This was in Lemmy world politics.
this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2024
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Ye Power Trippin' Bastards
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This is a community in the spirit of "Am I The Asshole" where people can post their own bans from lemmy or reddit or whatever and get some feedback from others whether the ban was justified or not.
Sometimes one just wants to be able to challenge the arguments some mod made and this could be the place for that.
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Wait, what? FlyingSquid seems fine. In the only drama I saw involving them, it seemed to me like they were in the right. I asked someone who was all heated up about what a POS they were for some details or examples, and literally all they could come up with was a single un-called for message FlyingSquid sent to one user months ago, which for a full-time moderator means they're way ahead of the curve.
Edit: Maybe I should ask for examples, what did FlyingSquid do?
FlyingSquid has a tendency to threaten moderator action in response to arguments they're heavily involved in, which often comes off as a last-ditch effort to 'win'.
Well, that's not ideal. Have they actually taken action on it, though? If it's just getting heated in an argument, that definitely seems not as bad as handing out bans for misspelling "Palestinian" or talking about jury nullification.
I got a three day temp ban after providing examples and further context disproving their arguments.
Usually I think they aren't that bad, but they do sometimes lose their cool on sensitive subjects.
You're talking about the exchange featuring your statements "The victim gave consent (as far as a 12-year old can do that of course). She in fact started self-harming because he got convicted and still does not regret or feel bad about the encounter." and "According to the case notes, the attraction was mutual. He did not have to coerce her, by her own statements. It's why he wasn't convicted of grooming. Seriously, do at least a modicum of research." Right? That's the only time I see that anyone moderated you. Also, it wasn't FlyingSquid that gave you that ban. They were just arguing with you, and then I think someone else banned you for your statements.
Here's what Wikipedia says about Steven van de Velde:
This is, to me, yet another example of FlyingSquid doing absolutely nothing wrong, and then people spreading rumors about how they're terrible.
Hmm, I must have misread the modlog then. I thought I swore I got a message from them stating I was banned.
Just to clarify (without getting into it any further), that guy was convicted for rape (never disputed that) but explicitly cleared of the grooming charge, because there was nothing in their exchanged messages that suggested grooming at all. The broader argument was that this guy is definitely a total fucking idiot who should have known so much better, but he didn't have the characteristics of some precalculating serial child rapist or something. The case details is also why he was convicted of a lesser charge in the Netherlands. He took all the necessary steps (therapy, avoiding solo contact with kids despite being cleared by therapists, etc...) to avoid this from happening again. I challenged his "irredeemability" that was present in that thread, which is a very accepted view in the Netherlands but not so abroad. Possibly because whilst Dutch sources have a lot of the details of the case, the English sources are much less in-depth.
I don't really have any other grievances against FS btw. They can be a bit headstrong and combative at times, but I don't know much else about them.
For what it's worth, I don't think you should receive a temp ban for those statements. I think you are wrong, but I don't think we need to remove every wrong statement from the comments to keep them as "correct" comments only. I think people can say things, and we can just all talk to each other, and it's okay. There are some things that I think should be banned from the comments: Misrepresenting why you are saying what you're saying, or deliberately egging on a confrontation, or using multiple accounts to create a false consensus. But almost any real individual who's just saying what they think and why, I think is okay.
The point that I'm making about FlyingSquid is that the way you told the story was that you argued with them, you were right and they were wrong and you demonstrated that with evidence, and then they banned you. Then, looking into the facts, nothing remotely similar to that happened in any respect. That's the pattern I've consistently seen about people who are critical of FlyingSquid's moderation. I don't know why that is, although I have a theory that because they are generally on point about moderating certain types of toxic individuals, there's a whisper campaign by certain toxic individuals trying to paint them as some particular type of bad moderator even if the facts don't support it.
It's not even all that hard to misconstrue some event that happened into some huge malicious deal that it isn't, as you just discovered.
I wonder if perhaps FS has a higher tendency to use the report button, triggering moderator action more often than average? Even if it's justified it could create the appearance that comments in discussion with him are removed more often than average.
