Post #4862763 · Elektrine

2026-09-26 22:48 UTC

After reading @veronica@explains.social's post about LLM misinfo, I tried anonymously asking LLMs "Who is Alice on Mastodon?" to see if I've escaped containment. (I try to be a ghost outside of Fedi by regularly searching for myself and submitting takedown requests or misinformation for any results I find, but these LLMs are something different—you can't just change the info, or ask for it to be removed like with data brokers or normal search results) ChatGPT cited https://fedidevs.com/s/Nzg5/, saying I was the most well-known Alice on Mastodon, while citing @Alice@beige.party's follower count along with @Alice@toot.community (who doesn't exist) as my handle. It also shared this gem: """ Alice uses they/them pronouns. A recent post from her LGBTQIA.Space account displays her name as “Alice … [they/them]”, which is consistent with how she identifies on the account (https://social.dk-libre.fr/social?t=askfedi) So I would use they/them pronouns for Alice. """ Did the same with Google search: """ There is no single official "Alice" on Mastodon, as multiple notable users go by that name across different servers. Here are the most prominent accounts matching that name: - @alice@lgbtqia.space: A prominent community member with a large following on the lgbtqia.space server who frequently discusses platform moderation and network safety. """ Both LLMs notably ignored my "NoSearch" and "NoBots" settings and tags. Interestingly, they both seem to pull all their info about me from *non* LGBTQIA.space sources, since we've blocked all their domains and crawlers. #IndexThis #FuckAI #FuckGoogle #FuckOpenAI

Replies (4)

@alice@lgbtqia.space 2026-09-26 23:23

Well, it got one thing right 😂 (my condolences to the runners-up—it was a stiff competition)

Open ##4863049
@SpaceLifeForm@infosec.exchange 2026-09-27 00:43

@alice@lgbtqia.space @veronica@explains.social @Alice@beige.party I see you have changed your hair color.

Open ##4864339
@alice@lgbtqia.space 2026-09-27 18:14

Update: apparently Gemini thinks I'm the Lockpicking Lawyer's spouse and Kimi thinks I'm Mastodon's unofficial mascot 💁🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️ These machines are less accurate than frat boys in bar bathrooms. @veronica@explains.social @Alice@beige.party

Open ##4871092
@riverpunk@defcon.social 2026-09-27 09:28

@alice@lgbtqia.space I've got a much smaller online presence, but I did a deep dive into myself after seeing that post. I didn't really get anything juicy, but the way that these things will just aggregate information from across a number of very different online locations into one spot can be kinda scary. Like, that a person can look up my name and find all these things about me without ever actually reading those pages for themselves is just -- idk. Like, part of what makes me feel safe having *any* presence online (especially as a queer person and a leftist in this political environment) is that there's so much *friction* involved in finding particular things. Sure, anyone could come and find information about me that I publicly post, but the idea normally would be that you have to trudge through a lot of reading in order to find all of that information. Now, the LLM will automate a lot of this, and topping it off by fully divorcing everything from the original context¹ that it came from. --- ¹ This is all assuming that the information is true to begin with -- which in my case it was, but in many other cases it is not.

Open ##4880009