I'm Calling For the Fediverse to Ban UniversalMonk
I'm Calling For the Fediverse to Ban UniversalMonk
Today I noticed a huge wall of spam from UniversalMonk from 2 different accounts and didn't initially think much of it and blocked their communities but more spam came from different communities.
At this point I checked and saw that they had created several communities which then led me down the rabbit hole to discover that their posts had almost entirely covered the new posts page of both sh.itjust.works and lemm.ee. Later on I discovered that they're posting right-wing propaganda and misinformation from breitbart, foxnews you name it.
He's already caused and stirred shit 2 months ago and clearly I can see why now.
At this point it's difficult to believe that UniversalMonk will learn proper netiquette in: not post spamming, being considerate to others, and not sharing right-wing extremist content that no one wants.
That mf is still around? And now they're spamming right wing nazi stuff, despite definitely for sure being a legitimate honest 3rd party Jill Stein Stan? My gosh, say it isn't so!
There is nothing for them to learn about "netiquette", they are a cancerous wart intentionally participating in bad faith with the entire fediverse.
And now they're spamming right wing nazi stuff, despite definitely for sure being a legitimate honest 3rd party Jill Stein Stan
I fucking knew it, I commented once that he was a secret MAGAt supporter spreading FUD and bLuEMagA crap. Looks like the mask fell and guess I was right lol
oh I always knew it- maybe a week or two after they started spamming, I caught them posting 3 or 4 times in the /c/conservative comm with some VERY overtly racist articles. They did a great job ignoring me when I started calling them out on it though, very strange.
Edit: Here it was, they spammed a bunch of stuff, including that one particular article in the middle about Oregon's housing assistance program being only for illegal immigrants (an outright lie that only existed for racist purposes):
I think UniversalMonk was a supporter of the PSL and claimed to have voted for Claudia De la Cruz.
You know, the woman who is FURIOUS that the US isn’t doing more to support Israel’s war in Gaza, and promised to rectify it and really give them the green light and finally get them all the weapons they need, if she won the presidency.(Edit: I was wrong about this. De la Cruz, as far as I can tell, opposes Israeli genocide and US support for it and supports Palestinian liberation.)
Like I say it blows my mind that he is still allowed anywhere on Lemmy. Not at all because I don’t think someone should be able to support the PSL, but because he is clearly lying for malicious reasons when he says that, among many other things.
When has Claudia De LA Cruz ever said that? As far as I know the PSL has been one of the main organizers for pro-palestinian protests in the US especially where I live along with the Palestinian youth movement. Claudia and her running partner usually at said protests. She is literally on canary mission a site used to try and silence anti-zionists. I know nothing about the person you and OP are talking about, but it seems you are just making stuff up about Claudia. If anything other than Jill Stein she was the ONLY pro-palestinian candidate(to my knowledge).
They are at best a one-person propaganda shop, and at worst part of a targeted influence campaign by other actors.
I've written many times on this user in the lead-up to the US election, when there was cumulative evidence they were spamming content meant to split the left vote. I welcome moderate or right-leaning good faith discussion, but this user is not that. They sealion any responses with canned / apparently-LLM-assisted non-answers to legitimate constructive comments and debate, apparently to drive up "engagement" on their posts. I've read probably 30 threads where this happened - they do not answer direct questions or engage in actual debate, but immediately go into "I'm a victim" mode and turn the debate into a performative martyred "oppression" by everyone else. Effectively every response by them I've read is a misdirection and nonsense.
My strongly held opinion is that they are a bad faith actor, no matter what their motive or tools actually are. They are literally the only Lemmy user I've come across that I can say, without reservation, deserves a perma-ban.
I think UniversalMonk is a real person with significant mental issues. Most of the influence campaign accounts have a consistent MO, and part of the game is low effort. They want to maximize the impact with as little investment of typing and thinking as possible, because they have however-many other accounts to run and they have a quota of comments they need to write. They just have a very particular way of interacting on Lemmy that doesn't change all that much from one account to another as far as I can tell. He tries way too hard to be a normal-pattern influence operation. I think his accounts take way more work than it would be worth it to spend if he were paid by the hour. It would also be better just to have 10 accounts and have his spam of posted stories get spread out among all 10 of them instead of all comes from one.
Whether UM is a right-winger who is deliberately trying in his own insanity-tinged way to sow discord and hurt the left, or he's sincerely pursuing some cartwheeling internal compass that I'm not privy to the details of, I don't know. But I think he's a real human who is representing himself more or less authentically. Not truthfully. But all this fanatical stuff he types up is in my opinion pretty authentic to who he is as a person, if that makes sense.
