We are aware of an ongoing wave of subscription spam throughout the fediverse.
We are investigating avenues to mitigate this, but they will likely involve deep changes in the sign-up flow that may break sign-up from existing applications.
In the meantime, you can find helpful resources at https://about.iftas.org/2026/09/11/boom-protocol-spam/
about.iftas.org/2026/09/11/boom-protocol-spam/
Replying to @MastodonEngineering@mastodon.social
Please for the love of God put the captcha before the first email is send.
And please also make it configurable to put a manual approval before the fist email is send, since captchas are circumvented today for fractions of a cent.
It would be great if the signup process generated a random verification code that users must write on paper and photograph. This would allow us to verify that accounts are not created by AIs, residential proxies, or malicious bots in general.
Replying to @m@lgbtqia.space
@m @MastodonEngineering The suggestion in your last paragraph would make signing up hard to impossible for users with visual disabilities or motor disabilities, while (as someone else mentioned) being of dubious usefulness against subscription spam. Please keep #accessibility #a11y in mind when suggesting solutions.
Replying to @pauamma@mstdn.social
Please read https://lgbtqia.space/@m/117320713582769721
Please provide a alternative that makes AI signups more detectable or keep your criticism. Criticism is cheap and does mean nothing if you cannot come up with a single solution instead.
As it looks currently mastodon signups don't work at all because you cannot differentiate between a human and a bot.
And this is the most terrible solution.
✨ Mia’s Simulacrum 🏳️⚧️✨@m@lgbtqia.spaceFirst of all it increase cost.
And than you can detect these AI images with quite high precision and reliability.
This is not about the numbers on the paper, it is about the pixel data itself, the code is just a tool to make it impossible to use a single image over and over again
Replying to @m@lgbtqia.space
@m @pauamma @MastodonEngineering "make a better suggestion or shut up" is not how you talk to people who point out massive accessibility problems. That's massively disrespectful.
Replying to @ratsnakegames@mastodon.social
@ratsnakegames @pauamma @MastodonEngineering
"I don't care about your problems enough but your solution is shit" is not how you make the world a better place, It is massively disrespectful to only destroy the attempts to make something better without providing anything at all on energy to solve the problem by oneself.
Replying to @ratsnakegames@mastodon.social
@m @pauamma @MastodonEngineering And for the record, the alternative to your weird captcha approach is to just not do anything. Giving admins some more work in reviewing and blocking bot signups is preferrable to pushing disabled people off your platform.
Replying to @ratsnakegames@mastodon.social
"Let the admins and mods that work for free have more work because fuck them and they are beneath my energy to come up with a better solution.
... and you have the audacity speaking to me about what is "massively disrespectful"
Replying to @m@lgbtqia.space
@m @pauamma @MastodonEngineering for what it's worth, disabled people being frustrated and hampered by capcha is a fairly common thing, I find 
another common concern I've heard from other disabled people is that our accessibility needs are ignored and requests for accessibility treated as nuisances 
I know admins are getting swamped and having to do even more with than they normally do, but it would be sad to see people rush to solve it by tromping over the needs of disabled people as happens far too often 
Replying to @m@lgbtqia.space
@m @MastodonEngineering I'm confused. Do you not believe that AIs can write numbers on a piece of paper? I believe the opposition is a bit underestimated.
We'll have to be a little more innovative than that.
— Open image attachment 1 of 1Replying to @shanie@tails.ch
First of all it increase cost.
And than you can detect these AI images with quite high precision and reliability.
This is not about the numbers on the paper, it is about the pixel data itself, the code is just a tool to make it impossible to use a single image over and over again
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