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!world@lemmy.world mod enforces own opinion by modding opposing opinion as "misinformation"

Context: https://lemmy.world/comment/14613536 Screenshotted context just in case:

A user claims that the killing in Palestine stopped under Biden now. I point out that biden had full-throatedly supported the genocide for over a year. A mod deletes my post and says that biden didn't "state" (keyword here) full-throated support for genocide.

I counter by saying I consider sending billions in support of genocide counts as full-throated support for genocide. I also point out that I didn't say Biden stated his support for genocide and that he didn't need to outright state it because actions speak louder than words.

I receive a temp ban for that counter and the mod adds a response where they claim the weapons were "provided for defense from Iran, full stop." which sounds to me like actual misinformation because how the hell does bombing hospitals in Gaza defend Israel from Iran? I'm not bothered by their stupid opinion, but I am bothered that they are enforcing it through moderation.

I ran into a similar moderation problem on the Political Memes community also on .world, but I didn't bother making a post here for that because that's just a dumb meme community and I was better off just blocking it, but now this is concerning a world news community and it's awful to see something like this happening in a community that's supposed to keep people aware of the news.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong and it actually is misinformation to say it's full-throated support of genocide to send billions in weapons to a country using those weapons to commit genocide. Please let me know what you think!

57 comments
  • PTB. Jordanlund is a Zionist, he and FlyingSquid have a long history of banning anyone who criticizes Israel. For those new here, he’s also very critical of BLM because they once “inconvenienced” him on the way to work by holding a protest.

  • Probably the last thing that needs to be fixed with L.W news communities: Misinformation being modded.

    The rule is abused (as seen in this post) and serves to promote echo chambers. If something is misinformation then downvote and say why. The person might learn something or, more importantly, others in the community who don't know will learn.

    And for those who cite that 'law' stating it takes more energy to correct than spew BS. Not a law, would be banned as misinformation ironically, and, regardless, is the price public forums of communication pay.

    • Exactly, the whole point of public forums is to have these discussions. Instead some have decided to go on a crusade against "misinformation" but what counts as misinformation? According to that mod, sending billions to a country committing genocide is not support for genocide because they claim it's actually for "defense"??? It doesn't make sense but I can't expand on the discussion and gain understanding of their viewpoint because I was shut down immediately.

      What if I consider that mod's opinion misinformation, where's my recourse? Will I need to enlist the help of a different mod who agrees with me? If the only criterion to be considered misinformation is whether a mod agrees or disagrees then they might as well shut down the comments section and simply tell us what we should be thinking since anything straying from that is going to be considered misinformation anyway.

    • It's a tough line to follow through, sometimes actually good places have errors, sometimes the bad places are reporting correctly.

      I don't know if I personally could 100% accurately tell when something is misinfo. Ideally, it's not up to one mod, or even a team or admin group.

  • BPR, in a sense.

    Hear me out.

    I don't think any particular viewpoint should ever be censored on Lemmy, except maybe in very rare exigent circumstances which this doesn't even remotely qualify as.

    That said, there is a massive misinformation problem on Lemmy, amplifying the true fact that Biden supported Israel's genocide, and tying it randomly into totally different topics to the point that it distorts the real conversation and often crowds out genuine posters. That should be censored.

    I don't think you can do it based on the viewpoint, but I absolutely get what Jordan's trying to do here. It's very difficult to tell if any particular person is doing misinformation, and if they're not, you can't censor their viewpoint, because that's messed up. But it's also hard to look at a whole comments section full of "GENOCIDE JOE he killed all those people I will never co-sign a genocide kamalcaust you need to call her kamalacaust blue MAGA" from people who are all incredibly obtuse and vocal in generally the same similar way when anyone talks to them about it, and not say that something should be done.

    It's a hard problem. I have no idea if this particular poster is doing misinformation. If they aren't, then they should be allowed to say whatever. But removing misinformation, that's happening as an organized operation at scale, is absolutely a good thing. I wish mods did more of it, and I wish there was a better way to do it.

    So: I actually do at this point have something pretty akin to "proof" that particular posters are doing misinformation on Lemmy in an organized fashion. If there are any admins that are interested to want to see it, message me privately and let's talk.

    • That's perhaps understandable if it was an isolated comment, but my first comment was in direct response to someone else who said, which I quoted, "we were told it would stop [if] Harris lost!" to which I responded by asking who was saying that because I can't imagine anyone serious saying that. In fact, that user's claim could be considered misinformation because it was completely misrepresenting the protest against genocide (but their post remains unmodded because I guess the mod agrees with them). I then went on to point out that the genocide had been going on for over a year by that point and I used "full-throatedly" because although the biden administration were pretending to hold back israel with like one shipment of weapons paused, they were providing israel with everything they needed to completely destroy Gaza.

    • So: I actually do at this point have something pretty akin to “proof” that particular posters are doing misinformation on Lemmy in an organized fashion. If there are any admins that are interested to want to see it, message me privately and let’s talk.

      You should probably message those people's admins.

57 comments