I didn't analyze his posting habits all that closely because I'm not obsessed with stalking and persecuting everyone who thinks differently from me, but it's always been apparent to me that he's a real person with ahem an unconventional belief system, to say the least. He seems to come from an era before the internet, when people didn't care as much what other people thought of them. Some people don't neatly fall into the buckets of left wing and right wing, as currently defined by the mainstream media. That's a good thing, imho.
As far as I can tell, he mostly just posts to communities that he created, and if OP wants to hunt around and subscribe to those communities and read the posts, that's their problem. He actually seems like a pretty nice guy imo, reminds me of my uncle who believes all sorts of wild conspiracy theories but is ultimately a stand-up guy in his daily life.
To address the alleged ban-worthy offenses directly @recursive_recursion@lemmy.ca:
post spamming
He can spam as many posts as he wants to the communities that he created, although 2-3 posts per day doesn’t even remotely qualify as spamming. If you choose to subscribe to them and refuse to block him, you have only yourself to blame.
[not] being considerate to others
Is it considerate to hunt through another users profile for reasons to permaban them from all of Lemmy? Is it considerate to LARP as a mod in service of a personal grudge? I think you could actually learn a few things about being considerate from Mr. Monk, he seems quite polite in most interactions.
not sharing right-wing extremist content
Fox News and Breitbart are not extremist content, they are mainstream news outlets regularly consumed by a frighteningly large proportion of the American population. It is what it is, I'm not happy about it either but you can't simply label everything you don't agree with as extremist content.
I will not be banning users simply because some of their beliefs could be described as right-wing. If those beliefs lead them to treat other users in a hateful or toxic manner, that's another story, but I see no evidence of that.
On the other hand, banning users for stirring drama and harassing other users is always an option. I don't like to ban anyone, but I would argue this kind of behavior is far more problematic than Monk's behavior.
Yeah, it's a common pattern with the "victim" crap. Same stuff I was just testing, actually. (Check my comment history with UM over the last day or so; re: define propaganda)
Very nonsensical responses, no discussion and just absolute crap posts. If it is LLM assisted, it's tuned to respond to people like they are hating on the acual article and UM. It's an easy formula: post a shit article and just argue with everyone about anything while assuming they are commenting against the post.
But I have met people just like that IRL and it usually comes with some serious mental disorders or poorly prescribed medications. (I am being extremely serious with that comment and no joke is intended, at all.) It's probably for that person's benefit to get kick-banned at all turns. Assuming it's actually one real person, social media is not where they need to be spending their time.
you have no proof for any of these claims.
It's very tempting to go back through your comment history, and drop a reply under every single comment that makes any kind of factual argument: "you have no proof for any of these claims", but life is short, so I won't. You can just imagine that I did, and post me a reply with the proof for all of it all together, if you like.
I wouldn't care so much if he wasn't such a removed about it. You want to post that stuff than own up and admit it. Fucking cryptofascist.
Here's the thing: without this thread, I might never have become aware of this user or their activities. Are you sure that what you're doing isn't counterproductive and giving them more undeserved attention?
Barbra Who???
I can see what you mean by that although for this case in an odd manner you actually want to highlight this problem.
This is another parallel system that was shown in this crazy GDC talk: 1,500 Slot Machines Walk into a Bar: Adventures in Quantity Over Quality
For background context Alex Schwartz and Ziba Scott launched premium mobile games to the Google Play Store in 2013 which unfortunately didn't "help in making our money back and being able to make enough money to make the next game". After having explored the storefront and finding nefarious apps and junk reskined clones everywhere they decided to intentionally flood the Google Play Store with junk slot machine games as a joke/experiment.
"There was a point in here that I don't think was drilled home as hard as it could have been which was... if people are sneaking by with garbage the thing that we did was to put a huge neon sign with an arrow pointing at ourselves and the garbage next to us; illuminating the entire underbelly of dark weird App Store shit and so the idea that if you do it at scale clearly they're(Google's) going to notice and clearly they're(Google's) going to change the terms of service slowly to ice you out.
Hopefully others went down with us in the wake of that. Like we provided the perfect targeted spot to drop the missile uh so hopefully, hopefully that helped get rid of duplicate apps that were also in the area."
