4d ago

"Anti-AI trolls," transphobia, fun stuff

Okay so here's what happened.

There is a mod of some AI-generated image forums who has been slinging out bans for "anti-AI trolling" to people who have never participated in their community, apparently more or less at random. Full disclosure, I am one of those people, and I'm confident I have never done any anti-AI trolling.

Apparently the justification for this is that other people are being aggressively hateful to this mod, coming in and being incredibly abusive, transphobic, insulting her for alleged alcoholism and making fake pictures of her and generally just being horrible. Conveniently, one of these people showed up in the thread where we were talking about it, on cue, and started slinging around horribleness which provided a convenient cover for people to say "And THAT's why we have to be really strict with the bans!" type of things. We never really got to the bottom of what the connection was between that and the random bans to other people who were longstanding accounts that didn't seem to be doing any of those things.

Anyway, now another abusive alt of the (now obviously bannned) abusive alt that originally stirred up trouble has made a pitch-perfect effort to inflame divisions and create a balkanization between the "pro AI" people, centered around dbzer0 (edit: ~~and blahaj~~), and "anti AI" people, centered around everywhere else.

This is two identical posts, made to two separate communities which are guaranteed to have totally opposite takes on it based on their different levels of information about the issue, which will then lead everyone to assume that the other community is just being horrible about it on purpose when they draw different conclusions:

(Edit: The troll has now been banned, so I can't link to their posts anymore. Just imagine this post, except made by one of the trolls who are featured in the comments of that post, you can dig in the modlog or in spoiler text of some other comments to see some of what they were saying. Anyway, the troll posted the exact same complaint about being "unfairly" banned both to lemmy.world, where they got tons of sympathy and upvotes, and to dbzer0, where people who were aware of what they were up to gave them derision and downvotes.)

Like I said, if the goal is to create division and heated argument between two opposing "camps," this is pretty much as perfect as you can get it. I expect it to work, at least to a certain amount, to get people embittered towards one another and arguing about the issue impassioned that the other side is wrong and stupid.

I can't find the link right now, but there was someone on reddit who claimed that they used to do this professionally (trying to disrupt online communities so that organized shilling could succeed better there, because the previous coherence that they had had had been replaced by confusion and bickering, and then they could insert bullshit without it being pushed back on as strongly.) It's fascinating. What they described isn't exactly like this, but it definitely sort of rings similar to me. Just to throw that out there.

Also, UniversalMonk is involved, because of course he is.

Edit: Fun with grammar

63 comments

Hang on, you're telling me I can be randomly banned from AI communities?
How do I get my name on the list for sure? I don't want to have to just hope the randomness gods smile on me.
- You could just block them you know.
  I have no interest in communities dedicated to female celebrities. When they started cropping up, I blocked them (well until I found out it was mostly one user creating the communities and then posting to them, so I just blocked them, but... Same result).
  Its pretty easy, about two clicks typically.
  
  I was hoping I wouldn't need to do any work and the AI people would just automatically save me from them.
  Guess AI disappoints yet again...
  
  You could just block them you know.
  Amazing how many on Lemmy refuse to do that, and instead just complain. lol

Also, UniversalMonk is involved, because of course he is.
Ugh, the cancer of the fediverse
- They are not so bad.. mostly harmless
  
  I guess that depends on how much you like cancer, and how harmless you think cancer is…
  
  okay ml

The dbzer0 admins and users are definitely creating a problem where there is none, even if there are some anti-AI trolls.
Take a look at this thread where a dbzer0 user was harassing people and using a handful of accounts to manipulate votes: https://lemmy.world/post/32430859
Multiple admins and users came around to start shit about anti-AI when the problem had absolutely nothing to do with that at all.

Yeah, I was one of the ones banned from a number of AI communities despite not engaging with them really on my old Lemm.ee account. With UM involved, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised :) Sounds like just the sort of shit he'd have a hand in stirring up and just the way he'd do it.
- With UM involved
  I'm not involved though. I have nothing to do with it. Someone saying, "universalmonk is involved!" doesn't make it real. Please provide any proof that I have anything to do with what OP is talking about. I'm not the mod of the community OP is talking about, nor the person posting that OP is talking about. I've commented on comment about the issue, as many are doing here right now, but I have nothing to do with the actual issue.
  
