A quick note on the return2ozma ban:
You may have noticed a distinct lack of return2ozma. This is due to their admitting, in a public comment, that their engagement here is in bad faith:
I'm sure there will be questions, let me see if I can address the most obvious ones:
- Can I still post negative stuff about Biden?
Absolutely! We have zero interest in running an echo chamber. However, if ALL you're posting is negative, you may want to re-think your priorities. You get out of the world what you put into it and all that.
- Why now?
Presumption of innocence. It may be my own fault, but I do try to think the best of people, and even though they were posting negative articles, they weren't necessarily WRONG. Biden's poll numbers, particularly in minority demographics ARE in the shitter. They are starting to get better, but he still has a hell of a hill to climb.
- Why a 30 day temp ban and not a permanent ban?
The articles return2ozma shared weren't bad, faked, or from some wing-nut bias site like "beforeitsnews.com", they were legitimate articles from established and respected news agencies, pointing out the valid problems Biden faces.
The problem was ONLY posting the negatives, over and over and then openly admitting that dishonest enagement is their purpose.
Had they all been bullshit articles? It would not have taken anywhere near this much time to lay the ban and it would have been permanent.
30 days seems enough time for them to re-think their strategery and come back to engage honestly.
Good move, they were a clown and pointing out that they were arguing entirely in bad faith is correct. They did it under the guise of being far-leftist, but as a far-leftist myself, I have a hard time believing it was for anything other than pissing people off. Hopefully they can go practice being happy instead of doom-posting on niche Internet forums.
this is why I blocked them. Also, kinda felt I didn't want to be seeing his crap. Biden is an awful candidate but R20 ain't helping matters.
Dude thank God
I won't pretend to know what the fully correct decision on stuff like this is; it's definitely complex bordering on impossible (among other reasons because I actually think it's good to have vocal easily-identifiable bad-faith accounts, because they tee up great conversations even if the original intent behind the post wasn't good and people are annoyed by it).
But that being said it seems crazy that some of these accounts are still allowed to post here freely, given what was in my view some pretty ironclad indication that they're not posting in good faith.
So this touches on one of my key least favorite things about return2ozma -- I'd actually go well beyond what you saw in that one comment from him, and say that at this point, he's clearly not just pointing out valid problems. Posting negative polls is one thing, mostly completely fine. Everyone's got their viewpoint and allowed to post whatever view they want. But he'll also post specific assertions about Biden that objectively aren't true (marijuana policy being a good example), and then continue posting them after it's shown to him that they're not true -- all the while swearing that he's trying to help, just bringing up all this negative information because he really wants the Democrats to win, and so is giving constructive criticism so they can change course.
IDK man. That to me is very clear indication that he's lying about what he's trying to do, and being deliberately dishonest with what he posts. I think the posts I'm referring to were in some meme sub, not here, so maybe what you're saying about the content he posts specifically in !politics@lemmy.world coming technically from reputable sources is a valid counter argument. IDK. Maybe. But to me, avowing "I am trying to help Biden" while posting objectively false criticism of him, and not really pretending it's any other way than that, is actually worse by quite a lot than avowing "I am here to post negative information about Biden." (not that that latter one is good...)
Like I say I'm not trying to weigh in on what the right answer is (either with ozma or the other similar accounts), because I don't really see a good right answer. Just tossing in my observations as a person who doesn't have to take the responsibility of trying to figure out how to handle it.
(@return2ozma@lemmy.world - I feel a little unfair about posting this in a forum where you aren't allowed in to defend yourself; if you want to create a thread anywhere else with any response you want to make, I'll link to it from here so you can give your side of anything where you feel I've been inaccurate / unfair.)
My take is the dude just filled the board with unrelenting misery. I'm happy for the occasional reminder that Biden could be doing better. I think he's flat wrong on certain policies. But oddly enough I still get that point of view without R2O, while enjoying my time here a lot more.
There's that, too, yes.
God, the unrelenting misery is killing me in this platform. I think the thing I'm most sick and tired of more than anything else is the constant stream of The Usual Suspects butting in with "But what about Gaza?!" on Every. Single. Post.
Post an article about Biden proposing a ceasefire agreement in the war? Complain about Biden giving support to Israel!
Post an article about Biden celebrating pride month? Complain about Biden funding Israel!
Article about Biden forgiving another batch of student loans? "BUt Biden supports israel!"
Article about Trump getting convicted of felonies? "But Biden! Gaza! Israel!"
Article about a small town library fighting LGBTQ+ book bans? "GAZA! ISRAEL! BIDEN! BAD"
Article about a goddamn random topic completely unrelated to Biden, Trump, Israel, politics, or the US at all? "GENOCIIIIIIIIIIDE!"
