PTB. Any community that allows Breitbart and its ilk should be avoided and removed. Absolutely nothing they publish is in good faith, factual, or otherwise. It's right-wing rage porn, nothing more, nothing less.
Edited to remain on-topic.
this post was submitted on 18 Mar 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:
- Which mods/admins were being Power Tripping Bastards?
- What sanction did they impose (e.g. community ban, instance ban, removed comment)?
- Provide a screenshot of the relevant modlog entry (don’t de-obfuscate mod names).
- Provide a screenshot and explanation of the cause of the sanction (e.g. the post/comment that was removed, or got you banned).
- Explain why you think its unfair and how you would like the situation to be remedied.
Rules
- Post only about bans or other sanctions that you have received from a mod or admin.
- Don’t use private communications to prove your point. We can’t verify them and they can be faked easily.
- Don’t deobfuscate mod names from the modlog with admin powers.
- Don’t harass mods or brigade comms. Don’t word your posts in a way that would trigger such harassment and brigades.
- Do not downvote posts if you think they deserved it. Use the comment votes (see below) for that.
- You can post about power trippin’ in any social media, not just lemmy. Feel free to post about reddit or a forum etc.
- If you are the accused PTB, while you are welcome to respond, please do so within the relevant post.
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.
- PTB - Power-Tripping Bastard: The commenter agrees with you this was a PTB mod.
- YDI - You Deserved It: The commenter thinks you deserved that mod action.
- BPR - Bait-Provoked Reaction: That mod probably overreacted in charged situation, or due to being baited.
- CLM - Clueless mod: The mod probably just doesn't understand how their software works.
Relevant comms
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Agreed, but I was more diplomatic, simply pointing out the bias and the quality rating from multiple independent sources... Nope, immediately removed by the mod!
Diplomacy with people who enable that cesspool of a publication is going to be a fail, always.
They can be true believers, defensive idiots or trolls .
I’m glad your experience was more or less civilized, even if rude
I can't even make sense of this.
Are you mad because you want the Breitbart source to stay? Or because you want it to go away?
mods: realcaseyrollins
Oh... oh. That community is the number one community on their instance.
- Right Wing Videos
- Censorship News
Jesus, man. Just stay away.
Yeah I recognized the mod username immediately. Def a PTB chud of a mod.
Sorry if I was unclear! I quoted a bit, so tell me if I should edit something to make it less confusing (already clarified slightly). I am venting because I don't think I broke a rule, but my comment with a reputable news source and several independent sources calling attention to the problems Breitbart has was removed.
And yes, I avoided pointing out exactly who it was, but it's pretty obvious who, when the instance has a single moderator... who's also the OP. Their own community has the post downvoted 9 points vs a single upvote! 🤣
I would just make it a little more clear which side you're on. People sometimes come to YPTB because they are being unreasonable. Something like:
- Some idiot posts Breitbart
- I point out that it's clear propaganda with several sources
- My comment gets deleted, Breitbart stays
Then the sources to prove it, but have the simple explanation first. Sometimes if you indicate the primary sources first without the explanation it takes a little triangulation for someone to figure out what's actually going on.
And yeah, I don't even know if this counts as PTB just because of the superseding issue that realcaseyrollins is just here to spew and nothing good can come of interacting with them, mod or not. Like you can't go in the monkey cage and then be surprised when some poop comes flying at you. I'm actually a little surprised that thelemmy.club is not defederated from more places given the apparent waste-of-time state of the place.
thelemmy.club admin here
Their communities are small and generally most conservative posts get clowned on if they get any attention at all. And it's mostly self-contained. Any instance admin could just ban those few communities or that user there's really no reason to defederate the entire instance.
I'm not at all a fan of their content but I also don't want to ban people or comms that I personally disagree with (to a limit, of course) who don't otherwise break rules.
