As part of the devs farewell message on their site, they have included malicious code to make each visitor sends 2,000 requests to the dbzer0 servers in an attempt to DDOS and take the instance offline.
This is an important post and I appreciate the insight into the happenings on the Fediverse, but the comment chains are going off the rails and I’ve issued a number of bans from this post alone.
Locking.
I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed someone going so hard off the rails. It’s been an entertaining few days really.
It’s what happens when someone with underdeveloped empathy gets caught doing something they know is wrong, resulting in emotional overload.
It’s textbook toddler tantrum.
With stunted empathy, people seeking an explanation and apology are met with increasingly greater resistance.
And like textbook, they claim to be the victim. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are lying about receiving death threats.
What’s crazy is they could have simply:
- Apologised
- Explained the intent to reduce toxicity
- Agreed there was a lack of transparency
- Refactored their existing “enable toxicity mode” feature into a clearer, toggleable blocklist feature
But no. They were caught while they were secretly trying to play internet dictator and refused to empathise with others that were hurt and shocked to find out a tool they were using was receiving undisclosed payloads to use to censor communities and individuals.
I strongly implore everyone to leave this developer alone. Jokingly asking to be added to the list etc empowers them to continue to play the victim. They do not deserve attention.
What’s crazy is they could have simply:
- Apologised
- Explained the intent to reduce toxicity
- Agreed there was a lack of transparency
- Refactored their existing “enable toxicity mode” feature into a clearer, toggleable blocklist feature
Yes, I think there is genuinely an audience for what he was doing (or something akin to it), and it would genuinely have been a useful onboarding tool for getting a certain type of person to consider dipping their toes in the Fediverse.
But first of all it absolutely has to be separated from the safety/anti-spam filters. Bundling it with those is very malicious.
Second it must be opt-in.
Third, it must clearly say somewhere that “this anti-toxic setting is a curated block list based on my personal preferences”. There should then have been an option to use a personal blocklist instead of the developer default.
And fourth, I guess ideally this type of filter should maybe have been maintained by a somewhat more… well-balanced individual.
Anyone who thinks “yeah lgbt stuff should be hidden because we want to attract people who don’t want to see LGBT stuff” is someone I don’t want anywhere near the fediverse.
Refactored their existing “enable toxicity mode” feature into a clearer, toggleable blocklist feature
No! The whole point of the fediverse is not to have centralised blocklists. Having blocklists baked in to the code, especially ones that get updated in a centralised manner with no accountability and without telling users they’re on it is absolutely antithetical to the platform and one of the main reasons why people are leaving reddit and coming here. If you want to curate the experience of a user in that manner, what you do is open an instance and advertise it as such. That way people can, at least on lemmy, know where they’re banned from without having to dive into the code or pull API endpoints manually. In fact how a lemmy instance federates and how it curates this experience is one of the distinguishing features among the instances. You have instances like lemmy.zip that federate all that will have them, instances like hexbear that are very quick to defederate in order to keep a safe-space and instances like blahaj that are somewhere between.
A front-end (or any piece of code that is made for being deployed on multiple instances) should be agnostic to all of this. It’s up to the admins of the instances and not the devs to curate and this is one of the main reasons why I don’t trust the piefed dev. Sure you can disable almost everything, but that still means that an admin has to do work in order to get to a neutral place from where they can then curate.
Not every admin has the time or skill to curate. As long as the dev is open about it and there are configurable features to disable it, I don’t see what the issue is. Ultimately it creates no difference for a user if the admin creates it or the Dev does as long as it’s communicated.
The advantage of the fediverse is “don’t like it, go to another instance or build your own”, not to tell devs what they can and can’t do. Hell I never even interacted with Tesseract since I use a different client and an open instance.
The issue is that it’s one person shadowbanning people without their knowledge for any arbitrary reason across instances. Like even if it’s opt-out, that’s still problematic since it makes the default experience whatever that one person thinks it should be. Why should one guy get to decide across the entire fediverse whether your posts are opt-in? That is antithetical to the very concept of the fediverse.
Except one guy isn’t. You have to choose to install the software. It’s not included by default. I’m running a local client (Voyager) and never dealt with any of that because the admins of my instance don’t use it either.
And every user that uses that software for whatever reason, superior features, easier on the eyes, more popular it’s what everyone recommended will get their curation from that one dev.
Which is why it’s ultimately the decision of the admin. Don’t like what the admin of your instance is doing. Go make your own. That’s the beauty of the fediverse. It’s choice all the way down. It’s not like Reddit where you’d be stuck.
It’d be hilarious if this dude went to prison over this, because it seems like he finally crossed from “annoying and unethical but legal” to straight up illegal.
