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submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by jordanlund@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

163 comments fedilink hide all child comments

So we've seen the complaints and the reports and boy oh boy are there complaints and reports.

I've discussed the account with the other mods and admins multiple times, and while we agree the volume is a lot, it doesn't point to a botfarm or multiple people using the account.

Obsessive? Absolutely, but not technically rule breaking... Until today.

Today they indescriminately posted the same story three times from three different sources apparently solely to flood the channel showing a decided lack of judgement.

It's a valid story from a valid source, the original has been kept here:

https://lemmy.world/post/21098916

The others have been removed as duplicates.

I'm also applying a 15 day temp ban on the account.

"15 days? That's oddly specific! What's in 15... OH!"

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[-] pooperNickel@lemm.ee 16 points 2 days ago

Another perfect example of the dude being completely a not-troll and just innocently neurodivergent in these comments:

https://lemmy.world/post/21123227

...right @jordanlund@lemmy.world ?

They clearly make all these weird communities so they can not answer to any mods and they can control the narrative.

They are making Lemmy worse. They are violating rules 4. The mods can deny it all they want, but if you read this very thread, it's clearly not just me saying it and it's not just their shitty opinion we don't like.

They are looking to stir shit and maybe influence an election, and 99% of the time gotten away with it Scot free. We cannot handwave away the fact that they've spent around 2 hours a day just writing posts. That means something. And it means something that practically everyone hates what they're doing. And the stats I've been posting speak volumes.

[-] odelik@lemmy.today 15 points 2 days ago

Man, if it wasn't for the antagonistic shit riddled throughout that post I'd engage and cheer him on. And the way he talks about his girlfriend in that post is a little worrisome. He's doing that same antagonistic shit when talking about her.

He's so clearly got main character syndrome and believes the world is out to get him. If he took the time to be self reflective in his personal interactions as much as he did about his physical health he might be a person I could actually engage with.

[-] pooperNickel@lemm.ee 15 points 2 days ago

Yeah, if I didn't think they were fucking up the whole ecosystem and showing other potential trolls they can too, I'd just block them and move on.

[-] pooperNickel@lemm.ee 9 points 2 days ago

UniversalMonk@lemmy.world "Socialist Mormon Satanist" stats pulled @ 10/22/2024, 1:37:27 PM EDT

Account created 75 days ago (8/8/2024, 9:21:38 PM EDT)
6,131 contributions (= 1,932 posts + 4,199 comments)
81.7 average contributions / day
11.7 mins average time between contributions (assuming 8 hrs of sleep / day)
83,172 downvotes accrued
- -65,774 net reputation points
- ~1.3 mins between downvotes on average
- ~14.3 average downvotes / submission
- 0.21 upvote to downvote ratio
231,519 words written as comments, 58,014 words written in posts
3,861 words (~16 typed pages) written per day
~77 mins / day writing comments (40 words / min)
~32 mins / day making posts (40 words / min + 30 secs / post)
~137 hrs commenting/posting in the past 75 days which breaks down to
- ~109 mins / day
- ~31.9% of a full time job
- 11.4% of their waking hours
See the modlog for more info.

None of this takes into account time reading others' posts/comments, or alts this user may secretly have.

Top 10 duplicate submissions (of 306 exact matches and 234 which are 70%+ similar)

spoiler 'Thank you!' x 28

'Yep!' x 28

'k' x 23

'Agreed!' x 22

'I don't know what you mean.' x 20

'I don't have to explain anything to you. Thanks!' x 15

'Right?' x 14

'Every vote for Harris is stealing a vote from thir...' x 12

'Exactly!' x 11

::: spoiler 'To cut through the nonsense and save everyone time...' x 10

[-] scarabine@lemmynsfw.com 84 points 3 days ago

Are you familiar with toxoplasmosis? The disease that mutates into different forms so a bunch of different animals can host it and pass it along.

This is a long article but it's really good, it's worth a read and it predicted a lot of the discourse of the last decade: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/

The sort of gist of it is this: the more grey area / ambiguity in a topic, the more we pop our own identity into our stance on it. And so if that thing is controversy, we argue about it so much more if there's room to self-insert our identity in that grey area. It spreads and spreads to a bunch of different hosts. It becomes a meme via argument by infecting a bunch of hosts to pass it along.

