cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/35891683
I have changed the original title of this post, as it is imo, thanks largely to discussion in this thread, with a lemmyusa mod, unnecessarily incendiary.
Original Title:
"lemmyusa.com is engaging in vote manipulation, suggest defederating unless it is addressed"
Mod Abuse:
https://lemmy.world/modlog/1432313?page=1&actionType=All
The instance has 3 active subs, it's unlikely the admins are not also the mods engaging in this.
Banning anyone who downvotes is a clear attempt to foster a chilling effect on dissenting opinions. The mods and admins of this instance are putting their thumb on the scales in order to make their ideas appear more positively received than they actually are.
Thanks for your attention to this.
I realize that doing a cross post here is... unorthodox, and this doesn't drectly involve my own interactions, and I am technically breaking a number of the rules of this comm...
... but I think this is worth the discussion and consideration of, and potential further investigation from this comm, which essentially functions as a de facto place for discussing things like this.
Further context / info I have been able to gather:
Here is a direct link to their own modlog.
Their dedicated legal page:
Their described 'sidebar rules' appear to only be:
We're keeping it simple:
Be thoughtful, act responsibly, and treat others with respect.
No NSFW content.
Everything else seems to be in the Legal / TOS / Privacy Policy section.
My preliminary, most charitable interpretation of mod/admin activity here... is that they can and will essentially ban anyone who posts on their instance and is not a lemmyusa user, as any other user would not have agreed to their TOS.
???
Further, this instance appears to be hosting an account that is impersonating SatansMaggotyCumFart, a fairly well known, mostly parody/dedicated 'bit' account here on lemmy...
The profile description of their version of SMCF claims to be 'the only real profile!', and is using a clearly AI generated avatar/profile pic... and uh, to me at least, it seems very unlikely this is the actual SMCF.
UPDATE:
Ok.
After some conversation in this thread, I should add:
There is, and there was at the time this all started, a rule in the comm that much of these downvote bans took place in, which reads:
'No Serial Downvoting.'
Personally, I find this rather vague.
How many dowmvotes, in what timeframe, across how many comms/comments/posts, etc?
I am also still uncertain to what extent these actually are dedicated, persistent, serial downvoters, vs just a whole lot of randos seeing something on their feed and then downvoting it and moving on.
I get the intent behind trying to stem a mass wave of negativity, nobody likes a wave of mass downvotes and hostile comments...
But on the other hand, there should probably be a bit more clarity and specificity here, less heavy handed actions for less comitted and persistent behavior.
IMO, a balance has to be struck between allowing people to genuienly freely express their opinion via downvoting, but at the same time, there are clearly also cases where people or groups of people basically just downvote all comments or posts from a specific user or in a certain comm or pertaining to a certain topic, etc.
I myself am fairly confident I have managed to attract at least one person who downvotes all my posts/comments on their instance, simply because I am on their shitlist, apparently.
So ideally... we could maybe have a constructive conversation about that.
As to the SatansMaggotyCumFart profile on lemmyusa being an impersonatory account:
We've got one mod from lemmyusa here saying he really isn't sure, and personally blocked him, I think from his own user standpoint, not from the standpoint of himself as a mod.
IMO, the account still strikes me as likely another person, impersonating the actual user... I of course cannot be certain, but the profile still strikes me as very sus.
Finally, I am least personally going to strongly discourage any one reading this from popping in to lemmyusa and going out of your way to downvote every single thing on there simply because it is on that instance.
They are already in more or less lockdown mode, call that a win if you must.
I did not intend nor do I want this very post to act as an attack vector.
UPDATE 2
SatansMaggotyCumFart, the real one, has appeared in this thread and confirmed that the lemmyusa profile is indeed an impersonation, is not them.
