this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2025

254 points (97.4% liked)

Fediverse vs Disinformation

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Pointing out, debunking, and spreading awareness about state- and company-sponsored astroturfing on Lemmy and elsewhere. This includes social media manipulation, propaganda, and disinformation campaigns, among others.

Propaganda and disinformation are a big problem on the internet, and the Fediverse is no exception.

What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? The inadvertent spread of false information is misinformation. Disinformation is the intentional spread of falsehoods.

By equipping yourself with knowledge of current disinformation campaigns by state actors, corporations and their cheerleaders, you will be better able to identify, report and (hopefully) remove content matching known disinformation campaigns.

Community rules

Same as instance rules, plus:

No disinformation
Posts must be relevant to the topic of astroturfing, propaganda and/or disinformation

Related websites

Matrix chat links

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254

Important note about a Nazi that is clogging up SDF with a disinfo campaign (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org to c/fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com

85 comments fedilink hide all child comments

@ashton1593@lemmy.sdf.org is spreading a disinfo campaign trying to rebrand horrible ideas as "not nazi." I don't know where else to warn people about this. We are pushing for an instance ban, but the admin at SDF tends to be slow to reach.

Edit: Look at the modlog. I beg of any instance admin that sees the ban and removal reasons alone, including a ban reason of "tranny" , I hope to hell they break your instance rules. You should instance ban this moron to keep the spread down.

Edit 2: It has been more than a day now with not even a "We will look into it." kind of reply from the admin. It may be time to look into defederation. We are effectively abandoned.

Edit for an update:

top 50 comments

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 days ago

Nazis GTFO.

[–] Shortstack@reddthat.com 52 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Lot of trolls floating in lately. Got that stupid catfishing message a couple days ago in my DMs.

Seems that the current president cosplaying as king has emboldened the most toxic conservatives to crawl out of the woodwork.

I remember that happened in 2017 too, so we can probably expect them to get bored and fuck off somewhere else sooner or later

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Wait, the catfish happened to a bunch of people? Thought it was just a few, I ignored it when I got it.

[–] Shortstack@reddthat.com 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Weird right?

I think the catfish was targeting active commenters based on the post a bit ago about it.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Huh, that's strange. Why active users specifically? Telling me to touch grass?

[–] Shortstack@reddthat.com 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Probably easy to find usernames by just opening a post I’d guess

Touching grass is never a bad idea though

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 days ago

Yea lol, was a joke more than anything.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 35 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Lemmy probably needs a "Report Community" feature that goes to the Admins of the instance.

But I can say, the Admins are aware.

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[–] Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

[–] jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yep. Can confirm. I did update the post with a screenshot of the modlog.

[–] Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 days ago

Oops I missed that! Anyway glad it's dealt with.

[–] Admin@startrek.website 18 points 3 days ago

Startrek.website has banned the user and blocked/purged the communities.

[–] j4k3@lemmy.world 31 points 3 days ago (2 children)

sdf.org needs a backup admin that is reachable badly.

[–] jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org 28 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I've emailed, tooted, and tagged the admin on Lemmy. I am fumbling through a BBS post in my phone. I can do no more except let people know to block this Nazi and please don't think the SDF instance appreciates or tolerates this Nazi BS.

[–] ewo@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

100% fuck this guy. We just love unix and floppies and shit.

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[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 3 days ago (7 children)

Help spread the word on this, we need instance admins all over to help stop this asshole.

CC:

dbzer0 admins

@db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com @Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com @RandomLegend@lemmy.dbzer0.com

lemm.ee admins

@EllaSpiggins@lemm.ee @sunaurus@lemm.ee

lemmy.blahaj.zone admins

@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone @supakaity@lemmy.blahaj.zone

beehaw.org admins

@remington@beehaw.org @alyaza@beehaw.org @Gaywallet@beehaw.org @Lionir@beehaw.org @Penguincoder@beehaw.org

pawb.social admins

@crashdoom@pawb.social @natebluehooves@pawb.social @itsOasus@pawb.social @southernwolf@pawb.social @Spitfire@pawb.social

sh.itjust.works admins

@TheDude@sh.itjust.works @kersploosh@sh.itjust.works @imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works @InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works

discuss.online admins

@jgrim@discuss.online @lazyguru@discuss.online @m_f@discuss.online @Rooki@discuss.online @MrKaplan@discuss.online

lemmy.world admins

@ruud@lemmy.world @Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world @Rooki@lemmy.world @kersploosh@lemmy.world @MrKaplan@lemmy.world

I apologize for pinging all of you, this is a serious issue and it's faster to ping like this than to message everyone individually.

