Unidan could just create an account on multiple instances and vote for his posts/comments with all these accounts. That way his content would gain more attention than those of sincere users.

In case of malicious bots (like those annoying bootleg bots on reddit), it might even be profitable for them to create their own instance(s) just for that purpose.

Is there a mechanism to prevent that? (other than user/instance banning and the introduction question on user creation)

  • rowdy@lemmy.mlEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    Huh - I had not even considered downvotes in other instances… Yeah that seems problematic. Maybe rather than defederating downvotes, there could be a way to differentiate between local and global up/downvotes.

    • CaptainBlagbird@lemmy.oneEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      This sounds interesting. I see two possibilities for that:

      • Let downvotes from external users be less effective
      • Display up/down ratio twice, once from local votes and once from external votes; plus only have the local ones affect sorting

      Actually when I think about it, a combination of both would also be possible.