YSK: Your Lemmy activities (e.g. downvotes) are far from private - eviltoast

Edit: obligatory explanation (thanks mods for squaring me away)…

What you see via the UI isn’t “all that exists”. Unlike Reddit, where everything is a black box, there are a lot more eyeballs who can see “under the hood”. Any instance admin, proper or rogue, gets a ton of information that users won’t normally see. The attached example demonstrates that while users will only see upvote/downvote tallies, admins can see who actually performed those actions.

Edit: To clarify, not just YOUR instance admin gets this info. This is ANY instance admin across the Fediverse.

  • Draconic NEO@lemmy.worldEnglish
    74·
    1 year ago

    I disagree, a lot of people troll-downvote meaning they downvote content that they don’t like, or just downvote because it’s already low score. Same also happens with upvotes and content that shouldn’t be upvoted. If you’re concerned with other people seeing your vote history you probably shouldn’t be making those votes.

    Semi public voting discourages this form of misconduct because people who want to can audit their history and see that they’re a troll.

    • noworriesimaracoon@lemmy.mlEnglish
      43·
      1 year ago

      I disagree, a lot of people troll-downvote meaning they downvote content that they don’t like, or just downvote because it’s already low score.

      Is there a valid reason, according to you, to use the downvote button? I’m really interested in knowing.

      • IronKrill@lemmy.caEnglish
        111·
        1 year ago

        The accepted reason for downvoting since early Reddit times is content that either doesn’t contribute to discussion or is factually false. Downvote was never meant to be a disagree button, but I am sure we’ve all broken that rule occasionally.

        • locuester@lemmy.zipEnglish
          81·
          1 year ago

          Exactly. It seems everyone here is of the impression that voting is for agree/disagree. That sucks and it’s simply impossible to fix.

      • sauerkraus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        33·
        1 year ago

        Downvoting has always been an indicator that you disagree in some way. Whether it’s a disagreement with the substance or format never mattered. You’ll sometimes see people jump through hoops trying to justify how their form of disagreement is the only valid one though.