ALERT: I'm noticing trolls are making carbon copies of my account with my same image, header, and bio, then trying to get people to sign up for their listserv of sorts.
Mastodon doesn't have an official verification system yet so this is a problem. Please do me a favor and report/block anyone you see mimicking my page.
This is my only account on Mastodon. It has 40K+ followers (and growing). If you see an account mimicking mine w/low followers, you can bet its a fraud.
As a practical matter, what would it mean to report an imposter account that is pretending to be someone else? If I report it, I'd only be reporting it to my own instance's administrator, right? Is there any sort of agreement in the Fediverse where admins agree to shut down imposter accounts, and if they refuse, their whole instance gets defederated?
Note that reports, if you so choose, get also sent to admins of the instance where the account is.
Different instances have different norms on what it takes to take moderation actions against some other instance. Some will probably choose not to federate anymore with a knowing impersonation peddler. Some will choose not to show any content from that instance other than to people who already follow someone there (it was called "silencing", now is called "muting"). Probably some won't do anything.
