You're lucky you haven't had to deal with monstrous amounts of vote-brigading (and harassment) to the point that your community was being suppressed in visibility. I don't think this is what PapaSkwat was doing at all, but it is the reason why people can land legitimate bans for downvotes, as well as external behavior.

You’re lucky you haven’t had to deal with monstrous amounts of vote-brigading (and harassment) to the point that your community was being suppressed in visibility. I don’t think this is what PapaSkwat was doing at all

This is the exact reason I do it though. Most people banned from my communities are known for serial downvoting or brigading. A few were just trolling me or called me names that led to the bans, but most were repeatedly downvoting my posts across multiple communities, regardless of the subject.

Many of the names would downvote several of my posts in a row, one after another, in the exact same order within seconds of each other. That kind of repeated pattern is why I considered it coordinated brigading rather than normal voting. (I'm not saying OP did this)

Go through the first couple of pages of my modlog. You may recognize names from your own ban list: https://lemmy.today/modlog/1591101

Just so everyone knows in case it's unclear: in OP's attached picture and example, OP put that label, "FASCIST" beside my name in his app, that's what that shows. Just in case you are curious about that word being beside my name in his screencap. I'm not a fascist, regardless of the name he assigns to me in his app.

21 of the banned names in my modlog also appear and are banned in your modlog too.

As you can see, many of the same serial downvoters have been active in both of our communities.

So at least 21 serial downvoters and trolls overlap in my community and your community. The mod logs I compared:

https://lemmy.today/modlog/1591101 (my community)

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/modlog/1406343 (your community)

I was on the tesseract secret censor list, and I get preemptively banned from communities that are against human rights often.

I've not yet experienced vote brigading in my comms, I've only ever seen censoring and silencing of voices PTBs disagree with.

So I wouldn't call myself lucky but I guess it could be worse, which is why vigilance is needed.

Correct, this is my current opinion of you from my many interactions with you.

I'm slowly figuring that out, but I think I'm still on board

Lol, I didn't know but that explains some things

Obviously. You take being banned from my tiny Lemmy communities very seriously.

I still disagree with your label and your opinion of me.

Just looking at your account you look like an AI glazing tech bro. So I fear he Fascist tag may be true.

Out of curiosity, which fuckcars post did you think i was talking about?

That seems like a pretty loose use of the word “fascist.”

I support local user-controlled generative AI. I’m no fan of corporate tech-bro owned tech. I follow that side of the industry, because that's where big changes happen and where most of the news gets reported.

My apologies. I wasn't aware of that. I couldn't see a lot of those communities in dbzer0's modlog. If OP was serially downvoting it does make sense why they were banned and I would do the same if they tried that in my communities no matter how much YPTB whines and cries and sends me rape threats in my DMs. Yes I've received rape threats over moderation actions before and it is disgusting.
I don't blame everyone in this community for that, but this community fosters a certain type of entitled person who feels that I should bend to their whim.

https://lemmy.today/post/58772407 36-year old woman and unborn baby killed riding ebike on Pershing Drive in Playa del Rey, where bike lanes removed in 2017

I posted that then I noticed your DM. I didn't check the timestamp of the DM. I posted that item, noticed I had DM, and responded. I thought it was so strange that you were talking about trolling and banning and stuff for an ebike news item. So I thought maybe you lived in the area and knew more about it. lolol Then I noticed your post here, and it all made sense.

https://lemmy.today/post/58772407

That story is tragic.

Now, why is it that you thought you had banned me from that community? Do you have an alt or sock puppet account with mod privileges there?

To be clear, OP wasn’t one of the major serial downvoters whose names overlap on our ban lists. I was only explaining why I usually ban people since it was in relation to the conversation of banning for repeated downvoting. OP is banned from my communities because he keeps calling me a fascist over a previous moderation decision. I strongly disagree that banning someone from a small Lemmy community for downvoting and being rude makes me a fascist.

I’m sorry you received rape threats. That’s completely unacceptable, and even more disturbing and vulgar that it happened over moderation. I’ve received threatening DMs myself, but nothing as horrible as what you experienced. The fact that some people on Lemmy behave that way is disgusting, especially over something as inconsequential as a community ban.

@qrstuv@lemmy.sdf.org What the hell is your problem? I see you in the downvotes of most of my content which makes its way to your server. Which makes me think you're downvoting everything I post. Do you have a bone to pick with me? If you do you should come out and say it. This is petty behavior.

Edit: Dyslexia

I know I didn't see them in mine and I knew I didn't ban them. Honestly calling someone a fascist over being banned for downvoting everything that's definitely a reason to ban from all.

Yeah it's not okay. Actually I've been impersonated and doxxed as well so really awful shit. There are at least a few seriously unhinged people on here. People who need to be locked up.

No. That’s why I was confused and told you to contact the moderators of that community instead of me. I thought you were referring to that post in that community, and I had no idea why you were bringign up me banning you. I have nothing to do with that community other than the fact that I post there.

