Okay so here’s what happened.
There is a mod of some AI-generated image forums who has been slinging out bans for “anti-AI trolling” to people who have never participated in their community, apparently more or less at random. Full disclosure, I am one of those people, and I’m confident I have never done any anti-AI trolling.
Apparently the justification for this is that other people are being aggressively hateful to this mod, coming in and being incredibly abusive, transphobic, insulting her for alleged alcoholism and making fake pictures of her and generally just being horrible. Conveniently, one of these people showed up in the thread where we were talking about it, on cue, and started slinging around horribleness which provided a convenient cover for people to say “And THAT’s why we have to be really strict with the bans!” type of things. We never really got to the bottom of what the connection was between that and the random bans to other people who were longstanding accounts that didn’t seem to be doing any of those things.
Anyway, now another abusive alt of the (now obviously bannned) abusive alt that originally stirred up trouble has made a pitch-perfect effort to inflame divisions and create a balkanization between the “pro AI” people, centered around dbzer0 (edit: and blahaj), and “anti AI” people, centered around everywhere else.
This is two identical posts, made to two separate communities which are guaranteed to have totally opposite takes on it based on their different levels of information about the issue, which will then lead everyone to assume that the other community is just being horrible about it on purpose when they draw different conclusions:
(Edit: The troll has now been banned, so I can’t link to their posts anymore. Just imagine this post, except made by one of the trolls who are featured in the comments of that post, you can dig in the modlog or in spoiler text of some other comments to see some of what they were saying. Anyway, the troll posted the exact same complaint about being “unfairly” banned both to lemmy.world, where they got tons of sympathy and upvotes, and to dbzer0, where people who were aware of what they were up to gave them derision and downvotes.)
Like I said, if the goal is to create division and heated argument between two opposing “camps,” this is pretty much as perfect as you can get it. I expect it to work, at least to a certain amount, to get people embittered towards one another and arguing about the issue impassioned that the other side is wrong and stupid.
I can’t find the link right now, but there was someone on reddit who claimed that they used to do this professionally (trying to disrupt online communities so that organized shilling could succeed better there, because the previous coherence that they had had had been replaced by confusion and bickering, and then they could insert bullshit without it being pushed back on as strongly.) It’s fascinating. What they described isn’t exactly like this, but it definitely sort of rings similar to me. Just to throw that out there.
Also, UniversalMonk is involved, because of course he is.
Edit: Fun with grammar
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Yeah, I was one of the ones banned from a number of AI communities despite not engaging with them really on my old Lemm.ee account. With UM involved, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised :) Sounds like just the sort of shit he’d have a hand in stirring up and just the way he’d do it.
Hang on, you’re telling me I can be randomly banned from AI communities?
How do I get my name on the list for sure? I don’t want to have to just hope the randomness gods smile on me.
You could just block them you know.
I have no interest in communities dedicated to female celebrities. When they started cropping up, I blocked them (well until I found out it was mostly one user creating the communities and then posting to them, so I just blocked them, but… Same result).
Its pretty easy, about two clicks typically.
I was hoping I wouldn’t need to do any work and the AI people would just automatically save me from them.
Guess AI disappoints yet again…
Also, UniversalMonk is involved, because of course he is.
I’m gonna repeat your favorite comment and ask where’s your proof? Give me receipts.
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/u/UniversalMonk?page=1&sort=New&view=Comments
Pretty much all of the bottom section of that page is UM getting involved in the drama of this particular “anti-AI troll.” He’s getting involved on the correct side, but the point is he is certainly involved.
that’s bullshit. when you say “UM is involved”, you make it sound like UM is behind it in some way. feeding trolls isn’t being involved, and you know it.
But how would else Phillip win when he can ignore your posts and say no one has anything to say?
In my opinion, someone who’s involved in the conversation is “involved.” Cryptagion’s point isn’t totally weird or crazy, but I don’t really agree with it. Especially given the nature of UM’s previous involvement on Lemmy, I think it’s relevant if he was heavily involved in the comments for this thing, so in passing, I noted it.
I’ve had my share of slapfights for the day at this point. Probably for the week. What could possibly be gained by me creating a reply saying, “No, it’s not bullshit! I didn’t make it sound that way!” and similar things?
