this post was submitted on 02 May 2025
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Ye Power Trippin' Bastards
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299 users here now
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.
Posting Guidelines
All posts should follow this basic structure:
- Which mods/admins were being Power Tripping Bastards?
- What sanction did they impose (e.g. community ban, instance ban, removed comment)?
- Provide a screenshot of the relevant modlog entry (don’t de-obfuscate mod names).
- Provide a screenshot and explanation of the cause of the sanction (e.g. the post/comment that was removed, or got you banned).
- Explain why you think its unfair and how you would like the situation to be remedied.
Rules
- Post only about bans or other sanctions that you have received from a mod or admin.
- Don’t use private communications to prove your point. We can’t verify them and they can be faked easily.
- Don’t deobfuscate mod names from the modlog with admin powers.
- Don’t harass mods or brigade comms. Don’t word your posts in a way that would trigger such harassment and brigades.
- Do not downvote posts if you think they deserved it. Use the comment votes (see below) for that.
- You can post about power trippin’ in any social media, not just lemmy. Feel free to post about reddit or a forum etc.
- If you are the accused PTB, while you are welcome to respond, please do so within the relevant post.
Expect to receive feedback about your posts, they might even be negative.
Make sure you follow this instance's code of conduct. In other words we won't allow bellyaching about being sanctioned for hate speech or bigotry.
YTPB matrix channel: For real-time discussions about bastards or to appeal mod actions in YPTB itself.
Some acronyms you might see.
- PTB - Power-Tripping Bastard: The commenter agrees with you this was a PTB mod.
- YDI - You Deserved It: The commenter thinks you deserved that mod action.
- YDM new - You Deserved More: The commenter thinks you got off too lightly.
- BPR - Bait-Provoked Reaction: That mod probably overreacted in charged situation, or due to being baited.
- CLM - Clueless Mod: The mod probably just doesn't understand how their software works.
Relevant comms
founded 9 months ago
MODERATORS
This is a copyleft, pro genAI instance. We don't even agree that copyright or intellectual property is moral, let alone the argument tat keeps popping up that it's "stealing". Once you release an idea to the world, it becomes part of the human condition. It doesn't belong to you, and saying you "own" something that's a part of another person's consciousness is akin to saying slavery is acceptable.
There are plenty of safe spaces for that neoliberal capitalist bullshit, but on an anarchist instance is not it. They deserved it, and I think it should be made into an instance-wide rule that anti-AI conversation be banned for being in direct contradictions to our morals and political philosophy, with repeat violators being banned.
Those aren't the only reasons to dislike AI. So, claiming that any argument against AI is inherently neoloberal capitalist is ignorant and childish.
Even were that true, which is isn't, this is our instance, to run as we see fit. It isn't up to right-wing liberals to decide how an anarchist collective runs their own space. If you don't like genAI, so somewhere else and don't post your cultist brigading bullshit here. You sure as fuck don't see us going to .world and harassing you lot over AI, do you?
So what, the respect we show you is too fucking much to return?
I see. So your method of arguing is to label anyone whom you disagree with as "right-wing liberals" and you don't intend on having a genuine conversation.
no, my method of arguing is to label liberals who espouse right-wing capitalist ideals as right-wing liberals. if you don't like being called right-wing, don't fucking pander to corporate bullshit in a LEFTIST INSTANCE. it's really not rocket science, guys.
Then you must first explain how all arguments against AI are right-wing capitalist ideals. Which you have not done that, so the way you are acting is preposterous.
In total, you've made zero arguments for the logic that any sentiment of disliking AI should be met with hostility and all comes from a source of “right-wing liberals”. All I see is unfounded attempts of vilifying people who simply disagree with you by shoving a label onto them. Another way to describe this is "bad-jacketing".
I suggest you read about "bad-jacketing". Particularly as a moderator and that it is described in rule 1 of the instance.
I will now disengage because I have ample evidence that you and _cryptagion don't intend on a genuine interaction.
I don't think it works like that.