But I definitely don't want to run a right wing site. I've only left it alone this long because it seems like they've mostly failed at creating any kind of community. I may have to do something, I dunno. It's hard to get a read on them, if you look they also post bbc, msnbc, etc articles. They post articles about Trump and Musks failures too. It's kinda all over the place. To do it would force me to foray into a more active, ideological based moderation which I'd really like to avoid. Right now I'm at "if instances don't like that user, they can ban them".
Until you posted this I thought all of thelemmyclub was a right wing disinformation platform and have heard similar from others. It is the only content and users I have seen from the instance.
FYI, we are having a thelemmy.club instance defederation vote in our governance community here: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/40329206, so maybe consider rethinking your position. We also banned Xitter links a while back for similar reasons. Any instance that caters to the alt-right is gonna find itself defederated sooner or later.
It’s hard to get a read on them, if you look they also post bbc, msnbc, etc articles. They post articles about Trump and Musks failures too. It’s kinda all over the place.
It's actually a common right wing tactic to sprinkle some ordinary looking posts in between the problematic ones, for plausible deniability. But don't be fooled, they know what they are doing. I'll be happy to withdraw my governance defederation proposal if you are willing to take some meaningful action against right wing content on your instance.
Have you heard the Nazi bar story? Not being sarcastic here, it's honestly pertinent to your situation.
Yes of course.
But scrolling through their history I hesitate to throw that label so strongly. Would you ban them? Actually, you haven't done so despite having the capability. Nor their communities.
I think my problem is more that they're such a prolific poster on my small instance that it reflects more on my instance. Like if I had a few other communities that were larger than theirs I probably wouldn't worry about it so much.
But scrolling through their history I hesitate to throw that label so strongly.
That's the whole point of the "Nazi bar" story though.
Would you ban them?
From being hosted on my instance? Absolutely. I've already banned similar ones. From being seen on my instance? Well I only just heard about it, so I would have to check.
Hm... I just looked over their comment history and I have to say you kind of have a point. I have RCR mentally categorized as a bad-faith engager, but I really don't see much at all of that after a quick glance over what they've actually been doing.
I think there is a big example set in conservative media that the right way to go about things is to spew propaganda, or be "snarky" and refuse to engage with reasonable conversation about politics in favor of just dunking on the opposition. That comes across as "fun," or as sort of doing battle for "your team" in the marketplace of ideas, and I think people are taken in by the idea of it even if they're not necessarily bad people or intending to do anything wrong. Looking over RCR's history I'm going to take back what I said about their intent being to violate the social contract. I think they're just posting a bunch of conservative stuff. Which, of course, there's a lot of overlap between that and naked propaganda, but that doesn't necessarily have to be their fault or their intent if that's just the media they consume.
@[email protected] as an olive branch I'm going to ask you about some details of some of the stuff you've said recently, under appropriate comment threads. You don't have to answer my questions of course if you don't want to. I am just trying to sort out whether you are (1) posting this stuff because you think it's true (2) posting it because "doing battle for your team" so to speak is the pattern of behavior you see, by fun conservative commentators you're trying to emulate (3) posting it because you've independently decided that you don't give a shit whether it's true as long as it "feels" like a win for your side. Those are somewhat different behaviors, as far as how you're treating the social contract and as far as the Nazi bar analogy people have been talking about here, and so if you want people to treat you and your instance some certain way you might want people to be placing you in the earlier categories instead of the later ones.
Edit: Oh, one of the comments I wanted to respond to is not federated here. My question is:
No this is a thing in blue states, and not at all related to being a citizen or immigrant. I think they call it “equitive justice” or “progressive prosecution”, either DAs will refuse to charge a POC for a crime due to their race, or judges will waive bail for the same reason.
Where did you read this? Can I find out more details about why you think this is happening, and read for myself the argument that it is happening?
Hey! I really appreciate you looping me in on this.
I am just trying to sort out whether you are (1) posting this stuff because you think it’s true (2) posting it because “doing battle for your team” so to speak is the pattern of behavior you see, by fun conservative commentators you’re trying to emulate (3) posting it because you’ve independently decided that you don’t give a shit whether it’s true as long as it “feels” like a win for your side.