It feels like you really want the hostility to continue beyond the point where everyone’s had their say. I have no idea why. Excitement? A desire to see as much disagreement and arguing as possible? He asked for proof, I provided, he disagreed with the interpretation, and at that point anyone who wants to read can make up their mind whose argument made sense. I have absolutely no interest in continuing beyond that point. You’re free to conclude for some reason that it’s a sin for me to do that, I view it as a pretty constructive approach to take.
Edit: Also, I completely forgot this even, but when UM raised the exact same objection up at the top of the thread, I actually had a pretty long conversation with him including explaining myself in detail and also apologizing about sort of bringing his name up in the nature of a punchline. We talked over DM a little bit, it didn’t go anywhere because UM, and I exited the conversation, but because I’m not just a shouty little conflict creator, I actually took it seriously and had a conversation about it.
This is, again, why I think it’s incredibly weird that a certain contingent of Lemmy is all up in arms about “PugJesus starts arguments!” as this big sin he’s committed. Y’all love this kind of slapfight, you love finding shit you can complain about or having endless hostility with people you don’t like. It’s fine, I do that sometimes too although I try to cut it off when it seems like it’s beyond the point of anything useful, but for you to accuse someone of arguing, stalking, following people around to give them votes or argumentative comments, etc etc, as a bad thing is hilarious given these last few messages (to pick one of any number of examples I could.)
Weird how you didn’t reply to the other person but okay. _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
This is, again, why I think it’s incredibly weird that a certain contingent of Lemmy is all up in arms about “PugJesus starts arguments!” as this big sin he’s committed. Y’all love this kind of slapfight, you love finding shit you can complain about or having endless hostility with people you don’t like.
lol
Please lemme know when I’m anywhere near as bad as pugjesus, calling people fascists because they want democrats to fight harder, or saying they don’t do something as they actively document themselves doing it. My admins will remove my messages/comments when I fuck up, hold me and them up to it. Unless I have the grave sin of “I don’t like .world” which is why UM and R2O get harassed despite not doing anything.
But I know you’ll always side with Pug over the people he harasses, and never actually talk to the people who are more equipped to deal with you than I am. Like the admins you ignore, or the users who are more familiar of your style.
My admins will remove my messages/comments when I fuck up, hold me and them up to it
Make sure you guys agree on a safeword beforehand
ha
So lazy to use AI to try to change public opinion.
Real trolls use memes.
Good work sniffing this out, I’m done with blahaj so I was only seeing the db0 side
People should know and remember there are always troll campaigns being ran in most social media spaces with any significant user base.
A couple of other current campaigns I’ve noticed across social media:
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an ongoing attempt to frame antizionism as antisemitism
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terfs attempting to sow division between trans people and the LGB part of the LGBTQIA+ community.
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terfs attempting to sow division between trans men and women
Yeah. It is hard to tell the difference between people just being dysfunctional in a way that will cause pointless strife because they are dysfunctional, and people being dysfunctional in a way that will cause pointless strife because they are planning out how to cause pointless strife. I do agree with you that my guess is that at least some of it is that second thing.
It’s sort of mind-boggling to me that no one involved in this “in authority” on the dbzer0 side seems responsive to the idea that this is a bad idea, will make their instance look bad, and also won’t do anything to solve the harassment of the mod (will in fact make it worse).
But whatever ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
Db0 has been making some questionable moderation decisions recently
Yeah. It doesn’t come across as malicious to me FWIW. I feel like people are just tribal, and there’s this incredibly strong impulse to stand up for “your tribe” be it the anarchists, or the trans people, or whatever, whenever you perceive that they’re being attacked or mistreated. Maybe that’s it, maybe it’s just that it’s such a minor issue that the admins don’t feel like getting involved, who knows.
I feel like just like separation of church and state, there should be separation of instance and tribal grouping. Like no making an instance that’s only for anarchists, only for the Marxists, officially anti-AI or pro-AI, or what have you. It seems like in practice it has been a tailor-made formula for producing drama with other instances. In general you notice the regional instances, they don’t have stuff like this come up, it’s just “hey we’re the Canadian people come join us.”
do you think this behavior is an example of tribal behavior or of a troll who is posing as (or possibly just is) an over the top neoliberal?