@[email protected] is literally an admin, they have access to voter and user metric data that you don't. Who are you to claim there isn't brigading or a movement going on? That's right you don't and can't actually know better than they do. If I didn't know better I might think you were trying to deny this issue due to your part in it.
@[email protected] You have no post or comment history whatsoever for two years, yet here you are in this thread downvoting comments. Sus...
@[email protected] @[email protected] This is what I mean when I say there is brigading here, people are using bots or their own alt accounts to vote on accounts
Yeah, thanks for the heads up. I've proposed in [email protected] to update the instance rules to disallow anti-genAI trolling in communities where genAI is allowed. They can take their pro-copyright-rentseeking campaign elsewhere. Don't know why they thought it would fly here.
I've got no real problem with folks taking that position tbh, but it's not ok to dogpile posts on our communities like has happened here. I'm also somewhat sympathetic to the argument that GenAI is having an impact on artists' livelihoods. But they haven't connected the dots that this is only an issue because of greedy corporations trying to fuck over artists. They are directing all their anger towards GenAI instead of the real source of the problem. By all means advocate for greedy corporations to stop using AI to increase their profits at the expense of artists. But to come into a leftist space and demand that we stop using AI too is at best tokenistic, and at worst just serves to obfuscate the fundamental problem.
The users engaged in trolling here and tying to excuse it as "activism" should think harder about who they are fighting with and why. Even if we did capitulate and ban genAI, that would have zero impact on artists, because we don't pay for artists in the first place. It's nothing but virtue signalling and tokenism. The Luddites didn't go around breaking into peoples houses and smashing their spinning wheels. They went to factories owned by rich men and companies to destroy machinery in order to disrupt production and fight for workers rights and safety. Good on them too! If the anti genAI brigade were fighting against Getty's (or Adobe, etc.) use of AI that might actually have a useful leftist purpose, and the analogy with the Luddites would work. Instead they are here causing a nuisance in a leftist community, over some random crossposted GenAI meme. Good work guys - job done I guess, the capitalists must be quaking in their boots right now because of your "activism".
Yeah I agree, the Anti AI movement (and it is a movement) is extremely reactionary and doesn't accomplish anything. Certainly isn't helping artists. And yeah they're not even comparable to luddites who went after factories back in the day. Anti-AI trolls are going after individual people, often harassing people, also deciding to use any arguments even ones proven to be lies or faulty. They're inadvertently helping big corporations by making themselves and their movement look like quacks or trolls.
Did you post it yet? I didn't see it there.
https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/04/general-ludd/
Agreed, and I have no beef with the Luddites. I'm fully supportive of the effort to hold commercial AI corporations accountable for the way they are enabling owners of capital to exploit AI to cause harm to artists and other workers. But if the anti-GenAI crowd followed the example of the Luddites, they shouldn't be blaming the tooling. If they went after those who create and/or use the tooling to exploit people, rather than attacking those who use the tools (especially for a positive or harmless purpose) then I'd be fully supportive of that goal. Instead they are too busy cyber-bullying fellow Lemmy users and mods.
Yeah, there was an "anti-art-theft" account on tumblr that just went around harassing people for using ai.
One person has a pixel art plant pfp which was blurry from image compression, so the account thought it was ai, the person with the plant pfp was harassed about it, even though they didn't use ai.
even if they did use ai, I don't see why you'd want to harass someone for that anyway.
my point is, a lot of anti-ai stuff will end up affecting real artists anyway.
I think @[email protected] is probably another one, does have history, but 2 months inactive. Maybe I'm being too aggressive but this Anti-AI brigade is out of control.
I'm not sure about that one but feel free to community ban them if they have been downvoting a lot. I instanced banned the (almost) empty account you mentioned. Fuck those guys. I hope you can feel free to reach out to me or one of the other admins if you get cyberbullied and you need someone to disclose to.
Hate to disappoint, but I'm a real, live human being.
That's good, glad to hear it. That wasn't really something I was arguing against though with the OG claim, as I have no doubt that some probably many of the vote manipulation accounts out there are manually operated.
