I got banned earlier today with the message “rule 1”, no other information about why, or which comment broke the rule. As far as I can tell it was this one, which just says “We want the bot gone. That’s it. It’s really that simple.”

So I checked the modlog for other bans, and @aniki@lemmings.world was banned today as well, also just for “rule 1”, probably either for the comment saying “a stupid bot writing useless bullshit” or “This is what you call “Not listening to criticism.””, neither of which are an attack on any person.

(Also earlier today @MindTraveller@lemmy.ca was banned with the message “fuck off”, which I’m pretty sure is not a reason to ban someone from a major community, but doesn’t appear to be related to the MBFC bot.)

One more today, @stormesp@lemm.ee was banned, again just “rule 1”, last comment being this one, again not an attack on any person.

So what’s the deal here? I couldn’t find any rules for mods on lemmy.world with a brief poke around, but are we letting mods run major communities like little fiefdoms, banning people for criticism?

  • Brave Little Hitachi Wand@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    9 months ago

    A .ml mod recently banned me from the entire instance after I complained about being called a “fucking idiot”. I suspect they didn’t like me saying China doesn’t have a clean record on genocide.

    The fediverse is great because it’s not corporate, but you still have to deal with folks who put the hell into “Hell is other people.”

      • ericjmorey@lemmy.worldEnglish
        01·
        8 months ago

        The level of vitriol that the banned users have been spewing seems like harassment of the mods.

      • Yurgenst@sh.itjust.works
        01·
        8 months ago

        I asked you directly what link_opens_chest.wav did to be removed and you replied “It’s the strict rules tbh”. Then the entire community spent a week telling you the changes to the rules weren’t wanted before you back tracked. The problems on libertyhub were your doing not a trolls, and it really seemed like your goal was to take over the community and change it to your liking.

    • MrKaplan@lemmy.worldMEnglish
      01·
      9 months ago

      calling other people pedophiles is not trolling.

      such allegations can be life-ruining and should not be done lightly.

  • Cursed@lemmus.orgEnglish
    0·
    9 months ago

    Let’s review some of these bans, as called out by ChomskyWasRight@slrpunk.net:

    https://lemm.ee/post/40926293/14446156

    https://imgur.com/YSoJbgs

    From the top:

    LagrangePoint@lemmy.world https://imgur.com/4XsXuOC

    Quote: "LW admin/mod team seem to have this overbearing and weird belief that they need to tell everyone else what to think and how to think it. How about… you all just fuck off and don’t?

    Result: Permaban

    =====

    aniki@lemmings.world https://imgur.com/LIye27F

    Quote: “All rights are won through violence, child. Bans on here means less than the nothing platitudes you utter”

    Result: 15 day ban

    =====

    catloaf@lemm.ee https://imgur.com/ONGdgNo

    Quote: [the quote is really long, pls dont make me type it and just look at the link lol]

    Result: 15 day ban

    Note: the comment precedes the ban by 26 days, but catloaf’s recent comment history contains opinions critical of the LW News mod team

    =====

    DoctorButts@kbin.melroy.org https://imgur.com/q2kktNQ

    Quote: “Damn what a shame, guy almost stopped being a moderator on an internet forum, would have been a grave tragedy”

    Result: Permaban

    =====

    stormesp@lemm.ee https://imgur.com/ZCRtuJe

    Stormesp’s profile at lemm.ee: https://lemm.ee/u/stormesp

    Quote: [there were no comments removed in the modlog, but stormesp’s recent comment history contains opinions critical of the LW News mod team, read them yourself]

    Result: 15 day ban

    =====

    MindTraveller@lemmy.ca https://imgur.com/YwIMSOq

    Quotes: [multiple quotes, there are a lot, check out the link]

    Result: 15 day ban

    =====

    Summary

    Most interestingly here is that the two users who got permabanned didn’t use slurs and didn’t call for violence, they merely insulted the moderator team. I guess in the LW News mod team’s eyes, that’s a horrible, terrible, awful, unforgivable offense, so… PERMABAN.

    Aniki literally is saying “words are useless, let’s resort to violence” but that’s a 15 day ban only, OK, makes sense, right???

    Catloaf and Stormesp were actively leaving comments sparring with the moderator team in that thread. To be honest, none of what I’m seeing in these comment seems worthy of a ban. Unless of course, you’re a LW mod and you go “this guy is disagreeing with me, therefore they deserve a ban.”

    Edit: I forgot to write about MindTraveller since that guy was a last minute addition. But look at those aggressive comments, guy deserves a ban for sure.

    =====

    Conclusion

    Not a good look. Does LW want to grow into a good Reddit alternative or do they just want to turn it into Reddit for themselves only?

    LW can at least come clean about this and say “yes, the rest of you can get fucked” or maybe they will have a moment of realization at some point “oh my god, are we the baddies?”

      • The Quuuuuill@slrpnk.netEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        Yeah the way these federated systems are handling bans and moderation right now is not very transparent. It’s very easy to have moderator action taken against you and not know why it happened, or to even know that it happened

        • ericjmorey@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          8 months ago

          Lemmy provides for inadequate moderation tools and the developers of Lemmy don’t see adding additional tools or improvements to existing tools to be a high priority, so there’s not going to be more transparency from anyone running a Lemmy instance or moderating a lemmy community.