It's at the point where I've cut back on Lemmy usage entirely because every comment thread I click on is like navigating a fucking minefield of misery. Nothing good can ever happen, no policy changes can ever be celebrated, no events can be remarked upon, without someone butting in with a reminder that Genocide Mother-Fucking Joe is personally shoveling coal into the palestinian child incinerator. No post can ever leave you with any emotion other than the thin veil of doomerism settling upon your shoulders, a pall of depression casting itself over the tragedy of the world, and a sense that modern society is an Aristocrats joke that has long since crossed the line from "horrifying" to "funny," then back to "horrifying," then back to "funny," before settling itself so firmly in "horrifying" that the audience is casting nervous glances and hoping that someone else is the first to call the police.
Man, the first thing I did when I joined Lemmy was to develop a policy of blocking anyone that didn't think I would enjoy seeing or interacting with. They didn't have to do anything wrong per se, but if I thought they argued in bad faith or jumped to ad hominem attacks or whatever, I'd block them.
I was worried at first. Some of them were prolific, and I didn't want this place to feel empty. But I've found that I'm spending less time arguing with people who only want to piss me off gives me more time to interact with more thoughtful folks. The responses in turn encourage them to post more. So by blocking people I don't like and encouraging people I do, I think that helps to make the community better as a whole, not even just for me.
Life is too short. I come here to interact with people I enjoy. We don't have to agree, it just has to not be someone who inspires the thought, "not this motherfucker again." Try it. It makes Lemmy so much better.
Good luck, my friend.
Well said. For each article, they’d consistently select the source with the most inflammatory headline and perspective and post it in several places at once, ensuring a clearly negative perception of Biden for casual browsers.
There’s no shortage of criticism of Biden on Lemmy. We should all want the most factual articles posted to support well-informed discussions of his actions.
He admitted to me, after I accused him, that he searches a news aggregator for "Biden" daily and posts the negative stuff he sees. I believe he said it was to hold dems accountable or something. That exchange was maybe a month or two back and might have been either here or on !news@lemmy.world
I think I agree more with the spam angle than the "only bad news" angle. As others have said it's fine to have a viewpoint and mainly share articles in line with that viewpoint. However doing it many times per day, every day, when the number of posts here is limited anyway, does impact the community.
In any case, the main thing is to be consistent and ideally make whatever the rule is very clear. And I would say this should be turned into an explicit rule or explanation under an existing rule.
Personally I just read what I want to, and if it seems bad faith, downvote and move on.
A rate limit would make far more sense than whatever this is.
I was thinking of saying the same thing. I'm not sure the mod tools support it though.
Set up a script that tallies user submissions, and remove new ones that exceed the limit.
I'm not familiar with the mod tools but I find it hard to imagine you couldn't write a short little script that does that.
i agree, jordanlund is opening themselves up for extra scrutiny with this.
spam and displaying signs of getting off on angering users (trolling) is absolutely a valid and nonpartisan reason for a ban. but as soon as the mods start citing actual politics (outside of clear examples of misinfo, which is not in play here) it gets dicey and accusations of bias pile up fast, which is exactly what we are seeing play out right in these comments.
I blocked him quite a while ago.
Poll after poll after poll were filling up my feed at one point.
Fuck that shit. You sir, may fuck off.
Normally I'm not one to even entertain the thought of commenting on a political thread, but I feel it would be disingenuous to click the button without any feedback in this case. This decision leaves me with a large enough lack of confidence in the future moderation of this community(especially given we're in an election year) such that I can't in good faith leave it on my feed and I will be blocking this comm after this comment.
While I agree that Ozma deserved a ban for spam, the justification used for this is frankly appalling. Misrepresentation of bias as bad-faith, especially with the admission that largely good sources were used is unacceptable.
Look, I have zero illusions to how popular of a decision this is in this comm, and this isn't my instance so who the fuck cares what I think.
but
I have a very hard time seeing this as anything other than a disagreement over personal political tastes, rather than anything to do with a violation of some unwritten rule. Your comm already has rules regarding article quality, misinformation, and off-topic posts and comments that could be used as a justification here if it applied. If there was a problem with the volume of posts for which he was responsible (i think this is the legitimate concern here), then you could either call it spamming or there could easily be a rule added limiting the number of posts per day that applies globally and isn't reliant on subjective judgement.
