Given the state of technology, politics, and social media, we all share fears about interacting with bots, or having our social media manipulated. We know that this is happening on other platforms that are driven by engagement/profit models. However, Lemmy is about people – like you! While this platform is not immune to bots, we have several layers of protections in place to remove bots and trolls as quickly as possible.
Some of these operations are performed automatically at a server level, and you likely never see them at all. Some rely on the reporting system and the common sense of our userbase – that’s you again! If you believe that another user is a bot, please report it and our mod team will investigate. Please keep in mind that real people really do have radically different points of view. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a bot or troll. Do not abuse the report system.
We encourage the expression and discussion of different points of view, as long as the discussion is civil and in good faith. It is not a civil form of disagreement to call another user a bot or paid actor in posts or comments. It is a personal attack, which is a violation of our first rule. We have updated the language of the rule in our sidebar to reflect this. Our first priority is for the safety of our users to express their ideas. Thanks!
- Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Hm
I’ve been on the internet a long time. I have seen many many different types of bad faith users and people I disagree with. That part isn’t the part that led me to jump to “these accounts are fake.”
I feel like I’ve already explained why I feel there are propaganda accounts, or the difference between someone I disagree with vs. someone who has weird little inconsistencies in their story in addition to a pattern of behavior that’s very unlike any other type of authentic user I’ve ever seen before. Who I also, on top of that, disagree with.
Because as you pointed out, calling out the fake posters directly doesn’t usually lead anywhere good. Surely you can understand the idea that I’m saying the flood of propaganda is a bad thing, but also that I can agree that adding a flood of arguing and impossible-to-prove accusations on top is also a further bad thing?
Glad we cleared that up, then.