cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/361524

If you are browsing through https://kbin.social/ or whatever just click on “more” then activity.

There you’ll see info like boosts, reduces (downvotes), and favorites (upvotes?)

Works with all instances for lemmy or kbin material

  • deweydecibel@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    This is something of a ticking time bomb, I think. I don’t think the majority of people coming to Lemmy right now appreciate that their votes are public, and sooner or later somebody is going to write a bot or addon that uses that data to harass or censor users and it’s going to be a scandal that scares people away.

    Making votes public is a really bad idea because it disincentivizes users to vote how they like, for fear of reprisal. This is quintessential to a democratic system, and to a social media platform.

    You want this place to grow, and order for it to grow, users have to interact. They are the engine behind the content aggregation, they should never feel hesitation to vote.

    • UrbenLegend@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I couldn’t have said it better myself. Voting secrecy is very important. There’s a reason why your government ballot isn’t posted on some public bulletin board in the town square for everyone to see. I see no reason why it should be any different for online community voting.

      For me personally, I am somewhat okay with Lemmy’s implementation because it isn’t so public for the average user and is understandable given the requirements of federation (at least until we figure out a way to anonymize vote counts in aggregate), but kbin’s implementation just crosses the line IMHO.