I’m there.
Hey! I’m in that list and I have no clue what any of this is about 🙂
What the hell is Tesseract?
It’s really just a custom ui/frontend that admins can run for their lemmy/(piefed too?) instances.
Well, I quickly read through that list and I’ll say this: considering the insane amount of stuff that gets silently filtered out, whoever views Lemmy through that thing must think it’s pretty quiet 🙂
And that’s a large part of the issue. The frontend doesn’t actually disclose this blocklist at all. In fact, it actively takes steps to obfuscate things and make it appear as if the blocklist doesn’t exist at all.
For example, attempting to view a blocked instance shows a generic network error, rather than a “this instance is being blocked by your frontend” error. And blocked users aren’t simply flagged and/or collapsed. They’re entirely hidden, as if they don’t exist at all. So someone using this as their primary frontend wouldn’t even know that they’re missing entire posts and/or comment chains, because anything from the blocked users is simply gone.
Additionally, the blocklist is downloaded (in plaintext, over http) when the frontend is booted, so it’s not a file that gets updated with the git version updates. Meaning the dev can silently update it even if users haven’t pulled new versions. Simply rebooting your frontend would be enough to pull an updated blocklist. This gives the dev an extreme amount of censorship power, because they can effectively change users’ configs without any action on the users’ part.
It was only originally discovered because the admin for db0 used the frontend. And notably, db0 is on the block list. They were previously using an old version of the frontend that didn’t include the hidden blocklist yet. They updated their Lemmy stack a little while ago, and suddenly their entire frontend was broken (the entire feed was completely empty) and showing a generic version incompatibility error.
After lots of troubleshooting, the db0 admin eventually discovered that the frontend was downloading a hidden blocklist and automatically blocking the instance that it was running on. Because when they updated their stack, the new version of Tesseract included the secret blocklist. So it downloaded the blocklist when it booted up, found that db0 was on the list, and silently hid every single post because they were all from a blocked instance. This resulted in a completely empty feed.
Oh that’s mental. I didn’t realize it was that bad. Something new to worry about scanning for when using open source!
Considering the amount of effort put into the blocklist by the Tesseract dev to keep it hidden, you would think they would have included an exception if it was running on a blocked instance to help keep it hidden.
Don’t give them ideas, it’ll be harder to find the next one.
I guess the lesson here is “compile from the source repo and code review before you install a new frontend”
Yup, I guess it’s supposed to be an anti-spam thing, but it targets a lot of people/communities/instances that post actually good content
I’m on the list and I’ve never even posted anything. I do comment a decent amount, though, but I wouldn’t consider any of it to be spam.
I comment exclusively, and I’m on it.
Did you ever talk shit about billionaires or crypto? Make any anti-AI posts?
Yeah, I’m pretty unabashedly anti-capitalist, so I’m not surprised I ruffled some feathers. I was just pointing out that the idea that this was just a spam filter taken too far doesn’t really hold up.
but I guess it’s supposed to be an anti-spam thing
Oh my God, I swear some people will just never get it.
No dude, this isn’t just someone trying to block spam, this is ideologically targeted to silently remove specific viewpoints from people who use the stylesheet without disclosing that they’re doing that.
This obviously has nothing to do with spam. Keep giving people like this the benefit of the doubt, and see where it leads us.
Edit: I just saw your pfp… Were you aware that this blocked the entirety of Blahaj? The de facto trans instance?
Try justifying that as anti-spam.
Oh, whoa, I did not see that. From what I had seen I could have sworn that it had general political blocking. That’s my bad!
Truth nuke
I don’t think it’s anti-spam. It looks pretty much like a personal blocklist, it blocks a lot of users that have political views that the tess dev doesn’t agree with. It blocks political keywords often used by certain ideologies that I guess the dev doesn’t agree with, for example, no ones blocking “neoliberal” as a keyword because of spam.
This looks entirely like a personal blocklist which is completely fine, but secretly adding it to the frontend is v dubious…
It’s a shame I think the dev is a good person from the convos I’ve had with them, but this crosses a bit of a line…
It’s not anti spam at this point. No one obfuscates something that much for antispam.
It’s also a weird place for anti-spam, to have it be client side. That should be done on the server, rather than the various clients handling it.
True! Idk, that part is just speculation, hence why I said I guess, not I know. Either way, they did a shitty job that should be shunned.
Wow, this dev must be an absolute chud, in which case I’m honored to have triggered them so. Tongue punch my fartbox, loser.
Tongue-punch my fartbox is my new favorite saying
Awww dang, I’m not on there. I guess I should be a bit more venomous in my comments.
Just say things like ACAB and trans.
Call attention to genocide/ethnic cleansing.
I’m pretty sure that’s how I got fingered… err, put on the list.
Disappointed I didn’t make the list. How many cocktails do I need to Molotov to get the recognition I deserve?
Yep, I’m on there.
delighted to see that a username I used to go by on a couple instances has a regex entry, somewhat disappointed this username isn’t in there. Clearly I need to step up my game on this account.
Yay, I’m on the list!
There’s a user regex section for people across multiple instances, so:
“^cheeseburger$”,
I guess that means all my accounts are covered 😄, but why? Who the fuck am I to this fool? What an absolute clown.
Maybe he just doesn’t like cheeseburgers
I’m on the list too, and that’s what I’m saying. I’m just a dude.
Has nos chezburgers
“Kate” is also on the list 🫣 am i the only kate on lemmy? i don’t know of any others but i guess we’re all in this together if so
They really don’t want people to hear about the best text editor
I’m not on the list, I feel deeply offended, I need to work more actively to improve this site.
Why would anyone want to use software under those conditions?You have to be a real loser to not be able to interact with all those people and try to prevent others from doing so as well.
I’m honoured!
I’m on the list, this account is only 3 months old, no posts, 41 comments.
Who and how the fuck did I piss off, lol
Pretty sure that’s a speedrun category?
It’s a badge of honour. Looks like the cunt hates anything that isn’t a basement dweller in their mother’s house or their own mother’s cunt.
Also someone who blocks literally anything that discusses rights for people and hides behind ‘toxicity’ have so much to hide. Maybe someone should check their hard drive.
“Fuck” is a keyword ban lol. Well, maybe the ‘^’ does something in regex.
^means start of string, so its anything that starts with FuckLmao, the delicate masses must be kept from seeing anyone who starts a sentence with a swearsie
I’m so envious.
Any idea what the regexis mean? I landed there which is funny because that means my .world, dbzer0, ml, mbin, piefed, and hexbear accounts would all likely get pegged under the same name, lol.
My understanding of regex is used to capture certain words used together, so it might catch life and choice, or some other combination deemed bad
Oh so that’s cool
Same same. I’m not on the list either. But I do a lot of lurking, maybe that’s why.
Well if the tesseract chud is reading this, they’re a piece of shit, I’m a socialist, etc etc.
ME ME ME ME ME ME ME
RICKYSWEEP2026
I’m surprised I made the list, I’m not terribly prolific and mostly post animal memes. I guess I should feel seen!
Maybe he’s just offended by your username, there’s no such thing as too many pancakes
There’s no such thing as toomanypancakes for users of that frontend.
Just like my school repoets: I must work harder [to make the list]
