You know we all escaped Reddit for greener pastures. But I have increasingly noticed that greener pastures are not to be found in the Fediverse either.

I undeniably witnessed some vote fuzzing this morning and I feel a bit psychologically violated whenever I notice people or companies or platforms engaging in psychological manipulation.

It does make me feel livid.

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Update - case closed because:

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Wisdom from [email protected]

There is no vote fuzzing in Lemmy. The software doesn’t support it. Period.

I’ve been paying attention to the Lemmy mod tools and Lemmy admin Matrix rooms, and it’s been the subject of major discussion over the past week between one or two users who keep bringing it up and, like, everyone else (including the Lemmy devs) who are all like, “no, not now, not ever.”

It’s not a thing.

SO, what could explain what you’re seeing?

Possible explanations include:

Vote brigading

Alt account abuse

A genuine statistical fluke where there are genuine votes that are producing this bizarre pattern, and hopefully it will subside soon along with your reasonably justified paranoia.

The solution to all of these possibilities, and possibly others that I did not enumerate here, is to just ignore the problem and move on with your life. Remember: nothing that happens here is really important.

I really hope this makes you feel better. Because it should.