Today, an unknown bot swarm started using my name, boosting my posts, and inserting itself into communities I helped create. I treated it like any other potential attack and started defending myself and our communities as best I could. This has taken up more of my day than most malicious bot attacks, because it had the air of legitimacy—despite taking the actions of a threat.
When the owner, @evan ¹, came in with the same justifications as the porn-scrapers and LLM-owners I regularly fight against—repeatedly doubling-down in the face of backlash²—I felt more and more sure of my response.
I now feel justified in calling for a #FediBlock of tags.pub (and probably his other projects), at least until a better opt-in consent model is built into the project.
¹ I'm including his name as he's a public figure associated with Activity Pub, and our whole conversation today is already a public record, but please don't dogpile; just defed or block as you see fit and call it a night (or day—I'm not your mom).
² Receipts: https://lgbtqia.space/@alice/116824281370893420
#FediAdmins