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Is it just me, or is Lemmy starting to have a spam problem? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 years ago by ClassicallyCommie@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Perhaps this isn't new, as I've only been on Lemmy for around 3 months, but up until this point I hadn't noticed spam, advertising, scams, etc at all on Lemmy. However, within the last 2 days I've seen at least 3 examples of obvious spam posts, made by accounts clearly dedicated to that purpose. Has anyone else noticed this? And are there steps we could take to counter it (perhaps a report button)?

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[–] mp3@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Every platform that becomes popular eventually ends up being spammed.

My suggestion would be some kind of filter that keeps track of several metrics related to the domain name linked, ie how often the domain name is part of reports, how recently the domain name has been registered, etc and if the link seems untrustworthy, have the submission or comment filtered and require a manual approval by the community mod(s) before it shows up for everyone else.

And personally I'd auto-block any URL shorteners services, they don't serve a valid purpose here and can be used to hide the destination URL.

[–] nutomic@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

How do you detect URL shorteners? Simply by checking for a redirect using curl, or do you check against a list of urls? Domain review would be a lot of work to implement, i hope we can avoid that.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I currently just use a list of known URL shorteners domain names, and it reduced the spam a bit on the subreddit I moderate.

[–] nutomic@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Problem is that someone needs to maintain that list.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Every list needs a maintainer ;)

EDIT: Here's a preliminary list

https://github.com/m-p-3/domain-lists/blob/main/url-shorteners

[–] nutomic@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

And that maintainer needs to be trusted. But if we manage without a list, there is no need for extra trust nor maintenance work.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Fair point.