So I’ve noticed that there’s a little group of accounts all with the same name, presumably the same person with alts on several instances, and they all like to upvote their own stuff from their other accounts with the same name on other instances (and from other accounts which don’t have the same name but seem likely to be the same person). Here’s what it looks like. (I have redacted their actual username, since I’m not sure if that is acceptable to post in a bigger and not-drama-centered community.)
Each of these little groupings is multiple votes from accounts with the exact same name, all applied to the same comment within a few minutes of each other from (for example) the programming.dev and slrpnk.net accounts, a little while after the infosec.pub account posted it:
SELECT p.actor_id, cl.score, cl.comment_id, cl.published FROM person p, comment_like cl WHERE p.name = 'redacted' AND cl.person_id = p.id ORDER BY published ASC;
actor_id | score | comment_id | published
------------------------------------+-------+------------+-------------------------------
(some excerpts:)
https://infosec.pub/u/redacted | 1 | 1961075 | 2025-02-22 16:22:56.014731+00
https://slrpnk.net/u/redacted | 1 | 1961075 | 2025-02-22 18:00:51.325286+00
https://programming.dev/u/redacted | 1 | 1961075 | 2025-02-22 18:03:18.236992+00
https://programming.dev/u/redacted | 1 | 1958485 | 2025-02-22 18:03:19.371003+00
https://slrpnk.net/u/redacted | 1 | 1958485 | 2025-02-22 18:00:50.886344+00
https://infosec.pub/u/redacted | 1 | 1958485 | 2025-02-22 11:23:42.226386+00
https://programming.dev/u/redacted | 1 | 1958643 | 2025-02-22 18:03:19.093138+00
https://slrpnk.net/u/redacted | 1 | 1958643 | 2025-02-22 18:00:50.944788+00
https://infosec.pub/u/redacted | 1 | 1958643 | 2025-02-22 11:57:14.571075+00
https://infosec.pub/u/redacted | 1 | 1958775 | 2025-02-22 12:18:29.561662+00
https://slrpnk.net/u/redacted | 1 | 1958775 | 2025-02-22 18:00:51.007097+00
https://programming.dev/u/redacted | 1 | 1958775 | 2025-02-22 18:03:19.019653+00
https://programming.dev/u/redacted | 1 | 1958789 | 2025-02-22 18:03:18.814704+00
https://slrpnk.net/u/redacted | 1 | 1958789 | 2025-02-22 18:00:51.063719+00
https://infosec.pub/u/redacted | 1 | 1958789 | 2025-02-22 12:20:44.963274+00
https://slrpnk.net/u/redacted | 1 | 1958826 | 2025-02-22 17:59:48.55791+00
https://programming.dev/u/redacted | 1 | 1958826 | 2025-02-22 18:02:49.300343+00
https://slrpnk.net/u/redacted | 1 | 1958827 | 2025-02-22 18:00:16.302578+00
https://programming.dev/u/redacted | 1 | 1958827 | 2025-02-22 18:03:20.336056+00
https://slrpnk.net/u/redacted | 1 | 1958832 | 2025-02-22 17:59:48.497287+00
https://programming.dev/u/redacted | 1 | 1958832 | 2025-02-22 18:02:49.359749+00
https://programming.dev/u/redacted | 1 | 1958871 | 2025-02-22 18:02:49.420568+00
https://slrpnk.net/u/redacted | 1 | 1958871 | 2025-02-22 17:59:48.43862+00
https://slrpnk.net/u/redacted | 1 | 1958873 | 2025-02-22 17:59:24.697018+00
https://programming.dev/u/redacted | 1 | 1958873 | 2025-02-22 18:04:55.884635+00
https://programming.dev/u/redacted | 1 | 1958875 | 2025-02-22 18:04:55.795094+00
https://slrpnk.net/u/redacted | 1 | 1958875 | 2025-02-22 17:59:24.792819+00
https://slrpnk.net/u/redacted | 1 | 1958877 | 2025-02-22 17:59:24.743799+00
https://programming.dev/u/redacted | 1 | 1958877 | 2025-02-22 18:04:55.84273+00
https://slrpnk.net/u/redacted | -1 | 1958982 | 2025-02-22 18:00:51.647423+00
https://infosec.pub/u/redacted | -1 | 1958982 | 2025-02-22 12:55:05.047563+00
https://programming.dev/u/redacted | 1 | 1959091 | 2025-02-22 18:03:18.551263+00
https://infosec.pub/u/redacted | 1 | 1959091 | 2025-02-22 12:55:40.650352+00
https://slrpnk.net/u/redacted | 1 | 1959091 | 2025-02-22 18:00:51.138157+00
The reason I’m bringing this up:
- Isn’t this a problem? I get that it’s hard (impossible) to prevent this type of thing, but it seems weird that the infosec.pub admins weren’t into the idea of it being a problem when I pointed out this super-blatant instance of it to them. I do feel like dealing with blatant Lemmy-fraud when it happens is kind of a good instance hygiene type of thing to do.
- You should know that this user also talks pretty constantly about how the Democrats are bad, and anyone who votes for them is a fool, and Kamala Harris was the one who invaded Gaza, and so on. And they like using their multiple alts to upvote that content of their own. I feel like having that confluence pointed out is relevant.
- Is there something that I should be doing different than just pinging the admin and then moving on with my life if they don’t do anything?
I can’t exactly articulate why I feel like this is an issue, but I do. This also doesn’t necessarily seem like the right place to post this, but also, I wasn’t sure where to post it, and so…
Just because I thought it was notably super-interesting. Here’s the most recent comment that got voter-fraud-ed by this person:
https://ponder.cat/comment/2910556
That one was upvoted from the redacted user’s alts on infosec.sub and slrpnk.net, and also one of the other accounts on infosec.pub that I think is an alt for them, and the original comment was posted by another account also hosted on infosec.pub.
And, I think I found a whole new alt account of theirs on infosec.pub, which gave an upvote sandwiched in between a couple of those alt account upvotes all within a few minutes of each other. With the fake upvotes, it’s voted at +7/-6. Without the fake upvotes, it would be voted at +3/-6.
Interesting-er and interesting-er. Like I say, there’s a certain type of subject matter that seems like it gets consistently fake-upvoted by this user, although they also fake-upvote just random innocuous comments of theirs for reasons I don’t really know.
i’ve banned all the accounts i could identify as part of this scheme from lemmy.world now.
i originally sent them a warning before i was aware of the scale of this involving a bunch of alts with different usernames. if i had known that when i sent the warning it would’ve been a ban straight away.
they replied to my warning pretending they didn’t know about any recent vote manipulation, so they’re clearly not interested in acting in good faith going forward.
Sounds good to me. And yes, the whole “I’m going to lie to your face and fuck with your network because at the end of the day what the fuck are you going to do about it? Nothing, that’s what” attitude, and its impact on the community, is the reason why I feel like this stuff is worth banning. It’s not that any single account ban is bulletproof or anything, but definitely just making it okay and mandating everyone pretend it isn’t happening, is 100% not the answer.