I agree with you. In this case it's time to bring this up. I quietly blocked monk months ago because I was tired of seeing his shit in my feed, but I didn't want to bring attention to his inflammatory posts. But that clearly hasn't worked on a wider level. He's still posting sketchy stuff and annoying other people here. Sometimes you have to call people out and the wider community has to act, even at the risk of drawing attention to the problem users.
Eh, I just had a run-in with them again.
Trying to get every instance to ban them is a little crazy tbh, and I think you're right that their entire goal is a blend of trolling and misinformation.
It isn't crazy because they're acting in bad faith. It's crazy because just lemmy is already too big to try and organize a lemmy wide ban. Trying to get a fediverse wide one applied ain't happening.
Best you can do is report them for the spamming in the instances they do it on.
Best you can do is report them for the spamming in the instances they do it on.
I've made a separate comment here that explains why this might not work as they are the moderator for the communities that they created.
This fucker is still around eh? I remember him single-handedly sowing discord in c/politics around the time of the election with incessant pro 3rd party spam and insane tirades of sealioning - also report abuse if I remember right. Or at least taunting people into breaking rules and subsequently reporting them. I was amazed at the time that he was allowed to remain unbanned for ages in that sub when it was very clear what he was doing.
What's wrong with advocating for 3p vote?
Did the party komissars prohibit these discussions in DNC controlled subs?
It blows my mind that the admins of UniversalMonk-affected servers don’t just ban him on sight.
Guys: You’re being too nice. I get it, you want to be inclusive. But you have to draw lines. Someone doesn’t have to be telling racist jokes or something, in order to be clearly and unapologetically a net negative to the community in every possible sense. And, showing them firmly to the door doesn’t have to be a complex or “objective” process when that happens.
Nah, this whole trend to censor anything and everything that isn't exactly what you want to see is worse for the community.
I say leave him alone. I don't have him blocked. I don't ever see his content unless I actually do search to see what he's been up to (spoiler: he was a far right nutbag all along the end). Even IF he is spamming articles, that behaviour can be modded by communities he isn't modding for, and those he is modding for can be blocked. Hell if he pisses you off specifically you can block him yourself already! This isn't a community needs to step in issue.
How many of this comment do I need to respond to?
You guys aren’t even trying to make it make sense. Moderators blocked him, so he made new communities of his own. Then people blocked him and instances banned him, so he made new accounts. Now he’s showing up again for people who have taken the steps you describe. He is actively evading people’s attempts to not have to listen to him. He talks about how proud he is of himself for doing it.
In that case I also nominate @jimmydoreisalefty@lemmy.world who pretends to be left but posts an incredible amount of conservative propaganda and misinformation in all his little communities.
Ask them about Ukraine to get a good idea of what they stand for.
Everyone wanted to know how it would go for the "I just want people to support a 3rd party" folks after the election... Well, now you know!
Apologies I don't really understand what you mean by that
I'm guessing this is a referral to the US election?
I want to push back on this just a little. Clearly UM isn't the bastion of consistent good thought, but others that were maligned like return2ozma have been pretty consistent in what they post.
This is to say, "Great, one person is a fuckup. Why are we attributing this to the whole group?"
Becuase 3p vote is the threat to neo libaral regimes... They requires polarization and two choices to lock us into endless cultures warz lesser of two evils, trust me bro vote for my guy...
They DNC would rather you vote for Trump than 3p lol
Still here chief!
I agree with the sentiment but this here is not a complaints forum.
Please report that user and his communities to the admins of the instances he's registered at. A quick look at the sidebars of both sh.itjust.works and lemm.ee would suggest that their admins banning him is a slam dunk.
Maybe ask at !support@lemm.ee and !main@sh.itjust.works what to do?
On the grounds of !fediverse not being a complaints forum, I'm going to lock this post.
Why are we giving this person their stage again? How probable is it that the instance admins of the like 15 instances they have accounts on will all collectively ban him? It's just your average nazi spammer on the internet. You've read that "bio" this person has. Even if they get banned, they'll come back just on principle. Just block him like any sane person would do, leave him shadow banned like that with his nazi friends, and call it a day.
oh, that tard's still around? I blocked him months ago.
I can affirm my experience has been all the better for it, so yes, the rest of the fediverse should throw the Nazi out of the bar.
Seems like he does get banned frequently by mods, given he has like 10 accounts created on a number of servers in the past few months
Posting lying terrorist dens like breitbart or fox as news is ban-worthy on its own.
Jesus. Just openly demanding an echo chamber.
