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
Cuz I’m still not sure what the original accusation was supposed to be. I think some people assumed I was pretending to advocate for third parties, but secretly voting for Trump. But that never made sense. Even if every single person who voted third party had instead voted for Harris, she still would’ve lost. The math doesn’t support the blame.
And let’s be real, those same people also claimed I would disappear right after the election. Yet here I am, still active, still advocating for third parties, and still posting socialist content all over Lemmy.
If I were actually a secret Trump supporter, why would I keep doing that? The election is over. I could drop the act and just post pro-Trump stuff openly if that was really my angle. People already assume that anyway. So why would I keep pushing socialist parties and alternative movements now? It doesn’t add up. Unless maybe I actually believe what I’m saying. And I do.
It’s not my fault people didn’t like them. Is there some rule that I can only post articles that people like? I posted from all different sources on all different political opinions. And I still do that. The vast majority is socialist and green though.
My entire post history is public: @[email protected], @[email protected] and my main name which is @[email protected].
Hundreds of articles on socialist, libertarian, conservative, anarchist, green parties. Why do you pick the ones you don’t like and assume that’s the ones that I represent? Why would I post all the others if I were just the one you don’t like? What would be the point in that. My socialist and anarchist article links outnumber any conservative/libertarian article links.
I have no problem with being the bad guy. As you pointed out, I put it in my profile. My profile pic is a list of shit people say about me. So why would I hide my motives? I stand by everything I say and do. Always have. I’ve never shied away from it.
Why are you failing to admit that the real reason people are mad is because they thought that my support for the Green Party and the Socialist party was to undermine the Democratic Party? But if that were true, why would I continue to support them after the election? Why would I volunteer for those orgs? And donate money to them? Jus to stick it to Lemmy?! Is that you what you actually think? Come on now, use logic.
Because I don’t feel that way. It’s not my problem you are mad that the democrats lost. Had nothing to do with me or me posting on Lemmy. Lemmy isn’t that important in the real world.
Why don’t you admit all the people who accused me of being russian, being paid to post on Lemmy, being a paid informant for Trump, or that I would disappear after the election, were wrong? How come those people aren’t apologizing or admitting they were wrong?
Lemmy is much more open to third parties now. Honestly, if I reposted every single thing I posted before the election, it wouldn’t even be a blip on Lemmy these days.
Well, I’ll point it out, but to say it “bugs” me is a bit of a stretch. Again, look at my profile, I put the negative comments in my profile and call myself the notorious Lemmy outlaw who refused to bow to the duopoly.
And I still refuse to bow down the duopoly. I won’t vote democrat or republican in our next elections either. I’ll vote socialist, just like I always have. Just like I always will.
I have been, and that’s why you get so emotional about it. I think that it would be easier for you to accept that I was part of some grand conspiracy because it fits your skewed view of motivations.
The reality is I lean libertarian-socialist, and I like to post links to articles with many different points of views. I’ll post whatever I think is interesting, regardless of what Lemmy thinks of the sources.
You can sit there and mock my fitness comms, and my math comms, but I’m adding content to Lemmy. And sticking to my beliefs. No matter how mad it makes Lemmy.
Feel free to see [email protected] I’m still posting all the different articles that I find interesting. I’m also not going to stop posting college stuff, math stuff, satanist stuff, UFO stuff, workout stuff, or socialist and anarchist stuff to those communities that I have started and maintain on Lemmy.
And now on Piefed. :)
Got it. Okay, I tried.
Well other than people think that I was trying to undermine the democrats by advocating third party. But I have given lots and lots of proof of how that wasn’t so.
Is it something else? Here’s what annoys me about your posts. You never just come out and say it.
So let’s put it out in the open: Why do you think I posted stuff advocating third parties, which at the time were Libertarian, Socialist, and Green?
I don’t wanna hear about sealioning or that I didn’t back down, or the theory that I had 1,340 alt names, lived in Russia, etc.
No, I wanna hear from you, in front of everyone, why you, PhilipTheBucket thinks I advocated for voting third party. And if that would be nearly as controversial today as it was before the election.