⚠️ If you see a post or DM saying "your account is currently suspended for verification purposes", do NOT click on the link. It is a scam.

Fediverse servers do not ask people to verify their identity. There is an optional self-verification system, but that's just for those who want to use it. No one is ever asked to do it.

If you are in ANY doubt about ANY official-looking message, contact your own server's admin directly using their public email address on your server's website's "About" page.

Meet our new backend developer.

#Caturday #CatsOfMastodon

Spammers have been programmatically creating accounts on Mastodon instances for years. Sometimes they post once and never again, sometimes they post on a schedule. Sometimes they never post, like a waiting botnet.

As Mastodon's anti-spam solutions are effectively nonexistent, most instances in our network require manual approval of new accounts. Up until recently, it was easy to spot a spammer; their join reasons were generic.

ChatGPT spammers have now arrived.

#MastoAdmin #FediAdmin #spam