Why would I create a sock puppet over a story about a woman being hit by a car after a city removed bike lanes, that is posted to an anti-car community? Why would I even create a sock puppet account for a anti-car community? That doesn’t make any sense.

I've had people try to doxx me. One told me to look behind me "right now!" because he was watching me. Which would have been pretty amazing to pull off considering I was on teh toilet in my bathroom in my tiny apartment. Another told me that he knew what town I lived in and would be stopping by. He didn't even have the correct state. People who do crap like this have lives that are so tiny that they think that by trying to intimidate someone, they have power over that person. Pathetic that they do that all because they got kicked out of a small online community that no one's heard of

Yeah that kind of take is really insane and wouldn't be popular among dbzer0's community. Calling people (including leftist-anarchists) fascists over local AI usage is insane and illogical.
Also Brickeater is a member of Fuck_AI, the community which encouraged a lot of the harassment against me. That might seem paranoid but it started very shortly after I banned their mods for downvoting every post in my communities one after the other. So at the very least it's a little suspicious.

You're literally commenting this on an instance run by a Pro-AI anarchist leftist. This is an insane take.

They actually posted street view of my house. Exact street and state I live in. It scarred the shit out of me. Thankfully I was able to get programming.dev's admins to delete the images from pict-rs and ban the dipshit who did it. Still needed to stay with family for a while and was scared I would need to move.

That's awful. I'm sorry you had to deal with that. That's a lot.

A PSA that people could be banned from a community they don't like and don't want to see?

Don't call someone a fascist and expect to participate in their communities.

You also called my instance fascist and anti-woke. Let's take a look at the sidebar.

I run four of the five top communities on the instance. I guess a feminist anarcho-socialist posting about art, cool rocks and independent news is astroturfing to you.

Is the fascism in the room with you right now?

Fuck me if you're not the biggest loser on Lemmy.

I honestly enjoy your content and respect you from what I have seen you do so far, but your instance has problems I can't ignore.

PS, I never called your instance fascist or anti-woke. However due to the work of papaskwat and donaldjmusk I think most of lemmy.today is bad faith astroturfing. And I do avoid it for the most part because of that.

I'm not familiar, what did MysticMushroom do?

I appreciate your interest and attention, but no thanks, I'm married. My partner would not approve.

I appreciate that.

I'm referencing this further down in the comments.

Admittedly, I can't see the original comment so I'm going off this accusation and the fact that I don't see you denying it. Correct me if I'm wrong or misinterpreting that since it seems directed at both the community and the instance.

What problems does my instance have? How is DJM astroturfing?

Here is his comment: https://infosec.pub/comment/22883460

He said that in response to me posting this article: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/24/us-accuses-american-of-allegedly-wiping-his-phone-using-a-duress-password-during-border-search/

I have no clue how he thinks that would be a fascist thing for me to post, and I have no clue why he would think any of my posts are fascist.

The overuse of the word "fascist" is what troubles me. People using that word simply because they are annoyed by something, cheapens the very real suffering that the real word is meant to describe.

Yes, I said that. Notice however it was directed at the community.

I don't have proof of astroturfing, and admittedly this might be something else I don't know the word for.

I have noticed the change is post activity from right wing conservative talking points that paint immigrants and minorities in a bad light to the posts they seem to make today.

They are both quite prolific posters which is dubious because as someone that has a hard time reviewing and checking the content that I post, I know it takes a lot of time and care to not post misinformation or to find a good source.

Their posts often do not contain any discussion or if they do, they often mock or ban the users that they disagree with.

They are constantly creating new communities which seems innocuous at first glance until you notice that every now and then the posts contain some bad source or content that is disparaging to minorities or human rights.

It almost feels like they are laundering a right wing authoritarian feed and trying their best to make sure it reaches the largest possible audience by "balancing" it with more normal content.

It seems suspicious and I hope other people are noticing or have time to research deeper. Most of my time is allocated to document human rights violations, help the people that need it in my IRL community, and my family so I won't be able to take this on myself.

How would anyone create an authoritarian feed on lemmy though? Simply block the poster, and you don't see their content. Authoritarian instances would get defederated almost immediately. Authoritarian and real fascist comments and content get banned almost immediately, as do the posters.

Do you honestly think that people on Lemmy are so weak-minded that they wouldn't notice a fascist article simply because someone posted a bunch of rueters news articles beforehand? I don't agree with that angle at all. No way would that trick work. I have more faith in Lemmy than you do, I guess.

I have never posted content that disparaged minorities or human rights in my communities. Have you ever actually looked in my communities or read the articles? Here are 3 full pages of my recent posts. Which of these articles in my communities slip in info disparage minorities or human rights?

It might have been an automated ban. They offered the possibility to contest it by DM to clear it if there was a mistake. Did you do that?

I say it because it might just been some automatic trigger and if discussed the ban might be removed. Or no. But I lack that info to make a judgement here.

This is off-topic, and I don’t want to get too far into the weeds here, but not all LLM use depends on large data centers or Big Brother Corporations.

