I swear, every time most of the time I see someone being particularly rude, ignorant, and inappropriate on a post (usually political in origin, or they swing it to being political) I click on their profile and see it has been created that same day.
They are only there to sow discord. Only to piss people off. Idk if we can just report them (for what?) but I’d like to try exposing them before responding and interacting…
I am guilty of gobbling up the bait. I’ve started looking at profiles of people that piss me off exceptionally and noticed they’re burner bot loser accounts.
I guess i just want to say I’ve noticed it!
yes and its awesome.
lemmy needs more troll accounts and we should all be trolled more
Thank you very much, @[email protected] for bringing the troll’s perspective to the site!
🫡
But I’m not even trolling. It’s good that people get trolled. It’s good that people don’t take the internet very seriously.
Shoutout to Voyager, for automatically marking new accounts with a baby emoji. It’s a feature ripped straight from Apollo, and it should honestly be the standard.
This app has a lot of great features, it actually convinced me to sign up.
China and Russia trying to step up the political discord between people ahead of the election in November.
Gamergate and Russiagate, we’re bringing back 2016, apparently.
Liberals have invented their own version of the Judeo-Bolshivick conspiracy theory to blame literally all their problems on.
i think that it’s a lot more likely that a few people are just making burner accounts to be dicks on the internet than some weird QAnon-esque conspiracy theory that both the Russian and Chinese governments are not only aware of a tiny reddit clone but also are actively employing people (who all happen to be fluent in english) to create fake accounts and convincingly imitate westerners all in order to slightly increase political divisions in america for a few thousand people by having arguments about already incredibly contentious issues.
Thank you! Like, this isn’t how foriegn influence campaigns work. Believing the jerk you’re arguing with is a Russian agent might make you feel like you’re in a Tom Clancy novel, but the odds are it’s just a dweeb with multiple accounts. Foriegn influence campaigns make sock-puppets to repeat the same 5 talking points on as many communities as possible, and maybe have a few canned replies. They don’t fight with the same person in a 20 reply thread over the course of 2 days.
It’s not a “QAnon-esque conspiracy theory”. Russia’s online influence in American politics has been fairly well documented. That being said, I think it’s somewhat unhealthy to assume everyone who says something controversial is dishonest or a troll. Not good for discourse.
im not saying governments dont astroturf or anything, i meant it was a QAnon-esque conspiracy to assume that there were paid shills and bots around every corner and the vast majority of anti-american sentiment comes from a Russian cabal or something, especially on a comparitively tiny online space like lemmy. Like i’ve fairly frequently seen the accusation that lemmy is filled with paid actors / bots working for various countries from people just because they’ve suddenly been exposed to views that they’ve never really encountered before.
The general consensus is that yes, Russians do troll. The conspiracy comes from the fact that EVERYONE you have a bad interaction with is a troll. No, a vast majority of Americans are just really shitty people and there’s a really good chance your argument is an organic one.
“The Russian and Chinese oligarchs are taking over!” - Western oligarchs probably
They are probably created by Reddit to make everyone lose interest in Lemmy /s
As soon as anyone starts arguing in bad faith I just block them. I don’t really care what they have to say about me for my argument.
The only problem with blocking is they still see your comments you make, and can respond to them negatively, and you have no way of defending yourself because you haven’t seen their comment.
My wish would be for blocking to prevent those who are blocked from reading comments from the blocker.
Stopping viewing on a per-account basis doesn’t make sense to me, since people don’t need accounts to view any content in Lemmy, therefore it’s trivial to bypass by logging out or fetching the discussion information without logging in from a custom frontend. What would be better is simply stopping them from interracting, just like what happens with bans, they can still view but all interractions are simply dropped or disallowed.
I would love better blocking. But I understand the costs of doing that in a truly federated environment. I’ll just settle for not caring what they actually say about me. The whole point of the trolling is to get a rise out of someone.
I wish you could set a personal minimum “karma” and age requirement. Like I don’t want to hear from anyone with an account made in the last week. And no one with karma below zero.
It’s not really a high bar, it mainly blocks people who get banned all the time.
Karma is easily falsified on the lemmyverse though. I have a maintenance user and a normal user on my server, I can use them both to vote, and thats just easy and not even intentional.
How do you even see karma?
I dunno. It was there before. Maybe just total their last 5 comment scores. So it’s easy to just not be a dick all the time and get through the filter.
But how would one acquire karma if no one sees their comments?
Also automatically shadow banning new users will mean cool people that come to the site will get the impression that it sucks and leave and never come back.
You could just block users with a total < 0 points for those comments.
Yeah, it’s extremely easy to not be blocked.
Oh the cool people are long gone /s
That’s why huge instances are bad, they can’t moderate all those users (I am on a bigger instance myself tho don’t judge me).
