Fair point. Though if nothing else stripping out usernames from vote counts would maybe save some bandwidth or database queries for the instance.
People raise a good point that in countries where political dissent can actually be dangerous, this would very much dissuade people from voting on things they believe in, or even coming anywhere near Lemmy period.
A better approach I think would be to have the user's host instance save their votes (the database obviously needs to remember what you voted on), but when federating those votes with other instances just hand over a cumulative total, e.g., "here on vlemmy.net we have +18 votes for this comment", which the other instances can then add. There's no need to send user information with that data.
Requires: greasemonkey/tampermonkey/other script injector.
If your home instance is federated with instances you don't want to see, you can use this script to remove all posts and comments from that instance without having to block communities individually.
Example:
Line 17: const blockedInstances = ["example.ml","lemmy.world"];
Will block:
user@lemmy.world posts to community@anyinstance.com
user@anyinstance.com posts to community@lemmy.world
user@lemmy.world comments on any post
Usage:
Edit the comma-seperated list on line 17 to the instances you wish to block. Add new ones inside quotes following a comma. Do not include https:// or trailing forward slashes in the instance text.