For the things I post, I'll usually post them because I either 1) think that the content is probably both relevant and true, 2) it portrays a relevant perspective, or 3) is just plain interesting
If any articles I share make false claims in a community like @[email protected] then I'm more than happy to remove them. For places like @[email protected] I'm not as careful and I hope it's clear that the stuff over there or at @[email protected] aren't always going to be 100% true or objective.
Now as far as my behavior is concerned @bdonvr@[email protected] if I'm no longer welcome here I'll leave. Many of my communities here are continuations of my old Lotide communities, and I only left that software because it's abandonware now. I'm sure at this point there'd be other Lemmy instances I could go to if you don't like what I post here.
Edit: Also, the point of Rule 6 was to reduce spam, as my communities were starting to get brigaded by leftists basically saying "fake news" verbatim in the comment sections of certain news posts. I don't like those types of rules, but it seems necessary for now since it keeps happening. It's a neutral rule, so if anyone says "fake news" on an article from a center or left leaning source I'll remove that comment too.
Edit 2:
No this is a thing in blue states, and not at all related to being a citizen or immigrant. I think they call it “equitive justice” or “progressive prosecution”, either DAs will refuse to charge a POC for a crime due to their race, or judges will waive bail for the same reason.
Where did you read this? Can I find out more details about why you think this is happening, and read for myself the argument that it is happening?
This was something I noticed during BLM riots particularly, and in some blue areas afterwards like in New York (though not as prominently since the riots), there'd be cases of somebody stealing something or hurting someone, caught on video, and the DA would refuse to place charges on the individual. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why else they would do that.
Now to be fair I think there was some overlap between the BLM riots and me still watching Steven Crowder so maybe some of the stuff I observed at the time wasn't entirely accurate or correct (I stopped watching him during the Summer Of Love because I noticed he wasn't as truthful as he claimed to be during his coverage)
Yeah, I'm not trying to be unfriendly about it.
For the things I post, I’ll usually post them because I either 1) think that the content is probably both relevant and true, 2) it portrays a relevant perspective, or 3) is just plain interesting
But... you surely have to see how (2) and (3) are bad things, right? I'm not saying you necessarily mean any harm, but this whole explanation that something is "a perspective" or "interesting" and so that means it's okay if it doesn't fall into the category of "true" is... it's not good. There's a lot of deliberately misleading stuff out there.
There are a lot of people in the US getting amped-up over some thing that they saw online that's total fabricated nonsense. People have died as a result. It really matters whether stuff is true. I know it is sort of popular in some circles to retreat into a kind of landscape where it's not all that important, everything's just a perspective, if the stuff starts getting challenged, but it is important. Perspective is perspective, and truth and falsehood are truth and falsehood. They're not the same.
I mean just someone explaining their take on things is fine. Maybe that's what you mean by (2). Something doesn't have to be "objective" to be based in fact and reality. I guess my beef is more with the stuff where it's treated as not that important that the factual backing is not there or just imaginary.
Edit: Also, the point of Rule 6 was to reduce spam, as my communities were starting to get brigaded by leftists basically saying “fake news” verbatim in the comment sections of certain news posts. I don’t like those types of rules, but it seems necessary for now since it keeps happening.
Yeah, I do get that. I would rather have some kind of productive conversation about it. I don't think it's really all that useful to just have two sides yelling at each other whichever side anybody happens to be on.
No this is a thing in blue states, and not at all related to being a citizen or immigrant. I think they call it “equitive justice” or “progressive prosecution”, either DAs will refuse to charge a POC for a crime due to their race, or judges will waive bail for the same reason.
Where did you read this? Can I find out more details about why you think this is happening, and read for myself the argument that it is happening?
This was something I noticed during BLM riots particularly, and in some blue areas afterwards like in New York (though not as prominently since the riots), there’d be cases of somebody stealing something or hurting someone, caught on video, and the DA would refuse to place charges on the individual. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why else they would do that.
