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Answer me this
You're a far-left gay man living in LA
You were up at 2:30 in the morning on Saturday night posting this
Then you were up at 5:10 in the morning Sunday morning posting the OP, coincidentally also voting-negative, message
Do I have that right?
Yes. I'm up late playing Palworld. What's your point?
Sure, if you say so. And I think my point is pretty evident; I suspect you of not being who you say you are. Maybe I am wrong. The truth is I have no idea.
Where the suspicion comes from is this: If your real goal is to push the Democrats to the left because that'd be a good thing to do, let me know how you're working on it and I'll help you, because that mission sounds great. If your mission is to incessantly spread the message that there's no point in voting this year because of particular flaws that Biden has, or because he's pretty much the same as the end of the world in human skin, don't be surprised if people assume that you're acting in bad faith because the vast majority of people here will see that as a harmful message and activity. Surely that's not confusing?
I mean, I'll video call you if you want. I'll even do it outside on the beach in Long Beach, CA. Biden is Republican-lite so he can't be pulled left. This is a politics sub. People are free to post any and all political news. Are they not?
I'll video call you if you want
Maybe so. Is there a time tonight that's good for you?
Biden is Republican-lite
Accurate
so he can't be pulled left
According to some of the people I've been talking with, that's the entire point of doing this; to threaten Biden with the prospect of lost votes unless he pulls to a more humane viewpoint on issues like Gaza. No?
This is a politics sub. People are free to post any and all political news. Are they not?
We've been over this. I'll just quote myself from last time: "Me disagreeing with you is in no way shape or form 'silencing' you. That equivalence is another standard propaganda technique ... stop using conservative propagandistic strawmen that are so well-known they're a cliché at this point."
For someone who's far left, you sure seem comfortable falling back on conservative talking points that I've literally never seen from someone on the left.
(Actually, I would amend that -- I would argue that if you're misrepresenting yourself on purpose to create these posts to engineer a certain result, you shouldn't be able to post. But I haven't seen proof of that; I just have my suspicions which are maybe unfounded. And it has nothing to do with the content of the message, more the misrepresentation behind it, if that is what's happening.)
Why are you going back a week through their posts and comments
Because I feel it's relevant if people are coming into the community misrepresenting themselves as leftists and posting please-don't-vote memes alongside Biden-is-old-and-in-trouble-in-the-election news stories, over and over and over again, to engineer a particular result. I feel like there's some level of indication that that's going on.
It's with good reason that non-identified bots, and sockpuppets, are disallowed in a lot of places. We can all come together and have a discussion, and you can say whatever you want, but an important part of maintaining the integrity of the discussion is that you can't come in and deliberately manipulate it by misrepresenting the source of your postings. Certain social networks can be substantially degraded by the influence of shills distorting the organic conversation; it's happened plenty of times before.
Maybe this is all some kooky conspiracy theory of mine, but it seems weird that there are particular users that post a constant stream of a-little-out-of-place posts with a singular political slant, so if I see someone doing that, I get curious about their account. There are some other odd features of these accounts too (e.g. they are the only accounts I have ever seen specifically bring up some sort of personal "qualifications" -- like where they're from or "I'm far left" or "I'm a gay man" -- as a defense against someone who's disagreeing with them on something, instead of just talking about the non personal facts of what they're talking about.)
IDK, maybe I'm nuts and this guy just really likes posting "please don't vote" memes. The truth is I have no idea and maybe it's unfair to be throwing accusations around. That's why I phrased it as a question. But it does seem odd.
I agree a look at someone's posting history can sometimes give a lot of insight to their character.
I just assumed you'd be able to find something more recent if it was that obvious.
Not that it matters, but I became suspicious of this user a while back, and saw that post I-don't-remember-when; I didn't just today do an extended scour through their history.
But again, it's not that relevant to the central question; I think looking in detail into someone you suspect of being a shill is a sensible thing to do.
I see it, too. Had an issue with one account with they/them pronouns in the username, in the profile is a Spotify of copy pasted (no organized favorites) albums by bands with famously transphobic audiences.
There is an entire subreddit called AsABlackMan that started from a white republican lobbyist forgetting to switch accounts on Twitter.
It’s absolutely worth checking the profile and history of a suspected troll. They have trouble maintaining the illusion or they need to signal to other trolls, either way there’s almost always clues.
Are you by any chance talking about the trans activist who just started !notvoting@slrpnk.net? Because I noticed that user, too, if that's who you mean. Surely just one of those super passionate politically engaged people who wants to spread their message about how important it is not to vote. I meet those folks all the time.
One example:
There were some posts over on the 196 board targeting Taylor Swift as the enemy because “all billionaires are bad” as though it was a reason and not an excuse. One account was named essentially ’Aryan Ozymandias’ and after calling this out, I found and commented about his posts painting bill gates as another enemy, while never bringing up any pharmaceutical or oil tycoons. My comments were removed, but are still viewable in the mod log and I got replies for days after from the support troll accounts trying to keep the drama going. Seems obvious to me, but the mods took Aryan Ozymandias’ side and that’s a shame for the biggest group on a trans-positive server like Blahaj Lemmy.
Oooooh
You just made something click for me, a little unrelated to what you were saying. Maybe it's pretty obvious but it hadn't occurred to me before.