Based on the number of dislikes I have to imagine that someone out there might have made reports which were probably and unfortunately 'handled/managed' by UniversalMonk as that's how the current moderation system works:
Currently [as of Jan 12, 2025]
If a report is sent, both the community moderator(s) and admin(s) are able to see and handle the report.- This has the unfortunate side effect where if the moderator has no qualms and dismisses the report it can become unlikely that anyone would know what's going on.
The user who made the report might then unfortunately think that the admin(s) are condoning the post/content that's shared on their platform which might not actually be the case.
At this point I'm just going to ask that: if anyone has any posts or comments that they'd like to report, please feel free to also shoot me a Direct Message (DM). I'm going to preempt and say that while I can't promise that I'll respond immediately, I can at least guarantee that I'll reply back saying that I have seen your message.
Oh wow. UM really is just a malignancy that refuses to go away, isn't he? I'm all for allowing different opinions but if someone keeps peeing in the pool, sooner or later you stop letting him in.
Oh wow, that's the first time I've seen this person's userpage and read... whatever that is.
So fucking cringe.
I had actually forgotten about that guy. I blocked him a few months ago because I got tired of his incessant and biased spam.
100% if he is breaking the ToS on multiple instances (and I would argue that spamming most likely is, not to mention the substance of the content)
He can always create his own instance and anyone who wants to see his content can join it as well. Instance admins shouldn’t feel obligated to give anyone a platform (ahem, .world), the fediverse is decentralized and democratic.
And Amoxtli@thelemmy.club too while we're at it
Agreed.
“I’m from Texas! NATO is the absolute worst! Zelensky is corrupt! I’m from Texas! Trump is okay, I don’t see what the big deal is. I’m a socialist!”
Based on real events.
Edit: Actually, I should make clear. I don't think mods should be trying to ban all the propaganda accounts. There is too much grey area, it's impossible to do perfectly, and there is a real risk of censoring someone who is not propaganda but is just saying some unpopular thing. I do think that it's worth making fun of the propaganda accounts when they are laughably obvious.
I'm in the center. But as long as it's not illegal, then it's OK.
Also take note of !naziparty@lemm.ee aka "conservative"
Edit: !naziparty@sh.itjust.works and !naziparty@lemmy.world also
OK so you think every lemm.ee user is a nazi or something?
No but only few of them. I didnt see its users commenting getting mad everytime they see some news posts against the cons
And "NaziParty" did get almost all of their posts downvoted
I also see the communities with the same name in http://sh.itjust.works/ and http://lemmy.world/, all with the same users and downvotes
I'll drink to that!
from 2 different accounts
So ... block the all of the entire two accounts and be done with it?
Until he creates 3 more.
That also defeats the argument of banning him as he can just keep creating accounts
This is harassment directed towards one specific user.
If you find direct offense to their posts, you should let the instance admins manage that through reports. If there is many instances, do that many reports.
But this is basically fascist harassment. A witch hunt.
What, no one can dissent from your ideology? Is it that weak that it cannot and will not handle criticism?
The reverse applies as well. If you want, open your own instance echo chamber and talk to yourself.
So u want to silence someone for their beliefs. Let em speak and if u dont like it block em and downvote them.
Free speach does not mean u have a right to not be offended.
Sure, I'll take the bait. It's not at all an issue of his beliefs. Plenty of people on Lemmy think that we should vote for third parties, plenty of people on Lemmy think that... I don't know, I blocked UM so long ago that I can't even really remember what his beliefs were. I think he thought Biden was doing a bad job. I don't think that is some weird heretic belief on Lemmy that will get you banned. Nothing he had to say was ever the issue.
If every time someone gets on the bus, they sit down next to random other passengers and start pestering them about Jesus, loudly and without fail, no matter how much the person clearly doesn't want it, and then when multiple people tell them to stop, they start crying about religious discrimination, yell at the whole bus, say they won't be silenced, show up the next day with a whole backpack full of pamphlets about the first amendment, concoct elaborate disguises to be able to sneak back on the bus once one bus driver finally has had enough and bans them, all the while setting up this incredibly loud consistent whining sound about how they're being persecuted because of their Christianity, it was never about the Christianity.