What you're saying now is different from what you said before. What you said before was "equitive justice" and "progressive prosecution" where people in the present tense are not prosecuted because of their race. Where does this happen, what are some of the cities? Where can I read more about it? How did you find out about it?
I have more to say on the arrests-during-BLM issue specifically, but that's different than saying that blue states are using progressive prosecution and refusing to charge a crime because of the race of the person being accused, so I want to focus on the first thing instead of switching if we can.
Now to be fair I think there was some overlap between the BLM riots and me still watching Steven Crowder so maybe some of the stuff I observed at the time wasn’t entirely accurate or correct (I stopped watching him during the Summer Of Love because I noticed he wasn’t as truthful as he claimed to be during his coverage)
Yeah, fair enough. I've had that experience of paying attention to something online and believing it, and then later on putting it together that it was bullshit, so I can respect the idea. The whole endeavor of trying to figure out who is actually telling the truth is important and it's not real easy.
this whole explanation that something is “a perspective” or “interesting” and so that means it’s okay if it doesn’t fall into the category of “true” is… it’s not good.
I mean, it can be if you're amplifying irrelevant voices, as amplifying irrelevant extreme rhetoric sparks panic and polarization. But if, say, an official says he thinks something about how Trump is running things, that's interesting. If a new poll comes out about sentiment amongst voters about how Trump is running things, that's interesting. And Rachel Maddow blogs, which I share in @[email protected] here and there are, if not interesting, at the very least a perspective shared by a non-insignificant portion of the population. By sharing these things, readers get a window into the thinking of people who have a different perspective than they do, which isn't just positive, but a necessary means of fighting polarization, and fueling compassion and empathy.
I mean just someone explaining their take on things is fine. Maybe that’s what you mean by (2).
Correct. I'm not going to run around sharing links to conspiracy theories, that is completely different.
What you’re saying now is different from what you said before.
Yeah, in hindsight I wasn't entirely correct in that initial response. I know for a fact that I saw some things that lead me to that conclusion, but I am less sure that those things I saw were accurate now that I think about it.
Where does this happen, what are some of the cities? Where can I read more about it? How did you find out about it?
Some cities I have seen this happen in were San Francisco and New York City (there might be others as well but I can't remember off the top of my head). I am not aware of any studies or anything that quantify or validate my conclusion though.
But if, say, an official says he thinks something about how Trump is running things, that’s interesting. If a new poll comes out about sentiment amongst voters about how Trump is running things, that’s interesting. And Rachel Maddow blogs, which I share in @[email protected] here and there are, if not interesting, at the very least a perspective shared by a non-insignificant portion of the population.
You know good and well that none of any of that is what I am talking about, or the reason people are giving you static about your postings.
Correct. I’m not going to run around sharing links to conspiracy theories, that is completely different.
Yeah, in hindsight I wasn’t entirely correct
...
I’m not going to run around sharing links to conspiracy theories
You told me that people of certain ethnicities weren't getting prosecuted in some jurisdictions, because the DA had just decided that they were going to be above the law because they were POC. Then when I asked for details, you said maybe that wasn't true. But then, you listed some cities where you "have seen this happen." I can pretty much guarantee you that it's not happening. You're free to show me, if you think I am wrong, but I am extremely sure that that doesn't happen. There are things that kind of sound similar to that after a long game of right-wing-media-telephone, but I would be surprised if there is any jurisdiction anywhere in the country where the rate of POC who get charged with crimes is anything other than significantly higher than the white people.
I don't know man. I'm not trying to jump down your throat about it. I'm just saying that it matters. People hopped-up on this kind of stuff have gone out and killed other people. This country is developing itself towards a civil war, and a lot of why it is happening isn't because people are reading Rachel Maddow on one side and Jordan Peterson on the other side. It's happening, more than any other single reason, because people are seeing made-up crazy nonsense online and getting themselves amped up on it. There's a huge difference between just something that isn't my particular polarization, and something that is both polarized and inflammatory and not even the slightest bit true (and the person who's saying it doesn't really seem to care whether it's true or any of those things).
