I swear, every time most of the time I see someone being particularly rude, ignorant, and inappropriate on a post (usually political in origin, or they swing it to being political) I click on their profile and see it has been created that same day.

They are only there to sow discord. Only to piss people off. Idk if we can just report them (for what?) but I’d like to try exposing them before responding and interacting…

I am guilty of gobbling up the bait. I’ve started looking at profiles of people that piss me off exceptionally and noticed they’re burner bot loser accounts.

I guess i just want to say I’ve noticed it!

  • @b000rg@midwest.social
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    1721 year ago

    Voyager has a setting to show a baby emoji next to the name of a user if their account is less than a month old and an account age. Probably one of the best features I’ve ever seen for immediately recognizing troll accounts.

    • @teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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      91 year ago

      For now, because Lemmy is relatively new. There’s a reason many bot farms run accounts that are unassuming, “normal” people. Accounts that are established have value. They can then sell those accounts to another group who needs to sew discord. The older Lemmy is, the less useful the new account icon will be.

    • @swallowyourmind@lemmy.world
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      11 year ago

      I find at least one commenter with a new account on almost every post with more than 5 comments.

      They tend to be negative.

      Think I’m going to start welcoming them to Lemmy, note their activity to date, and ask them nicely what might have brought them to join. (If they are real, glad to have them, but I have found most Lemmy members came here from Reddit, not to make accounts to post in News or Politics or such places trolls would like.)

      Until Lemmy updates to identify new accounts ala Voyager, I think that would be helpful to inform other users they may be talking to a troll.

      There are approximately 433k accounts but only 48k Monthly Active Users.

      It’s hard to believe that many of posts and comments are often the newest accounts, and though they will change tactics to using older accounts, at least it’s more work for them.

      I recommend others do the same.

        • @swallowyourmind@lemmy.world
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          11 year ago

          Hey look, a new very active account, talking shit about… Hmmm…

          Nazis, trump, cops, Russians, gays, etc!

          Yeah, people like you are why I point it out new accounts.

          And from the way you communicate rudely here, to me for saying “Welcome” to new members, illustrates a great point that you don’t seem to be someone worth talking to, likely by anyone.

          Have a great day, and looking forward to Welcoming your next alt.

  • m-p{3}
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    441 year ago

    Use the report button when you see those, it’s the quickest way for them to be noticed by mods and admins.

    • @givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      People don’t report shit, then complain stuff goes unmoderated.

      Like, you don’t have to report every single comment a troll makes, but at least report one so a mod looks at it.

      Edit:

      Here’s a good example. An account I have blocked replied to me. If they go into a sub I moderate and start acting like a jackass, I’ll never know because I have them blocked.

      The only way I’d see it, is if someone reported it.

      • Juniper (she/her) 🫐
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        81 year ago

        Here’s a good example. An account I have blocked replied to me. If they go into a sub I moderate and start acting like a jackass, I’ll never know because I have them blocked.

        The only way I’d see it, is if someone reported it.

        This is why, when I was a reddit moderator (r/Firefox), I never blocked users even if they were absolute trash to me. I always thought of that as a severe limitation of the platform, there should be a setting to show blocked user’s content (labelled as such) in communities you moderate.

      • @SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        People do report stuff, get yelled at by the mods, and then get banned by the admins for abuse of the reporting system, or mod abuse for getting clarification.

        So if you do what you are supposed to, you get banned.

        Would be better if moderation was actually taken seriously and the admins don’t excuse terrible mod behavior.

        • @aleph@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Those sound like extremely edge cases and are not a good reason to not justify not reporting anything.

          Moderators are volunteers and most of them simply want to make their communities better, so they do take these reports seriously. Plus at this stage Lemmy lacks robust tools to help them accomplish this. The very least general users can do is flag problem comments and accounts to help them out.

          • @SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            There’s posts about mods complaining about users using the report button as a “super downvote” you go to those posts, there are people legit trolling in them and the content is still there.