So: The initial observation was agreeing with you that some of the most lefty communities here are also some of the most simple-minded in terms of being tribal, supporting "our guys" instead of "their guys," not being open to a situation with any level of nuance or where "our guys" actually did something bad, or anything like that
The part that clicked: As a consequence, it would make perfect sense for the troll accounts to go out of their way to cloak themselves in overt LGBTQ identity so that they get placed automatically into "our guys" and start with that level of protection and approval from the sometimes overly-simple-minded community
And behold, the two accounts I was talking about above are one who goes out of his way to let people know he's gay, and an account that posts a heavy helping of generic trans activism alongside their anti-voting message
Call me Charlie Kelly, I guess
Sounds about right. The Arymandias account was on a mission to tell the LGBTQ community to boycott anything related to her. This was genuinely only a few days before the wave of ai generated porn of her over on Elon’s unmoderated playground. Looks like the most valuable resource of this next century will be a functional ’bullshit’ filter.
this is pure ad hominem.
Asking questions highlighting some way in which it seems like someone is lying, is in no way "ad hominem." The hominem is the one who is lying, but the focus is on the lying, not the hominem.
(I mean, I don't know. For all I know he was out all night and stumbled home at 5:09 and just had to get this meme up on Lemmy before he went to bed. I was just highlighting it as an unusual thing that's a little suspect.)
you are attacking the speaker rather than what they are saying
Asking questions highlighting some way in which it seems like someone is lying, is in no way "ad hominem." The hominem is the one who is lying, but the focus is on the lying, not the hominem.
"People" like the OP will really post a bunch of propaganda trying to suppress Democratic votes and think saying "oh guys don't worry I'm not a right wing shill, I'm totally left wing actually" and think it will actually fool people.
implying your opponent isn't human is fucking disgusting
He is implying his opponent is a human who is lying
I'm implying he's a bot...
Oh... I misunderstood. return2ozma is clearly not a bot; I've had back-and-forth human conversations with him. I thought you were just saying he was not who he said he was (and maybe speaking at the behest of an entity as opposed to for himself), which I think is moderately likely.
I can assure you I'm not a bot. Look through my history.. I'm gay, live in the Los Angeles area, and am far left.
I have seen your comment history, and it's pretty much all heavily downvoted far-right propaganda....
What is considered far right propaganda to you? All my sources are from liberal media. Stop thinking in binary, red vs blue, Dem vs GOP. It's class warfare.
dehumanizing
and anyone who disbelieves that tehy are left wing are actually liberals, which are not left wing.
"Please don't vote." (your political agitator)
B O T H S I D E S
bUt OnE sIdE iS oBjEcTiVeLy WoRsE
I want you to explain to me how attempting the violent overthrow of the federal government, and having a credible plan to end democracy in the United States in a more organized and planned-out fashion this time, is equivalent to failing to forgive enough student loan debt, or do enough to change the US's semi-genocidal-for-the-last-two-decades Israel policy.
Explain it to me like I'm a little slow, because I'm having trouble seeing it.
Other than Trump, which of the other Presidents in the meme invited a violent insurrection?
Actually Bush Jr. (Karl Rove and Roger Stone more precisely) did do a little mini one in Florida. There's a whole conversation to be had over the pretty-much-validity of this meme as it could have been applied to the pre-W-era Republicans and Democrats, with the 2000 election as the ushering in of the new era. The Democrats started showing some tentative signs of being 1% working-class-supporting, which was kind of nice, and the Republicans gradually but steadily went about 500% over to the Nazi side to the point that they're currently in "kill the vice president, military seize the voting machines" full throated fascist mode, making the application of this meme at this point a wholly bad-faith effort to influence the current election and throw it to a country-destroying fascist. Any other questions?
(Edit: Actually, even as far back ago as that, there's an instructive example that can be drawn about this "both sides are the same" messaging. Back then the argument was about 1,000% more valid than it is today. But even so, if some of those activists who were smashing windows of Starbucks and fucking up the WTO (which I'm fine with, it's a good and noble activity) had gone to bat for Al Gore the same way "activists" on the ground on the Republican side went to bat for W, maybe things would have been different. We'd have had Gore, a kooky weirdo who was so out-there that he was talking about climate change and what a big deal it was, in charge of the most powerful diplomatic and economic power in the world, back 24 years ago when there was a lot more time to mitigate the damage. But no. Both sides were the same, lots of activist energy on the left went into "anti establishment" activities instead of "within the establishment" activities, W got in office helped along by effective on-the-ground organizing by his people even though he lost the election, and here we fucking are.
I'm not blaming anyone who was politically active back then for the situation. Helping is helping, wherever it's directed. I'm just pointing out a real concrete example of how both sides, even back then, were abso fucking lutely not the same, and highlighting a little preview of the by-now apocalyptic damage that can potentially be done by this messaging in the current election.)
Ah, if they didn't incite an insurrection they must be good little boys who brush their teeth before bed and only wish the best for the world.
Not any worse than sending drones to strike civilians for instance.
i wish he invited a violent insurrection but, alas, he did not.
the us is bad, so the federal goverment should be overthrown.
qed
Do you know what Trump thinks are good uses for the power of the US military? As pertains to its treatment of countries mostly full of non white people? Unconstrained this time by pushback from more sensible senior leadership after he's installed all loyalists?
Want to find out?
I'm not sure if you're mocking that or not but it is a true statement.
Neo-Liberal is the new both sides dog whistle
it's not a dog whistle. it's a fact.
But Ford and Carter were OK?
I noticed the strategic exclusion of Carter as well... his picture might start an unwanted conversation about how change is possible if we work hard to install actually-good people.