this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2025
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Hey m@tes, as y'all know, this instance has been anti-corporate GenAI positive since it's creation and as such we've typically allowed such content to be posted freely. However in the last few weeks we've had a bunch of drama from GenAI haters who insist on coming into our comms and starting slap-fights. This caused us to vote on a new rule to have the mandate to clear out this constant friction. This worked to an extent, but I think we can help foster a better community with the larger threadiverse.

One issue a lot of anti-GenAI people keep bringing is that while they can block dedicated comms like !stable_diffusion_art@lemmy.dbzer0.com, they don't have an easy option to avoid GenAI content in random other /0 comms as there's no way to filter it out. This kind of content has been seen to cause a lot of strife, because people complain about its existence, while /0 admins and mods based on the above rule, tend to sanction those complaining. This then causes drama loops with /c/YPTB and /c/FuckAI etc.

There is a good point to be made here that while we don't mind GenAI content in /0, there isn't a reason to not help others avoid it. So we want to institute the following soft rule by now:

Simply tag your posts which consist of primarily GenAI content with the [GenAI] tag in their title. Not only will frontends like Tesseract will natively parse this as a tag and display it accordingly, but people who dislike such content, can simply filter it out of their feeds. Eventually lemmy will add tags which will make this tagging more seamless, but for now a manual tag in the title will suffice.

This rule only applies to posts in non-explicit GenAI comms. The assumption is that people can simply block those comms completely anyway.

As I said, this is a soft rule for now. Soft in the sense that you're not going to be sanctioned for forgetting it, but we hope people will remind you to do so. This is a good-faith attempt by us to co-exist and help others avoid what they don't want to stumble onto, much like [NSFW] tags. So I hope you'll add do a good faith attempt to help us in this. Furthermore, people who come to posts tagged as GenAI explicitly to scold and start slap-fights, will give the admins and easier justification to clean up, since they could have just filtered out that content in the first place.

Cheers

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IMO the problem is a lack of tags on Lemmy, which are often used as content warnings. With a robust tagging system, people would be able to filter out tags they dislike, such as genAI or politics.

[–] zaknenou@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago

it seems to be for the better imo

[–] axEl7fB5@lemmy.cafe 2 points 6 days ago

This is what they are gonna call cyborgs born in the year 2100

[–] MITM0@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago
[–] otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com -4 points 6 days ago

Yeah, that's gonna age reeeal well.

[–] Mwa@thelemmy.club 60 points 1 week ago

That's good I agree with this

[–] tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 50 points 1 week ago (16 children)

Good, AI art fucking sucks.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 18 points 1 week ago (12 children)

I know, those are my favorite use cases 😏

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[–] UnrefinedChihuahua@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Can I ask what compelled you to join db0 after reading the sidebar? Honestly curious. If I hated AI that much, after seeing the tagline, I would have noped out.

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[–] UniversalMonk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 week ago (11 children)

I like it. That's the thing about art. Some people like it. Some people don't. You don't get to define what is or isn't art for me. I get to define it for me. That's what's so awesome about it.

Also, get used to it. AI isn't ever ever going away. This is just the beginning. So pace your hate.

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[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 31 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I think this is a good addition. We shouldn't alienate other like-minded people because of slight disagreements in my mind "minor shit" like this, and this seems like the least that can be done.

Also, I believe this post should be tagged with [GenAi] because of the attached image? 😅

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well, the tag is very much in the title yes ;)

[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Re-reading it yeah it's in the middle, I'm just conditioned to think the format [TAG]:Title heh

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 week ago

Ye that's how most posts should look, but in my case I didn't want to add it twice

[–] whalebiologist@lemmy.dbzer0.com 27 points 1 week ago

I like gen ai and I think this rule is a nice gesture towards the other side. It's a good practice to cite your sources when you're online anyhow.

[–] Taser@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 week ago

FWIW, I approve/agree with this rule.