Enforcement is for inconvenienced rich tech companies.
I view that as circle-jerky propaganda.
What’s the over under on that happening then?
I think this is the first time the whole fediverse agrees to who the asshole is.
Thanks, dev of Tesseract, you actually left a positive impact on the fediverse. Please don’t come back.
In case somebody wanted confirmation. Maybe don’t visit the page with Javascript enabled.
Expert dev. Doesn’t even know the attribute for setting the language in the script tag is
type, notlang. Not to mention that you are encouraged to omit the attribute altogether if the script tag contains JavaScript…Petty, and a bad dev. Big yikes.
There used to be a
languageattribute, but I don’t think I’ve ever seenlangbefore.The lang attribute exists for other elements, but not on the script tag. 👍
And that full text, also to avoid extra visits:
You crazies won and proved me wrong. The fediverse isn’t worth saving after all.
Over the course of the last several days, I have received a constant stream of harassing messages, death threats, and threats of doxxing over DM, Matrix, Github, and Codeberg. All of it instigated and eggged on by another instance’s top admin. This is unacceptable for all of the reasons in the world, and while I won’t give you the personal satisfaction of having won, you’ve definitely proven me wrong about the fediverse being something that even can be saved from itself.
Even people around here I’d interacted with positively for years and had grown to respect because they seemed level headed and above the immature and sociopathic bullshit that dominates this platform showed their true selves. That completely shattered any and all illusions I had that this place has a hidden core of users that I should try to make more visible amongst all the rage, rage baiting, propaganda, harassment, rumor mongering, trolls, conspiracies, purity testing, witch hunts, and violent rhetoric.
Like many of the rational people before me who called this place home, I’m done with this place.
I tried to carve out a space where those people and other rougher edges were not drowning out niche communities and hobbies and where people who choose to use the platform to harass others were also out of sight, out of mind. Apparently only three people who aren’t me actually want a place that’s not just a circle-jerk of rage and hate. Thus sayeth the mob.
Then you have entire instances whose admins call for the death of others, harass other users, and lead harassment, brigading, and DARVO campaigns against those who dare call out their bullshit or decide to disassociate themselves and their work from them.
Lemmy.World was so close to doing the right thing after instance-that-will-not-be named’s admins were calling for the death of LW’s admins while spreading rumours and labeling others in such a way that painted them as targets for murder. All of that, mind you, with absoultey no evidence other than specuation and their own cooked-up conspiracies about modlog actions or taking and twisting things wildly out of context to fit their made-up narratives so they had someone to say they ‘caught’ and should be killed.
.world was on the precipice of doing the right thing and disaccociating themselves from that psychotic shit show, but silently dropped the issue and carried on as usual after wringing their hands for maybe two weeks.
“We have to worry about the optics or the politics of it.” they probably said.
Bullshit.
I’m one person and have held my fucking ground, mostly with dignity and grace, in the heat of my own shitstorm of trying to disaccociate from the extremist elements of the fediverse. If I can stand up for what’s right and deal with the blowback, so can you.
Fuck lemmy world’s admin team for condoning that behavior and letting the human skidmark db0 DARVO his way out of the situation while brigading with his army of malcontents whom he wields like a cult leader. He knows exactly what he is doing, and you all continue to allow him to get away with it.
Nah, fuck this whole place. I’ve let too many things fall by the wayside IRL because of dealing with all this fediverse bullshit and trying to give it the slightest bit of polish both visually and atmospherically. Mythbusters may have proven that you can, in fact, polish a turd, but at the end of the day, it’s still a shiny ball of shit.
For the few people left who didn’t turn out to be psychotic, I’ll think of you from time to time when recalling something you’ve posted or commented that genuinely made me laugh, made me think, or otherwise put a smile on my face or in my heart.
Everyone else, though, enjoy your toxic, xenophobic, knee-jerk-to-violence, purity-testing, and harassing-anyone-who-doesn’t-fall-in-line cess pit. One day you, too, will do or say something that doesn’t toe the line and you’ll be right where I am.
P.S. Rimu, you owe me a beer. No one is talking about the Piefed vote quotas anymore, so you’re welcome.
The disconnect from reality is insane. They completely ignore why people got mad and make up imaginary reasons for why they got the hate while painting themselves like some hero trying to stand for us but getting betrayed in return. It’s both hilarious and sad. I hope that they will have time for self reflection once they get off the threadiverse and become a better person but I don’t have much expectations given how deep they are into the delusion.
I have received a constant stream of harassing messages, death threats, and threats of doxxing over DM, Matrix, Github, and Codeberg. All of it instigated and eggged on by another instance’s top admin.