And that's Monk.

Pretty early on, it was very clear that they had no actual understanding of the topics they were talking about. I tried in their first few weeks to engage with them and so did others. Only to find nothing there. No opinions, and all counter-arguments were clearly copy & pasted off of Wikipedia. Things like "we have X amount of members in Maine".

Please.

Eventually they stopped trying to engage altogether, and instead moved into a deliberate pattern of line-toeing retorts. None in good faith. But, more importantly, never with enough substance to interrupt the ensuing argument, while simultaneously always enough comment traffic to perpetuate the thread.

Monk is a memetic toxoplasmosis source vector. Through pure ineptitude or irony, I think they've accidentally turned more people against third parties than for them, but maybe that isn't their goal.

Even now there's an undercurrent of "I don't think I even disagree with them". Well, how could you? They haven't said anything worth disagreeing with, have they? What have they said, though? Not much. Nothing recognizable as an opinion in defense of the third party articles. Often, just enough to establish a veneer of plausible deniability.

It's a sophisticated form of trolling and it's recognizable to anyone with a long history of community management online. There are some people who never seem to be directly at fault for things, yet every single time you remove them, the temperature goes down.

You don't need to actually build a case against these people to know that the equation is simple: when they're around, everyone is angry. When they aren't, people get along better.

Anyway, my point is this: you can tell who is contributing in good faith and who isn't, because they will attempt to say what's on their mind. It might be the worst take you've ever heard in your life, but it has a concretion to it. Monk has no concrete substance, they simply like to stir the pot.

[-] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 49 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Agreed. They are being intentionally passive aggressive and they are trying to create discord in this community. They often say that they expect downvotes.

IMHO, if a user is repeatedly trying to get a rise from other users, then it’s time to go.

It’s like a little bother holding a finger to your face and saying “I’m not touching you.” They’re following the rules and not hitting their sibling, but know they’re being a pest.

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[-] ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

This is really timely - I am sharing a screenshot that may be important.

UniversalMonk appears to have created an alt last week, UbiquitousMonk. I saw an initial flurry of posts following the UniversalMonk format 12 minutes after it happened, but knew it was a different account and not just a rename because I had to re-add my "propaganda" tag in my Connect app.

I commented just noting the flurry of third-party posts as odd, and they responded with something in Russian. Then everything was deleted, comments and posts.

I don't know if that was meant as satire, if it was the same poster, or - maybe - a mistake and the Russian text is evidence of a misinformation campaign origin. I'm sharing the comment screenshot for mod visibility.

Edit: sorry, I can't embed this image, so here's the link: https://imgur.com/a/9wzgSxR

[-] jordanlund@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago

Pretty sure it was a gag, I banned it as soon as I saw it.

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[-] Roflmasterbigpimp@lemmy.world 33 points 2 days ago

That boii went super saiya-cringe mode.

[-] SilentStorms@lemmy.dbzer0.com 37 points 2 days ago

[-] Rhoeri@lemmy.world 24 points 2 days ago

This is a perfect representation of them.

[-] SacredHeartAttack@lemmy.world 76 points 3 days ago

HOW do you post here 1.9k times in two months? I have like 7 posts in over a year and I feel somewhat active.

I’m not complaining about any decisions mods have made, I’m legitimately asking cause that seems crazy. 32 posts a day is a LOT.

[-] very_well_lost@lemmy.world 38 points 3 days ago

32 posts a day is a LOT.

Honestly, that's not even that impressive... It's only 4 posts per hour over a 8 hour work day, which is completely achievable if Internet trolling is your hobby of choice.

What's really impressive is the number of comments. I won't speculate on Monk's motives (out of fear of running afoul of this community's rules) except to say that they seem extremely motivated to argue with anyone and everyone who posts a disagreeing comment. Their tactic is to bicker with any dissenting voices (without actually engaging with their arguments) to the point of exhaustion so that no one will bother engaging anymore — a very specific strategy I have to imagine is designed to shift the Overton window a particular way.

Fortunately, their efforts seem to have been mostly ineffective given the number of people around here who continue to call out their BS. So keep fighting the good fight, I guess!

[-] jordanlund@lemmy.world 41 points 3 days ago

I told them in PMs that, as a mod, I self limit to 3 posts a day for fear of being seen as putting my thumb on the scale and influencing the discourse.

