Sorry for the short post, I’m not able to make it nice with full context at the moment, but I want to quickly get this announcement out to prevent confusion:
Unfortunately, people are uploading child sexual abuse images on some instances (apparently as a form of attack against Lemmy). I am taking some steps to prevent such content from making it onto lemm.ee servers. As one preventative measure, I am disabling all image uploads on lemm.ee until further notice - this is to ensure that lemm.ee can not be used as gateway to spread CSAM into the network.
It will not possible to upload any new avatars or banners while this limit is in effect.
I’m really sorry for the disruption, it’s a necessary trade-off for now until we figure out the way forward.
Perfectly fine. People can upload images elsewhere and then just link to them. Most image upload sites will have all those protections in place already. A good stopgap until Lemmy gets those mod tools
I honestly think this is the reason why message boards generally don’t have the feature to attach images to posts anymore.
Large public message boards, anyway
Damn this sucks.
deleted by creator
Hey, this post is quite old, actually you can find the latest info in the sidebar of our front page:
- Image uploads are enabled 4 weeks after account creation
- Image upload limit is 500kb per image
Okay, so I’ll be set in the next few days. Many thanks!!!
Any chance that gravatar support could be implemented? This would allow some basic functionality without hosting content on lemm.ee servers.
My honest reaction to this:
[removed externally hosted image]
bro they banned images did you not read the post lol
deleted by creator
autism strikes again
I am my own worst enemy
deleted by creator
Can I just say - wholesome :3
This is a very good decision, I worried about this problem from the very beginning that I learned about the Fediverse. Research must definitely be done to find CSAM detection tools that integrate into Lemmy, perhaps we could make a separate bridge repo that integrates a tool like that easily into the codebase.
I hope every disgusting creature that uploads that shit gets locked up
There was a user that posted a tool they had already been working on, that worked in Python, to go through and automate detection/deletion of potential CSAM on Lemmy servers that admins could implement until better tools come along. Unfortunately, I don’t remember who posted it or where I saw it in my travels yesterday.
Was it this post by db0?
Yep, that’s the one. Thanks!
You’re welcome
Google has an API for it. While I am not a fan of google, it is a widely used API.
Sounds like a useful back-pocket fallback/emergency tool. A thing for when your primary is failing or need more help.
I’m genuinely confused on why it’s even happening in the first place but I can’t say conspiracies aren’t spinning in my head. Stuff like Russia having troll attacks to try and stifle a new Internet trend. Or companies like Facebook and Twitter paying people to do this to instill a boogeyman like fear of federated Internet.
I’m not suggesting they’re true, but they’re one of many confused thoughts as to what’s goin on.
It is an old 4chan thing. They have it around and they know it freaks out the normies so why not have some fun with it? So any kinda shit head chud or skrpit kiddie can do it for a little hit of fun vandalism. Being kicked off reddit for being too comunist does make us a likely target for all this.
There’s no need to invoke conspiracy. This is entirely possible for a single person to do, and motivations for single people may be very pity even if the consequences are widely visible.
One misguided teenager on a power trip who enjoys how much disruption he can cause is enough for such an effect.
yeah bitches be spending actual money to destroy a fifteen year old game with bots. it doesn’t need to have political motivation.
I’m like 80% sure this isn’t coming from the outside but from people on Lemmy from malicious instances
I think its necesary, no problem.
agreed
Are the lemm.ee servers not located in a region that protects online forums from the content that its users post?
It’s not just about lemm.ee, the up/down of federation is that stuff from lemm.ee gets copied to all the other federated instances and vice versa. So lemm.ee’s region aside, this move tries to help protect the fediverse at large by removing a major distribution hub. It’s not a full solution in that regard, but it makes a bad situation incrementally less bad. Other popular instances may end up doing this as well till better tools come about.
I know there are automated tools that exist for detection CSAM- given the challenges the fediverse has had with this issue it really feels like it’d be worthwhile for the folks developing platforms like lemmy and mastodon to start thinking about how to integrate those tools with their platforms to better support moderators and folks running instances.
Good, its an API that can fit diffrent tools even if one is promoted. Upgrading means switching out a binary file. Posix modularization FTW.
That’s fucking dope, thank you very much for the link to the issue!
I just shut down my instance because of this attack. Once there are better controls to prevent this, I will stand it back up.
Good thing my instance is only friends and friends of friends, otherwise I’d have to do the same
What was your instance?
Yeah, there was a gardening instance run by a great guy who just did the same
What do you think the purpose of these attacks are? The fediverse is so small in the grand scheme that I can only assume the worst.
This is really sad and disgusting. It affects the whole platform but especially smaller instances that can’t keep up. Despite being a lemm.ee user, I was particularly upset about thegarden.land shutting down because of that spam. It had my favourite gardening community on here.
I really hope this gets sorted out, and the spammers end up where they belong.
I’d really love to start a small instance just to play host to a couple of niche interests I don’t see around yet, but yeah, hearing about this fucked to behavior is making me hold off.
It has a real chilling affect on users, which is so unfortunate for a platform that is mostly made up of well meaning people
😢
Wait, they shut down? That’s sad, they were great
Seems fair enough, good on you for the speedy action.
If anyone wants to have a faster way of uploading images to Imgur on iOS, here‘s a shortcut for that.
That’s fucking disgusting. Take any measures you can to prevent that shit from being on the site.
removed by mod
Lol first spam I’ve seen so far on lemmy
