I posted this meme to the Lemmy Shitpost community. I reckoned that it might generate a bit of debate, and would probably end up locked, but the entire post got deleted, and moreover, I'm now forbidden from sharing political posts to the community. Political posts are not against the rules of the community.

I have reason to believe that the post was deleted not because it was controversial, but because the moderator (Decoy321) disagreed with the political slant of the meme. The reason I find this suspicious is because other controversial posts, such as one about veganism remains up, and Decoy321 seemed to enjoy the fact it was controversial:

Flyingsquid has been inactive for a year now

No shit show in the community with "shit" in the name!!1!

[...] because [...] disagreed with the political slant

no shit.

But that's kinda the thing with discussing politics online... Usually ends with some flame war.

I had a quick look through and pretty much every moderator on that community has almost no activity recently, I wonder if they're using their accounts for moderator action only, and participating on another account.

It was Decoy321. Says so right in your modlog.

The thing is, it wasn't even that bad. People were disagreeing, but for the most part, it wasn't too bad from what I saw. Only one comment was deleted for incivility prior to the entire thread getting nuked.

I don't see it, what am I missing? Can you share a screenshot and I'll add it to the post?

I 100% agree with the mod comment. Seems to me this has to be considered top tier shit as well.

How dare you shitpost in the shitposting community. Your post is exactly the kind of thing I like to see there.

I agree, the mod probably didn't like the political message.

You should stick to Lemmy Shitpost.

Be One Of Us!

you angered the libs by pointing out they're fascists.

the meme is still up in !anarchymemes@anarchist.nexus, so they can mald about it there.

They might be using an app. Some of them show a more detailed modlog.

Something something it’s more dignified to be killed by blue, just don’t post in .world, help grow other servers

That helped, thank you! I looked at the API request directly in raw JSON, and I can confirm it was indeed Decoy321.

Someone has to get dirty rolling around in the trenches with the hogs, gotta burst their bubble occasionally. But yep, you're right.

Nah I reported your post too. Stop spamming US internal political shit in the shitpost community. Keep that to a US politics community

Thanks for sharing and being honest and I totally get it, but don't you think that should be a rule that's fairly and equally enforced, not just applied to posts that the mods personally disagree with?

Yeah fair point, it definitely should be applied equally and its not right if its only subject to mods' opinions. I really wish the community would ban political posts entirelyi need some reprieve from the doom

Using the summit app.

PTB

Good meme :)

I'll be honest. Even as an anarcho-communist, I don't care for these kinds of political reductions.

However, given that it's a shitposting community, seems like lost-nuance is kind of part and parcel to the spirit of the community (which is why I don't go there). I'd call this PTB.

No problem.

PTB, as they say. If you scratch a liberal, a fascist bleeds.

"you've started quite a shit show"

well excuse you for not assuming a shitpost community would be such a refined and gentlemanly establishment 🤣

The problem with banning politics is determining what's considered political. Not long ago divorce, adoption, abortion, nazis, and women wearing pants were hot topics. Now it's immigration, abortion and nazis again, and queer folks wearing skirts.

I'd rather endure some of that doom and gloom through a shipost than the rapid onslaught of panic-inducing headlines.

This meme below got removed a few days ago. I think if you post anything controversial that rustles enough jimmies to make people rage-cry report you, they just remove the post rather than deal with angry nerds.

Or they just really hate trains, the jerks!

Edit: Same mod

down with trains!

*This message was written by big unicycle

You are now a moderator of c/lemmyshitpost

Old-school internet forums usually did that. Not sure about all the nuance and specifics to meme groups... Just saying it's not a generally impossible thing, or a new idea.

PTB!

Bruh, I criticized the two-party system, and admitted I voted third party (Socialist Party) in the 2024 presidential election. Lemmy is STILL pissed off about it and says I'm a Trumper--all because I didn't vote Democrat.

More and more people are starting to realize a 2-party system sucks, but damn, Lemmy ain't their yet.