[–] imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works 23 points 3 days ago (1 children)

We banned him a few hours ago. In the future, please at least navigate to the major servers and check their modlogs before pinging the admins.

Admins usually notify other admins fairly quickly about stuff like this. But in this case the other admins (myself) aren't going to know if the user had already banned by one of our colleagues, so we end up having to check multiple times.

It's all good though, I appreciate your urgency.

[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Oh I see, sorry I didn't check sooner. I'll try to check the modlog next time (hopefully there isn't a next time).

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[–] Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Thank you for bringing it to our attention, already banned from Lemmy.world, will communicate with the other admins to see if more action is warranted.

[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I don't mean to backseat moderate but is a 7 day ban really the best option in this situation as opposed to a permanent one with content removal? I mean this isn't an average scenario, this is an extremist user spreading hate and disinformation, and for that they get only a 7 day ban?

[–] Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago (5 children)

This is a temporary measure until I can discuss it futher with the other admins. I think they'll agree a perma-ban is warranted.

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[–] jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (6 children)

Hijacking this useful ping to say that I absolutely would not hold a grudge over defederation due to this. We can't get in touch with the admin. They are likely asleep. Please remember, though, that aside from this BS, it is just a quiet nerdy instance full of Unix lovers.

Edit: autocorrect typos

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[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Contact the admins at dubvee.org they have a system of cross instance banning and tracking down to an art form. That’s assuming you can contact them if you are not banned.

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[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 3 days ago

I'm disappointed that such a user is on the same instance as I. Thanks for raising the alarm. I'm hopeful the folks in charge take action.

[–] pieguy@lemmy.sdf.org 30 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Quick correction: Domain is lemmy.sdf.org (fix missing period)

[–] jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org 19 points 3 days ago

Thanks. I hate typing on my phone.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 25 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Yeah, I saw that guy recently and blocked the communities that he seemed to be running.

I then tagged him as "Conservative Dickhead" in Voyager, though I'll be updating that to be simply "Nazi".

[–] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 22 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Tomato, tomato.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 14 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Yeah, at first I want to give the benefit of the doubt, but after reading here I decided to just spell it out for myself

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[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 20 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I just had a look at his profile again, and he keep posting shit, but so far seems to be mostly only posting new actual posts on his own communities on lemmy.sdf.org

Those communities are:

conservative

saynotogroomers

libsoftiktok

saynotonazis

I can't be arsed to link properly, and don't want to drive traffic to them, but these are the current communities on lemmy.sdf.org, where he is most active.

[–] sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

A quick look at their comment and post history shows that they hate:

Trans people

Anime

Star Trek

Star Wars

...do they know they're on Lemmy...?

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[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 3 days ago

Seems like it might be the same asshole who spammed Rammy.site in the past and flooded it with hateful garbage.

[–] spujb@lemmy.cafe 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Okay wow so it’s been almost 24 hours. The admin’s last post was a year ago. Has anyone had contact with them since? What are the chances this instance is just running derelict?

Hoping I am wrong! But if I’m not SDF users might want to consider to start migrating. If the admin can’t be reached at all the next step other admins are gonna take is defederation.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

SDF is a very old, esteemed community that has existed long before Lemmy and the Fediverse.

24 hours is normal by its measure.

[–] spujb@lemmy.cafe 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yes I do understand that. Nevertheless SDF needs to come to terms that it is integrating with a much more dense and active community by hosting a Lemmy instance and act accordingly.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I don't think this is the right attitude. Just do a coordinated ban on the user and their communities. If one can't ban a community from one instance on another - then this is a technical flaw to be solved. Maybe some kind of 2/3 vote system to do those coordinated bans, too, so that people with personal life keeping small instances could keep up.

But then in my personal humble opinion any federated model is flawed. And then NOSTR is inconvenient, because it's everything in the same place - microblogging, video streaming, something like Reddit/Lemmy, and I fear to see a new tab in Amethyst every day. Also I don't like that its protocol is designed around web technologies - websockets+JSON. But maybe that's wise, it's a bit less likely to be easily blocked.

[–] spujb@lemmy.cafe 1 points 2 days ago

It sounds like your position is based on a disagreement with the system as a whole, which is fair. But I am working within the realistic bounds of the tools currently at hand.

[–] jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Not even a reply to anything on Mastodon or e-mails. I think I may nuke this account and all of the content in protest.

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