I've been very vocal about my own political opinions, and have myself been accused of bad-faith trolling and of being a covert agent of some type or other. Speaking for myself, I think there's a pretty obvious bias (maybe preference is a more fair term) when it comes to the coverage and rhetoric about the upcoming election in the US specifically. There's legitimacy to the observation that inconvenient bad press about Biden is ignored/rationalized/dismissed on a 'lesser evil' and 'at all costs' political rationale that I (and I think ozma) tend to react negatively to. Breaking through the iron curtain of electoral politics to people who genuinely share political values (not all of them, mind you) sometimes involves repeated reminders and presentation of counter-partisan coverage. I personally appreciate ozma's contributions because often these posts and articles encourage real discussions about the limitations of this particular politician, and people like @mozz@mbin.grits.dev frequently jump in and provide nuanced dissection and context to what would otherwise be an easily dismissed issue.
This is not my instance so It's not up to my judgment what the right or wrong thing to do is here, but .world being an instance that has already de-federated with most others with louder left-leaning politics, the overton window has already been considerably narrowed. By removing the loudest dissenters (who are 'not wrong, just assholes'), you run the risk of warping reality for those who don't care enough to confront coverage they might find uncomfortable and might prefer a more quiet space to affirm their politics instead of being challenged. You're cultivating an echo chamber simply by cutting out the noise you find disagreeable. The goal of agitation is to get exactly those people to engage more so that we can move the overton window further left and accomplish more at the electoral level in the future. It isn't 'bad faith' to be motivated by that goal, it just might be unfair to people who are comfortable with where that window currently is and would rather not be challenged by it moving further left.
IDK why everyone's so eager to read a pretty detailed explanation of why the issue isn't his viewpoint, and then follow up right away with extensive hand wringing over the idea of censoring his viewpoint.
Because it's pretty clearly about his viewpoint, since the cited comment in the post is 'this is my viewpoint, and that viewpoint is why i'm posting these things'
If it's about the volume of posts call it spamming and address it with a rule about post limits. Calling it bad-faith is necessarily about the reason he's making the posts, not how many of them there are or the quality of the articles.
Simple. They're not buying the explanation.
Dude admitted to being a propagandist. You have no argument here.
he was posting stories from reputable sources.
And ONLY certain stories that fit a narrative. How is this part being ignored?
Oh… I get it. You also support that narrative.
no one shouldbe compelled to spread a story that supports a point of view with which they disagree. so long as his posts were, in themselves, in compliance with the rules, there should have been no problem.
Do you have a problem with reading comprehension? This was all explained already. They were spamming the community with agenda-based news. No one suggested they share news they disagree with.
And if you check the mod logs, not ALL of what they shared was legitimate.
They were rightfully banned. And I’d prefer it permanent, but it’s still a step in the right direction. Not arguing this with you further.
you know what, fair point. of course, that's sort of what mods are for, and i think that the power to decide which sources are legitimate is itself the power to propagandize.
Look at that… a bad-faith argument! Who could have exp-
I could have.
i thought you were done.
your accusation of bad faith is, itself, bad faith.
Well said.
I'm ok with this, it was borderline spam with how many articles they managed to find and post all on the same theme.
Unsurprising to see the usual suspects agitating on this issue in the comments section.
I honestly don't know how I feel about this, other than that a temp ban is better than a perma-ban. Ozma is annoying as shit, but that's not a strong admittance of bad faith, even if it's obvious by his posting to anyone with functioning eyes. At the same time, he does nothing but continuously post this dreck, and a community necessarily must trim bad-faith actors to maintain itself. Otherwise you end up with a shithole like 4chan.
I don't know. I'm glad it's not my call.
It's tough you know? I can't tell you how many times I looked at reports and gave them the benefit of doubt, then hit this one and was like "Ok, yup, it's time."
Looking at the coments here there's lots on both sides, folks who are like "yeah, I blocked him ages ago!" to "how dare you!"
FWIW, I've been in touch with them in PMs, there's no hard feelings on either side, we'll see how it shakes out when they're back.
Mostly right there with you. It’s disturbing to see mods just publicly admitting their process is capricious and wack expecting to be congratulated and lauded for openness.
I never thought I’d be posting AMAB next to a lib.
To me this is not clearly explained in the rules. While I didn’t like the content in question, this seems overly heavy-handed for the situation.
That's what you call "bad faith engagement"?
Really?
The shitlib push to get everybody to snort your toxic and dangerous fallacious positivity in unison is starting to get really, really overt.
So…. Someone saying their entire purpose is to share only the negative about Biden wasn’t overt enough?
Seems overt bias is fine with you if it favors your agenda.
I'm willing to bet they just don't think having a bias is bannable
If I have an issue with the kinds of things someone else is posting, and they haven't actually broken a rule, I either downvote it, argue with them about it, post my own content that represents my own perspective, or all three. I don't cheer for that user to be banned simply because I don't like their bias or agenda
Yeah, I cheer because they’re admittedly here in bad faith to spread bullshit. And they are now muted as a result of it.
If what they were spreading was bullshit, the posts themselves would have been removed for breaking misinformation rules.