            The excuse is, Lemmy needs content, so they are very loose and liberal in applying moderation like that against users that add content.

            I’ve had an admin defend a mod when I reported them with “they aren’t as bad as some of the others”. So Lemmy admins know they have moderation issues, if they fix it, they lose their content and their free labor. So they just turn a blind eye and let the mods do what they want, which is quite frankly nothing. And when asked they report you to the admins. They really only deal with illegal stuff unfortunately, since they have to or they can get in shit personally.

            Trolls unfortunately add content, which is desperately needed. Some communities deal with it, larger let it go for discussion and metrics sake. Lemmy isn’t perfect, and we should be able to discuss its darker side.

              • Ugghh that’s a good point, this was .world for admins, but the moderation issues seem to be non instance specific.

                Also makes me wonder if some of the trolling is dealt with and its federation issues then…

                Still, the amount of trolling comments, and users being banned for pretty frivolous things isn’t a good look.

            • @bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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              31 year ago

              There’s also a fine line between legitimate trolling and having unpopular or dissenting opinion. I’ve seen plenty of threads where 2 or more people are arguing about a given topic, and while the unpopular opinion isn’t being inflammatory or breaking any rules, they still get their comments removed after being down voted into the ground. It’s happened to me as well.

              My only contention with this is finding a way to foster conversation without censoring opinions just because they’re not widely shared. As long as the argument is in good faith, mods shouldn’t be removing content they don’t agree with, only those that are inflammatory, overly insulting, blatant trolling/shilling, or breaking community rules.

              • @idiomaddict@feddit.de
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                21 year ago

                I think it depends. You can be a really polite Baptist preacher being very earnest in !196 about how you think people should behave, and that’s just not what they want. Even in a discussion thread, writing a nonspecific defense of FGM, for example, is going to be offensive enough to probably disrupt the conversation, and I can see removing it.

                I’m not suggesting that’s what’s happening; just saying that I like your idea, with some tweaks

            • m-p{3}
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              1 year ago

              Trolling is simply noise and garbage to dispose of when it becomes an attack on the person. It brings nothing of value and it diminishes the value of everything else it pollutes.

              • @SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Trolling is simply noise and garbage to dispose of when it becomes an attack on the person.

                Trolling doesn’t ONLY require personal attacks…. That’s the issue, mods only step in when things progress too far and have reached that point….

  • @S_204@lemm.ee
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    371 year ago

    Ya, Lemmy is speed running the worst things about Reddit but struggling to build the niche communities that would make people want to hang around.

    • @flashgnash@lemm.ee
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      211 year ago

      The thing that’s making me kinda want to leave is it feels like even more of an echo chamber then Reddit was, especially when you see someone calling for the death of someone at least once a week or so

      Quite often see people getting downvote bombed and dogpiled for having different political opinions

    • @S_H_K@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      21 year ago

      Yes but not that much I see the communities are starting to materialize but many that are a 1 to 1 copy didn’t took off sadly the Warframe one is a good example, but you see the pixel dungeon one is going great even Evan00 (the dev of shattered) is buzzing in and the helldivers2 is starting to get to the frontpages. I guess the fediverse moves in a more organical way? Regarding the trolls is normal is a “ladran Sancho” situation, we are getting more people in and that includes idiots. Sadlly/Luckly idiots comes in the full spectrum of races backgrounds and preferences.

  • @dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
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    361 year ago

    I have seen this as well. Thankfully Voyager flags accounts under a certain age, so there’s an immediate visual indicator that an inflammatory comment may be just a troll.

  • Shoutout to Voyager, for automatically marking new accounts with a baby emoji. It’s a feature ripped straight from Apollo, and it should honestly be the standard.

    • Cosmic Cleric
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      21 year ago

      I was going to say I would be happy if just the Lemmy website allowed you to filter out comments based on the age of the account of the comment being made, but a lot of times accounts are created then are left dormant for sixish months and then are used for nefarious reasons.

