You may have noticed a distinct lack of return2ozma. This is due to their admitting, in a public comment, that their engagement here is in bad faith:
I'm sure there will be questions, let me see if I can address the most obvious ones:
- Can I still post negative stuff about Biden?
Absolutely! We have zero interest in running an echo chamber. However, if ALL you're posting is negative, you may want to re-think your priorities. You get out of the world what you put into it and all that.
- Why now?
Presumption of innocence. It may be my own fault, but I do try to think the best of people, and even though they were posting negative articles, they weren't necessarily WRONG. Biden's poll numbers, particularly in minority demographics ARE in the shitter. They are starting to get better, but he still has a hell of a hill to climb.
- Why a 30 day temp ban and not a permanent ban?
The articles return2ozma shared weren't bad, faked, or from some wing-nut bias site like "beforeitsnews.com", they were legitimate articles from established and respected news agencies, pointing out the valid problems Biden faces.
The problem was ONLY posting the negatives, over and over and then openly admitting that dishonest enagement is their purpose.
Had they all been bullshit articles? It would not have taken anywhere near this much time to lay the ban and it would have been permanent.
30 days seems enough time for them to re-think their strategery and come back to engage honestly.
Look, I have zero illusions to how popular of a decision this is in this comm, and this isn't my instance so who the fuck cares what I think.
but
I have a very hard time seeing this as anything other than a disagreement over personal political tastes, rather than anything to do with a violation of some unwritten rule. Your comm already has rules regarding article quality, misinformation, and off-topic posts and comments that could be used as a justification here if it applied. If there was a problem with the volume of posts for which he was responsible (i think this is the legitimate concern here), then you could either call it spamming or there could easily be a rule added limiting the number of posts per day that applies globally and isn't reliant on subjective judgement.
I've been very vocal about my own political opinions, and have myself been accused of bad-faith trolling and of being a covert agent of some type or other. Speaking for myself, I think there's a pretty obvious bias (maybe preference is a more fair term) when it comes to the coverage and rhetoric about the upcoming election in the US specifically. There's legitimacy to the observation that inconvenient bad press about Biden is ignored/rationalized/dismissed on a 'lesser evil' and 'at all costs' political rationale that I (and I think ozma) tend to react negatively to. Breaking through the iron curtain of electoral politics to people who genuinely share political values (not all of them, mind you) sometimes involves repeated reminders and presentation of counter-partisan coverage. I personally appreciate ozma's contributions because often these posts and articles encourage real discussions about the limitations of this particular politician, and people like @mozz@mbin.grits.dev frequently jump in and provide nuanced dissection and context to what would otherwise be an easily dismissed issue.
This is not my instance so It's not up to my judgment what the right or wrong thing to do is here, but .world being an instance that has already de-federated with most others with louder left-leaning politics, the overton window has already been considerably narrowed. By removing the loudest dissenters (who are 'not wrong, just assholes'), you run the risk of warping reality for those who don't care enough to confront coverage they might find uncomfortable and might prefer a more quiet space to affirm their politics instead of being challenged. You're cultivating an echo chamber simply by cutting out the noise you find disagreeable. The goal of agitation is to get exactly those people to engage more so that we can move the overton window further left and accomplish more at the electoral level in the future. It isn't 'bad faith' to be motivated by that goal, it just might be unfair to people who are comfortable with where that window currently is and would rather not be challenged by it moving further left.
IDK why everyone's so eager to read a pretty detailed explanation of why the issue isn't his viewpoint, and then follow up right away with extensive hand wringing over the idea of censoring his viewpoint.
Because it's pretty clearly about his viewpoint, since the cited comment in the post is 'this is my viewpoint, and that viewpoint is why i'm posting these things'
If it's about the volume of posts call it spamming and address it with a rule about post limits. Calling it bad-faith is necessarily about the reason he's making the posts, not how many of them there are or the quality of the articles.
Simple. They're not buying the explanation.
Dude admitted to being a propagandist. You have no argument here.
he was posting stories from reputable sources.
And ONLY certain stories that fit a narrative. How is this part being ignored?
Oh… I get it. You also support that narrative.
no one shouldbe compelled to spread a story that supports a point of view with which they disagree. so long as his posts were, in themselves, in compliance with the rules, there should have been no problem.
Do you have a problem with reading comprehension? This was all explained already. They were spamming the community with agenda-based news. No one suggested they share news they disagree with.
And if you check the mod logs, not ALL of what they shared was legitimate.
They were rightfully banned. And I’d prefer it permanent, but it’s still a step in the right direction. Not arguing this with you further.
you know what, fair point. of course, that's sort of what mods are for, and i think that the power to decide which sources are legitimate is itself the power to propagandize.
Well said.