If what they were spreading was biden's own shit so that you had to smell it instead of ignoring it, I think he was doing you a service and you should be thanking him.
I’m not sorry that one of your own was silence for a while. The peace and quiet is going to be memorable to say the least.
The dude admitted to posting in bad faith. So… you really have no argument here at all.
And let’s not pretend that you wouldn’t be the exact same way if you found out a well-known anti-propagandist was banned for a month.
The mod even stated that the articles weren't bullshit and please explain how the posting behaviour amounts to bad faith as defined by wikipedia:
Ozma was not being deceptive, pretending feelings or paying lip service. He was honest snd consistent, people just didn't want to hear it.
Yeah, he was honest about spreading propaganda. That’s why his ass got booted.
Yeah, I'm sorta startled that admitting to wanting to highlight negative truths over cheering for someone is considered bad faith. Bad faith is misrepresenting an issue, not selectively posting reputable sources. This is one mod decision that I think is wrong and bad.
[if ALL you’re posting is negative, you may want to re-think your priorities. ]
It's okay to do that about a specific politician if that is your true opinion. However, it does seem like this person was arguing in bad faith by admitting he is aware things are not as bad as his posts seem.
I didn't notice, but that's because I noticed the trend in thier posts awhile ago & decided to block them.
Do you think this ban is fairly nonpartisan?
Would you also ban a user that only posts negative Trump stories and admits to that?
I agree r2o was getting to be a bit much, and the temp ban seems appropriate, but I'd want to see a policy like this applied fairly and evenly.
If someone pumped the gas and was posting dozens and dozens of pro or anti Trump stuff? Yeah, I think I'd do the same.
We did have quite a few pro-Trump posts as he was winning primaries, which made logical sense. I'm also planning on megathreads in July and August for both conventions.
You should make spamming too many articles within a certain X time a rule then. I think it needs to be more objective. This is getting into partisan territory.
We did end up doing that in World News when one user dominated the front page by posting 19 articles at once(!)
I don't think Ozma quite hit that level, and it wasn't really the volume that was the issue, it was the desire to be continually, relentlessly, negative.
Kind of incredible someone can be banned for posting too many negative stories about Biden (and admitting they like posting them, I guess?) while the mods here ignore users that post comments denying that specific homophobic instances occurred. Happy Pride! 🥳
Well, we don't have time to read every comment in every post.
If there are problems, make sure you report them! That's what we see first and foremost!
I did, that’s why they’re already banned on Blahaj.
Edit: Also, I literally just spoke to you about it right now and the comments are still up on lemmy.world, so I’m not sure what message I’m supposed to take here other than these comments don’t break the rules.
I haven't had time to go back and review the chain you're talking about, re-report it and I'll grab it when I have the chance.
I can’t re-report it, they’re banned on blahaj and the comments have been purged for me. Also my client (maybe instance?) doesn’t allow re-reporting.
Got it, I'll come back through the comment link when I have the chance!
Should I take that these comments are still up near 24 hours later with no follow up to mean that they don’t break any rules?
Starting from here:
https://lemmy.world/comment/10473647
Yeah, there's nothing actionable there. The downvotes and replies do the job.
Guy is making a provably false argument, that's proven to be false.
So to sum up:
Posting “too many” true but negative things about Biden - Bannable
Posting denials of specific, provable homophobic incidents and only interacting with posts about LGBT issues to do that specifically: somehow doesn’t violate the civility rule despite being homophobic or the rule on good faith interaction
Thanks for being honest about where your priorities lie.
There were two comment threads by the way, not sure if you looked at the other since you only mention one.
Happy Pride 🥳
Nothing in their comments is overtly homophobic. He's arguing that someone didn't say something they clearly said as a college student.
All of which is provably false as per the comments and downvotes.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to give the impression that I was open to debate over whether it’s homophobic to deny a politician spouting homophobia (when he literally admitted he did so) and deny that a pastor called LGBTQ+ movement demonic when there is video of it (did you even read the second link to this thread? You still seem to think there was only one thread). It is homophobic, full stop.
There is not a non-homophobic reason to go to multiple threads about LGBT people having bigotry aimed at them and to deny that it’s happening.
So if you could explain to me how homophobia doesn’t violate the rules I’d appreciate it.
What he's engaging in, in the second link, is Christian apology, not overt homophobia. He's not saying LGBTQ+ is the devil, he's explaining why Christians might believe that.
Which is a whole OTHER deal:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_apologetics
Again, not actionable. If they were to come out and say themselves "I'm homophobic" or "gays are teh debbil" then, yeah, that would be removed.
But this whole "homophobia because it's two steps removed"? Not so much.