I'm a mod of the community. the reason for the bans isn't vote manipulation, it's serial downvoting which is against the commnity rules. right now there is an extreme downvoting brigading going on from lemmy.world because of this post and the cross post. feel free to go look and look who most of downvotes are from. lemmys don't like conservatives, and thats fine, but we are allowed to be on here too.
we locked the comments and the community to mods only because of teh extremist stuff happening after the charlie kirk murders. there were lemmys cheering and posting memes and laugnign about murder. if you don't like conservatives thats fine but then why are people mad if you are banned from a community that you only went to to downovte?
this seems to be a of drama over a community you don't even like. So why not just ignore and move on? i don't understand. here is screen cap of over 20 downvotes from someones post today (College conservatives reveal what Charlie Kirk meant to them and how they will keep his message alive)(https://lemmy.myserv.one/post/21138775)
I didn't block on names cuz voting record is public, all are from lemmy.world, but I can blcok them out of mod of this sub asks me to:
wait wait wait…. let me get this straight…
you don’t allow discussions on your content… you regularly post inflammatory and regressive news articles from alt right rags…. Want to appear on the front page so you admit to vote manipulation to force your content where it is not wanted… because you complain that you should not be down voted, nor defederated because your message should be forced out there…
am i getting this right?
so you are an advertisement agency for right wing lemmy and your content are ads then?
I have no control over wht goes on front page of lemmy. thats not my issue how am i forcing content by posting my content to my own community and nowhere else?
lemmy doesn't want discussion, they just want to post nazi and fascist accusations on every artile. trust me, there is no 'discussion' lol
i don't think they are inflammatory or regressive. ur opinion. but my community so i can post what i wnat. u can post what u want in ur community have at it
i didn't start this thread. i just replied in it i'm not OP and had nothing to do with his post that started this thread.
what? i work at burger king
if this is not about appearing on the all feeds then why would you care if you are being vote brigaded? if you have followers of your content then the fact that all your pages are getting down votes means little other then your content is unpopular.
you do have direct control over if your content can show up on the all federated page. but i understand that may not be viable because you need the audience to have the community. but vote manipulation is a clear race to the bottom to reddit 2.0.
Literally the fediverse lives or dies by the votes of its participants, which you do not have because you don’t allow participation.
without the participation you are fundamentally advertising the content you would have as your voice, and using false votes to ensure that unpopular content is viewed by the fediverse at large. that is why i said you were an ad agency, because you are effectively filling the same roll for Breightbart or fox news. if you are not being paid to do so… i don’t know what to tell you, because the advertisers got paid.
i have no control over the feeds. I only post conservetive content to my conservative community. i don't post conservative content anywhere else on lemmy. i didn't start this thread
i have no idea or wish for that tho. i started a community and i post to that community.
So? when i had open for discussion, it was just bunch of lemmy peopel calling me a nazi. lemmy poster also asked a trans poster to take video of themselves kiling themslves and post it so it could be laughed at: https://lemmy.wtf/post/27666542
do you think lemmy posters reall wnatd a discussion? lol
so? i'm allowed to post to my own community even if you don't belive in it. no one forces you ro anyone to visit it. you can just blcok the community.
because you're locking all topics in fear of discussion, voting is the only way to interact with your community.
its not fear of discussion. its comments are always hateful and extreme espcially after the kirk killing. Lemmy doens't want to 'discuss' anyting. they wanna just type 'nazi' and 'fascist' over and over.
if a locked post gets 30 downvotes within 5 minutes, u think those people would have 'discussed' anyting. not only that, i see the reports when they report. the reports usually sya 'die fascist die' lol which is what the comment woudl say too.
Then maybe consider posting actual conservative content instead of just hateful alt-right "news" that is trying to incite culture wars.
Here's the front page of the community right now. can u let me know which articles you think are hateful? can u quote some hateful content from thes articles?
