I think it's a bad idea. It's just going to start harassment and witch hunts when someone gets a downvote they don't like. Stalking is going to be a thing, people are going to aggregate all the votes you've done to make assumptions about you to then bully you. Once public, sources outside Lemmy will start gathering and cross referencing data about you.

In the US, when you vote, the vote is private to protect the person. Making votes public will only empower those that would abuse it. It very well could end Lemmy due to massive bulling, harassment, and the decline of activity.

[–] curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 months ago (10 children)

The problem is its already pretty public, just for mods and admins, and non-lemmy instances.

While I agree its not ideal to have everything be public, given it functionally already is, this just makes it easier for users to see. Right now its a minor hurdle, but still a hurdle - but your votes are not really private/anonymous to start with.

[–] CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I personally think it should be locked down and votes should be kept under a very tight lock and key.

I posted this already as a response, so I'll sort of post it here. If we start mapping users to their IRL selves, and agencies can start capturing what someone votes on, you have a few problems. 1) Marketing agencies selling your data again. 2) Governments can start using someones posts against them. You're might not, but there are several that will. And Lemmy is a global platform.

[–] subignition@fedia.io 0 points 3 months ago

If you are particularly concerned that you're going to be identified IRL based on your participation online, you should be changing your identity frequently rather than using the same account for a year+.

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