this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2025

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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

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254

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

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

81 comments fedilink hide all child comments

@[email protected] 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:

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 week ago (5 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

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[–] jordanlund 35 points 1 week ago

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

But I can say, the Admins are aware.

[–] j4k3 31 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week 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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

I agree, they really do. I don't have too much hope for them otherwise. Even getting them to update their instance when it was on the broken 0.19.2 Lemmy version was like pulling teeth. They're ridiculously hard to contact. I was thankfully able to get that resolved but wow... I'm glad I didn't choose it as my primary instance.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago

Thanks. I hate typing on my phone.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week 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".

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Tomato, tomato.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (1 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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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago (7 children)

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

CC:

dbzer0 admins

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

lemm.ee admins

@[email protected] @[email protected]

lemmy.blahaj.zone admins

@[email protected] @[email protected]

beehaw.org admins

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

pawb.social admins

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

sh.itjust.works admins

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

discuss.online admins

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

lemmy.world admins

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

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.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week 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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week 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 15 points 1 week 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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week 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 18 points 1 week ago (1 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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ok that's good to know. I sure hope they do.

[–] Thekingoflorda 15 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Just a follow-up, they are now perma-banned. Thank you (:

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Me neither. If the mods don't respond to or address this issue by tomorrow I will begin advocating defederation from lemmy.sdf.org because if they aren't willing or able to moderate hate speech, then they aren't a safe instance to be on or be around.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah, seems like they need a spare emergency admin or two in different time zones. Hell, every instance that doesn't require approval to create communities needs those, imo

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

Most instances with a larger userbase really need to have a 24 hour team, "mods are asleep" should never happen on a server with a large userbase. The disruptions that can cause in cases like this are unacceptable.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It is a bad look for a non-profit that does some genuinely cool stuff.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah it definitely is. They should be way more attentive when it comes to moderation, as well as maintenance of their services. I still remember having to beg them to update from 0.19.2 to 0.19.3 because the instance was broken and not federating (couldn't even log in) it was so difficult to get them to do that. They did do it but it shouldn't have been anywhere near that hard.

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[–] jaybone 9 points 1 week 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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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Appreciated!

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week 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.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

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

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week 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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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago

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

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's a troll, and one of several I have seen over the last couple of days. There isn't much to go on now, but they could just be lost tankies or a single troll with multiple accounts that is just trying to get a rise out of people.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

My bets are it's a single troll. Most tankies don't go straight for transphobia.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week 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.

[–] Bonesince1997 11 points 1 week ago

I agree! I saw their posts and was disgusted.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thanks for the heads up.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

You are welcome. I'd recommend not looking at the local feed for a while.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Their comments and posts seem to have been removed from the parent instance now

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Nope. Still posting as of less than a minute ago. They may have earned an instance ban from your instance.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Either that, or they're blocking people that are talking about them.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (6 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.

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