I checked my block list and already had this covered. I don't need that kind of shit in my life. But good on you for making it a better place for everyone. I 100% support banning folks just to make a board less miserable to visit. Both sides is good. Agenda is bad.
Playing devil's advocate here... I exclusively post news from sources on the left to the center. Doesn't that mean I more or less have an agenda?
I think the issue is more so the specificity and the precision in their posts always being about one person.
See, I'm not interested in Devil's advocacy. The board was overwhelmed by negativity that just made me want to not come here at all. When I blocked them, this became a better place to hang out immediately.
I don't care about the justification (either of the moderation or how I enjoy the board). All the rules and everything is just an attempt to codify how to keep the place enjoyable and useful. If someone makes the place less enjoyable or useful, get rid of them. I don't have room in my life to engage with people or content that just makes me want to be elsewhere.
It's super easy for me to agree when I already had the dude blocked, of course. If there was a voice I liked hearing from, I'm sure I'd feel this is all very dictatorial. But I don't. I think that person is insufferable and people coming to the board for the first time are more likely to stay without their posts being here. And that's plenty of justification for me.
Edit: snipped a paragraph that was just rambling and redundant.
God damn this was way longer and more effort than I wanted to put into this. Guaranteed autocorrect has fucked up a bunch of things I'll need to edit if I even catch them.
Anyway, tldr: fuck that guy and glad riddance. That was an autocorrect failure but I like it so I'm leaving it.
It's really just the bad faith part that matters the most. Pushing your opinion is fine if you're honest with what your position is
Except from the post it looks like he was banned because he was honest about his opinion (e.g. 'I don't like biden, i prefer articles that support that opinion')
Theres a lot to break down here, but that seems like bullshit.
I only post negative comments about Biden. Am I gonna get banned for never saying anything nice about the president?
I'm sure that troll account will behave from now on /s
Hey, a permaban is always on the table. ;)
I find it's about 70/30 when it comes to temp bans. 7/10 I get PMs of "sorry, I'll do better" and then 3/10 it's... well... (note, this was a different user)
Christ in a hand basket, if that's genuine then I say ban the troll
Oh, yeah, this guy was permabanned across the whole instance, not just Politics.
Whoever that was was going off about this, lmao.
I think he got banned in my instance as well because he kept posting your profile photo over and over, saying nasty ass shit. I blocked him real quick.
I just checked the date, and this is a different asshole lol
The one I saw was around the time I first came onto lemmy and hoo boy, was he all verklempt and mighty pissed off.
Oh, the photo guy was a TOTALLY DIFFERENT one.
Y'all got profile photos? Weird
Good
Yikes -ee-ola
That's unhinged
...and people behaving like this is why we cannot have nice things. I can remember the days of BBS (often heavily moderated) as contrasted with the (mostly unmoderated) USENET.
I think things on the unmoderated side were only barely holding on prior to The Eternal September; in hindsight, it is surprising things worked as well as they did.
I generally agree with your reasoning. In a ranked choice world, they would likely have a candidate they would back, and support. I think many of us here would be happy to be in that world.
Reminder for everyone to vote every election, and local and state are super important, it's where you have a chance to get ranked choice in the discussion.
Yup, yup. Fixing elections is a tall order, but if freakin' ALASKA can get ranked choice, why not everyone?
Alaska is notoriously anti-establishment so ranked choice is almost a perfect fit for them.
Absolutely! Make note of your election dates and vote in all elections.
You deserve representation.
https://ballotpedia.org/Elections_by_state_and_year
I agree with this take on r2ozma. They obviously criticized Biden and the DNC relentlessly, but to me it came from a place of frustration from wanting better representation. It’s a good case study in how the 2 party system generally fails us all.
Unfortunately, implementing ranked choice nationwide requires politicians who are responsive to the will of the people.
If we had that, we would already have what we needed ranked choice for.
Bet you I would pretty much hate the vast majority of that user’s comments
Also I don’t want to see spam
With that context set, why am I posting?
Evaluating only the screenshot and nothing else, the struck text appeared inaccurate. Sharing my feedback to help hone practices going forward.
I'm sorry but how is that admitting bad faith? Feels more like just saying they're posting the negative because no one else is.
Only posting bad news about one person is trolling. They weren't here to engage honestly.
Please explain how that's trolling when said person keeps doing things to warrant bad press?
You say it's okay to post negative stories about Biden but then say if we say we're posting negative stories that means a ban?
Biden doesn't have enough slips to merit the number of negative posts, and the absence of anything positive indicates he was only here to stir shit up.