Then I hate to disappoint again, but I'm just some rando that votes of their own accord - not part of some grand "vote manipulation" conspiracy.
The fact you aren't banned from dbzer0 is proof enough for me, (at least that it isn't the obvious kind) since multiple other people have been banned for brigading and vote manipulation.
Genuine questions: why make it an instance wide rule when those communities can just add it to their own rules?
I get your point but I'd like to be able to be able to push back against this type of behaviour at an instance level if required, without the anti GenAI crowd complaining about there not being a specific instance level rule against it. I think I'm in favour of generalizing the rule though as suggested by other commenters, so that it covers things like anti-piracy activism in c/piracy too, for example. Some communities are intended for debate, and others are just communities of shared interests where folks want to learn and hang out, but not be dogpiled with hateful comments attacking their interests. And lastly, GenAI is a core founding theme of our instance, so it makes sense (to me) to make the rule instance level as well.
That's fair enough, thanks for explaining!
Blatantly ignoring disengage while also making absolutely unfounded and ridiculous claims. Absolutely shameful.
You think admins are infallible? You're only attacking me with these claims because I'm calling out someone who happens to be an admin. They are still human and, clearly, capable of doing wrong.
The whole point of this conversation is that it is wrong to assume everyone who simply shows a dislike in AI is a 'right-wing pro-capitalist liberal'. That is a judgement of a person's ideals and values based on a single metric that has no inherent connection to right-wing liberalism.
Now you have convinced me to block this entire instance because of this abhorrent behavior.
You are attempting to abuse the disengage rule. If you want to disengage, you're not supposed to also try to put the last word in. Just disengage without arguing further.
it's another user entirely. they didn't ignore disengage, they are commenting on it
Right. I misunderstood thinking that it meant that all people must respect the person's desire to be left out of it. It would probably be a better rule if that were the case. But, apparently rules don't really matter here anyways.
I also missed an important part of it:
It still doesn't excuse the disgusting behavior.
I simply wanted to be done, because there is zero respect shown here.
I'm also now frustrated that the instance block appears to not be working, since I got a notification for this reply.
I don't want to deal with any interactions with anything or anyone related to db0 after this appalling lack of any respect, utterly shameful accusations, and weird cult-like attitude towards an admin.
Since you obviously have no intention of actually disengaging, there's no problem with me pointing out that the disgusting behavior here is you intruding upon our instance to push your own shitty agenda, while insisting we abide by your dumbass rules about civility so we don't hurt your fweelings. This is the problem with you self-righteous .world liberal hacks, you think the entire fediverse is your own little kingdom to do whatever you wish in, but can't handle your cult-like world views being challenged.
Absolutely disgusting, and since you won't be seeing our communities anymore, I say good riddance, and absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever was lost by not having you around.
an instance block will stop db0 content from showing in your feed.. comments will still populate and users can still comment back to you.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out, troll.
I think copyright is wrong, but I tend to avoid ai for different reasons.
Ai scraping and posts are a near effective ddos on the entire internet, and its harming scraping as a whole.
And that's a good reason to hate the usage, but that's not a problem with AI, that's a problem with capitalism.
I agreed until you got to the point that anti-AI conversation should be banned. And because I agreed up to that point, I think I joined the wrong instance. I could go along with y'all being pro-AI because im not inherently against it, just cautious as a person, knowing people abuse any kind of power far too often. And, I dont have to use AI in my life while still having anarchist beliefs. It's a choice, so long as you hold no power and do no damage to others with your tools . . Banning conversation is holding power and using it against others, which is inherently not anarchy.
I guess the Anarchism I grew up with has changed. Bummer to hear.
Edit to add, I'm really tired of labels, I'm tired of having to put myself in a box for social media to digest.
Edit: I guess we're going to be voting on allowing people to bitch about generative AI soon. I'm pretty torn on it, because I am so tired of people bitching ceaselessly on this topic, but also... Censorship is lame.
This isn't censorship. They'll still be allowed to post anti-AI slop literally anywhere else besides the ONE PRO-AI INSTANCE IN THE FEDIVERSE.
