Is the bot/troll situation getting worse?

haui@lemmy.giftedmc.com to Fediverse@lemmy.world – 119 points –

It feels like the amount of both, divisive posts and ghoulish comments is rising again.

One could argue that the world has a lot of divisive stuff going on and lemmy just talks about it. But the way people post about stuff seems more oot and hateful than it has been in the past.

Not saying it is that but if I wanted to bring the Fediverse down or at least keep my customers from going there, I would sow this stuff as much as I can.

I'm blocking ghouls left right and center atm but if I ever asked a friend to join lemmy, I'd hate to think of what they would see that I dont anymore.

Do we need stronger moderation?

  • Maybe ban politics from c/memes?
  • Become a little more stringent on "dont be a jerk" rules in communities?

One thing that really bothers me is the collapsing "discourse". Trying to mend fences and keep the conversation between sides going ime leads to nothing but downvotes and shitstorm.

I feel like a little more interaction (instead of intervention, at first) of the moderators would do wonders there.

Thanks for reading this rant. Have a nice day.

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if I wanted to bring the Fediverse down or at least keep my customers from going there, I would sow this stuff as much as I can

Agree. And that's been my experience here too. I made two posts critical of reddit and they each seemed to have been astroturfed by toxic reddit shills.

I think it would require a lot of active and dedicated mods and admins, which I'm doubtful is doable. I don't know that there's a fix for this but a "true block" (instead of the current "mute") might help; but there are major downsides to that type of feature as well. I wrote in a blog that it might require an advanced AI to moderate everything.

I made two posts critical of reddit and they each seemed to have been astroturfed by toxic reddit shills.

Here or at Reddit? I have never ever ever seen proof that Lemmy is pro-Reddit at anything. Like, most of the people here migrated from Reddit on bad terms with them.

Here. Strangely, on Reddit I get much more support. Lemmy is either filled with trolls or is being astroturfed by people who don't want to see it thrive.

I have never ever ever seen proof that Lemmy is pro-Reddit at anything.

Here's the latest time it happened: https://lemmy.world/post/11328086

The previous one was deleted, which unfortunately covered it up.

That might be an idea. Humans are infamously bad at tone policing. An AI cant possibly make it worse. (I‘m kinda kidding but not really)

It's either that or, gasp, actually paying moderators.

I'd rather just automate the solution. It's still going to run into some amount of human tweaking and biases, but at least it won't require the massive amount of manpower that moderation requires right now. Something that requires so much manpower that no corporation is willing to actually pay the workforce.

Besides the fact that mods could and should be paid if the platform makes money, the job itself is kinda gruelling and either breaks people or attracts assholes (with some in between but not many.

Therefore I agree. Automate it.