They stirred the pot in the same way about db0 having a blow-up with hexbear
They also did the same thing here, posting a piss-post from hexbear like it’s serious - the poster was actually impersonating a hexbear regular and was banned.
All of their responses are volatile, tribal, hating anarchists and tankies- as well as openly neoliberal and extremely positive about piefed.
They also say they’re a ‘prompt engineer’
Do you think this creates a good image for piefed and detractors of the ‘tankie troika’
That’s very clearly a troll trying to make anyone who’s against .ml and friends look bad. I can’t tell if the cartoonish over-the-top way they’re doing it is a mistake, because a more subtle believable approach would have stirred the pot more effectively, or a wise decision because people are so simple-minded that they’ll take even that at face value.
Do you think this creates a good image for piefed and detractors of the ‘tankie troika’
I think it creates a bad image, I think that’s why they are doing it.
seems like a very elaborate troll, here they are complaining about Russia and China during the ICC hearing for Israel
I guess it could be read ironically, but they’re also saying the same shit the pro-israel libs I know were saying at the time.
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Also, UniversalMonk is involved, because of course he is.
Ugh, the cancer of the fediverse
They are not so bad… mostly harmless
I guess that depends on how much you like cancer, and how harmless you think cancer is…
What is the worst they have done ?
Sealioning (also sea-lioning and sea lioning) is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity (“I’m just trying to have a debate”), and feigning ignorance of the subject matter.[5][6][7][8] It may take the form of “incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate”,[9] and has been likened to a denial-of-service attack targeted at human beings.[10] The term originated with a 2014 strip of the webcomic Wondermark by David Malki,[1] which The Independent called “the most apt description of Twitter you’ll ever see”.[2]
And, obviously, you’re blocked
So, universal monk 1; outraged commenter 0
Always the best batshit weird stuff from .ml users, you’re doing good work proving the stereotype.
I just blocked their whole instance the other day.
The only community I went to was the one to complain about mods, but they don’t let anyone complain about a couple of instances/topics that the mod/admin agrees with.
The whole place is pointless and if they’re not trolling intentionally, they’re doing it because they’re addicted to drama
I just blocked their whole instance the other day.
Yeah, see, this is what I was talking about with this whole thing being to gin up pointless drama.
db0 is clearly fine. Being overtly “pro AI” makes them a little anomalous on Lemmy, but it’s whatever, they have sensible reasons for it and it is fine. This kind of slap fight developing can lead to this balkanization where now one person is the “enemy” but no actually it’s this other person that’s the “enemy” for some stupid kind of reason, and now no one is getting along because they’re all in little tribes that mutually hate one another.
I just don’t want to see shitty AI pics, and that’s like the majority of their community.
A sprinkling of “how does a torrent work” and an incredibly biased place to complain about certain kinds of moderation, but it has a huge moderation bias itself…
I’m fine on all that
They’re not “my enemy” I just don’t want to interact with them
I want to know what I did to be marked as an anti-AI troll. There are specifics in what trolling is imo so I’d like to know more, maybe even defend myself.
Not the mod, but if you’ve ever down voted with no other interaction, my guess would be that. Or timing of a downvote coinciding with a bunch of others from other accounts, again as a singular downvote.
There is a tool which will coord down votes across multiple accounts, which is helping some trolls - notably the anti-AI trolls mentioned - coordinate mass down votes to try to avoid detection.
Louder for the people in the back
“Downvoting (a single vote) on its own does not constitute trolling”
Its literally participating in the fediverse whether you cry over karma or not.
Look.
I’m DONE with these TANKIE instances I’m going with my man @cm0002@lemmy.world and lets BOICOT these instances that collect tankie takes like the Community Party of China collects human rights abuses.
DB0 (the man not the instance) is always talking about camps so i’m putting him in the UYGHYR CONENTRATION CAMP DENYIER camp at this point because he is letting DB0 (the instance not the man) become the forth member of the tankie triad
Maybe if they kept the porn on the PORNLEMMY we could keep this place clean of NSFW and Tankies.
Write this down because I won’t repeat myself
Make 👏 Tankies 👏 Afraid 👏 Of 👏 Social 👏 Media 👏 Again - donate to piefed
Go 👏 Back 👏 To 👏 Reddit, because we’re not going to leave the platform we created.
We’d rather you not repeat yourself regardless.
???
