FYI: Raid on the site

Crumpet 5/24/2022 05:21 pm 5917

Hi everyone,

There was what I will call a small raid on the site this afternoon. It was multiple people in different countries and states spamming the threads with hateful content. They also tried to post a lot of comments, but luckily auto comment approval is off for most users, so their comments didn't get through. However, their dozens of threads did. They also sent messages to a few users.

I'm in England and have work in the morning so I was in bed, but strangely I couldn't sleep (I've been sleeping well lately so it's unusual for me). I checked my phone and had an email from someone alerting me to the raid (thank you), so I dived out of bed and came to start blocking. deleting, saving details etc. I've been doing that for the past 1.5 hours or so. I wish I could have seen it sooner but I'm very glad that I was able to hop on.

In retrospect, it was very risky to have thread auto approval on for all users. I shouldn't have had it set up that way and will not be having it that way in the future. For now, all comments and threads have to be approved by me. I am also being careful about what I let through, so some legitimate threads might not be approved. I will also need some other kind of anti-raid measures in place, but I'm not sure what yet. Possibly a better emergency alert system, approvals for messages, and more moderators.

You all handled it very well and did exactly what you were supposed to do: report it. I hope that nobody was affected by the content you saw. These people are pathetic trolls trying to get a reaction and trying to make themselves feel superior. But they're not. I have previously been a troll myself, and I even trolled people who I thought were faking conditions like they did. I know exactly the type of person that does this and what kind of mindset they have (since I used to be one), and they're complete losers. Don't let losers like these determine how you feel about yourself. You're awesome and nobody can take that away from you.

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May 25, 2022 6:05 am

@Alexander_The_3th: Yeah I saw that too and I changed my username n things about my account lmao

May 25, 2022 5:16 am

im glad the site didnt get taken down atleast

May 25, 2022 5:04 am

to be honest i highly doubt the 'raiders' came from 4chan or reddit. the spam felt too childish and uncreative for that (which is pretty low, haha). i bet it was planned by some edgy kids in a discord server somewhere out there who idolise that sort of thing (ie the guy who was talking about the various trollings of chris chan), but can't orchestrate anything themselves without looking like stupid wannabes. atleast that's what i thought from their use of 'systards' and stuff lol. i'm happy they're gonna suffer the consequences. rainbowsmile

May 25, 2022 5:00 am

@junatehrobot: I had the same thought about you as the origin, but so far it doesn't seem to be that way. I know who was the ringleader of it and it was an inside job They might very well be on that site though.

It was only a few people. It wasn't a big group.

May 25, 2022 4:37 am

@Crumpet: #crumpet4ever

May 25, 2022 4:34 am

@Crumpet: HECK YEAH. you go crumpet! make em pay!

(btw if anyone saw a user called "homestars_hat" yesterday, it was me. that's my "throwaway" account that i go onto when stuff like this happens, so when i need to interact with people the trolls [who seemed to be going after everyone, not just systems] won't attack my main if that makes sense.)

May 25, 2022 4:13 am

@L1M1N4L_5P4CE_2: I have DMed you with why I deleted your account. I should have warned you, but I was rushing through handling everything so it didn’t occur to me.

May 25, 2022 4:13 am

how disappointing :[ seriously thank you for taking care of it all

May 25, 2022 3:56 am

@Alexander_The_3th: thats actually pretty interesting. idk why but i had a hunch it was redditors shrug they just seem like the type of people to do that, tbh, cos i had a reddit phase and i would've definitely done crap like that if i had more access to the internet.

[obviously not all redditors are like that, but yk some are]

May 25, 2022 3:55 am
@Alexander_The_3th: thank you for your help. I think I know how this started and right now Reddit doesn’t seem to be involved.