[–] Eyedust@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I was wondering if you guys would catch the latest shitstorm on this. Definitely a necessary precaution. Its a good idea, and I hope it will be enough.

Its getting to the point where people are blanket terming us as unhinged and blocking the whole instance because debates are getting heated. :(

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The anti-ai people are sending death threats and transphobic remarks to mods.

They really need to step back and reassess their lives.

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[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I got called an alt of db0 because I explained the instance's stance on Ai.

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[–] tal@lemmy.today 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Most AI image generators that generate images add EXIF metadata indicating that the image is AI-generated. This helps people who want to identify AI-generated images readily.

In the case of ComfyUI, it even includes the entire workflow


like, another ComfyUI user can just grab the image, drop it onto their ComfyUI Web UI and they'll be right where the generating user was.

Unfortunately, EXIF metadata can contain location information


some cameras and such add it


and this metadata led to people posting images at places like Reddit being doxxed after they didn't realize that they were posting their GPS location and maybe real name, stuff that some cameras attach. As a result, a number of image-hosting places simply strip all metadata, to prevent users from from accidentally leaking this information.

Pict-rs, the software package that Lemmy hosts run to permit image uploads, does this. Unfortunately, it means that those "this is an AI-generated image" tags get stripped off.

So, for example, on my system, with ComfyUI, using ImageMagick:

$ identify -verbose output/ComfyUI_00312_.png 

"Properties:prompt" has a JSON encoding of the workflow.

Sample images generated by various AI image generators are readily-available on civitai.com.

For this generator that generated this image on civitai, it looks like the parameter is "Properties:parameters".

I believe that there are a small number of such tags today.

It would be technically possible to just not have pict-rs strip that particular tag (or tags, if there are multiple that a given generator adds?) off, have a list of "AI-generated tags", then have Lemmy add some visual indicator that an image is AI-generated. I'd suggest that this is probably a better longer-term route to indicate that an image is AI-generated than manually-tagging post titles, for a couple of reasons:

  • Spiders that index images on the Web will know that the image is AI-generated and can flag that for users and let them use that as a filtering criteria (e.g. Kagi Images permits for this). They aren't going to understand tags in post titles, but the metadata tags are somewhat universal.

  • Doesn't require manual effort if an image can have some indicator or flair or whatever put on it automatically. And I guarantee that some users are going to get this wrong just by accident, because different instances have different rules. Easier to change how a computer works than to change human behavior across-the-board.

  • Works on all instances.

  • The information remains attached to the image even if downloaded.

  • Works for images that aren't just the subject of single-image posts and don't have an associated title.

  • Speaking purely for myself, I kind of like the open-source, collaborative aspect of sharing the workflows or prompts, since it helps other users see how an image was created and learn from it; it's something that I'm glad to see the generators include, and I'm kind of sad that we strip it off on the Threadiverse.

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[–] zr0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Imagine getting angry at something this trivial.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think it's more "imagine getting mad at people using it at all" because the social effects aren't trivial at all.

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[–] unbanshee@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I mean...

I can imagine how artists struggling to make ends meet might be angry that work they'd spent years learning and honing their skills to produce was and is being crawled by tools made by a bunch of silver-spoon-chomping techbros who are marketing their products to businesses who employ artists as a way to employ less artists, and pay peanuts to those they do hire to wrangle prompts and fix AI mistakes instead of actually getting to make art.

And I can imagine how frustrating it is to see people minimize that struggle when it often benefits oligarchs and C-suite ghouls.

[–] curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This isn't exactly a capitalist tech-bro instance. So while I agree with there being a problem here, the problem is less genai and more about capitalism IMHO.

Which is why it can seem a bit silly to me to go after this instance of all things when it comes to genai.

That said, as always, I think db0's soft rule is a really great good faith effort to be accommodating to others, while staying true to the core of what the instance is about.

So I hope you'll see that part of things and tone it down in kind.

[–] unbanshee@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Sorry, what exactly do I need to tone down?

