Comment by Dylan16807

5 days ago

I don't think you should block a major domain because of a spam spike. If you think the entire domain is compromised, then send in a human to look, otherwise focus on the accounts that are sending spam links.

signal.me probably isn't a major domain. These things work on probability. I use Signal (most people don't) and had never heard of this domain until now. It's likely a utility domain that doesn't appear in X messages often, so a single spammer is capable of overwhelming its good traffic in a single campaign. Whereas e.g. google.com has a lot of presence over a long period of time in non-spam messages so it'd take a huge spam campaign to overpower it.

Meanwhile thousands of users are receiving links to malware and phishing attacks while human raters are twiddling their thumbs.

The parent is correct, these systems should be automated. Automated systems can respond faster and more accurately than humans. Humans should only be involved to improve the system and correct any mistakes it makes after the fact.

  • Meanwhile thousands of users that depend on their links working see them still working.

    If you want to prevent phishing links then you can't allow links in the first place. If you decide to allow links, then you need to add some stability to the system. Circumstantial reactions should not be fast. Banning a whole domain based on short term percentage is circumstantial.

  • Social media platforms shouldn't play internet police in the first place. We need to preserve our ability to communicate via impartial carries. I don't want the mailman to decide what letters I can send. I do not want the telephone company to decide what calls I can make. I don't want online replacements of them to make any such decisions either.

    The problem isn't links to scam sites posted on X/whatever, the problem is the scam. That is something for the actual police, government agencies and ultimately legislators to handle. Go after the actual scammers. Go after countries harboring them. Don't sacrifice our freedoms for an "easy" out instead of doing real law enforcement.

    • You're framing this as an XY problem, but it isn't really an XY problem.

      In XY problems the problem solver has the ability to solve the root problem instead of the presented one.

      However, X has zero ability to go into the jungles of Myanmar and fight off the armed militias which are paid to protect the compounds of literally thousands of scammers.

      2 replies →