this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2025
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Ye Power Trippin' Bastards

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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:

  1. Which mods/admins were being Power Tripping Bastards?
  2. What sanction did they impose (e.g. community ban, instance ban, removed comment)?
  3. Provide a screenshot of the relevant modlog entry (don’t de-obfuscate mod names).
  4. Provide a screenshot and explanation of the cause of the sanction (e.g. the post/comment that was removed, or got you banned).
  5. Explain why you think its unfair and how you would like the situation to be remedied.

Rules


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.


Relevant comms

founded 10 months ago
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I downvoted maybe half a dozen posts. They were all right-wing bullshit and I realized that's all the user has ever posted so I got out of there. The next day I see more of his junk and go to downvote but can't because I'm banned.

Sure it was a dick move to poke the bear about his lifestyle of only posting things that get downvoted, but he. Went. OFF!

Accusing me of alts, thinking I'm obsessed with him, message after message... I probably have more in my inbox right now but stitching this image together took long enough.

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[–] TimeTracelParadox@lemmy.zip 5 points 11 hours ago

Turns out I'm still signed in and Lemmy's image compression is shit. The week on Lemmy was enlightening and after I post this I will delete my account. Anyway, here's a re-typed transcript because he edited out some of the weirder bits about milfs but I kept screenshots:

Me: Wait, wait, wait, you can’t be serious! You ban people for downvoting AND every single thing in your community is downvoted? Shit, life must be tough

DMJ: I don't ban people for downvoting. I ban people for serial downvoting without interacting with the community.

Here's the deal: That whole thing that ya think is fun, like downvoting every article in a community you don't like is now starting to be seen as not cool. Lemmy has updated mod tools.

I'm not the only one on Lemmy who thinks this way. More and more mods and admins are getting tired of people trying to control narratives by just going around and downvoting a bunch of stuff at once.

Lemmy admin has updated mod tools just because of people like you. It's actively talked about now. Look up "serial downvoting" and you'll see that Lemmy admin has seen a pattern in what you all do and they are putting a stop to it.

Brah, you didn't read the article, think to yourself, "hmmm, interesting, but some incorrect info. I should downvote because that's not right."

No, you didn't do that. You went, "Fuck this MAGA asshole! Right-wing assholes have no right to be on Lemmy!" And just started downvoting every article. Without reading them. Without giving any thoughts.

You thought that maybe, just maybe, if you and enough people downvoted everything, maybe I would stop posting!

Guess what? Not happening. In fact, the more people downvote me, the more shit I post.

You are perfectly free to downvote anything you want. And I am perfectly free to ban you. See how that works?

And you just inspired me to post a bunch more stuff today. And that whole thing about maybe you should just come up with alts and downvote.

Cool, still won't stop me. I'm never ever ever going to leave Lemmy. I'm never ever ever going to stop posting articles that I want to post.

Also, my life isn't tough at all. In fact, I took early retirement, and I can do what I want whenever I want, all day every day. Forever. I get to fuck around on Lemmy. Or go to the pool. Or fuck milfs. Doesn't matter. Through hard work, I became financially independent and won't ever work a day in my life for the rest of my life. I'm also healthy and fit as fuck, so man, I am gonna live a really really long time. Ooops.

Feel free to just block and ignore me. Or hey, come up with alts and waste your time downvoting my posts. I'm not going anywhere.

Ever. :)

Me: Ha ha ha your skin is PAPER thin, man. This is neurotic.

Me: [picture of Voyager's search screen showing "serial downvoting" having 0 search results]

Me: What an asshole

DMJ: Brah, I didn’t invent, nor push for, the tools to ban serial downvoters. Lemmy admin noticed it and has been talking about it with mods. So is there skin “PAPER thin,” too?

You’re the one all butthurt about not being able to downvote shit in a community you don’t even like.

You know, you could just move on and stay away from communites that you hate. You realize that there is more to life than bitching about politics on Lemmy, right?

And you didn't and won't bully me off of Lemmy by downvoting. I’m posting more stuff right now, so get your alts ready.

And be sure to click that downvote button really hard! Make sure you can hear that mouse click!

OR you can be the change you wanna see, and create your own community and mod it however you want. And when you get serial downvoters, just let them run free. Nothing stopping you from doing that.

DMJ: Awww, I see you are really mad that I stopped you from downvoting in a community that you hate.

Damn. Hmmm, what can we do about this, I mean, you had such fun trying to control the narrative and bully. And now you can't. Crap! What can you do.

Well, you can create a bunch of alts, and then go around and try downvoting all over again.

Yeah, do that! I would very much love knowing that you are so pathetic and so pissed off over it that you spend your time creating alts just to downvote posts on Lemmy!

hahahahaha, please please please do that! You wasting your time doing that instead of making real change would be the most hilarious thing ever.

