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submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by inlandempire@jlai.lu to c/fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com

I don't really know where to post this but this community felt relevant, apologies if this is not welcome here, feel free to moderate, ping, and redirect me if I should share it elsewhere (especially because I'm not a good fact checker, but I felt like it would be interesting to have a level headed discussion about this drama).

I originally posted to !tesseract@dubvee.org, but a moderator there banned me and deleted the post, I'm guesing the Tesseract dev feels harassed by the whole situation, and do not want to hear about it any more. The community is now locked.

My original post read as follows:

"Was curious about The List™ and took a look at what it contained. There's interesting stuff that tells us more about the intentions of whoever made it.

I'm not making this list to pile one the current drama, I don't plan on being added to The List™. I just thought that, when something like this arises, one thing the Tesseract dev could have done is explain why some individual keywords are included, this would have been more transparent. Because when you look closer, there's some absurd stuff in there, which can lead to confusion as to why some are filtered out.

I can't be bothered to go through content posted by each individual user and community that are filtered out, so I skipped those.

Community names

  • ~25+ occurrences words referring almost exclusively to leftist political activism including but not limited to criticising american supremacy, the israeli-led genocide, racism, white supremacy, capitalism, paedophilia...
  • 4 occurences of anime related content
  • 3 occurences of right wing related content (Libertarianism, Conservativism, and a conspiracy theory)
  • usgreenlandwar
  • "Collapse" (discusses the environmental (and more) collapse of our civilization)
  • any word referring to the green party of UK (their main platforms: anticapitalism, ecology, progressivism)
  • "death to" (understandable, but depends on context)
  • 4chan (and similar imageboard names) + greentext formats
  • "billionnaire"
  • "anonymous"
  • 1 specific username and variants of their spam accounts / communities
  • "Police" or "Cops"

Keywords

  • ~30+ occurences of usernames, website urls, company names, sentences, to filter out spam / scam
  • ~30+ occurrences of various sentences almost exclusively used by leftist circles, including but not limited to criticising american supremacy, the israeli-led genocide, racism, white supremacy, capitalism, paedophilia...
  • 🥺?👉👈
  • "What would (france|the french) do" (probably to prevent referring to the guillotine or the french revolution, still funny)
  • "chatgip+ity+" used when someone criticises OpenAI's LLM
  • "censoring me" (maybe because conspiracy theorists often claim to be censored)
  • 4 Occurrences of sentences mentioning when an article is paywalled
  • "pedophile" (can't talk about it?)
  • "rap(e|ing)s? (kids?|child)" (can't describe the actions of the above?)
  • "Perchance" (random LLM related website)
  • 1 dead instance link, which was used by a computer science student that hasn't posted in 3 months
  • "neoliberal" (can't even name a specific political and economic ideology?)
  • "death to" (that one is understandable)
  • "pray for nuke" (same as above)
  • "remove from reality" (same as above but euphemism)
  • "Kirk(e|'|’)d" (used to refer to the murder of Charlie Kirk)
  • whenever any post is crossposted from a list of already filtered out instances
  • whenever any user from a list of already filtered out instances posts or comments

Website URLs

I started this whole summary ~2,5 hours ago based on my search history. There about 300+ direct url entries and I can't be bothered to check every single one of them (I've been looking up their domain name on google, then directly entered their url in a separate browser, and searched the domain on lemmy). I went through about half of them before thinking I had better things to do, here's the pattern(s) I noticed so far:

  • 4chan
  • Any Blogspot blogs
  • Any website hosted on Infinityfree
  • Lemmy instances the Tesseract dev considers to be extremist (some are part of the free anarchist flotilla (btw quick fun fact, FAF is short for fascist in french, it's ironic for us french lemmy users))
  • Any gumroad page
  • Any itchio page
  • Bunch of url shorteners
  • Bunch of piracy related sites
  • Bunch of cryptocurrency related sites
  • Some are obvious scam / spam / typo squatting sites NOT shared on lemmy
  • Left-wing related websites outweight Right-wing related websites 4 to 1
  • A lot of links are just random companies over the world without them ever being shared on lemmy, or being scams, or spamming the web about their services
    • there's a heavy bias against indian companies
    • very few of them were probably filtered out because of their company name, for example a printing company from chicago has "freaks" in their name
    • There's a french rodent control company that was filtered out, this one is interesting because its domain name is also the initials of the main left-wing french politician, but it could also have been filtered out because it obviously uses negative keywords related to their field. I feel like this perfectly highlights the flaws of this lists logic.
      • edit: that one was actually shared twice on lemmy by a user asking relevant questions, my guess is the dev added them preemptively to prevent spam
  • Some are links to website shared on lemmy, of those:
    • a lot were obvious scams / spams
    • some were ai related websites
    • few were just devs asking ONCE for feedback on their project

Anyway if anyone is motivated enough to take a deeper look and share their findings, or correct me if I missed/mislabeled something, feel free to tag me!"