      • @PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, even filtering by karma/post count/comment count isn’t a perfect solution because karma farming bots are 100% a thing. It’s one of those “you can slow them down but you’ll never stop them” scenarios.

  • @spittingimage@lemmy.world
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    261 year ago

    The ones that stand out to me are the ones that take offense at mundane things, because they’re looking at it through a skewed mental filter. As far as I can tell, they’re genuine. I don’t know what to make of it, so I just make liberal use of the block button.

        • wuphysics87
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          51 year ago

          Could be genuine. People with a skewed mental filter don’t like to be reminded by someone with an upright one

        • @Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          -11 year ago

          Not trolling per se, more like an experiment.

          I agree with OP that I’m sick of brain dead people picking some random bullshit to engage in. But clearly lemmy as a community has lost the ability to “don’t feed the troll”. Or in other words, lemmings get just as angry against the random bullshit as the random bullshitter is angry for his random bullshit.

          The correct response to my post should have been “that’s probably satire”. Instead lemmy went 😡😡😡

          • Cosmic Cleric
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            11 year ago

            The correct response to my post should have been “that’s probably satire”. Instead lemmy went 😡😡😡

            But at the end of the day, how do you truly know, either way?

            Especially when people don’t label it as such with a /s.

            • @Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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              -21 year ago

              Understanding context is a skill that has atrophied in younger generations. Reading comprehension is not really being taught in school anymore.

  • @ksharp@lemmy.ml
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    191 year ago

    Also worth pointing out that the best way of reading this thread is looking at all of the removed comments in the modlog. Lol.

      • Cosmic Cleric
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        31 year ago

        There’s a link at the bottom of each and every Lemmy page.

        You can search by community/post/user.

      • @ksharp@lemmy.ml
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        21 year ago

        On Kbin and Lemmy instances, the link is called “Modlog” at the bottom of the page in browser. I don’t use any Fedi apps so I don’t know what it looks like there.

        You can see all of the deleted comments every day. I recommend everyone to look at the Modlog at least occasionally. You get a real pulse on how each community is moderated and you can make a better informed decision on where you actually want to hang out.

    • TheRealKuni
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      71 year ago

      Is this something publicly accessible or do you need to be a mod or host an instance?

    • Cosmic Cleric
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      31 year ago

      I absolutely love the mod log. Some days I just read through that instead of the regular Lemmy posts.

      • @ksharp@lemmy.ml
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        01 year ago

        It’s not just an entertaining read, it’s a valuable resource to look at to determine if mods in certain communities are over-moderating. Imo for months, mods in many of the largest communities are far overstepping their roles and not just “moderating” their communities but actively censoring opinions they don’t like.

        • Cosmic Cleric
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          01 year ago

          It’s not just an entertaining read, it’s a valuable resource to look at to determine if mods in certain communities are over-moderating.

          Agree. Honestly that’s where I find the entertainment from, actually looking at how the mods actually do their moderating, the kind of reasons why they give.

          It’s interesting to compare the moderation that happens between the different communities too.

  • @TheOSINTguy@sh.itjust.works
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    181 year ago

    Yes, Im also glad im not the only one who noticed this. But it also seems to be they disapper after a few days too, maybe instance mods banned them or they just got bored.

  • @NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml
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    161 year ago

    I noticed votes related to political comments are suddenly shifting to the right which was different just 1 week ago.

  • @_sideffect@lemmy.world
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    151 year ago

    Assholes are everywhere, but yeah, it’s been happening slowly but surely ever since lemmy has gained more users (which makes sense).

    I’d really like to know the ratio of assholes to regular people out of every 100 people 😂

  • @FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
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    131 year ago

    I fit your definition. Now lemme 'splain:

    For thirty-five years I have heard nothing but radical right fascism spewing hate, lies, vitriol, slander, and violent rhetoric- over the airwaves, cable, and now social media- and without the slightest bit of challenge or pushback. The amount and volume increased when they figured out it pays big money. The people who listen have never known that it was for entertainment; they are being edged to violence just like Ruwandan radio did.