It IS possible to mention that Biden's numbers are improving (they are) or that the (Murdoch owned) WSJ article was bullshit:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4704853-white-house-wall-street-journal-biden/
careful haha i’m with you for most of this thread but this comment dives into an argument that weakens your position i think.
i didn’t block that account because of the number of negative biden posts. personally i blocked them because they kept being abusive to people in the comments in a way that they clearly enjoyed, aka trolling. (i don’t think personally i ever even noticed the biden thing, just that they were mean a lot.) i think it’s enough to ban them for abusing the platform in a way that is contra to the average user having a constructive experience (and then admitting to the means of it)—you don’t really need to stoop to counting Biden’s “slips” as that is just opening yourself for more dissent
cheers ☕️☀️
I'm not here to debate this perspective, but you should be aware that this sounds a lot like editorializing.
That is often the problem with Ozma. Picking the most editorialized lowest quality source. Focused on turning nothing into something. In order to meet some "biden bad!" Quota. Not every single time. But often enough. Some of them were pretty ridiculous how hard they were reaching.
they were here to post links to political news that complied with the rules. your capricious moderation has been a problem since your first week.
Admtting he was only posting negative news for the explicit purpose of being negative was what earned the temp ban.
capricious moderation is the only real explanation.
If that were true, I would have banned them AGES ago when people first started complaining about them.
It took 11 months to earn this ban, and a temp ban at that.
given that their behavior has been the same this whole time, this doesn't hold water.
The behavior has been the same, what changed was the admission. Until then they had the benefit of doubt.
nothing he was doing was bad faith. he was posting stories that were in no way a violation of the policies. he wasn't preventing others from doing the same with stories that he didn't think were worth his time to post.
Flooding the channel with negativity and admitting that's all they're interested in is bad faith.
It buries any positive news someone might like to post because all this user is interested in is the negative.
what do you think bad faith means? it has a specific meaning in regards to law, and a separate one in academic discussion (though they are close), but if your definition is custom fit for this sub and it's written in such a way that this thing that is not bad faith is going to be treated as bad faith, you should be explicit about that definition in the rules.
Refusing to stop posting debunked claims is dishonest
And yet that's not the reason for the ban or mentioned
what was the debunked post?
Why not all the shit blaming him for what Republican congress members does?
maybe you could just link one?
Why would I bother search through his account history now?
There are several commenters I would have blocked before r2o, especially if bad faith is the reasoning. But I appreciate the openness and the work put into moderating.
I think the difference is posts vs comments. Lots of bad faith commenters, relatively few posters.
Has anyone been banned for only posting good stuff about Biden?
Hard to tell when the front page was flooded with negative posts from one user.
If we start seeing a bunch of "Biden is the best President we've ever had!!!1!!" posts from the same user over and over, obviously I'd consider it. :)
This is the exact point. He was banned for spamming the same thing over and over. It was boring!
After I blocked him myself I realized he contributed nothing but drama. Go on Twitter if you want to create drama
Or banned for posting only negative stuff about trump? I don't really post, but I'm definitely "guilty" of always being critical of trump, and most Republicans in general in my comments.
That's the thing: you're not spamming it.
So wait, do people have to post 'both sides' of whether Trump is a fucking shitstain?
Nah, you can post purely factual things that take no side. Or, alternately, post things about other people and things besides Trump. :)
So you'll be banning people that post only negative news about trump?
The mod already answered a similar question:
So the rule was spamming? They should make that an actual rule then instead of banning people for posting articles supporting their opinion.
That's not what he said.
I guess it's a combination of spamming plus one point of view. That still doesn't really strike me as bannable, as most people will post articles they agree with and hence want to share that way. As long as the posted articles are true, then the only issue I see is the spamming part, which is the only thing I agree could be an issue.
It's not bannable if you do it once, or even a few times per day. Not even for a few weeks or months on and off. But when you do it 10-20 times per day, every day of the week, for months and months on end, and the shtick is always directed at a particular narrative, and if you bomb comment sections below each thread with combative, dismissive rhetorical punches that show you're just trying to push a narrative, and if you openly admit you're doing it to favor one narrative over others, then yeah. That's pretty classic trolling and definitely bannable. Just take a look at the number of posts R2O has made since they created their account. It's actually insane to think of the daily rate that entails.
I clicked that link and wow... what sort of people trust a site like that lol?
Facebookers. :)
I've been calling this out since I've joined. I'm glad he's gone.
Hell yes. But the mod logs don’t show a ban.
Admitting that you only share the bad side of something isn’t arguing in bad faith.
I am very against fucking murder, I will not share news articles that cast murder in a good light.
That’s not bad faith, that’s just the truth.
Would you all rather someone not clearly state how they feel, would you rather them try to hide it?
So here’s the real question I have @jordanlund@lemmy.world .
If someone had posted nothing but good things about Biden or only bad things about trump would this all still happen?
We don't accept articles from Fox News or Newsmax for the same reason, it's clear they have an axe to grind.
