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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  3638 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Feature request: #Spam button on post listings

Many websites have autobans on url shorteners. I've asked for this in the past, but I'm not sure anyone noticed.





Cedar  ·  3638 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The problem here is it's difficult to implement, you can blacklist domains but there's so many URL forwarders out there you'll never be able to block them all. It's also trivial to create your own using free services such as Github pages.

One solution could be to check URLs when they are submitted, see if they lead to a redirect as that may indicate a shortener service, though there's so many legitimate uses that this too falls short.

Hubski doesn't even use captchas at sign up, that small measure could help reduce some of the bulk automated spamming.

user-inactivated  ·  3638 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That would certainly help to get rid of one of the more persistent spammers. I've gone to filtering out URL Shortening domains such as TinyURL and Bitly just because they kept on making a new account every few days.

thenewgreen  ·  3638 days ago  ·  link  ·