I think we could be friends if you do that. I know you don't have a lot of friends. I can be your friend.

Wanna be friends now? Want me to hold your hand as you push that downvote button really hard? Would that make you feel better?

More messages not in the original image

DMJ: you try to portray yourself as someone that you’re not. You act like you’re not petty, you are. Funny how you posted “Lemmy.today and hilariouschaos.com for the same reason” when someone asked what communities or instances do you have blocked to make your Lemmy experience more enjoyable.

You said that you blocked those, but you haven’t. Not only haven’t you blocked them, you actively seek them out to downvote in them. When you get banned and you’re not allowed to downvote in there, you throw a fit. i bet you have a nice long list of alts so you can downvote, don’t ya? And that list is gonna grow today, isn’t it?

Me: Who do you think I am? After a handful of downvotes, you seem to think is your world ending and you ban me. You’re making a huge deal out of this. I’m not even talking about the ban. Whatever. I’m not allowed in your shitty communities anymore. From the looks of the modlog, half of lemmy is banned from the public diaries you call comms. Yeah, I think people should ban those instances, but… DING DING DING, we have a winner! Somebody realized I didn’t block them! Have a cookie. Get it yourself.

I’m glad you love whoever this person you think I am, but leave me alone. I don’t have a list of alts if you don’t count my soon to die lemm.ee account. I only downvoted you a handful of times because you are not worth my time. I’m apparently worth your time though. Paragraph after paragraph of what should probably be a therapy session are now in my inbox and I have no clue what the fuck you’re talking about half the time.

Post, don’t post, I. Do. Not. Give. A. Shit. You’re too scared/banned to post anywhere I care to spend my time, anyway. It’s more than obvious that I don’t need to do a thing for your posts to get the downvotes they deserve. Better go hurry and ban them too! If you want to be King of Lemmy then you better keep banning. Talk about controlling the fucking narrative…

DMJ: you should be happy I banned you, because now you don’t have to deal with me anymore. See? Win-win for you, guy!bYou are worth my time. I think everyone is worthy of being loved. I’m here for you.

Paragraph after paragraph of what should probably be a therapy session are now in my inbox and I have no clue what the fuck you’re talking about half the time.

Oh you can delete those, it’s easy. That way you won’t have to be so troubled by them. I can see that it’s weighing heavily on you. i feel so badd that I send you replies that take 30 seconds to read. How could I?! The horror!!!

It’s more than obvious that I don’t need to do a thing for your posts to get the downvotes they deserve.

You don’t have to do the work then. Others are. you ca be happy now!

If you want to be King of Lemmy then you better keep banning

“Better to be a King in Hell, than a Follower in Heaven.”

Thank you for your life-changing advice. Now we can be friends? Kiss and make up? Come on, let’s be friends. It’ll beeee fun!!

So friends?

Me: I’ve made my last post on Lemmy. Thanks for showing me how open minded and not-like-reddit it is. You sir can have a fantastic day. I will no longer be signing in.

DMJ: I don’t think you should stop posting on reddit. I did just see your post about me in the power tripping bastards community and l posted you a relevant post from that community as well. I feel that you misrepresented it, and make it sound like I am stalking you via DM, I’m replying to your DM’s and you DM’d me first. I have a shot of our entire conversation Don’t leave Lemmy just because you had a disagreement with me. Block me and move on with your day and continue with Lemmy. nothing we have talked about worth quitting over.

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 6 points 13 hours ago

What a sad person

PTB

[–] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 17 points 1 day ago

taps temple Can't get harassed in DMs if you constantly forget that they exist.

[–] TheImpressiveX 121 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] PlexSheep@infosec.pub 12 points 15 hours ago

I fucking love this picture

[–] cowfodder@lemmy.world 87 points 1 day ago (50 children)

Congratulations! You just had a run in with DJM/Universalmonk/BarryGoldwater/ I lost track of the rest of his alts.

[–] AngryishHumanoid@lemmy.world 29 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I suppose I should count myself lucky that I haven't heard of/experienced this dude before, what's their deal?

[–] cowfodder@lemmy.world 67 points 1 day ago (6 children)

UM used to post a ton of conservative bullshit, then would get offended when it was downvoted into oblivion, then would go off on unrelated rants and would message people heinous bullshit. We're talking posting and commenting like it was a full time job. That account got banned, and he created a bunch of alts on other instances to get around it. It was always suspected that DJM was an UM alt, and then was confirmed when he posted one of UM's rants word for word. Once you know what to look for it's pretty obvious. Most of the accounts I know of were created on the same day, have the same style of weird AI created avatar (pretty sure they're made using the Dream app by Womble), and all have some sort of vaguely libertarian sounding quote in their profile.