Perhaps it would help if the mod log was more visible, e.g. if a comment gets deleted and the user banned, it could show the given reason and the moderator's handle for transparency.
FS has a bad habit of engaging in fruitless arguments, often devolving into outright flamewars.
Haven't seen any questionable mod action myself and I tend to think any objections spring from these, though I do think it's a behaviour unbecoming a moderator.
It's usually just best to stop engaging.
Yes, absolutely. If you support all your claims with good sources, maintain a civil demeanour, and clearly hold the superior argument he will go through your entire history to find something, anything, to justify action no matter how irrelevant or ancient the reason.
Can you give an example?
If you're that interested just go through his comment history. He's not shy about doing the same in his comments. Usually it is just a thinly veiled threat.
Edit: Found a good example
That's not really handing out a ban, though. That was my question on "taking action" about it. Talking in comments is different.
I'm curious to see if this is in response to him "losing" the argument, or if it's in response to someone being personally hostile to him, and him pointing out that if they're doing that to other people they may get moderated for it. Most of what I've been seeing that is summarized as the first thing is actually the second thing.
Check the mod log. I'm sure the user had something done to them. He's that petty.
What you're saying sounds to me a bit like one can break community rules if mods won't notice right away. If community rules were broken, I don't think it matters much if it happened right now or earlier. Besides, I would also expect that someone breaking the rules will not argue in good faith.
So, to me this example doesn't prove what you imply.
Nah, you assume the unreported 'transgressions' were valid to begin with despite the fact he outright admits he went digging for something. It's obviously looking for an excuse to get back at someone. Regardless, even the appearance of childish behaviour by mods taints their community and it is disappointing how desperate people are to excuse someone with such a glaringly apparent pattern of abuse.
I'm not sure if they actually have. I know they've publicly called people out for reports which isn't great, and have made threats based on reporting content multiple times, something that isn't possible in lemmy, the content in question at the time was spam.
Yeah, that's the one un-called for message I talked about. It's not ideal but everyone swears there are all these examples of FlyingSquid doing much worse, and then if I ask for examples, it's either that one message, backpedaling from the earlier claims, or else it's something that when I look at it is a wild mischaracterization of something perfectly reasonable.
I’ve seen FS straight up lie when banning people, making up excuses etc. For a period they even followed me around commenting on nearly everything I did trying to harass me until I called him out and the “coincidental” replies magically stopped.
FS is worse than JL from every interaction I’ve had with eirher. JL I can see having a bit of common sense and maturity.
Can you show me some examples?
Not without spending time digging through his post history. Which after working so many 12 hour days this week I am in no mood to do.
I’m not here to make people take my side, this is simply my opinion of him based on my year of interactions.
Fair enough. I think I can just search for the following you around behavior you described, and take a look at it and see how it seems to me.
Not that I’m doubting you necessarily, but there is some pretty wild revisionist history in these comments, all of it not matching the evidence on examination and all of it pointing to exactly the same conclusion, which is pretty weird. So I’d like to look for myself.
Not on my quokk.au account i don’t think, may have been my old kbin or sh.itjust.works if that helps.
I don’t know why you’re so invested in trying to whitewash FS, but what makes you think you trying to discredit the many experiences with others is going to change anyone’s mind about the worst mod on Lemmy? Your opinion on the experiences of others doesn’t mean shit.
That's a funny way of spelling "I don't have any examples."
Guy never admits he's wrong, ever. And I love the fact that he's married with a kid and seems to be online 24/7.
And they're arguably wrong a LOT. Not only that but everything is always black and white with them, there is no grey area or different perspectives possible.
As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding.
I think he's partially disabled or something, which is how he has so much free time. I feel like he's said something like that, or that he has some kind of chronic condition.
Which is no excuse for having shit netizen behavior.
Yeah. I haven't seen FS abuse his power, but man he will just be clearly in the wrong side of an argument and refuse to admit it. Not somebody I enjoy having a debate with, but he keeps his personal disagreements separate from his mod role, and I respect that.