Not even that, just certain communities here which allow AI. They could make an anti-AI community here if it follows all of dbzer0's rules, is good faith and doesn't encourage trolling or aggression towards others.
This is banding together to defend our communities from those who would do us harm, That's mutual aid, and there isn't anything more anarchist than that. If you don't agree, then you probably weren't very aligned with anarchism in the first place.
I guess I don't understand the correlation between banning speech that hurts no one, (a computer does not have feelings, nor is it sentient) and mutual aid? What barriers are you trying to collectively overcome by not allowing folks to discuss the benefits, risks and/or negatives of AI in our lives? It feels akin to someone telling me global warming and climate change arnt real so I should fuck off, I don't belong, that speech is banned.
Anarchism is older than AI, I guess that's where I feel the shift, and I only feel it here. Being new to lemmy, these two Incorporated ideas, I've never seen together before.
Side tangent, so you know where i am coming from. My definition of Anarchism stems from the early 90's punk scene. In the late 90s, I was taught some of my computer literacy from a man who once hacked the KKK website back when, and made a mockery of it, told me he held the domain for so many months. His probation wouldn't even allow him access to a land line it was absurd. He showed me how to use IRC, and I thought it was incredible, and glorious. That was freedom, of course until the power caught on. Even then, we persist.
I don't understand how discussing the dangers of AI is withholding anyone's freedom, nor do I understand how banning the speech is mutual aid.
I guess I can understand you want to protect your group of folks from people constantly questioning something you strongly believe in. But my previous questions stand. If you are up to it, feel free to enlighten me, I am an old goat these days, and I really am curious.
Edit, I guess I never thought of mutual aid as anything more than helping your neighbors and community physically, I never saw mutual aid as protecting thoughts. I guess if you reframe the definition to also protecting thoughts, and beliefs, I can see how you would consider this mutual aid, as you're trying to protect your group from bombardment of arguing on the topic. I do think it's a bit of a stretch to define it in such way, but I can respect it. My goal isn't to seek argument, but to be informed. I only asked here because the topic came up, I generally ignore the AI conversations, The idea of banning speech just, should always be looked at speculatively, generally, the folks who are banning speech aren't the good guys, as history tells. But sometimes it's proper, is it proper here? I don't know, and of course, I don't think it's up for you or me to decide, but rather collectively.
Personally I am super aware AI can be used to manipulate and persuade large swaths of people. The potential for abuse is easy for me to see. While it is a neat tool, I was more fascinated with fungi and the intelligence new science is finding within it today, than I am with algorithms and other non tanglible things. I am very cautious of my privacy, and not very tech savvy anymore, as its gotten more complicated.
This is where the fear, for me, of AI comes in. As our government swings more fascist here where I live, I'm weary of anyone making large promises of it's benefits without questions, and I only commented because I have these thoughts, and then see in a conversation on the topic, people saying it's not anarchist and speech questioning a specific technology should be banned. A technology usually funded by billionaires, or upper class folks who don't understand working class struggle. The comment to ban speech on the negatives of AI just set off mad flags for me, so I thought I'd ask for more clarification.
There's a big difference between discussing the pro/cons of something, and brigading communities on a pro-AI instance to push your own agenda. As of this moment, people have already been banned in the last 24 hours for vote manipulation, and more than one person has spun up alts to comment and vote on topics they've already put in their word on.
There's a very simple word to describe what's happening to db0, and that word is an attack. When you're attacked, you defend yourself. Nobody is banning anti-AI speech, we're banning it here. This instance does not represent the entirety of the fediverse. Nobody banned here is being kept from posting that speech literally anywhere else.
Heard, I wish this was the first response. Thank you for taking the time to clarify.
I'd encourage you to read the experience of one of our mods in this post to better understand the impact of this type of behaviour on our mods and users: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/43560521. It's by no means a victimless activity. We aren't proposing to ban discussion about AI. If someone wants to make a post in an appropriate community like the /0 main community about our GenAI policy then that is totally fine. But dogpiling the comments of posts in a community that doesn't prohibit GenAI is just trolling imo.