Selecting to post all negative material, all the time, may not be the exact same axe, but's definitely in same tool shed.
That seems a little strong, even though they are shit sources. I don't want right wing views censored because I want a chance to tell everyone how wrong they are.
Thank you. The goal is to have informed discussion of our opinions, not the opinions of the source. That’s not possible when the source material is focused on interpreting the facts rather than presenting them.
I actually sort-of agree that we shouldn't be banning people because of a "slanted" viewpoint just because of how difficult it is to do that fairly, without creating more problems than it solves.
But only sharing the bad side of something is absolutely arguing in bad faith. A normal person looks at the world and says, what do I think? And then they say it. They're not on "Team Biden." They're not on "Team Russia." They're just a person speaking for themselves, and the people they support, they decided to support because they decided good things about them, but if they learn bad things about those people, it's not like they'll try to cover them up or support that person anyway. They just say what they think about it, not picking only one side and presenting that exclusively.
The example I would keep bringing up for this is the people on Lemmy who support Biden in general, but also give him lots of criticism because of his support for Israel. That's a normal person. They say I like good things, and I don't like bad things. I don't pick one team and then only say the good things about that team and only the bad things about the other team. That's bad faith. That's dishonest.
I mean everyone does it to some degree. It sort of hurts if the side you are supporting is doing something criminal, and there's a little bit of an impulse not to focus on it. But just deciding that you're only going to present one side of the story, no matter what good or bad information emerges, because you think it's "needed" or because that's "your side," is dishonest. It's bad faith. And definitely when you do it to the degree that ozma did it, it goes beyond the level of "well everyone's got their viewpoint" and starts to become "how can I persuade other people to this viewpoint, I have very little care whether it's right or wrong, it's just the viewpoint I have decided to try to persuade them of."
Like I say I don't know how much the mods should get involved in detecting that and banning it. But definitely it's not how things should be (and anyone who tells you that most people operate that way is not accurately describing any healthy functioning message board even within the low bar that is the internet.)
I'm about to break decorum here, but who the fuck are you to decide what constitutes 'normal' behavior? 'It's ok to criticize Biden so long as you still generally support him' is a pretty brazen example of 'bad faith' argumentation IMHO.
Even if they do consider it bad fucking make it an explicit rule for the sub, not just pick a random one to give a 30 day ban
especially when mod log shows worse stuff getting just 1 day bans for being abusive in DMs
There is an explicit call out for good faith posting, but it's attached to the Civility rule which entirely too many people ignore. :(
People get banned for being abusive in DMs? Who do you even report that to?
I'm guessing only when they do it to mods lol. Was in the mod log
I think his comments are more damming evidence of his bad faith engagement than what's being presented in this post. None of his articles were lies, and considering how most people only share the good, being committed to only sharing the bad to give some fucking perspective isn't in and of itself necessarily bad faith engagement.
Anyone seeing this and unfamiliar with Ozma may look at this and see it being a bit of an extreme reaction. Dude has plenty of comments that support the fact he wasn't just adding perspective, though, that could be added for more context.
Is there anything preventing a banned user from making another account though?
This always felt like an empty threat even on a centralised platform like reddit but on the fediverse it seems like it would be unenforceable?
Not really, but generally the ones who do that, frankly, aren't very smart about it and get nuked for ban evasion pretty quickly.
The mods and admins have a back channel chat and we compare notes a lot. "Oh, god, this guy again..."
The great thing about the Fediverse is that a single mod or admin cannot permanently block a user, but if necessary multiple people (mods and admins) can cooperate to block a user.
that's not really my question though.
you can block a user but not a person.
As in... mods or admins can't magically know which user accounts belong to which people.
i have my disagreements with this community’s mod team but i do appreciate this step.
i fucking hate biden too, but i blocked that account long ago because they clearly were here to troll and do nothing else. anyone who wants to pick up the perceived “torch” and do what they were doing in good faith this time is more than welcome in my book. i really welcome diversity of posts when the person behind it isn’t clearly getting a kick out of the rage they stir up.
How is that in bad faith?
Theres lots of blind support and promotion for team blue on here that I think Ozma was providing a needed counter balance. You say you dont want an echo chamber but I think this acomplishes the opposite.
So whats the ratio of good to bad news that we must share in order to not be banned?
Every time we have this conversation, this same point comes up, and it's always totally imaginary.
The whole board is full of people giving Biden shit (chiefly for Israel at this point; honestly it might be a different story if he wasn't giving them weapons, but as it is, I think you'd be hard pressed to find any story about US aid for Israel that doesn't have its top rated comment as giving his war criminal ass a hard time for it. As well they should.)
