In the past week I’ve been absolutely roasted for criticising two different countries. Normally I’d be okay with that, I can handle a mild toasting and after all debate is a good thing.
On both occasions though I was flamed for mentioning human rights issues that are established facts and have been known for many, many years. I was critical of the actions/laws of their governments and not the people, their race, religion, general political ideology or nationality.
On both occasions I was bombarded by long posts that parroted propaganda, and in the case of one country I was told (on multiple occasions) that I was ignorant, racist and even fascist for mentioning the issues I did. I’m not complaining about how I was treated, but as a reminder, I was discussing internationally-recognised human rights concerns that can be verified and based in fact.
I could just be paranoid but I’m fairly convinced the responses weren’t from patriotic citizens. I think they were paid trolls or bots, and I think their purpose was to quiet negative talking points about the countries that were mentioned.
Has anyone else had a similar experience?
I was bombarded by long posts that parroted propaganda
Turns out that when you define “propaganda” as “anything that I disagree with”, and then go to spaces where a lot of people disagree with you, you’re going to see a lot of “propaganda”.
100% but I wouldn’t call it a problem. I find it’s often refreshing to see the stupidity around you and not have it hidden behind a veil. I think you also get more genuine information here it just requires more from you to not get got.
I’ve experienced this, but only for Russia and China specifically. Most of it your typical tankie behavior, but not all of it comes from ml users.
Block and move on. I think I’ve blocked most of ml at this point, but there are a few normal users. At least 2.
Blocking bad-faith-arguers and general shitheads has definitely improved my experience on the internet.
This place has a very communist leaning userbase and with that comes a with a lot of tankies and chiaboos.
In the end USA and Europe have a lot of similar issues and that’s growing so it’s not like they are morally superior, but ya know tankies and co are very good at ignoring issues just as much as any red blood American.
“communist”
Ah, you must have encountered some tankies. I finally got tired of it and just blocked hexbear and .ml stuff. My lemmy experience is much better without it.
I had to block most of the Bahjal instances because they are just a transfem echo chamber and refuse to listen to any viewpoint that is even one atom out of alignment with the idea that Trans people are the next evolution of humanity. I had to quit Imgur for a similar reason. Frustrating because I AM an Ally, just one that is also, ya know, a realist.
Why does it matter if the responses are from patriotic citizens or not?
“Bad faith” is lunacy, who cares? Arguments matter all on their own, regardless of the motivation for making them.
Of course you “think” they are paid trolls or bots, we all see that constantly. My first post on Reddit years ago was followed immediately by charges of being a Russian spy. Maybe they were a Russian spy and I was diversion?
Anyway, troll, bot, human, paid or not, irrelevant. The discussion is seen by others and judged on the merit of the argument itself. Stop worrying about the source, as you can never know, so it doesn’t matter. It’s not as if you get better results by talking to an unpaid patriotic person. Same shit.
Propaganda problem? Not at all. Every form of social media is rife with propaganda, as is every paper, website, news channel, and so on. How could Lemmy be any different?
The mentality that everything is an opinion and all opinions are valid is an sign of acute internet brainrot.
The truth actually exists. You’ve spent too much time on the internet if you think in terms of “choose your own reality”.
All websites are propaganda at this point.
Let me guess, Lemmy.ml? That’s normal, that instance (and lemmy as a project) was created because the creators were too extreme for /r/communism and thus banned from it.
Lemmy is big enough to be a psyop target and has been for a while. This place is rife with feds and bots of every persuasion and they will try to influence you from every angle. As Lemmy grows it will only get worse. It’s easy to brush off pushback for criticizing nation states but also be aware that the FBI in particular has a history of trying to push people towards violent radicalism and in person meetups. Do not trust anyone online. Especially if they agree with you politically.
This place is rife with feds and bots
Do you actually have a shred of evidence for this? Or do you just assume it based on faith so that you can dismiss people who disagree with you out of hand?
Not sure if this is MAGA or lefitst conspiracy talk. Y’all sound about the same these days.
The difference between me and a conspiracy theorist is that I can point at past evidence. COINTELPRO is a historical fact, and part of that program involved infiltrating dissident groups and acting as agents provocateur. The Church committee found that the FBI engaged in “covert action designed to disrupt and discredit the activities of groups and individuals deemed a threat to the social order.” The committee also found that the tactics employed by the FBI “would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity.”
I am not saying the FBI is definitely here now. What I am saying is it would be naïve to assume that they would not be willing to run an influence operation on public forums where people skeptical of the US government gather, and it would be foolish to assume that nobody else is carrying out similar operations for their own respective interests, state-level or otherwise.
Yeah J Edgar Hoover got up to all kinds of crazy shit. But that was a long time ago and was primarily about being against communists and black civil rights activists.
