Lemmy Moderators

Fascinating. I always enjoy going deeper with you:-).

According to his definition, put forth in his 2004 Anatomy of Fascism (via that wikipedia page), he says:

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

I picked up on the usage of the wording of "jerks" - at least 3 times in the bot post, and more times still on the actual community page - bc of how much it struck me as a tactic of "humiliation". As in, it's not enough to ban someone - they need to be told about it (just when they sit down to dinner! 😔), everywhere they look, and have that word added, with the link to that word given specifically embedded into the modlog ban message. i.e. it's very "in-your-face". Much like how "the poors deserve their fate bc they're lazy and spoiled and entitled", never mind all the facts to the contrary e.g. what if a store is currently selling (almost expired) steak meat for half the price of ground chuck. But no, Kansas had to pass a law specifically prohibiting people on food social welfare programs - most often widows, whose husbands disappeared for whatever reason and left a single parent to now raise an innocent child - from purchasing steak with those funds, regardless of the pricing. The "luxury" items - even nearly expired ones - are too good for the likes of them, i.e. it's a humiliation tactic used by conservatives to stick it to the poor. Just like that bot calls people "jerks", as in it's not enough to ban them, they must also have that label thrown into their face.

And we could go down, one sentence fragment at a time, one after the other - e.g. "obsessive preoccupation with community decline", yup, check - and we see how well that bot post meshes with this definition of fascism. And even irl regimes don't always meet all the criteria - with only Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy having done so. "working.. with traditional elites" - yup, community mods, check. "abandons democratic liberties" - yup, people's rights to only be banned after they have committed some offense, which downvotes do not qualify as, especially in some other community entirely, and all the more so when a single downvote can do the trick. "and pursues with redemptive violence" - yup, I mean it's anonymous online, so fairly limited, but we agreed how it's an "attack" nonetheless. "and without ethical or legal restraints" - yup, violates various codes of conduct as well as the entire spirit behind federation principles. "goals of internal cleansing and external expansion" - yup, get rid of the "jerks" and thereby make the communities that use the Santa-bot great again.

I dunno, the more I look into this, the full-on term of "fascism", not just authoritian/totalitarian seems to fit better. But I'll be curious to hear your rebuttal bc you definitely have read far deeper than I on this topic:-). I agree it's strange to think in terms of fascism wrt online moderation principles rather than tanks and coups, but if the shoe fits, as the old saying goes...