I’m getting pretty sick of this kind of claim. Like, do I believe he’s been harassed? Yeah, that seems likely. Death threats? That’s definitely possible. What I take issue with is the way it’s brought up.
He frames that it’s a campaign run by a particular individual targeting him, but there are no receipts. He’s using it as a shield against critique, shutting down any discussion around this by pointing at something and screaming about how he’s a big victim here.
that even can be saved from itself
Huh, didn’t know the fediverse needed that. Oh wait, it doesn’t.
What are the vote quotes they are referring to?
Just before this whole thing, the piefed dev pushed an update that capped how many up/downvotes piefed users can do per day. They set the cap to effectively punish like 3 users who posted all day everyday.
One of those users had a “I will leave unless you reconsider.” moment and they didn’t give half a shit. And they didn’t even make the list. None of their communities did.
So just a couple devs thrashing around causing as much collateral damage as possible.
Also punishes those who vote frequently, as I often do. I thought Voyager was having issues until I read the Piefed changelog. Unless my instance admin removes the limit I’m likely going back to lemmy.ca because I shouldn’t have to ration my upvotes. I like being able to boost engagement while also making it easier for me to see which comments I have or haven’t read yet.
he is probably still reading these discussions lol
“im not owned! im not owned!!”, i continue to insist as i slowly shrink and transform into a corn cob
People like him have multiple accounts.
here’s a running list.
Another sus account is @Teacrumble@lemmy.world. Dormant account that suddenly woke up to defend Patrick right after the drama happened.
Another sleeper cell has awakened!
Some people just don’t post much, I’m not defending anyone. I’m attacking/critizing you, dick
Yeah thats definitely another one. Keep 'em coming! Dont be shy now!
Another what? What are you even trying to accomplish?
Im trying to be the first person with 2 mentions on your shitty block list. Pretty please?
because he’s an emotionally fragile, egotistical narcisist. Wouldn’t be surprised if his parents are pieces of shit, too
Genuinely think this post should be pinned for prosperity and a warning to others. Lemmy does not appreciate censorship.
He didn’t like my photography so he put me on the list.
Did you learn your lesson?
(I like the chandelier one, nice misty contrast and off centre composition)
Thanks!
Some of my favorite pictures aren’t well-loved by Lemmy, cause I’m a weirdo with weird taste.
Weird taste is best taste.
As a goth with blackout curtains, this is a welcome and comforting composition. Just have to avoid the beams.
Well, there’s another one going down the deep end. Can anyone enlighten me why there are devs losing their minds on the regular and pulling everyone else into their shitshow? Most of the time those people are actually skilled, but something goes wrong and they become megalomaniac, believing they are the arbiter of truth and a gift from god we all should be thankful for while they pull more and more insane shit.
Speaking as a nearly lifelong developer of one kind or another, with ASD and ADHD… there’s a big ol’ overlap. I’m not talking “the venn diagram is a circle” level overlap, but it is significant. Lots of people with these traits have personality quirks, differences in socioemotional processing from the “typical” stuff, experiences in early life, and other things, that can cause some pretty intense rabbit holing/spiraling when things get overwhelming.
To be clear though, this guy is obviously just a major dipshit. Nobody deserves being lumped in with that.
I think it’s the pressure and the solo developer model
You put something out. It seems to be running. There are bugs. You fix them. There are more bugs (pareto is a PITA). You fix them too. Someone accuses you of sacrificing kittens in the basement. There are ideas for features and more bugs. Some worded in an entitled or just tone-deaf way. Very often you’re the only one working on the project and saying “I accept PRs” somehow became received as a FU. It becomes hard to put the project away for just a week
You are perpetually in “I-fix-it” mode
Not to mention that in order to even start a project like that one needs to have at least a bit of “fuck it, I’ll do it myself” mentalityIt’s a pity that !unfinishedprojects@forum.unfinishedprojects.net wound down. I hoped it might have been a space for projects to find communities. As we see around, it doesn’t require a 10 person team with a kanban board to write something that works. But on the other side of the spectrum I think a project needs some sort of community around it. So even if there’s only one dev, someone else could write the tutorials, less technical parts of docs, help new deployments etc
I’m sorry but that excuse is bullshit.
That is when they have a meltdown and quit the project because demand for bug fixes or new features it too much pressure.
This guy promoted a secret block list of leftists and when discovered, lashed out at his critics with a DDOS script.
Just another thin skinned fascist crying because their scheme was exposed.
I just want to point out the poetic beauty of !unfinishedprojects@forum.unfinishedprojects.net becoming an unfinished project.