Pretty sure this is the first time I've ever commented on the issue here or elsewhere on Lemmy.

I see anti-AI sentiment all over the fediverse, but nothing in the original post that would indicate that these users are exclusively targeting db0 communities, just that the admins here have chosen to address it; and I agree it's a good way to handle the situation.

I think there are good and valuable use cases for AI, including generative AI.

But I also think a lot of the costs are hidden because the tools are free and easy to access, and because those coats often pretty abstract and wide-ranging so as to be difficult to observe, quantify, and attribute to an emerging technology. So I think there are a lot of really valid reasons to question casual use of those tools because they do not exist outside of capitalism.

The point of my earlier post wasn't meant to be that all use of AI is bad or that somebody using it to make a meme or art of their big-titty anime waifu is directly putting artists out of work, but I also don't think that those things are entirely separable, either.

And since I was replying to a user whose comment made a blanket claim implying that casual use of generative AI is trivial, well... no, I don't think it is.

I've done all sorts of art in my life. Sometimes as a job. And it's personally pretty disheartening to see comments like "it just looks like AI, human-made art doesn't look like that" because yes, it sometimes does, even if the poster has never seen human-made art like that.

But I've also spent the last few years watching dozens of friends and former coworkers lose their careers and their livelihoods en masse for no reason other than naked greed.

I think that making art more accessible through AI can be a really cool and pretty liberating thing for a lot of people, but as it's being employed by the big corporate players, it does have big serious negative externalities for working artists and for cultural products writ large, and I think that's worth bringing up.

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[–] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 week ago

Kudos.

That's it, that's the comment

[–] Soapbox@lemmy.zip 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

As a genAI hater, I appreciate this. I already block the dedicated communities as I see them in /all. This is helpful to filter out more of the outliers if posters cooperate and actually use the tag. (I think alot of genAI zealots get off on trying to see if people will notice their posts are AI.)

[–] xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 6 days ago

genAi isn’t the problem, the zealots and fraudsters using it like that is the problem.

I was wondering why everyone just didn't block the communities. Maybe their Lemmy clients do not have the option. I use Eternity and it works for me.

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It's a good idea in spirit but the tags will mostly be used to brigade and not to filter in my opinion. Most apps dont even have the feature if I'm not mistaken.

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If they brigade, we'll handle it

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[–] Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 week ago

I already raised that concern as well, but I do think it's worth a try. Would be great to dupe the functionality of the NSFW tag for this purpose.

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[–] MysticMushroom1776@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 week ago (8 children)

I think this is a nice gesture but I also think it's way too charitable for the Anti-GenAI people currently complaining. Their issue isn't that they want to avoid it, they want to stamp it out, they want it gone. They're not going to hide posts or keywords, they're going to brigade them. They already brigade and harass explicitly GenAI communities and don't block them. They've harassed me multiple times, told me to die in DMs and even impersonated me for running such communities. Tagging isn't going to help, they're just going to use it to hunt down people who post it and brigade the posts or target the users, because they aren't angry that they are seeing it, they're angry that it exists and they wish to stamp it out, no matter the cost.

In short this is a good solution with good intentions but it assumes a level of good faith that just isn't there. I'd agree with this if the problem was really people just not wanting to see it, but the problem is much deeper. I'm sure that once people start doing it, the goal posts will be moved and they'll just stop using "untagged" as a reason for complaining.

[–] UniversalMonk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Their issue isn’t that they want to avoid it, they want to stamp it out, they want it gone

Exactly this. These sorts of people don't want to co-exist. They want to bully us out of existence.

and even impersonated me for running such communities.

Sorry you've had to go through that. I have been through that too (and still have it happen). So I know how frustrating it is. People on Lemmy can be super weird.

I'm all for OP's solution, but like you, I don't it will solve much because of just how much people like to stir up drama. They won't use those tags to block, they'll use those tags to find and harrass.

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[–] 000@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 week ago

This is a hopefully a happy middle group that stops these stupid fights and makes people focus on bigger things.

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