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[-] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 58 points 3 weeks ago

It is a huge overstep on their part, and their reaction to the drama was extremely poor. Not surprising they ignored the accusations about blocking trans communities in their filterlist, as well as trying to censor leftists and leftist spaces.

I don't buy that his intention was anti-spam and I don't think we should give him the benefit of the doubt. He hid the commits knowing people would fork his repo and remove it, and also call him out big time for this if found out (what's happening now). He added spam lists for plausible deniability. So he could claim it's for anti-spam and so more charitable people would claim that as well. Not to block leftists and trans people which is what the main purpose is. As well as anyone else he doesn't like. It's structured this way so instances who use Tesseract also block these people he has a problem with without them knowing, possibly against their wishes since he put two lists in there, including one he can update on the fly, which is base64 encoded and compressed. I don't know how someone can look at this and claim he did any of it in good faith when he took the time and effort to hide it.

[-] Goferking0@ttrpg.network 13 points 3 weeks ago

their reaction to the drama was extremely poor.

Oh they haven't stopped, and keep getting worse

[-] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 weeks ago

Absolutely. They terminated their instance claiming the fediverse is beyond saving. They're also claiming that db0 is encouraging harassment towards him and has encouraged harassment towards others. And the worst part is I don't think this is going to be the last we'll see of them either. They've said they would quit the fediverse before and they came back afterwards.

[-] Catoblepas 33 points 3 weeks ago

few were just devs asking ONCE for feedback on their project

Someone doesn’t like competition, maybe?

Thanks for doing this breakdown.

[-] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 26 points 3 weeks ago

Pretty funny that this guy could just have used the standard features of the Fediverse to build a server for "non-toxic" people that just didn't federate or engage with all the evil woke ones, and yet a part of him must have known that it would have been about as popular as the stand of an Abstention Society at a Fresher's Fair. So, stealth censorship layer, I guess? I'm sure a corner of the fediverse where everyone is just civil, never talks about politics, and also conspires to secretly to mess with each other's feed could be nice though.

[-] Goferking0@ttrpg.network 7 points 3 weeks ago

Oh they did do that, but either stopped wanting to run one or didn't like that no one wanted to be on their personally curated instance so shut it down last year and appears to have just put that curative process onto their UI.

[-] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

The optional UI used by the optional instance with an optional feature that can easily be disabled in the GUI is "censorship"? Gee I wonder why he wanted someone like you blocked!

Maybe if you jump on the harassment bandwagon he'll go away and you can win (just kidding I know you will find some other reason to be the victim)

[-] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 20 points 3 weeks ago

We know it’s you, you dimwit 😄

[-] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

um excuse me this is doxxing sir

[-] tutter 5 points 3 weeks ago

Lol, lmao even

[-] Luci@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago

Lolololololololololololololololololololololololol

[-] SnotFlickerman 18 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

This is how talking with the dev about the "optional" censorship goes:

“But the plans were on display…”

“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”

“That’s the display department.”

“With a flashlight.”

“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”

“So had the stairs.”

“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”


They made it "optional" and then buried the documentation deep so it was difficult to find. They even admitted as much.

[-] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 3 weeks ago

What someone else does in their own free time affects you in any meaningful way. You are not the victim here.

[-] SnotFlickerman 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Lmao

That doesn't address literally anything at all. When did I even say I was a victim?

Riddle me this: were they too fucking stupid or too fucking technically inept for this to auto-disable on dbzer0 (and other blocked instances) so no one would have ever found it? Like even just a little bit of forethought could have allowed them to do what they wanted (which DID impact people lmao) and people would have been none the wiser.

[-] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

when you attempted to morally justify your participation in this harassment campaign. Being blocked is not an attack, yet you are using the fact that people are on a blocklist to justify harassing someone. Its reprehensible.

[-] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 3 weeks ago

Harassment campaign is now when people call you out for your actions.

No wonder .world loves ya

[-] SnotFlickerman 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Also that's a wild read of our interactions lmao

[-] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 3 weeks ago
[-] Luci@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago

I think people are telling you and your alts that you need to touch grass and think about what you’ve done

[-] kibblebits@quokk.au 24 points 3 weeks ago

This is like a list of every active user. Haha

[-] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 3 weeks ago

Seeing how PieFed has tried to stop active users from trying to even interact with the platform, it makes sense to these people.

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[-] davel@lemmy.ml 16 points 3 weeks ago

Clandestinely censoring public internet fora is some military-corpo-spook-industrial-complex type shit. And he thinks he’s providing “normies” a valuable service.

He belongs on the cover of Malignant Boundary Issues Monthly.