  So, to me it's weird that there's such a large number of people (probably over 50% of the responses) that reacted to this by saying that it makes perfect sense. That's strange to me, I want to understand it, and I don't really. One possibility though like I mentioned is that people are deliberately trying to stir up shit between the instances for whatever reason. And then, out of the couple dozen people who happened to weigh in, up pops up your username, and you have a history of dishonest participation and trying to stir up shit. That coincidence is notable to me. Doesn't necessarily mean it means anything, it's just interesting. That's what I was saying.
  Sorry if you took some (reasonable) offense to me calling you out by name. If it helps you understand it, maybe you could imagine that I changed my profile to say that I'm known for my defiant stand against weird bad-faith participation, and I'm still standing proud and won't be silenced!

Ten USD says any criticism of AI is being lumped in with the actual trolling.

The latest anti-AI alt made purely to harass Mystic seems to be banned and their content removed, so the links are broken, FYI.
Edit: Also your quotes around anti-AI trolls - which they literally are - is definitely putting a spin on the reality here. Makes me think your ban was entirely appropriate.
- Just saw your edit. When did MigratingApe do any anti-AI trolling? The whole point here is that random people are getting caught up in this who are objectively not doing anything remotely related to anti-AI trolling, hence the quotes.
  
  Except there are plenty who are doing the trolling, and the quotes are dismissive of it entirely. Despite you noting that there are in your other comment.
  When did MigratingApe do any anti-AI trolling?
  I have no idea, nor do I care to investigate how a mod handles things on a small community.
  Here are a few things we do know:
  There are trolls harassing AI comms
  Most of them come through and downvote heavily, or...
  using a readily available tool to coordinate across multiple accounts, mass downvote. Appearing as a single downvote per account.
  Some people mod multiple small communities, and will ban across all of them. Best idea? Eh, maybe not, but its their comm. People can always make another, thats kind of a major point of Lemmy isn't it?
  The fact that there are people, such as yourself, getting so riled up over being banned from a community they claim to not have any interest in is also odd. Why would being banned from a community you dont care about even matter?
  But let's not pretend there aren't trolls when there clearly are. This also isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened.
  Some people are just shitty. Banning and blocking are handy tools for that.
  
  Are these “people getting caught up in this” in the room with us now?
- Oh. IDK why I didn't see that coming.
  Anyway, the post before it was deleted was more or less a carbon copy of this post, except that it was made by one of the trolls, who actually do deserve to be banned. And so, all of lemmy.world took a look at that and said, "Yeah that's messed up they shouldn't ban you for no reason," and all of dbzer0 took a look at that and said "But you're clearly a twat so of course they banned you, YDI". I don't know if the two camps had a chance to have each notice the other and start fighting, but people are already talking in these comments about a reason to block all of dbzer0 as a result, which I think was exactly the kind of intended response for this to generate.
  
  people are already talking in these comments about a reason to block all of dbzer0 as a result, which I think was exactly the kind of intended response for this to generate.
  Probably their goal, yes.
  except that it was made by one of the trolls
  Yep, I'm aware of the posts, I just wanted to point out two things - that they were deleted so no longer a good reference, and the quotes around anti-AI trolls - which as you say, there absolutely are, and were in that original thread you linked - comes across as dismissing the idea that they exist.

I want to know what I did to be marked as an anti-AI troll. There are specifics in what trolling is imo so I'd like to know more, maybe even defend myself.
- Not the mod, but if you've ever down voted with no other interaction, my guess would be that. Or timing of a downvote coinciding with a bunch of others from other accounts, again as a singular downvote.
  There is a tool which will coord down votes across multiple accounts, which is helping some trolls - notably the anti-AI trolls mentioned - coordinate mass down votes to try to avoid detection.
  
