this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2025
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[–] [email protected] -4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (16 children)

How do I actively subvert people blocking me? I've always advised people to just block and/or ignore me.

I'm only across multiple instances because rather than block me, people petition admins to ban me from entire instances. Sometimes they are successful, sometimes not.

But the beauty of the fediverse is not one group of people or individual can silence you.

If I really wanted to subvert people blocking me, I'd come up with alternative usernames rather than keep the same one across instances.

Feel free to look up my posts and tell me if you see anything controversial. I post links to news articles that aren't anti-Trump. That's it. No racism. No bigotry. No advocating violence. Just news articles from major news orgs.

But people don't want to just block me, they want me to disappear because they don't like alternative voices breaking echo-chambers:

[–] pebbles 3 points 5 days ago (15 children)

So are you only on your own instance now with just that account? So that another instance could defederate if they want and be done? That sounds fair to me if so.

I think its reasonable for an server to decide they don't want you around anymore.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (13 children)

So are you only on your own instance now with just that account?

Nope. I am on other instances as well because I started on them. BUT there are a lot of fake accounts with my name on other instances. People start new accounts hoping to get me banned across the fediverse for "ban evasion."

Even tho, again, if I wanted to ban evade, I wouldn't use my same username across instances. But hey, haters gonna hate. My name is on over 20 instances as of now. New ones are getting made every day. Less than half of those are actually me. One guy is making them. He is really really mad I didn't vote for Harris! lmao

And sure, instances can defederate from me.

I think its reasonable for an server to decide they don’t want you around anymore.

Agreed. But think of why. Go ahead, go thru my post history and tell me what is so radical or so horrible that I should be banned or defederated.

[–] pebbles 1 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I could see it as spam depending. Like in the past you've said I'm debating to hard in the replies, and you didn't engage much with my arguments.

It's not necessarily radical and horible to me, just a lot for content I disagree with that I can't reason with. It's annoying that I have to see it yet you won't listen. I will probably block you, but I also get why an instance would want to as well. It's not inviting for new users.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Oh an also to prove to you that I am being honest and not just making stories up. Here's a DM I sent just yesterday to admin of lemm.ee that had content from yet another fake user of my name. "Fake me" got banned after this DM, thankfully. But I don't really spend much time doing it. Just when I come across it.

If I do a search of my username, the majority are instances that I've never heard of, nor been on:

[–] pebbles 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Oof yeah, with folks copying you this can become a pretty complicated issue. It's touching on some pretty fundamental design choices of Lemmy.

I can go super left and say the name "universal monk" belongs to the people and as much as ya want to control it that's not your right. Without regulation though that would also mean names end up a power issue and that kinda sucks. Anyone with more resources taking over your name is lame. Kinda the what happened with the word "woke".

Idk what to say at this point cause its hard to be confident my memory of you is you. If ya want to control your image you may need to rebrand and start over.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Yeah, it's definitely ironic. The entire reason I spread my name out across a couple of instances in the first place, is because I have some passionate people who want me banned. And to protect against that banning, since I haven't done anything ban-worthy other than have a different political viewpoint, is to spread out my communities on different instances. But I didn't freakin put my name on 25 instances! lmao

So for me to ask someone to ban an imposter is a bit of a conundrum for me, since I argue against my own banning, and I think all speech should be allowed unless illegal stuff is being said. But I don't post in bad faith, the imposters do.

To your point tho, it's part of Lemmy design, since it's decentralized. So I've decided against asking for admins to ban them anymore. I'll let whatever happens, happen. It's not like this is a monetized brand name for me or my real personality. So if someone wants to play me and muck things up, then I don't care.

I'm gonna go with your stance of I don't own the name and people can do whatever they want.

None of this is real life. It's usernames and forums. And if by some chance my username does get banned across the fediverse, then I'll just start a new one. Easy to do. Which is why I laugh at the ban-evasion complaints about me. I can come up with a completely different name and start posting on Lemmy in a few minutes.

I talked with admin about it yesterday and besides the bad actors just trying to sully regular posters names, I guess there has been a huge influx of spambots taking advantage of some instances' open registration. So it's not just happening to me. It's happening/going to happen to regular posters with a high posting count.

I think the best thing is just to let individual instances handle it. If imposter Uni Monk's post spam, then that admin can ban that name. As long as I'm not breaking rules under my home instances, I don't get banned.

So I'm just going to ignore the noise of "OMG Universal Monk is everywhere, looked at the post where he's spamming make-up kits for Nazis, and he talks about the taste of endangered sea lion meat" and the one I get most, "OMG look at how many people hate you, you're getting banned from everywhere. Go away!" messages and let individual instances deal with it.

For trolls trying to troll me, well they are just putting my name out there, so they're "feeding the troll." For spambots doing it, they're not human, so they'll just move to other user names.

I can literally start the name "pebbles" on other instances and post what I want. Before long, you'd start seeing people bitching about "pebbles" being a nazi selling hitler make-up kits to kids on school playgrounds.

If you jumped up and said, "Yo, not me, this is my real me" you have zero recourse and no way to prove it. Hopefully admin is smart enough to not ban [email protected], and only ban [email protected] or just the username-instance name combo that is doing the bad stuff.