Why More Blacks and Hispanics Are Turning Republican
The Accomplishments of Black Conservative Thought
Why the American Founding Matters for American Conservatism
Americans’ Views of Space: U.S. Role, NASA Priorities and Impact of Private Companies
Texas Tech student arrested after hurling vile comments at Charlie Kirk mourners
FBI Confirms DNA Found at Scene of Charlie Kirk Assassin’s Hiding Spot Matches Suspect
Teen arrested 'destroying' Charlie Kirk memorial as chilling copycat fantasy exposed
Coldplay Frontman Chris Martin Tells Concertgoers to Send Love to Charlie Kirk’s Family
Suspect in Charlie Kirk killing under special watch pending mental health evaluation
On Intellectual Diversity
A Conservative Definition of Diversity
"Ongoing Hate Campaign of the Democrat Apparatus ‘Led Directly’ to Charlie Kirk Assassination"
i don't think that pointing out hate is hateful. look at all the meme and smiley faces after someone is brutally murdered. you don't think that that's hateful?
here on lemmy i saw someone discussing the murder, and how much blood thre was. then people were laughing and someone psoted a meme of a dam of water releasing. and it was getting upvotes. that's hateful. i have seen more hate on lemmy lately than ever before. reporting about it isn't the problem
additionally, like half of the posts are about an ultimately unimportant public figure dying in a school shooting. If you don't want people expressing their oppinion about that, maybe consider not posting about it, and get over it already. You guys over there are usually quicker to do that, when it comes to children dying in schools.
that's in the news tho. all the major news orgs are reporting it. it was a major news event, even if u personally think it's unimportant. also not as many today since news is evening out.
half of the recent articles over in !politcs were of the shooting too, did you complalin to them that they shoudl stop posting articles about it? why is our community held to a different standard than any other comm on lemmy?
can u show me something that is hateful? whats a hateful article on there?
can u show me something that is hateful? whats a hateful article on there?
I will not link anything, but a breitbart article that YOU posted, trying to blame the Democrats for the Kirk school shooting is a prime example. It's just another article hatemongering, fingerpointing and trying to fuel a culture war over in the US.
Get real!
so do u point this out to all the people on lemmy who say that kirk deserved it and that his republican ideas got him killed? Beause that's saying same thing, just different party name. ive seen pleny on lemmy blaming republicans for the murder and saying it was secret ops. do you point out that they are hatemongering? is blaming republican for it ok? i don't think posing a news article reporting on hate counts as hate. having said that i think both sides shold be nicer, but i see so much of lemmy saying they are 'done being nice, it's time for war' so i'm nto sure why im being pointed at for this
So instead of trying to make a better place, you're just going to make the same thing with an oposite spin? Why not just call your community "no u" then? Just stop your whataboutism, this is about your "community". With it being locked it is not really a community. It's like the moderators shared little notepad that they can post their links to. There is no discussion of ideas going on, there is no way to engage other than pressing the up- or downvote button.
I don't understand how anyone can think that's a good use of anyone's time or resources.
Complaining about about mass downvotes when all you do is post links, without your own input, without others being able to input their ideas feels like intentionally breaking your leg and then complaining that you can't walk right.
I have a strong feeling about why you and your friends made this community, and why you don't want anyone to post in there, and the post titled "So I pissed off Lemmy", gloating about is is a prime example of it. Have your little echo chamber of hate.
Goodbye
i think my community is a better place. i have as much right to be here as you do. if you don't like my community don't visit. no one is forcing you to visit a community u don't like
my time my resources not ur time or ur resources so it shouldnt bother you
thanks I do have my little echo chamber. and u can have yours too. i don't have to visit yours and u don't have to visit mine. no one is forcing you to visit my community. if you don't like it, don't visit. easy
lemmy.world is the lowest common denominator, fresh-off-reddit instance. people posting "this is the way" and bringing a glossary of logical fallacies to an adult conversation and thinking they're clever.
I don't participate in a single community hosted on that instance, and I feel it's improved my experience. some instances block .world because it's such a fountain of drivel. ymmv.
Hey uh, while we're at it...
Can you tell me why there seems to be an account on lemmyusa that... seems to be impersonating SatansMaggotyCumFart?
Is that really him?
Or is that an impersonation?
... Do you have any idea?