You can be Christian on the bus. You can also be Jewish or Muslim. You can wear a headscarf, you can talk to your friends about Jesus, together on the bus. Likewise, you can be anti-Biden, or pro-Biden, or pro-socialist, or whatever you want to be, on Lemmy. When you become so incredibly obnoxious about your style of interaction that the entire community has agreed that you're causing a problem, and then instead of being open to feedback and continuing to say what you think, but in a fashion that is productive and respectful of everyone else, you instead double down and say you won't be silenced and send threatening DMs to your critics and start making a whole bunch of new accounts when you are banned from multiple places, it is time for you to go. Because you had your opportunity to tone it down and integrate within the social contract that makes the place function, and you explicitly and proudly chose not to.
Very astute response!
Sure, I'll take the bait. It's not at all an issue of his beliefs....Nothing he had to say was ever the issue.
Ok so what is the issue cos op hasnt seemed to have addressed it.
If every time someone gets on the bus, they sit down next to random other passengers and start pestering them about Jesus, loudly and without fail, no matter how much the person clearly doesn't want it, and then when multiple people tell them to stop, they start crying about religious discrimination, yell at the whole bus, say they won't be silenced, show up the next day with a whole backpack full of pamphlets about the first amendment, concoct elaborate disguises to be able to sneak back on the bus once one bus driver finally has had enough and bans them, all the while setting up this incredibly loud consistent whining sound about how they're being persecuted because of their Christianity, it was never about the Christianity.
I like ur metaphor it presents a very visceral image of a particular behaviour. Ur forgetting just 1 things lemmy has that a bus doesnt a magic button to make them disapear (the block button). Also nothing wrong with talking to anyone u want about anything u want thats how free speach works.
You can be Christian on the bus. You can also be Jewish or Muslim. You can wear a headscarf, you can talk to your friends about Jesus, together on the bus. Likewise, you can be anti-Biden, or pro-Biden, or pro-socialist, or whatever you want to be, on Lemmy.
U can also talk to anyone else u please about anything on this list or not on this list, it doesnt havr to be your friends.
When you become so incredibly obnoxious about your style of interaction that the entire community has agreed that you're causing a problem,
Free speach requires that u allow people to be obnoxious, as long as ur not calling for actionable violence i say let em speak.
and then instead of being open to feedback and continuing to say what you think, but in a fashion that is productive and respectful of everyone else, you instead double down and say you won't be silenced
Why should anyone be forced to change how they choose to express their beliefs. What if everyone in a neighbourhood decided that rainbow flags where obnoxious, that does not grant them the right to deny the gays there right to express their beliefs however the fuck they want. (So long as its not violent or callibg for actionable violence etc etc).
and send threatening DMs to your critics
If this is true which it quite probably could be then op should have started with this. Ill be in full support of instance bans if i can be shown verifyable proof this is true.
and start making a whole bunch of new accounts when you are banned from multiple places, it is time for you to go.
Thats how an open platform works good luck stopping it. Ie the technology of Activpub has made the capability to deny any individual their free speach impossible.
Because you had your opportunity to tone it down and integrate within the social contract that makes the place function, and you explicitly and proudly chose not to.
I hate the concept of the social contract. I was forced to sign it under duress (i didnt concent to being born etc etc). The politicians, the billionares, the dictators of the world, the thieves stealing food to survive, etc etc etc they have not integrated within the social contract. If there is no enforcement then why follow the rules?
I believe in a far simpler system that perfectly describes every system far better than the social contract. Darwinian evolution. Given that i would say its pretty arrogant to assert that following the social contract 100% of the time is always the most advantagious.
So u want to silence someone for their beliefs.
Allowing people to spout whatever nonsense and cause harm to others is reckless at best, ignorant and insane at worst. I'm old but not old enough to have dementia.
Free speach does not mean u have a right to not be offended.
The argument of free speech so hollow, I've seen it used by right-wingers as a rallying cry when in reality free speech is free yes but simutaneously it does not mean free of consequences.
He's in violation of our TOS and probably several others which reminds me @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone you'll want to see the last image with dumbass Zuck at the top
Allowing people to spout whatever nonsense and cause harm to others is reckless at best, ignorant and insane at worst. I'm old but not old enough to have dementia.
What words has he said that are cuasing harm. Because if it isnt calling for actionable violence then it isnt causing harm.
The argument of free speech so hollow, I've seen it used by right-wingers as a rallying cry
I didnt realise free speach was a right wing idea. I though free speach was a basic liberty of free independent people.
when in reality free speech is free yes but simutaneously it does not mean free of consequences.
Free to say as he pleases and get downvoted, judged, resonded to negatively.
He's in violation of our TOS and probably several others
What tos violations has he made? Im gonna assume innocent until proven guilty.
Speach lmao