For the record, one of my main instances is sh.itjust.works as well. And the admin knows about the crap I get. He's cool and sees the trends. sh.itjust.works is one of the best instances on Lemmy in my opinion. Not just because I'm allowed to be on it, but because the admins know how crappy internet citizens can be when they get obsessed.

This is the fun of being an early adopter. Wild west, baby! lol

Message from mod to me:

[–] otto 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You were forced to create accounts on practically every instance, cause you kept getting permanently banned. Eventually, it got to the point where you had to spin up your own instance just to come back here and troll people.

Anyone who searches for the universal monk username on any instance can see almost a years worth of exactly why.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Your account is just nine days old and every comment you have ever made is about me. lol, stay obsessed bro

I'm still on Lemmy. I'm not going anywhere. :)

[–] otto 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Maybe if you post more crazy rants, people will believe you!

lol

[–] [email protected] -4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Your account is just nine days old and every comment you have ever made is about me. lol, stay obsessed bro

I'm still on Lemmy. I'm not going anywhere. :)

[–] otto 1 points 4 days ago
[–] pebbles 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah I'm starting to get the idea. I think the fediverse will regulate you healthily. I am not confident a fediverse ban is doable, you'd have to know a lot of the right people to do that one and it still wouldn't be complete. If that does happen I'll agree that it's too far.

Impersonation is something I'm gonna have to think about for a bit. That's a curious one. If there is no sense of authenticity then voice scales with resources and that gets sticky.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Impersonation is something I’m gonna have to think about for a bit.

And I think it's gonna get worse before it gets better.

On the bright side though, it'll get bad enough that admins will figure out some way to solve the problem.

Could be as simple as username protocols shared across instances, set into the Lemmy software, that crosscheck usernames so that only one version of that username can be made. Just like when you signed up for reddit, you would get a message saying "username taken, please choose another one."

I don't know what the solution will be, but they're a smart bunch. They'll figure out something.

Do a search for "Universal Monk" in the Lemmy search bar, and you'll see the hate. lol But try to find something that I said that would have been worthy of that all that hate, is much tougher. At least now. With all the imposters I'm sure some stuff will pop up soon. lol

I think admin should remove/block/ban based on individual comments as they happen. That would nip it in the bud.

Every time I ask the people calling me a troll, to give me evidence of something I said that is ban-worthy or troll-worthy, I get a variation of "It's not my job to show everyone how much you suck!" Yet they do seem to think it's their job to tell everyone I suck. With no proof. lol

Sometimes they'll say "Look, mod log says you were banned for harassing DM's!" So I ask for a screenshot of those because I'd like to see them, since I haven't sent harrasing DM's. If a DM I have sent is harrasing, easy to prove. Post a screenshot. DM's aren't that private anyway.

Still never have seen any screenshots of any harrassing DM's. I've sent screenshots of my shitty DM's I get though. Why can't people send theirs that they have received from me?!

Because the real reason people don't like me is because I don't back down when people try to sway my opinion. I didn't vote for Harris. I think Democrats suck, and I said so.

But here's the thing. I didn't vote for Trump either. I voted 3rd party. For some reason, for many, that's WORSE than voting for Trump.

People hate the idea of Universal Monk, more than the content of what I actually post.

I am 100 percent prepared for fediverse to name-ban my username.

Even the admins who stand behind me and support me, will eventually get harrassed and/or pressured enough, that it'll just be easier to ban me than to constantly deal with the backlash.

I've already set up backup accounts, usernames, and have alternative instances ready to go. I haven't used them yet. But they're ready to go. I'll be back on 30 seconds later under a completely different name if I get banned. lol

People need to realize that banning a username isn't actually banning the person behind it. I was permabanned lots of times on Reddit. I just started up a new username and was back on the same day. Never stopped me. And at least Reddit had karma ratings to lose. Lemmy doesn't even have that, so even easier to start again on Lemmy.

I'll be on Lemmy as long as there is a Lemmy. I like the idea of it. :)

[–] otto 2 points 4 days ago

That is one crazy rant, lol

[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 days ago

I could see it as spam depending

But isn't spam someone who posts articles in communities that have no relation with the subject of the post? I post conservative articles to conservative communities.

In fact, if you didn't subscribe to those conservative communities, you would never see my conservative articles.

I post science articles to science communities. I post socialist articles to socialist communities. I have NEVER posted any article to a community that was inappropriate.

There are many posters that post way more than I do. There's that star trek Picard guy, there's a guy named Blaze, etc.

So how would me posting conservative articles to conservative communities be spam? And if it WAS spam, then those mods would delete. But they don't. Because they don't consider it spam.

So if the mod of the community doesn't consider my post spam, then I don't. Not to mention that many of the communities I post to are my own communities! Again, block the community you never see my post, regardless of what instance I post from.

just a lot for content I disagree with that I can’t reason with.

And I understand and respect that. But would you decide that I should be banned from the entire fediverse for that? Or, don't you think it's just easier to block me and the communities I post in?

Of if a button click is to much, just ignore and not even click on anything I post. That seems reasonable to me, and as you mentioned, to yourself, but the mere infamy of my name means there are a lot of Lemmy's that want to silence rather than ignore. THAT's an issue I disagree with.

And again, to your point, if an instance wants to defederate, I'm cool that that too. I'm NOT cool with people saying I should be banned from the fediverse. Graphic again to show that I'm not making shit up. Look how many upvotes that has! lmao:

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