[-] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 14 points 3 weeks ago

4 Occurrences of sentences mentioning when an article is paywalled

I never would've guessed that acknowledging a paywall is so extreme as to be worthy of censorship.

[-] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 3 weeks ago

Holy shit this is REAL CENSORSHIP??? I thought this was an optional blocklist on an optional ui on an optional instance that anyone can easily disable via the UI

holy shit censorship wow this BAD

[-] OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago
[-] Goferking0@ttrpg.network 11 points 3 weeks ago

Why would they, they don't like people pointing out how shitty of a thing they did and that no one liked the dev doing darvo in their apology

[-] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I am calm, I was feinging outrage, I don't actually believe the narrative that being on this list is censorship, or harmful in any way.

It was a joke making fun of all the similarly fake outrage in this thread people are using to claim a false victim narrative.

[-] nsrxn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 3 weeks ago

if you don't believe shadowbans are bad, why don't you go use corporate social media? I'm here specifically because I like transparency

[-] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 3 weeks ago

then you have a deep misunderstanding as to how activitypub protocol works

[-] nsrxn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

no. I've been using the fediverse since ostatus. you intentionally obfuscated the bans. it's as close as the fediverse has ever seen to shadowbanning

Rimu's silent bans on Piefed would be closer, and I would consider more problematic because no one these days uses his version of Tesseract and a huge amount of people use and advocate for piefed. By the way, @Kirk@startrek.website is an alt of Admiral Patrick.

[-] Luci@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago
[-] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 3 weeks ago

I am calm, I was feinging outrage

Lol

[-] VitoRobles@lemmy.today 7 points 3 weeks ago

The application was a frontend. It's primary job was to take data and make it look pretty for the consumer.

A waiter does not have the right to tell me I can't have potato wedges because they hate potatoes. Dude was a cuck.

[-] TheHound@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

Sorry, we're out of potato wedges tonight.

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[-] wotaku@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 3 weeks ago

Can anyone tell me what is it about? My whole feed is filled with I am in tesseract list but I just can't figure out what it is lol

[-] Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 weeks ago

It’s a type of (otherwise good) software that some people use to access Lemmy / fediverse content - but it has a secret blocklist that its users weren’t told about.

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[-] Seleni@lemmy.world 13 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

The blocklist that idiot made wasn’t just secret, it was hidden under several layers of obfuscations, so that no-one could see any sign of it but the dev.

Not only that, but it didn’t generate a ‘this person/instance has been blocked by the dev’ message for the list; it just made it so the ones on the blocklist didn’t exist at all when viewing the fediverse through tesseract.

That dev was trying to curate the feed of everyone using tesseract to his preferences, which appear to be ‘don’t show anything to the left of Regan, and also don’t show anyone who’s hurt my feelings in discussions’.

[-] hildegarde 8 points 3 weeks ago

Tesseract purported to be an interface for Lemmy. It appeared to be an alternate web frontend that instance operators could run that makes lemmy's UI a little different. Other examples of frontends are Photon, Alexandrite, mlmym. Your instance seems to be running the Lemmy default interface.

Tesseract instead was trojan horse malware, it disguised itself as an interface to hide content that the developer personally didn't like. Any instance running tesseract would secretly have a bunch of content hidden from all users.

A few days ago the developer added dbz0 and blahaj to the filters, which made people notice, and they dug deeper and found more. Tesseract had a built-in blacklist of instances, but it also downloaded a secret blacklist from the dev's personal server that would block individual users.

Many of those listed by name on the secret blacklist consider it a badge of honor, and are posting about it.

[-] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

people who got banned from everywhere else creating an alternative universe in which they are the victim because it's easier than examining their own behavior

Tesseract is an optional frontend ui for Lemmy that has an optional feature that hides users known to behave, well, like they are behaving here lol

[-] WraithGear@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

the victims were anyone who was not aware that their feed was being manipulated by an outside force in secrecy to further their own goals… so that means all of lemmy.

[-] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

Anyone not on the list is a bot

I'm not a bot.

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this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2026
136 points (100.0% liked)

Fediverse vs Disinformation

2258 readers
52 users here now

Pointing out, debunking, and spreading awareness about state- and company-sponsored astroturfing on Lemmy and elsewhere. This includes social media manipulation, propaganda, and disinformation campaigns, among others.

Propaganda and disinformation are a big problem on the internet, and the Fediverse is no exception.

What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? The inadvertent spread of false information is misinformation. Disinformation is the intentional spread of falsehoods.

By equipping yourself with knowledge of current disinformation campaigns by state actors, corporations and their cheerleaders, you will be better able to identify, report and (hopefully) remove content matching known disinformation campaigns.


Community rules

Same as instance rules, plus:

  1. No disinformation
  2. Posts must be relevant to the topic of astroturfing, propaganda and/or disinformation

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