I think there's a few posts about UM on fediverse lore as well.

[–] AngryishHumanoid@lemmy.world 38 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That explains why they accused OP of having alts, every accusation and all that.

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[–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Looks like you DMed them, and now you're getting pissy that they went off on you? Don't be a douche and go bitching in PMs then.

BPR, and judging from the young age of your account, you're an alt of someone else trying to start shit. There's no way somebody brand new to Lemmy would know to start a post here after a single week.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 day ago

Yeah, I thought about a Lemm.ee alt due to the shutdown, but no other account exists with that name.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 27 points 1 day ago (1 children)

OP, could you provide a Ctrl+C Ctrl+V of the conversation? It's practically impossible to read it from the picture.

Anyway. I don't think the voting system is the right way to handle this shit; if the mod is a troll (as other comments here say), it's probably better to gather people affected by the troll, then contact the admins of the instance of the community in question. A few things might happen:

  1. Admins don't intervene. Avoid instance, throw shit on the fan, call for defederation, yadda yadda.
  2. Admins intervene. Problem solved.

Either way don't interact with the comm. Not even downvoting. You're basically giving it activity.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 20 hours ago

Good advice, as usual

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 41 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think your image needs a few more pixels, I can't read any of that's it's all pixelated

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[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 30 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

image of tiny unreadable text:
break accessibility for no reason.

Is this a web post for ants?

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[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 20 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I want to say CLM... If a community really doesn't want downvotes, why not setup the community on an instance that doesn't do downvoting?

If downvoting is "manipulation" just because you don't like it... why allow downvotes at all? Lemmy supports disabling downvotes. It's a checkbox for the admin. It's easy.

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago

Because people don't like instances where they can't vote but the admin wants their space to be popular while maintaining ideological control.

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[–] socsa@piefed.social 25 points 1 day ago (6 children)

This is precisely why the fediverse needs private voting, and is the number 1 reason to support Piefed.

[–] KombatWombat@lemmy.world 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I like public voting. Yes, it can be abused by powertripping mods, but it also makes detecting bots and brigading much easier. That's going to be increasingly important as the fediverse grows.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 6 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

You really want every post you've ever voted on archived forever by every instance on the fediverse? You don't see any deeper security or privacy concerns with that?

The user agent approach currently used by piefed still makes it easy to detect brigading because the agent is static in the short term. You can ban the agent and you basically deny the user the ability to vote. With a few simple modifications to the activity pub protocol, all individual actions can be cryptographically authenticated without the need for plaintext user strings at all.

The reality is that the plaintext user agents doesn't even prevent abuse by a rogue instance, since such an instance could just generate infinite users anyway. Piefed actually makes this easier to identify by tracking other metrics for individual user agents, like vote ratios.

[–] KombatWombat@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Edit: Accidently hit send while I was drafting this, so sorry if you saw it before when it was chaotic.

You really want every post you've ever voted on archived forever by every instance on the fediverse? You don't see any deeper security or privacy concerns with that?

Well, with that history someone could certainly see small impressions of me, like what I like and dislike and how much I engage with different topics. I could only see that being used against my account in these ways:

  1. For targeted advertising
  2. To shame me to other users
  3. To ban me from a community/instance for wrongthink essentially
  4. To train AI to better impersonate real people

1 seems unlikely to be an issue anytime soon just with the way the fediverse is set up. Unless the host of my account is the one sending ads, the only way to direct ads to me specifically would be through another user account either DMing me or replying to my comments/posts, and I could just block and report that user.

2 and 3 would be more practical concerns, except with or without public voting, they already have a better insight available. Just by looking at my profile, a user can already see my posts/comments, and those are going to reveal much more than voting ever would. So I don't see public voting making this more of something to worry about.

4 is feasible, as votes are much easier to digest than comments/posts, but really AI is probably already at a level where it could vote like whatever kind of person it intends to imitate already. And honestly, any particular individual's contribution to big data is going to be almost negligible.

I don't see any real life consequences for me based on my user voting be publicly available. If someone did want to harass me irl, I would need to first give away enough revealing information so that they could identify me. And in that case, once again, my comments/posts would surely be what would incite them, not my voting. So long as issues are limited to virtual me, I can easily make an alt on the off-chance my reputation in unsalvageable or something.

The tracking with PieFed you described does seem impressive, so I guess the benefits I mentioned earlier aren't as relevant. I guess I should admit I personally like being able to look at people's activity and make judgements about them. So seeing their voting history helps satisfy my own nosiness. 😅

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 32 points 1 day ago

And miss this?

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