Yes. Especially in subs like “Canada” or any post involving Canada in any way
It does not matter what the topic of the thread or conversation is. It can be about how Canada loves puppies. And there will be random 1 or 2 liners from new accounts making political comments heavily pushing specific agendas. Even completely unrelated
Lots of random anti government misinformation and one liners pushing a specific party misinformation and narrative. Our how we’re some 3rd world collapsing country
It is not natural. Same thing occurs also on Reddit.
100%. I’ve been saying it over and over. It’s election season on the internet, division aplenty.
NIt’s election season on the internet
Is it? Or is it just election season in a couple of specific countries, and not elsewhere…
Just sayin :P
Current Contenders:
- found the egocentric, ethnocentric American!
- (adjusts tone and verbage to current audience) Sounds like neo-libralism to me!
- Tankie‽
- Biden, Trump : Old, Fascist
- Beans and denim?
- Palestine vs. Isreal
- Ukraine vs. Russian
- the rights of (insert oppressed group)
- Individual/State rights
- Linux
- Abortion
- LGBTQ
- Oil/Nuclear/Fossil/Coal/Renewable
- Climate Change
- Class-gap
- Sustainability
- Equality
…Fight!!!
Round 2 …
- found the egocentric, ethnocentric American!
hmmm
The year 2024 is notable for the large number of elections, with 8 of the world’s 10 most populous nations (Bangladesh, Brazil, India, United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia, Mexico) voting; countries that are home to nearly half of the world’s people will hold elections in 2024. Around 2 billion voters - approximately a quarter of the world’s population - are expected to be heading to the polls this year.
Stay blissful my friend.
But yes, American social media platforms are targeted during American elections, so you aren’t ignorant about one thing.
A first round contender, I see
Every time I hear that 2024 is a big election year for the world I don’t really understand the stats.
Around 2 billion voters - approximately a quarter of the world’s population - are expected to be heading to the polls this year.
Like if everyone has 4 year terms then generally a quarter of the world’s population will have an election every year.
Not every country has four year terms. Also, elections can be triggered early for various reasons.
What other terms are popular? 3 years ?
Mainly 5 year terms, but I can see on the list some 6 and 7 year terms as well… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_term_limits
Not every country has elections either.
☝️
There’s a very easy way to stop division: Have a set of values based in reality, and use that to determine what is not up for debate. The first thing a good troll will do is push at the fabric of what is acceptable and erode the community from there. Some people are inherently unreasonable and therefore shouldn’t be listened to. Give them a chance to see the light and if they refuse, give em the yeet.
The reason why neo-nazi communities are so quick to fall apart is because their values are not based on reality, so all you have to do is point out a single contradiction and then watch as they passionately debate themselves into increasingly splintering groups. My favorite that sits on the mantle of shit-stirring pot is “Trump is pro-Israel” which absolutely decimates any far-right community it touches.
We are effectively in an information war with Russia, and that’s really driving up the trolling. Not that every troll is a Russian bot, but they are really driving the trend and giving inspiration to terrible people. A lot of it is also laundered garbage from anarcho-capitalist “think tanks”.
Nazis have been attacking Lemmy for quite awhile now. They’ve only really been finding success on a few problem instances, though.
deleted by creator
No, I don’t think I have.
What instances/comms are you noticing it on?
I fit your definition. Now lemme 'splain:
For thirty-five years I have heard nothing but radical right fascism spewing hate, lies, vitriol, slander, and violent rhetoric- over the airwaves, cable, and now social media- and without the slightest bit of challenge or pushback. The amount and volume increased when they figured out it pays big money. The people who listen have never known that it was for entertainment; they are being edged to violence just like Ruwandan radio did.
Liberals have been major pussies and doormats about this because they have no idea who they’re dealing with. They cannot be reasoned with or appealed to through humanity. The radical fascists’ free speech rights do not exist and are not to be defended; there is absolutely nothing to gain there and everything to lose. As I said, liberals have no idea who they’re dealing with.
For all the unchecked violence and damaged caused by the radical fascist shitbags to our daily lives, our long term properity, and to safety and security in general, I absolutely attack them with all the violent and vitriolic slander I can muster to pay back for thirty-five plus years of the same. This is the route every one of you should take, because they all think you’re a bunch of pussies and they take great joy in running you over. They must be made to fear even being seen in public, and beaten down like rabid dogs when they are. They are enemies of freedom, enemies of humanity, and enemies of all that is good in the world.
.ml is very obviously like 20% right wing trolls pretending to be leftists. Literally everyone on the fediverse can see it except for the admins who protect these trolls because of Poe’s law blindness.
All they want is attention. I simply don’t give them the satisfaction of a response. They get bored and move on.
Do they just want attention? Or are they malicious actors from those that consider Lemmy competition?
Even if they’re malicious actors, they want attention just the same. They want to lure you into a bad faith “debate” so they can spread their propaganda. Either way, the solution is the same - ignore them. Don’t give them the opportunity to reply and promote more bullshit.
They’re malicious actors, but reddit is just as bad right now. It’ll die down to more organic hate after the elections.