    Liberals have been major pussies and doormats about this because they have no idea who they’re dealing with. They cannot be reasoned with or appealed to through humanity. The radical fascists’ free speech rights do not exist and are not to be defended; there is absolutely nothing to gain there and everything to lose. As I said, liberals have no idea who they’re dealing with.

    For all the unchecked violence and damaged caused by the radical fascist shitbags to our daily lives, our long term properity, and to safety and security in general, I absolutely attack them with all the violent and vitriolic slander I can muster to pay back for thirty-five plus years of the same. This is the route every one of you should take, because they all think you’re a bunch of pussies and they take great joy in running you over. They must be made to fear even being seen in public, and beaten down like rabid dogs when they are. They are enemies of freedom, enemies of humanity, and enemies of all that is good in the world.

  • @Beebabe@lemmy.world
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    131 year ago

    Some threads have a handful of interactions that seem less than genuine, yes. Usually political and derailing and spoil the thread.

  • @emmie@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Never feed the trolls, the only winning move is to downvote and move on

    Nothing is as maddening as writing an elaborate troll post only to be completely ignored.

    I do all my riling people up on Reddit though because that site is collapsing anyway and a shell of former self. Hard to bring yourself to respect it and not throw some spicy fake made up posts into the wild and see what happens

  • @linearchaos@lemmy.world
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    101 year ago

    As soon as anyone starts arguing in bad faith I just block them. I don’t really care what they have to say about me for my argument.

    • Cosmic Cleric
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      41 year ago

      The only problem with blocking is they still see your comments you make, and can respond to them negatively, and you have no way of defending yourself because you haven’t seen their comment.

      My wish would be for blocking to prevent those who are blocked from reading comments from the blocker.

      • @linearchaos@lemmy.world
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        21 year ago

        I would love better blocking. But I understand the costs of doing that in a truly federated environment. I’ll just settle for not caring what they actually say about me. The whole point of the trolling is to get a rise out of someone.

      • Draconic NEO
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        11 year ago

        Stopping viewing on a per-account basis doesn’t make sense to me, since people don’t need accounts to view any content in Lemmy, therefore it’s trivial to bypass by logging out or fetching the discussion information without logging in from a custom frontend. What would be better is simply stopping them from interracting, just like what happens with bans, they can still view but all interractions are simply dropped or disallowed.

    • @KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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      21 year ago

      I wish you could set a personal minimum “karma” and age requirement. Like I don’t want to hear from anyone with an account made in the last week. And no one with karma below zero.

      It’s not really a high bar, it mainly blocks people who get banned all the time.

        • @KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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          21 year ago

          I dunno. It was there before. Maybe just total their last 5 comment scores. So it’s easy to just not be a dick all the time and get through the filter.

      • @Valmond@lemmy.world
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        21 year ago

        Karma is easily falsified on the lemmyverse though. I have a maintenance user and a normal user on my server, I can use them both to vote, and thats just easy and not even intentional.

  • @Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world
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    101 year ago

    I think I’m seeing something different, although also synthetic in nature.

    It seems like companies or brands are in here (and probably on any social media) actively controlling the message about their brand. People make a post or comment about a specific thing (or person) and you get pre-packages responses, similar in nature and argument.

    It makes you feel like it’s tin foil hat time, but I’ve seen different accounts proporting the same exact experiences about a product, which are super specific in nature.

    I could see that being a part of a company trying to actively “control the message,” but it makes you question the authenticity of a lot of posts or arguments. Is that person really standing up for this thing with a questionable history, or are they a paid shill?

    What would be a safe space from this though? A forum small enough to stay under the radar? I enjoy larger platforms like this because of the diversity in content and viewpoints, but not if it’s a haven for corporate messaging or agencies controlling a narrative.

    Am I joining the tin foil hat club here, or has anyone else seen similar?