And that's in the groups I mod(!)

He's over that by a factor of 10+

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[-] Doomsider@lemmy.world 32 points 2 days ago

"I'll keep posting what I want, when I want, where I want, and respond to people how I want. Whether it is "working" or not. Thank you!" - Monk

This is when I realized it was all in bad faith and I stopped giving him the benefit of the doubt.

[-] taiyang@lemmy.world 32 points 2 days ago

Oh holy fuck it's only 15 days away! Anxiety!

Also having seen the guy, makes sense you can't ban bad takes (or at least, shouldn't) but my sense is he just likes to be infamous. Hell, this is a post about his banning, even! He's probably loving the attention.

Still, I've got my Lemmy heroes

obsessive posting can be used for good, like a certain maneuver named after a certain starship captain.

[-] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago

like a certain maneuver named after a certain starship captain.

Ahh, yes! The Janeway Shuffle!

[-] ChronosTriggerWarning@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

I'm pretty sure they were referring to The Cole Protocol.

[-] pooperNickel@lemm.ee 8 points 2 days ago

Yeah you're right. Notice no one is trying to get those folks banned

[-] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 68 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Good they have been trolling us for a while. Also, thank you for your efforts and you are appreciated.

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[-] Rhoeri@lemmy.world 24 points 2 days ago

You gotta know they’re absolutely loving this shit right now. An entire post dedicated only to them? Where they are the topic of discussion? That’s probably the biggest badge of honor someone like them could earn here.

I’d wager it’s bookmarked and will be read several times a day for months to come.

[-] pooperNickel@lemm.ee 62 points 3 days ago

Firstly, thank you for that ban. Did you notice the duplicate section in my comment? Low effort comments, dismissiveness, refusing to engage in good faith even when someone treats him very respectively, and copy-pasting the same responses many times is only one of several signs this is a troll. This behavior breaks rule 4.

No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.

I do not understand how anyone could possibly look at the evidence I provided and say "nah, not a troll".

For your convenience:

Top 10 duplicate (total 617 exact and 318 fuzzy, 70% or more similar) submissions from UniversalMonk@lemmy.world found.

spoiler 'Thank you!' x 27

'Yep!' x 24

spoiler 'k' x 23

'Agreed!' x 21

spoiler 'I don't know what you mean.' x 20

'I don't have to explain anything to you. Thanks!' x 14

spoiler 'Right?' x 13

'Every vote for Harris is stealing a vote from thir...' x 12

spoiler 'Exactly!' x 11

'To cut through the nonsense and save everyone time...' x 10

[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 days ago

How did you generate this report?

[-] pooperNickel@lemm.ee 9 points 2 days ago

It's a script I wrote. I'm planning to open source it soon. Should I send you a link when it goes up?

[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 days ago

Yes please!

[-] pooperNickel@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago

Here is the tool: https://codeberg.org/p00perNickel/lemmy-user-stats

Let me know if you have any issues with it!

[-] geekwithsoul@lemm.ee 49 points 3 days ago

I want to second this. I understand the mods prefer a case-by-case approach, but I think that leaves a very specific pathway for bad actors to exploit. Monk was posting a purely insane amount of comments along with a very high but not as insane number of posts, and almost all of it was low-value, and often copy-pasted from a previous comment.

Do the mods even have easy access to the kind of data your script was pulling? I think that may be part of the issue is that the mod tools with Lemmy are lacking/limited.

[-] Archer@lemmy.world 44 points 3 days ago

He had a standard copypasta for people accusing him of being a troll. If that’s not trolling I don’t know what is

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[-] YeetPics@mander.xyz 7 points 2 days ago

While you're all here we should take a moment to recognize that folks like universalmonk are mentally ill and need help!

We can all take a few moments after having seen what unadulterated brain-worms can do to a person and share thoughts on how we could better the metal-healthcare field.

Talk to your friends, talk to your coworkers, message your favorite politician! We can change the world and limit the number of people who behave like universalmonk.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[-] DaddysLittleSlut@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

I posted this to him actually

My background is psychology, developmental, business, design and more. Currently learning communication. He removed my comments for “off topic” when about he mentioned worker rights. Thus is one the most important

Video to him

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this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024

246 points (96.6% liked)

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