Why can people see who upvotes and who downvoted post on Lemmy? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by cosmicrookie@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

117 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I woke up today, to a public comment in a Lemmy community asking a series of tagged accounts why they had downvoted certain posts

I thought that reactions to posts and comments are anonymous and now I don't really know what to feel about Lemmy any more.

In this case I had downvoted a poster because of its design, but was confronted publicly for being racist because the person assumed that I downvoted the message on the poster

EDIT: changed the title from "How" to "Why" because it broke rule nr 5 about it being a support question

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I had expected reactions to be encrypted, as it's not a build in feature of Lemmy itself. If it was, I feel like it should have been visible, just like the modlog. There must have been a reason why the Lemmy devs don't show a list of who up votes or down votes

[-] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

Assume that everything you say and do online is public, unless explicitly stated (and proven) otherwise. The advantage of Lemmy (and Reddit in principle) is that your account is anonymous, it is not linked to your person. So you have some freedom to be who you want to be without repurcussions in your daily life.

[-] idegenszavak@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 week ago

If it would be encrypted, it would open up for vote manipulation. There are plans that mods will see who upvotes in their communities. Create multiple accounts on different instances if you need more privacy, separate personalities for different topics.

[-] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Create multiple accounts on different instances

Isn't that manipulation too?

[-] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 2 points 1 week ago

Only if you are using it to vote multiple times, or vote on your own posts/comments.

this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026

22 points (95.8% liked)

Ask Lemmy

37470 readers

159 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

6) No US Politics.

Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.