Most conspiracy theories fall apart when you just ask the question “why would they do this?”
So… why would the FBI be pushing the kind of content we see on lemmy? Why would the FBI be promoting socialism and anti-zionism? Why would the FBI be promoting trans rights? Is there some hidden agenda which would explain why the FBI would be promoting linux and other FOSS on lemmy?
I don’t really see anything on lemmy that would be in the interests of the FBI to be pushing. They might be monitoring things going on here, but which content are you seeing that looks like it’s coming from the FBI?
Foreign countries though? Yeah, they’re interested in trying to push anyone “radicalized” to do anything which would destabilize their adversaries. And if you look at the content on lemmy, much of the geopolitical discussion is very unhinged and often is trying to push people towards violence.
I think there’s a motive. If I were the FBI I wouldn’t be too concerned about actual violent outcomes, so long as they were lone wolf attacks or the product of tiny cells of radicals. It’s like a controlled burn in a forest. You get the fire out of the way before it reaches a critical mass. “Voting doesn’t work, burn down a government building” is a real hard sell to someone with a stable job, but the people it does sell to might one day be the types of people to organize and lead a meaningful opposition. So you flush them out early and fast. Some people might die, but Director Patel told me to catch leftists, not to prevent violence. As an added bonus, each violent act turns liberals more and more against what they perceive as an inherently violent ideology. “These are terrible times, and maybe if it prevents another bombing mass surveillance is acceptable even if I don’t like it,” they might think. You don’t have to go back too far to see that mindset in action. In the aftermath of 9/11 Americans saw an unprecedented erosion of their civil liberties. Terror is good for an autocratic regime.
That being said, I will grant that there’s no evidence of this. But then again there wasn’t evidence of COINTELPRO until the FBI field office in Media PA got broken into by a group of concerned citizens. Not that I’m condoning B&E. I also don’t think it would be productive to point fingers even if there were evidence the FBI was doing COINTELPRO 2. “So and so is a fed” is actually one of the tactics used in COINTELPRO to sow discord in infiltrated groups. Just, maybe we should keep in mind that we’re bound to see some discourse here that is trying to get us to play a useful idiot.
FBI in particular has a history of trying to push people towards violent radicalism
Lemmy isn’t the US and there’s plenty of us here who aren’t American. FBI can do whatever the hell they want they have zero jurisdiction.
Mastodon isn’t American either and they still seized a Koliktiva server. Jurisdiction nothing. They can’t arrest you, that doesn’t mean they don’t have an interest in influencing you. And they’re one group of many who has an interest in running influence operations. Fuck dude, it could be Russia, it could be Mossad, it could be GISS. The barrier to entry is so low these days.
This is exactly right. An asshole doesn’t follow the rules, that’s why they are assholes.
This year i was sort of flamed 3 times and the 4th had me banned from some lemmy.ml community. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What I did (in my opinion. Can’t say what the users interpreted)?
Advocate for equal gender rights
Say that China is bad (and the US)
Some other stuff about China or something which I forgot already
Call out unneccessary racism in a headline instead of just mentioning minorities or just residents that were being harmed by the musk-rat.Was I right in those discussions? Mostly not or at least not from most angles
Was I 100% in the wrong? I wouldnt say so.What I did (in my opinion. Can’t say what the users interpreted)?
Based on the actual modlog, you got banned for saying:
Jesus christ are you all zealots for china. Please get your dick inside back in your trousers If you like the country so much, I hope you are on the way to move there…
Which does indeed seem like trolling
I’ve been banned from many communities on lemmy.ml.
Their ideas simply don’t stand up to scrutiny, so they remove any scrutiny. They want to live in an alternate world where communism is good, and everyone else is stupid. They’re not significantly different from flat earthers, qanon, maga, or any other delusional online group.
Bro just one more political purge bro, come on. Just oooone more political purge and communism is set.
Ive been here less than a week and have encountered multiple extremists, schizo level posts, and just ludicrous positions to take.
It’s clear that things like moderates and centrism dont have much of a home here.
It is what it is but ill say this.
Do not be afraid to just block them, theres not that many people here.
You should remind yourself that your Overton window is not universal
i think people are too quick to call anyone like that a “paid troll”. like i just don’t think one can reasonably expect a government like china to waste their resources on a platform as small as the threadiverse…
Also often they would not need to pay anyone. Especially for cases like china or the US there are already enough people, that are so deep in the ideology, that they will do it in their free time. Lots of of such people everywhere.
Noob mistake. Been there done that. I’m banned from .ml for saying China bad. Welcome to the team
I’m banned from .ml for saying China bad
You’re lucky that none of the Reddit transplants here will actually bother to check your modlog.