You marked for life now, dawg! Good luck! LMAO

(Oh and fuck you Lemmy, I'm gonna vote third party in the next election too. :) )

Before long, people are gonna accuse you of being me. lol

Yeah I've been fending off those freaks like they're extras running at me one at a time in a kung-fu movie with bad takes. I'm not even American, I wasn't eligible to vote in the 2024 election, but because I criticized Joe Biden/Kamala Harris, that must mean I just fuckin LOVE Trump.

Not saying it hasn't been done, I'm saying it's hard to do well. I've seen "women's issues" and "pronouns" included under "politics," in old-school and new forums, which is why I'm hesitant to agree with no-politics rules.

Wouldn't be surprising, liberals usually resort to making bad faith accusations when they don't have anything to counter with.

Hear me out. A monorail made solely of unicycles strung together. Win-win!

Welcome to Reddit, but mostly bots.

I mean, that's why we are against train. With train tracks, we can have 2x density, with bidirectional traffic.

Unicycle or bust

I disagree with your meme, especially during primary season, but I still upvoted because I think everyone should be able to post their "controversial" memes.

lowkey ur first mistake was participating in a shitpost community lmao

edit: ptb obviously

I am not able to comprehend people criticizing voting for third party. What is the meaning of vote if you cannot select a candidate of your choice?

PTB

That was a great post!

Sure. I'd consider them politics as well. Those are all topics with a very high chance someone comes along with some (weird) opinion and makes the discussion derail. And then everyone stops discussing the scifi computer game or Linux, and homes in on the controversial topic with a lot of feelings involved.

I think the big cultural achievement is: Forum members have all agreed to live a certain culture. They do it together and there's some group cohesion and a pre-made agreement to all pull in the same direction. So what I've seen a lot of work isn't done by the mods, but people all identify with the rules and the next random person will step in and state "it's getting political again", and then everybody else is cautious not to add to the drama.

I think we lost that with social media. And there's also less group cohesion here. So we end up handling it out of band, mods have to delete posts. Plus we regularly have to peck out the rules again and again... I mean it's not as bad as my words make it out to be. And this isn't entirely down to design and hierarchy. But also group dynamics changed, there's more regular people online than some 15 years ago instead of nerds amongst themselves. And I think politics became way more polarized.

Ultimately, it's all part of our lives. There's obviously demand to discuss politics, pronouns, the crazy setup US Americans call a political system... And I think they're all valid topics. We just have to figure out a way to make it work. Which isn't easy. But I think the Fediverse is up to something. Our basic idea allows us to customize the experience, steer clear of some things or dive down... I think we just have to strike some balance and put in some more work because politics is such an all-consuming topic. And we're a bit of a diverse crowd here. Which is a good thing. But also makes certain things more difficult.

The person who comes along with their disruptive opinions should be moderated, not people who simply exist. Being a woman or having chosen pronouns isn't dramatic.

If someone is uncomfortable with a topic they can simply disengage and start their own thread on their chosen subject.

It's either accept that no one agrees on what's considered political, or have firm rules about subjects that can and can't be discussed.

Exactly my thoughts! It's finally becoming more common to think like this on Lemmy now, but holy hell... in 2024 many Lemmy's legit wanted to crucify people who thought like this. And they still follow me around and regularly ask that I be banned from the entire fediverse!

I'm not going anywhere tho. :) And I'm so proud of how mad they got, I put their comments and posts in my profile banner:

Yep, exact same kind of comments I was getting

Hmmh. I think I largely agree... There's definitely a red line. Things like disrespecting people is unacceptable. That's what misgendering and questioning pronouns is largely about. And people trying to walk the line and other kinds of behaviour are highly problematic. And done to hurt people. On the other hand I sometimes wish there was a way to communicate. With a bit less strict (hierarchical) rule based systems to enforce some kind of fairness (to the letter), and instead a bit more good faith conversation. I think in that kind of context mistakes, or dissent, or even wrong or offensive stuff would be way more approachable.

(Edited, removed some paragraphs.)

I’m not going anywhere tho. :) And I’m so proud of how mad they got, I put their comments and posts in my profile banner:

Based :)

Great meme, PTB.

FWIW, I sprayed some holy water their way.
It was great following your rhythm that day.

🔗