It’s dictator syndrome. There’s always going to be a subset of the population that, after acquiring the faintest whiff of power or authority, seizes it like a drowning man.
Being an open source dev requires thicker skin than you’d think, and even thinker than most people have.
Either you go the community route where you build a loyal user base, listen to feedback, and have q community of contributors as well.
Or you go the ‘I made something cool for me, and its open so anyone can use it too!’
The former is sustainable, the later is not if you domt maintain the idea that its yours first and only.
Once you start half listening to people using your stuff, but believe what you want is right, starts to isolate you.
You think all your users are stupid for their feature requests, because you don’t need it. Plus you alone are in charge. Its your repo.
This ego can continue to inflate to this point. I’ve seen it in both closed and open source (anyone remever when the FSLabs A320 for Microsoft flightsim with malware? Just me?.. Okay).
But this is by no means new.
Do you think it’s skill or just vibe code?
Oh, it’s skill alright. If we look at e.g. Empress who was bonkers insane at the end, she was the only one far and wide who was actually able to crack Denuvos antitamper at that moment in time, a task many believed to be actually impossible.
When you say empress
Oh! Is that maybe why my network choked to a mere double figure kb crawl after I posted about it [~ and pasting the diatribe for posterity, and so others wouldnt have needed visit that]?
I just presumed it was the dozen distro ISO I was downloading at the time too, in a distroholic relapse.
… I’m not really paying attention to all this drama.
I could understand his initial intention of having some kind of nsfw filter for radical opinions, even though the implementation was questionable. And I was honestly sad about the shit storm that hit him. Too many people here pretend to be more respectful and empathetic than average, but will happily dogpile to get a piece of a person given the right momentum.
But this ddos code is hard to defend, it goes against his own initial intention. He should have walked away before reaching this point.
Can we avoid adding new events to this sad chain of events now?Radical opinions such as supporting trans people or being against genocide.
I think he explained the trans related instances were not blocked because trans but because their admins did not moderate the calls for violence he wanted to filter.
Too many people here pretend to be more respectful and empathetic than average, but will happily dogpile to get a piece of a person given the right momentum.
“People here pretend to be nice, but get angry when I try to secretly push them out of the conversation”
Shut up, idiot.
This is all it takes to wreck a lemmy instance?
An egotistical maniac abusing power? Yes. All it takes to ruin any community
I mean ddos
Db0 hasn’t been wrecked. There was an attemtp
Seemed a little exaggerated. Ddos is no joke with botnets, but a JavaScript? All the script kiddies would be doing it.
Am I wrong to empathize at least a little? Ive had crash outs that were pretty bad. I’ve never ddos’d someone but ive definitely done 2000s forum “psycho ex girlfriend” story post levels of crazy before. In your moment of rejection, nobody else matters, you devalue everyone just for that very small satisfaction of revenge.
Yeah but the starting point was literally him violating half the fediverse and then losing his shit when he got caught so…
empathize all you want. doesn’t make him less of a piece of shit. if anything, it kind of makes you a piece if shit sympathizer.
Nothing wrong with empathizing with awful people. Still, having empathy for someone doesn’t mean you have to excuse or tolerate their behavior.
IDK. I can think of plenty of cases where empathizing with someone makes you an enabler at the very least.
Reminds of when I got dumped, and went out with an air rifle and shot a couple birds (would have been 3, but I missed with the last slug I found). Utterly out of character. I wonder (and doubt) if they (at least yet) likewise feel greatest remorse for their weakest moment [of “hurt people hurt people”].
… And reminds of [in Babylon5] when Lennier had a moment of fail, out of character, ran from saving Sheradin, … and How D’lenn handled it, sympathetic to how we are each susceptible to such moments of fail and we let our worst overtake our better.
Still… another’s capacity for such wise sympathy (or empathy), is no excuse for them.
[Edit: … After being reminded of the specific situation this time though… I strongly doubt that’s even their weakest moment of hurting people; strongly doubt that’s a mere case of a rare moment of letting their worst get the better of their better… given what was initially done (and in which direction!!!). Wardrobe not big enough for all those skeletons [that I imagine, I hope, merely metaphorically].]
Is this why my PC crashed last night?? But I wasn’t even on this debulldozer thingy!
Finally, a cause we can all agree with. Bringing down that instance of hypocrites would make the ultimate act of human development, mercy, and compassion for everyone involved. It’d be the sublimest act of humanitarian achievement to grace the Earth worthy of our greatest tributes & highest honors. It’d shift civilizations & dawn a new age of enlightenment.
Such a shame that the code seems invalid. Does it even work?
Noble gesture, though.