Smaller open-source models can be downloaded and run locally on your personal computer. No connection to internet needed to use them. No corporate oversight. No surveilance, no overt control. They can also give users much more control over their own data, software, and hardware. The same resources use you are using just using your computer. These are the LLMs I use and advocate for.

Most of your issues about large-scale corporate AI don't apply to this local LLMs use. Local LLMs are just another tool that people can choose to use or not use. I share a lot of your concerns about massive BS corporate AI infrastructure, but these small, locally run models are a totally different thing.

It's just a tool. Some people use it for good. Some for bad. Like any other tool out there. You can build a house with a hammer. But you can also kill someone with a hammer. Humans are the real problem, not the tools.

This is good advice normally, but this mod has banned me from more communities that I've never interacted with than I have given them downvotes.

I think there is a larger play.

I don't actually care about the ban. I am warning others.

No automation needed. OP continues to call me a fascist and says I post fascist articles. Even in this thread. I have never posted anything fascist. Click on my profile to see my posts and let me know if you see anything fascist.

Here are 3 pages of my recent posts:

I agree that locally hosted FOSS llms and genAI models would be a better option than something like Anthropic's Claude.

But actually my largeest concerns are not alleviated by local hosting.

• Isolation of humanity
• severing of our ties to community
• increasing predictability
• method of control

And this is assuming that this facsimile of stolen human intelligence (all open source models were still trained on unauthorized human content) can have a low rate of error.

Even when fine tuning or using RAG, the rates of model collapse and catastrophic failure are very high. And those rates compound the more these "tools" are used in the same context windows.

Plainly put, it would be better to ask for help from a human than from a genAI.

Yeah, don't worry about that. I don't think you are posting fascist content.

But it always rubs the wrong way when a problem between an user and a mod becomes in a widespread ban from places the user have never ever interact with. Though it doesn't seem that the user would really want to interact in those communities anyway. So I don't know.

Plainly put, it would be better to ask for help from a human than from a genAI.

I agree with your idea, but reality is that many humans are shitty people. Or just ignorant. They have been long before AI, and will continue to be long after AI. Even in this very thread, comments have been removed just today and the mods here banned him from this community for his ugly transphobic behavior. And the poster admitted he just created the username today just to say that shit here. I'd take AI over that guy any fucking day.

I'm not arguing that you should like AI. Feel free to hate it. Feel free to boycott it. I'm just giving you some background about the nuance of it. Also, this is a pro-AI instance (concerning local llms, not coporate ones) that we're having this discussion on.

I get what you're saying. But here's the deal: I get accused of false shit like being a fascist, daily. For no reason other than people like to brigade and pile on, jsut because they see someone else say it. That's why you won't see any actual examples of my so-called "fascist" posts. Because there are none.

If someone insults me like that and doesn't back down, I'm gonna ban him from my little community. Don't get me wrong, people have the right and freedom to say any shit they wanna say about anyone. But I also have to right to ban for it.

Most of my haters hate me and all of my content, and all of my small communities anyway. Many don't block me or my communities just so they can come into them and downvote every single post. So it's no real loss to them when they get banned.

Even OP said he doesn't think it's a loss and that he doesn't care about my communities or the ban. But he still calls me a fascist. Which really cheapens that word and the very real suffering that that word represents, so I'll do my small part and not put up with it in my communities.

I was on the tesseract secret censor list,

Me too.

(Moving the discussion to a separate post.)

I got the pre-ban as well

Not from me and not in my communities. You're only banned in just two of my communities and both were after you did some serial downvoting. So you haven't been pre-banned by me at all, and you are not banned from my other communities because I see no serial downvoting from you in my other communities. OP was prebanned by me, you were not.

Thanks for clarifying, I wasn't sure since you used the word instance.

I get not having the time to look into it either, and neither do I.

From everything I've seen from DJM or Papa or any of the accounts accused of being him/them, I haven't come across anything overly right wing or authoritarian. That said, I probably see a sliver of their content since I don't follow the conservative community, but the few times I've interacted with them have been pretty civil.

Now, this isn't to say "They're nice to me and I haven't seen any evil, so it doesn't exist." All I'm saying is I haven't seen anything questionable and every time I get linked to damning evidence, it ends up pretty innocuous.

I don't think you can blame someone if there's no discussion around the content they post, like 75% of the articles I post get one or two comments at most. As for the mass posting, eh. Maybe they read fast like I do, because I usually speed through 10-20 articles every morning and post like 6-7 of them.

Early on in my lemmy days, I posted more varied articles and even had a Conspiracy Tuesday, but lemmings have a hard time differentiating the poster from the source. "Let's discuss this" vs. "This is my opinion." Now I have to state I don't agree with the source beforehand so I don't get angry comments, and even then...

I'm not saying that's what DJM was doing, just saying it's not cool to shoot the messenger.

However, if they are posting maga rhetoric and arguing in favor of it, I'd like to know.