  Louder for the people in the back
  "Downvoting (a single vote) on its own does not constitute trolling"
  Its literally participating in the fediverse whether you cry over karma or not.
- A couple of people who were banned asked about that, and there wasn't really an answer. IDK if this post is the right place for it, it sort of seems like it's walking up to that line of breaking the community rules by being the drama instead of posting about the drama, but yes it seems like a reasonable question to ask to me.
  
  I'll dig into the posts a bit more and see if I can jump on a thread.

Weirdly this coincides with some drama on Reddit on r/trans, no time to do a rundown but the mods of both r/trans and r/AnarchyChess mentioned seeing an uptick in subscribers right before some of the r/trans mods decided to suck again.

I just blocked their whole instance the other day.
The only community I went to was the one to complain about mods, but they don't let anyone complain about a couple of instances/topics that the mod/admin agrees with.
The whole place is pointless and if they're not trolling intentionally, they're doing it because they're addicted to drama
- I just blocked their whole instance the other day.
  Yeah, see, this is what I was talking about with this whole thing being to gin up pointless drama.
  db0 is clearly fine. Being overtly "pro AI" makes them a little anomalous on Lemmy, but it's whatever, they have sensible reasons for it and it is fine. This kind of slap fight developing can lead to this balkanization where now one person is the "enemy" but no actually it's this other person that's the "enemy" for some stupid kind of reason, and now no one is getting along because they're all in little tribes that mutually hate one another.
  
  I just don't want to see shitty AI pics, and that's like the majority of their community.
  A sprinkling of "how does a torrent work" and an incredibly biased place to complain about certain kinds of moderation, but it has a huge moderation bias itself...
  I'm fine on all that
  They're not "my enemy" I just don't want to interact with them

Man, someone going around harassing mods by making 'fake pictures' of them.
Gee, I wonder what they could possibly be using to make those fake pictures, huh.
Glass houses.
- Next you'll be telling this mod isn't actually an unhinged alcoholic foot fetishist loser or whatever else they accused her of...
  (I feel like asking for ideological consistency of the trolls is asking way too much, they're just not operating on that level even)

Also, UniversalMonk is involved, because of course he is.
How am I involved?! I have nothing to do with this drama. I'm not the mod of those communities, nor am I the person complaining about any of it.
Only thing I've done is vote and comment in the !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com community where the issues first came up.
Thanks, friend! :)

"pro AI" people, centered around dbzer0 and blahaj,
Jesse what the fuck are you talking about
- Yeah, maybe I was wrong. I thought there were some blahaj people in the grouping that was saying "yeah this makes total sense" but I don't see it looking back now. Maybe it was in the deleted threads or maybe (more likely) I entirely hallucinated it, I'll remove that part.
  
  Idk, it's entirely possible that there's one or two of them on here, but from what I've seen it's definitely not the majority opinion, that's all I'm saying.

So lazy to use AI to try to change public opinion.
Real trolls use memes.
Good work sniffing this out, I'm done with blahaj so I was only seeing the db0 side
People should know and remember there are always troll campaigns being ran in most social media spaces with any significant user base.
A couple of other current campaigns I've noticed across social media:
an ongoing attempt to frame antizionism as antisemitism
terfs attempting to sow division between trans people and the LGB part of the LGBTQIA+ community.
terfs attempting to sow division between trans men and women
- Yeah. It is hard to tell the difference between people just being dysfunctional in a way that will cause pointless strife because they are dysfunctional, and people being dysfunctional in a way that will cause pointless strife because they are planning out how to cause pointless strife. I do agree with you that my guess is that at least some of it is that second thing.
  It's sort of mind-boggling to me that no one involved in this "in authority" on the dbzer0 side seems responsive to the idea that this is a bad idea, will make their instance look bad, and also won't do anything to solve the harassment of the mod (will in fact make it worse).
  But whatever ¯ (ツ)/¯
  
  Db0 has been making some questionable moderation decisions recently

There was someone who talked about this in fedilore a few weeks back, but they got dismissed because everyone thought it was an isolated incident. Those people look stupid now in my opinion.

I want this superpower; I’m too honest though

63 comments