Yeah, my interactions with FlyingSquid have been fine, but then again, I've never interacted with them in their mod role.
I'm against the genocide in Palestine, and sometimes comment that way.
From what I've seen FlyingSquid tends to be quite fair when moderating, doesn't abuse the mod tools and is quite respectful and civil outside of the mod role. On occasion I've had disagreements and civil arguments with squid, and not once has the hammer been used as a conversation-ending argument.
Jordan however....
I've asked people over and over for a single example of FlyingSquid doing this. Only one person has responded, and that was with an "example" where neither the argument with FlyingSquid nor FlyingSquid being the one that banned them was truthful. This is one of the reasons I think this is a deliberate attempt to start destructive rumors about him.
Edit: Someone else has now given an example. They had said that someone was, among other things, a "fucking shitwit," "self righteous piece of subhuman filth," "a fucking idiot," "fucking brain dead," "your argument is stupid and you deserve what the republicans are gonna do to you," and that they "hope it’s painful and prolonged." Then they got a three day ban, and then said the ban was a way for FlyingSquid to wield his mod powers to "win" the argument against their clearly superior position.
There's a firmly held belief by a certain segment of the community that everyone on Lemmy is liberals who will ban you if you are anti-genocide. Everyone on Lemmy is anti-genocide. Complaining that it's full of these liberals and pro-genocide people is just a way to do some aggrieved whining whenever someone is disagreeing with some total nonsense. "We need to hate on Biden because genocide" "Yes but Trump is ten times worse" "Oh I see, you're one of those pro-genocide people trying to censor me" is roughly how it goes.
I’m gonna quote that, just because it’s so fucking stupid and I think it needs emphasis to show how disconnected you obviously are.
Most people are anti-genocide. I think many people do not agree on what genocide is. There's a large segment of people who believe Israel is in a perpetual existential crisis, surrounded by countries full of people who think Israel shouldn't exist and that pretty much goes for Jews in general; and that Israel is merely defending itself. Personally, while I do agree that Israel is surrounded by a lot of people who don't think it should exist, I also believe this does not justify their (collective) behaviors: the settlements, and the genocide in Palestinian.
So the person you replied to was, I think, saying that most people oppose Genocide, many disagree on whether what Israel is doing is genocide, and a few would like to see some ethnic and/or cultural groups entirely eradicated. I agree with GP that the last group is relatively small.
Maybe I should have said "99%", I have seen some overtly pro-Israel users. They're pretty few and far between, though. The vast majority of the time, it's someone using a lazy strawman to attack someone by pretending they like genocide, instead of dealing directly with what they're saying.
Can you link me to some examples of defense of genocide? I can pretty much guarantee you that whatever example you send me is not going to be a defense of genocide, it's just going to be some opinion you disagree with which you are pretending implies support for genocide, so you don't have to engage with what it actually says.
No, what you can promise me is that you’ll attempt to rationalize it as something it’s not, the same way you’re going to great lengths to try to whitewash FlyingSquid. The problem with that is, you’re just some random idiot on Lemmy, and I don’t care if you’re delusional or not, so I don’t see why I should take that kind of time debating you. I don't care if you agree with me or not, so there’s no benefit in it for me whatsoever.
You messaged me, man. There wasn't benefit for you in typing up your opinion in the first place, either. If you're willing to spend time yelling about how it is, but not willing to demonstrate how it actually is when asked questions about it, then I'm going to draw the obvious conclusion.
I made the post to point out how stupid your argument was. My message wasn’t for you, it was for everyone else, so that we can laugh at you. The idea that Zionists, who support a right-wing European ethnostate whose government leaders are on record supporting genocide on social media for years, would not support a genocide is MAGA levels of utter stupidity. To the point that I wonder how you even tie your shoes in the morning, because clearly you are incapable of smashing your two brain cells together hard enough to jog out a worthwhile thought.
That’s the benefit for me in that last post. I’m making fun of an idiot. In the same vein, you can’t educate idiots, so why would I bother humoring you in your vain attempt at pretending you have a rational bone in your body?