As neither of us think things like sending people suicide/death threats is acceptable...
I would hope that we would both also agree that it's pretty not cool to have somebody running around impersonating someone else, putting someone else's words into say, your own mouth.
no clue. thats not my account and I didn't even know there was an account liek that til you mentioned it. but he's a wellknown troll so not surprising he has people parodying him. he is pretty quick to be obnoxious to people and laugh about it. i agree that personation is annoying tho and wish it didn't happen but the mindset of many on lemmy is that eveyrhting is a war and the can do whatever they want since they think they are on the correct side of whatever argument they are making.
i don't agree with it at all. I don't like his style, so I just blocked him. I don't think he shoudl be kicked off of lemmy and i don't think people should impersonate him. but i blocked him and moved on
Huh.
Well, ok then.
Again, thank you for the honest assessment!
Ok.
So, this is the crosspost.
I duplicated or reposted someone else's post.
But I duplicated it because of what it showed... ie, this was all ongoing before either the original post or this post.
Also: I genuinely missed that you have rule 7, which does say no serial downvoting, in the comm.
That's my bad, I will try to update the main post here, with more accurate information, when I can make sense out of what is going on.
...
However:
You could just temp ban them.
A time out, instead of being exiled.
...
Also, did you actually have this rule 7 before this all commenced?
Genuine question, I missed those sidebar rules in the conservative2 comm.
...
Also... can you actually show that these people were actually serially downvoting?
A serial downvoter would be something like an account, whose only interactions with your comm or your instance, is to downvote more or less every post.
If there are a flood of random people downvoting just one particular post or topic of posts... that would be a bunch of people just expressing their dislike.
(If they are actually saying things in comments that violate your rules, thats another thing.)
Serial means repeated, like a serial killer keeps killing people?
It does not mean a lot of different people share a dislike of something.
A downvote brigade implies an organized, formally orchestrated network of people (or I guess bots, which so far have been pretty rare on lemmy, in my experience).
.World is functionally the default instance that most reddit refugees or just normies land on.
It is possible that there is some kind of an actual brigade going on.
It is also possible a lot of people don't or didn't like Charlie, and do not need any kind of formal organization or direction to feel that way.
We wouldn't want to just silence all their voices simply for expressing their dislike of him via a downvote, would we?
...
I have also pointed out in another comment that one thing ya'll could do, could consider, is to simply remove downvotes from your instance, like, remove the ability of anyone and everyone to downvote anything.
Other instances have done this, it is possible to do, but I am not or admin or developer, I do not how to implement that.
...
All that being said, I am glad you are here, communicating earnestly... that is to me, much more preferable than being a bit of a troll as with Chad, or not being present at all... this way we can have an actual conversation.
Yep always a rule here adn on previous instance. but i did just make bold and at top after reading yoru post that people may overlook it.
they would be just as mad i think. why would they b mad at being exiled form a communtiy they hate anyways? A time out, instead of being exiled.
well I read comments and if i see same downvoter on 3 or 4 posts and they are right away I see where it is going. do you have a number that you think should count as serial donvoting? I'd be happy th change way I do it.
it's not my instance that woudl be up to admin. but i think (?) that removeing downvoties would only be for people on my actual instance. you could for example still downovte since you are not on my instance, but I just wouldn't be able to see your downvotes. so that wouldn't stop the downvoting at all, it would only stop me from seeing the downvotes. not you
Ok, I believe you that you had 'No serial downvoting' as a rule, before this all started.
But... that 3 word phrase is very vague, there are many ways one could possibly inerperet that.
So... how should we do this, what would a better way to be more specific?
Well, that is a complicated question.
To which I would first ask you, and I guess also by proxy ask you to ask other mods on lemmyusa and ... whoever the admin is:
Do you want to be closer to a safe space for conservatives?
Or do you want to be closer to freely exposing yourself to the opinions (as expressed via downvotes) of ... the entirety of all people on all lemmy instances?
What would be the pros and cons of each of those approaches?
