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.
Hey man, I chose my name while listening to this song https://youtu.be/xUpsyaC25bU (Coupable, by Gisa)
It’s French and it means ‘guilty’, same root as ‘culpable’, and other than maybe expressing a little self reproach, there’s no underlying meaning relevant to my posts.
I found I was banned from the lemmyusa communities when my android client notified me, and so I made a post to let my local instance admins know. I found the running modlog interesting, and so I decided to scroll and refresh it occasionally, only to see threelon abusing his moderation powers even more flagrantly, so I made a post about that too.
Cheers, have a good one :D
I appreciate the clarity and am glad I was in fact being too paranoid.
You have a good one too =D
i banned u because you kept downvoting eveyr article. which is serial downvoting. if you don’t like my community or the content, then jsut move on.
but thank u for posting that song, i love it and now im a fan fo that singer Gisa!
Cool story, still mod abuse. Glad you like the song tho :D
its not mod abuse to ban serial downvoters. do a quick search for serial downvoters and see what most of lemmy thinks of it.
A made up term to excuse mod abuse for people who disagree with them too often.
ok, but serial downvoting isn’tcool adn lemmy has come aroudn to sayng its a bannable offense. why don’t u admit that u just saw a bunch of conservative articles u didn’t like and just started downvoting without reading them?
when you ‘report’ it to ur admins, how come u don’t add the part where u just went in and downvoted without reading the articles becuse u don’t like conservative stuff?
I did read them, some I had even seen prior to them being posted in your community. I thought they were bad posts, and I downvoted.
If you don’t like downvotes, disable the downvote button on your home instance and defederate from the rest of the fediverse.
Otherwise, accept that with the larger reach federation provides, there will inevitably be dissenting opinions.
Admit you are just banning people for disagreeing with you too often.
that doesn’t stop people from downvoting. it only stops members from my own instance from downvoting. you woudl still be able to downvote them.
and even if i could do that, u wouldn’t be able to downvote, which is what ur mad about. im not teh admin for my instance anyway. but what you are saying isn’t true.
i ban serial downvoters like many people on lemmy do. why are u mad being banned form a community you don’t like? ur mad just becuase you can’t downvote anymore?!
lets say that lemmy eventually comes up with a way for communities not to have a downvote button. then you wouldn’t be able to downvote. woudl u still be mad? isn’t that the same thing happening when u get banned and can’t downvote?
ur mad u got banned because now u can’t serial downvote. its obvious.
If you don’t like downvotes, disable the downvote button on your home instance and defederate from the rest of the fediverse. I said it in my previous comment. Migrate to an instance which does not federate and has downvotes disabled, like hexbear, or deal with being a part of the fediverse.
And if your opinion crippling moderation strategy is so popular, why do the two posts I have made over the past day regarding this behaviour have more upvotes than your entire community has had over the course of its life?
Also please stop with the “u mad bro” stuff, it’s embarrassing.