@mekkaokereke

On the subject of improving Mastodon. This may be an opportunity to rekindle developer attention on the 'Followers Only' dogpiling harassment vector. Felt like some progress on the issue was made back in November, but don't know where it stands now.

cc: @stefan

@mastodonmigration

I wonder if @scottjenson might be interested in connecting with
@mekkaokereke, that is, if he'd like to share some thoughts.

(Unless you two already spoke, in which case, please disregard!)

@mastodonmigration But yes, that particular issue, I have not heard/seen any updates either.

@scottjenson @mekkaokereke

@stefan @mastodonmigration
Yes, @mekkaokereke and I spoke about to how best present Quote Posts and his advice had a direct impact on what we shipped. We're about to reach out for another round of discussions with a wide range of people (but I don't think we've contacted Mekka just yet)

It's so tempting to take the engineering approach and think "this feature will do it!" when we likely need to back up and talk about bigger issues such as culture and moderation.

@scottjenson @stefan @mekkaokereke

It is great to see this conversation take off. You did a fabulous job with quote posts and it would be wonderful if this issue could get the same kind of careful attention. Completely agree that a proper requirements driven approach is warranted. Thank you.

@scottjenson
@mekkaokereke
@stefan

Great. Just to be really clear. What seems to be the issue is a type of hidden dogpiling or 'brigading.'

A tight group folks who's purpose is to harass someone follow each other, 'the brigade'.

One of them composes a harassing post specifically targeting someone who they @ mention, and post it using "Followers Only" reply controls.

The rest of the 'brigade' piles on.

The post is only seen by the targeted person(s) and the harassers.

@scottjenson @mekkaokereke @stefan

There may be other similar issues, but this one clearly seems to be a problem that is often cited.

@mastodonmigration @scottjenson @mekkaokereke @stefan

I think I have client-side improvements for this that effectively hide the harassment.

- https://pachli.app/pachli/2024/11/28/2.9.0-release.html#anti-harassment-controls-for-notifications
- https://pachli.app/pachli/2025/02/28/2.10.0-release.html#anti-harassment-controls-for-conversations-private-mentions

I haven't received much feedback about either, so if you have any, or know anyone who would benefit from these changes, please let me know.

@nikclayton @mastodonmigration @scottjenson @mekkaokereke @stefan

This is a good step, although not enough by itself. Eg the 30 days old filter increases the cost to abusers by forcing them to create and age accounts before using them in order to bypass the filter, which creates a window for mods to detect patterns of sock puppet creation and bulk-suspend them.

Do mods have tools for detecting those patterns of account creation?