But the trolls like to create a reality where they are the only ones that are willing to criticize Biden, and anyone who's taking any note of their particular brand of wildly dishonest and repetitive-almost-like-someone's-doing-it-as-a-job anti Biden postings, just is part of some kind of imaginary monolith that doesn't want any criticism.
The fact that it's never true and looking at the comments for like 2 seconds will illustrate that it's not true, somehow never deters people from saying it.
There lots of comments on ozuma articles saying they are bullshit as well. If people that only post positive stuff don't get banned it's just an echo chamber, it's just as bad faith as only negative at that point.
I am interested in the fact that as of this moment, the pro-ozma speakers in this thread come from:
And the anti-ozma speakers come from:
It is very interesting to me that each individual one of the pro-ozma speakers comes from a different instance, with no repetition. Could be a coincidence of course, but looking over the two lists it's hard not to notice a clear disparity. And, as a pure hypothetical, it would make it very difficult for any individual admin to detect a duplication of IP address between any two of the accounts. And there's no lemmy.world. Purely hypothetically speaking of course.
It's likely a coincidence.
I blocked Ozma months ago, because seeing his posts did not spark joy and blocking him has improved my experience on Lemmy, and generally I think this is a good moderator decision. But I hadn't commented because I mostly agree with the temporary ban and I wasn't seeing his posts anyway.
Nice argument; So im some sort of shill/bot/alt now? I guess this conversation is over then.
I would find this constant paranoid suspicion of yours more amusing if it weren't so condescending toward people who do not share your worldview.
Mm yes we must be pro that account and not anti how dumb/silly the reasoning is.
I see it like this, and naturally, I'm biased...
Today I made three threads about court case updates. 1 about the Georgia case, 2 about Florida, because it was new and newsworthy.
If I did a deep dive on Cannon and posted every single misdeed she's done since becoming a judge, people in the group would be right to go "Hey... um... you OK? Working through some issues?"
If I did it day, after, day, after day and then posted "Yeah, I'm only interested in bad things." Someone would be right to tell me to go touch grass.
I still cant see how Ozmas posting was in bad faith. Obsesive? Sure, it could be seen that way but it says nothing about their intentions other than they were prioritizing negative/critical news of biden and the dem. party, and I can see why, since theres a strong push back on the fediverse against those types of news.
Coming out and saying "sure there's some good things, but I'm only interested in bad things" means he's disingenous in his posting. As I mentioned in another comment, we don't allow Fox or Newsmax or OANN because it's clear they have an agenda.
Openly admitting that agenda becomes actionable.
Agree to disagree.
They explicitly said "I prefer to share the bad news" not that it was their only interest and, as I already pointed out, theres a legitimate reason as to why that could be.
Nothing of what ozma posts and comments makes me think they have a pro-trump agenda. I believe your personal opinion of Ozma is influencing how you interpret their words and their banning is based solely on the your assumption of what they meant.
All this said, I could be wrong to since im not inmune to my opinions shaping how I see things but even if I thought they were pro trump, i think the comment in cuestion is not evidence enough of their agenda (or lack there of)
The mod logs aren’t showing them banned at all, Is there something I’m missing?
I'm not sure why it didn't hit the modlog, unless the remove content script is still running.
Yeah… odd.
Thats not a bad faith argument anymore than a liberal posting something bad about trump because it fits their narrative. Like many leftists I hate democrats more than Republicans because Republicans don't pretend to care. Republicans will tell you to your face who they are, democrats will lie to your face about inclusion and acceptance and proceed to legislate like their conservative counterparts.
There are no 1775 democrats. Every single 1775er is a Republican. That's a wrap right there but I'm gonna keep going because then it sounds like I'm avoiding the rest of your points.
Republicans have been stonewalling Congress since 2010. Both parties have issues with partisanship and gatekeeping but you're confusing 3 points all together at once. 1) conflating effective governance within the limits of a bicameral legislature, designed to advance only through compromise, with hypocrisy. 2) trying to lie about republicans somehow having more integrity than Democrats 3) telling yet another lie implying that Democratic legislation is anywhere near as conservative as what republicans put out and bonus point number 4) pretending democrats have contributed to the advancement of neo fascism by playing hide the sausage with the term "conservative" in the same way or at the same level as Republicans have.
The argument that Republicans are honest about who they are is itself a Republican talking point. Look at how they flip flopped on matters of law and order as soon as Trump got convicted. Stop letting yourself be deceived. If you're a leftist who hates Democrats more than Republicans you sound like what would have been considered a useful idiot by the Soviet Union, cutting off your leg to spite your face.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cYpz3abAk98
So I am assuming that everyone here enthusiastically posts pro Trump posts all day right?
This is blatant censorship.
But it isn’t. It’s shutting down an admitted propagandist.