I don't really care about the polarization part. I'm probably in a tiny minority on Lemmy in that regard. I do care about the truth part, and I would hope that a lot of the reason you're getting flak about your postings isn't just that they're political in a certain way, but also that you're unapologetically including content from known liars.
Here's my take on it. I had to deal with this a few times in spaces I control.
I feel you on not wanting to be capricious or ban people you don't agree with. I actually think that having "enemy" points of view easily accessible for people to talk to or amongst each other is a really good thing. I wish there were more "conservative" voices in the discourse that made some kind of sense for example, although that's a pretty tough sell at this point because "conservative" has become synonymous with dangerous violence and total dishonesty at this point. But the issue with realcaseyrollins or other people like them isn't exactly the point of view. The issue is how they approach the social contract with their postings.
I think Lemmy's incentives and overall structure have led people to this entitled mindset under which they've got an absolute right to be part of the social interaction, as long as they don't violate "the rules" beyond a reasonable doubt with a lot of debate and abundance of due process and benefit of the doubt. As long as they don't cross certain incredibly loose standards of behavior (or other standards which are bizarrely and pointlessly strict), they've got a right to stay forever and interact however they want. I don't actually think that's a healthy way to build a community.
For the small number of times that this has come up, I've opened a conversation with the person. "Hey, it kind of seems like such-and-such is an issue with what you're posting. What's your take on it? How do you respond if someone raised that particular aspect as a problem for the community?"
Every time, the reaction I've gotten has been along the lines of "waargbrlgbs fuck fuck you fuck you I'm going to post it anyway argargarbawe you can't stop me." I'm sort of paraphrasing obviously. But that's the vibe. Kind of "I don't have to justify it, now fuck off and let me post." At that point, I felt totally comfortable taking action against them. Because it's not censorship, it's just... I don't know, decency. Enforcing normal human interaction. The modern internet with its anonymity and its free accounts for whoever wants one, has entitled people to act with this kind of impunity. Experience has taught them that the social contract doesn't apply to them. They don't have to pretend they're here for a good reason, they don't have to answer questions or talk like a reasonable person. If they just want to broadcast slop and abuse, they can. I do feel like someone who's in control of some little part of the space has a responsibility to remove that stuff.
I'm not trying to tell you what to do by any means, you can handle it however you like. Like I say, I really feel you as far as not removing the viewpoint. I just don't think that the viewpoint is really the issue with a lot of the posters that are problems in my opinion, and I don't think "the rules" as they are commonly understood on Lemmy are the answer for building a good place.
Edit: Also, you're definitely at risk of becoming the Nazi bar if you are not already. I took one look at the communities and, as you saw, came to the conclusion "whoa welp okay fuck this place." Again, not because of the political bent of the content, but because of who was involved and their modes of interactions with other people that I've observed. I feel like it would be a lot more healthy to build up some kind of intentional good interactions and communities, however small, than it would be to have it dominated by the people who are having issues with getting banned in other places and just getting clowned on all the time.
PTB.
They popped up in a governance thread on the instance I'm part of, so I did a deep dive on their comments (as others had done on their posts and I thought I could get a better look at their POV if I went for comments) and they, at one point in the past, stated they worded their rules carefully. I believe this sort of thing is intentional, and bad faith.
But as they themselves said several times, they're right-wing, and a person can't help their biases! So the fact that they're intelligent and have no qualms with their biases, just means they're going to hard code their biases into any spaces they litigate. It's to be expected.
.club seems to be a troll farm.
They need to be defederated
These are the people that got banned justly on reddit for posting such nonsense trash.
At my understanding, you don't address why your article is better than the one posted, and you only disqualify the medium where it's posted and I agree with you, but that is against their rule 6. YDI.
Well, it's absolutely your right to think that. But again, it was not my article, it was more recent, it was by the Associated Press, and I provided 3 independent sources that highlighted why Breitbart was a problematic news source. And, as others have attested to, it seems that Rule 6 only exists so they can selectively filter news sources to reinforce a narrative...