible movement data when their client is on your phone, and then they enrich their data with external datasets. those are then sold. reddit is a bit more private than facebook, but not as much as you believe. all those sources combined mean they pretty much know who you are.

              • npdean@lemmy.todayOP
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                8 days ago

                I agree that they track and are shit at privacy. I specifically find it safer because only the company can track me and not the users.

                • you know that data is being sold to hundreds of third parties, right? I`m pretty sure that more people get access to that data than there are lemmy users. but you do you, mate

                • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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                  8 days ago

                  This is a decent point. Ignore the inane downvotes you’re getting for simply expressing your opinion in a polite and good-faith manner.

        • Perspectivist@feddit.uk
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          8 days ago

          If someone starts to harrass you due to your voting habits (which I’ve never heard of happening) you can just block them and move on with your life. The difference between someone saying mean things to you and someone writing them is that you can just stop reading.

            • Perspectivist@feddit.uk
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              8 days ago

              If a person climbs onto a stage to make a statement, and instead of getting on stage to make a counterpoint someone just shouts “booo” from the audience, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to demand that person to show their face. There’s a certain level of cowardice in simply downvoting without explaining why you disagree. There’s no option to post anonymously here, so it’s not obvious to me that voting should be anonymous either. If people upvote or downvote, they should be willing to stand behind that - and if someone asks for an explanation, you have three choices: ignore them, block them, or explain. I guess there’s also the option to simply not vote at all.

              If it were up to me, I’d hide vote counts from users entirely. It’s not all bad, but I’d argue the net effect is negative. Visible votes encourages toxic behavior. When someone makes a controversial claim, you can first downvote them, then dunk on them in a reply - and now they’re being downvoted into oblivion while you get applause for your smug comment. It feels like you’ve won the debate when in reality, nobody’s mind changed. Heavily downvoted comments also prime readers to dislike them before they even read them, instead of approaching with a neutral mindset and then forming their own opinion - or reading further to see other perspectives. As it stands, the system mostly trains people to recognize what’s popular on a platform so they can self-censor to avoid downvotes, and feel validated for shouting down people who voice unpopular opinions.

              So, if someone asks me to explain why I downvoted something, I might explain or I might not - but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable thing to ask. On the other hand, if someone makes it their personal mission to follow me around and harass me because I downvoted their comment, I think it’s unreasonable to demand the system be changed just so I don’t have to deal with it. There’s already a solution for that: blocking them.

              • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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                7 days ago

                There’s a certain level of cowardice in simply downvoting without explaining why you disagree.

                .

                When someone makes a controversial claim, you can first downvote them, then dunk on them in a reply - and now they’re being downvoted into oblivion while you get applause for your smug comment.

                .

                If someone asks me to explain why I downvoted something, I might explain or I might not

                Dude, pick a lane.

                • Perspectivist@feddit.uk
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                  7 days ago

                  I don’t see a conflict here but I’m happy to explain if you elaborate on what’s confusing about what I said.

  • s@piefed.world
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    8 days ago

    So would an oppressive government be able to simply set up their own instance and identify the IPs of lurker dissidents based on what they up/downvote?

    • anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz
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      8 days ago

      Only if said lurker registered on their specific instance. Only piefed.world can correlate your ip with your user and only sopuli.xyz can do it for mine.

      lemmy.world never gets our ip from what we post. They could see that an ip accessed a picture they host but not with a username attached. (same as every webserver can)

    • CallMeAnAI@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      No you have to run the instance.

      I do think it’s hilarious that all these users think the majority of admins are going to do jail time protecting your data.