mozz

Eh

I didn’t take it as a personal attack to point out that I frequently get in fights with the propaganda accounts. I took some issues with his statement but purely on the factual merits; I didn’t receive it as an attack if that makes a difference.

Caution, I’m gonna take this way too seriously and write a big super-serious response:

I would be curious how far you have to go back in my history to find an example of me actually calling someone a bot or paid actor. I would bet that you get sick of the process before finding one. You will probably find me calling someone out on dishonesty or accuse them of being a propaganda account of some description, but even that I think you’d have to go back a couple weeks at least.

I’m actually very careful in what I say about this issue as regards any specific user I’m talking to, for exactly the reasons laid out in the post - because it’s not productive to the conversation to get in a personal pissing match with any specific user or accuse them of things that there’s no way to prove or disprove anyway. I am human and get irritated and post inflammatory or personal attacks that I should not - and in particular I am extremely irritated that this platform seems overrun with propaganda which is distorting the conversation - but at least 90% of the time, I engage with the bad faith accounts purely on the merits of their arguments (which seems like a more productive way anyway). And, the other 10%, unless I’m really in a bad mood about something I will make some level of effort to measure my words about it a little.

Like I say I won’t claim to get it perfectly right. And I like the narrowly-applied version of the rule which is described in the post. I am just very curious about the exact location of any applications of it that might go outside of that narrow wording, though, hence my questions and me giving some context for them. Because yes, I am curious how much of what I say might be a problem that the application of this rule might become the necessary solution to.

Hm… how does seeing a lot of reports translate into most users agree with these rules, though? How do you know it isn’t just a bunch of vocal users who like to do reports?

I mean, like I say I actually like the rule with some caveats, but I’d be curious to see the results of an informal survey or something instead of just assuming the volume of reports correlates well with what the users think is important. I don’t report misinformation, because I feel like generally mod intervention isn’t the way to address it, but that definitely doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s a problem (and actually a much bigger one than people being rude and unproductive in their way of responding to the problem, although that is also a problem yes.)

It would have been a good debate performance

Someone asks Biden a question, and his response starts with:

“Sorry, why am I on stage with a rapist? Isn’t that weird that we’re all acting like that’s normal?”

“Hey did you know this guy tried to kill his own vice president?”

“I just wonder if he’s wearing a diaper right now.”

And then just sort of shake his head, apologize for the tangent, and answer the original question.

I think that’s a lot of the underlying reason

Like yes, we may get an open fascist who literally will destroy the country, and that won’t be good for our profits either. But fuck you, that’s why. You raise corporate tax, we’re gonna start some shit with you; that’s where it begins and ends.

Sadly this is pretty common for very old people

They’ll be fine one day and then alarmingly feeble the next

I don’t think replacing Biden is automatically the right thing to do (basically, figure out the best strategy, and then if it’s not Biden, ask him to step down - doing it in the opposite order is absurdly harmful to the Democrats which is why the huge drumbeat in the media is advocating exactly that). But one good rally, while nice, isn’t necessarily a counterexample to him being too old.

Do you mean float it with the users, or float it with the other moderators?

I'm gonna stick with my polls, which start from a standpoint of "let's probe for the reality" instead of asking leading questions. There's a lot about this story that is just weird and suspect.

Registered voters who said that Democrats’ chances In 2024 are better if the nominee is:

A lot of these polls have been polling both Republican and Democratic candidates, and then reporting the numbers letting that little nugget slide under the radar. 100% of the Republicans are gonna say that Biden is trash whatever the question is, because the ones who are still voting Republican are programmed like the Manchurian candidate to stand up and say "BIDEN IS THE WRONG ONE"

Beyond Trump’s advantages on the economy and immigration, the former president is more trusted than Biden on foreign policy (46% to 36%) and handling the role of commander in chief (43% Trump to 35% Biden).

IDK. I won't say there is nothing in this story that is valid or a thing to worry about. And, even if Democratic voters are sticking with Biden basically unchanged since the debate, that doesn't mean it wouldn't be a good idea to switch him for someone who doesn't have this real oldness problem. But I like the apples to apples comparison of just looking at Biden vs. other Democrats in non-debate-centered-construction polls, and Biden vs. Trump overall, and seeing if that number shifts.

Yeah, makes sense. Just aiming to correct the record that yes, the claim is not just incorrect but New York Post-level propaganda, as far as I'm aware (which is an informative thing to keep in mind whenever you see someone repeating it).

If you believe that another user is a bot, please report it and our mod team will investigate. Please keep in mind that real people really do have radically different points of view. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a bot or troll. Do not abuse the report system.

What about users who clearly aren't literal bots, but seem clearly to be posting in bad faith? I feel like there's going to be a huge grey area between "this needs mod intervention" and "there's nothing hinky about this user's posting"

I completely get the reason for the rule, as it's not a real productive accusation and there's no way to know. I'm one of the people that talk about the shills a lot, but I actually make a deliberate effort (probably without universal success) to draw a distinction between "there are shills here" versus "I think you are being dishonest in some way, and here is why" versus "you are a shill".

Banning the third sounds pretty sensible. Are the first two statements still allowed? Or are those considered uncivil also?

It is blatantly obvious to me that particular users on Lemmy are being some kind of dishonest about their motives. So like an example: Swearing that you want the Democrats to win the election, and you're bringing up bad things about Biden as constructive criticism / so he can fix it and thus not lose the election, but also publishing objectively false disinformation about the Democrats on a very regular, like absurdly regular basis. There are a lot of users who have that weird type of disconnect or other reasons to specifically think they are propaganda accounts of some description. I think it significantly distorts the discussion here in a way which is very much not a good thing.

I actually don't see it being super common that people jump to the accusation of someone being a shill as soon as there's a disagreement. I do think there's such a clear presence of some kind of shilling effort that it's, more or less, universally accepted that it's happening and distorting the discourse. Are we still allowed to talk about it?

Again, while I completely get the reasons for the rule... I feel like a lot of this stuff is hard for mods to be the ones to make mod-action decisions about because it's impossible for anyone with any level of powers to know which users are being honest about who they are. Upvote bots and things are one thing, but I actually don't see that happening all that much (maybe because the mods are on it any time it happens). Just someone making a real account and posting propaganda 10x per day, though... are we saying the mods are going to let that happen (because it's not a bot account) and we the normal users are not allowed to call out those users as doing anything, if in our opinion they're doing it for purposes of propaganda?

I thought it was Major? Does he have 2 dogs that bite people?

And yes. It’s not totally logical, but I kind of liked that Biden’s dog was biting people. I tend to assume that a lot of people who work in the White House are bad people, and if someone’s dog is going in and biting them then I’m gonna assume without evidence that it had a good reason.

Which poll was that?

These are the polls I’m aware of