Is there maybe a way to define or outline somewhere in the middle?
If I were ya'll, lemmyusa admins and mods and community members... I would suggest you all have a discussion about that amongst yourselves, probably on your own instance somewhere, and then, ideally, try to create a set of rules that you mostly all agree on, that is a bit more specific, clear and thorough.
As I said elsewhere, yeah I myself did not even know you guys existed until this post today... I have no idea how you all think or feel about any of that.
The best kind of ruleset and guidelines are going to be different, depending on what the actual goal is.
i like to think its a small commuity where people who want to see some conservative articles can. its not really for converting people or having big discussions about howwe are all fashists or nazis or whatever lemmy accueses us of. people are making a big deal out of nothing.
ill be honest. i think its that a lot fo people on lemmy don't want conservatives here and wnat to bully them off of lemmy. one of our posters got a dm (shown in conservative sub) that said that she should take a vid of her killing her self so the guy who sent the message could watch it and laugh: https://lemmy.wtf/post/27666542
another one in taht same sub got banned and laughed and said he was just going to just start another account so he could continue trolling us.
it's about bullying and not wanting us here because of our politcal beliefs. and htat doesn't really seem to match the mission of what lemmy is about.
Ok uh... yeah, I generally don't think its very appropriate to ... joke about or threaten suicide or murder in a very direct and user to user, person to person context.
I really want to try to avoid reproducing a whole shit fest fight in this thread over why people are doing that, having very strong opinions.
But uh... you didn't really answer the question, or maybe I am not understanding you.
If you all want to be just mostly a community for conservatives to post conservative things and talk about things from a conservative perspective...
You could just defederate yourselves from most or all other lemmy instances, if you guys just want basically just want your own little club.
That way, you would only have to deal with any fake or duplicate accounts or whatever, that are from your own instance.
Just strictly from a numbers perspective, that would probably massively cut down on the volume, the numbers of different users you deal with.
From a technical standpoint, you don't have to be connected to everyone else, just simply as a matter of being overwhelmed, with what I am guessing is a fairly small moderation/admin team.
Then, maybe, you could also try to find a few specific instances, whose user bases might be less likely to harass ya'll, after you all maybe get more of a feel for other instances and where you get the most trouble from, versus the least, from a moderation context.
But that's just me spitballing suggestions, I don't know what exactly you all wanna do with your instance.
I'm not an admin so that's not really up to me. it's not my instance. I just mod the community sorry if i miscommunicated. the owner admin of the instance has nothing to do with our community other htna it's his instance that we put it on. we follow the rules of the instance and never had a problem.
i also don't see what that woudl be necessary since people don't have to visit us if they don't want to. but then I also don't agree w peopel defdding from hexbear and stuff. i think people should make their own choices of what the want to visit or not, but i don't feel we shoudl take that choice from them
Ah ok ok.
No, I understand you just mod one community, I got that.
I appreciate you clarifying again though.
Like I said earlier... maybe you all, the mods and admin, should have a discussion about all this.
Just because it doesn't make sense to you that people would go out of their way to harass you... well that doesn't mean everyone else thinks or feels the same way, has the same motivations, has the same reasons why they do or don't do things.
The whole idea of being a mod, of running a community that uh, interfaces with a whole, whole lot of other people... is that you have to have ways to handle people acting wild, and just... hoping that they would stop... is not a very effective plan.
You guys are far from the only, far from the first community to get a wave of people being quite negative.
Just... think of like every single time a Steam page for game reviews gets a sudden flood of negative reviews.
Sometimes, its legit, a game dev did something really shitty and a bunch of people are really mad.
Sometimes ... its less legit, based on something minor or stupid or a rumor or an outright falsehood.
... And sometimes... people disagree about which one of those two scenarios it actually is, or is closer to.
But anyway yeah, I'm not like.. again, in charge of anything here, you guys are in charge of your community.
I don't just wanna tell you: Do this. Have these rules.
Because I don't know exactly what ya'll are going for.