Very strange that OP joined Lemmy barely an hour ago and hit the ground running posting rapid fire articles within minutes of each other or within the same minute, targeting multiple states and countries (So far, Alabama, New York, Ohio, California, Canada, and Ireland). Just very odd behavior for a new account.
Check back in a couple of hours to see that the account will have been deleted. It seems to be a pattern of accounts being created, posting a bunch of news-like links, and then being purged. It is probably to make it impossible to filter out whatever it is they’re trying to push.
I remember Hexbear admins flirting with a system to throttle new accounts, because they experienced a similar problem (troll accounts posting “Fuck Tankies!” as many times as possible before they get booted).
I know a few forums simply won’t let you create an account without an admin’s permission, which seems heavy handed.
Feels like there should be a good technical framework for addressing this. Idk what that is, though.
Welcome to the fediverse, where there’s no central authority on account creation, and users can create 1 account at time on different instances and there’s nothing you can do about it
Annnd they deleted their account again
4 hours later.
“400 couldn’t find person” when looking at the account.
This is new to me—how long has such activity been occurring on lemmy? Is there any way to spot such bad actors? Is this sort of thing happening all over the fediverse?
Really seems like there’s basically no places left on the web where big forces aren’t swaying the minds of the innocent…
Lemmy is absolutely inundated with bad faith actors who seem suspiciously intent on sewing as much division as possible, getting the left to be as politically ineffectual as possible, and never offering anything as a viable solution. There’s no meaningful barrier for entry so it’s pretty trivial to make a bunch of accounts and push an agenda.
That’s by no means limited to Lemmy, but Lemmy is absolutely littered with them. It’s been like this for quite a while.
i seen them crosspost, or post something from reddit verbatim.
guess lemmy is popular enough now to attract the bots, propagandists, and various other types of “influencer”
A good one is to check beforehand if the account’s new, hijacked, or such, and then not respond on them in any way other than blocking and reporting.
As of writing this, it’s been 5 hours since the users posted this and attempting to go to the OP’s account page redirects to an error page. Very strange behavior indeed.
https://piefed.zip/comment/2434168
I have a feeling it’s the user mentioned in this comment.
What a bizarre pattern of behavior, though I guess I can see the angle they’re going for in terms of ban/block evasion. Just seems like a massive waste of time.
Though I also recall thinking the same thing when I first came across the bots on reddit years ago… Ugh, it’s coming full circle.
Gettin real sick of this shit
They’re right about the Russian shit, though.
It’s totally anecdotal but suddenly there was a rise in cottage corp, trad-wife content that led me to far right streams just as fast as watching a Rogan clip.
I know the algorithm is based on what I watch and in this case that’s cooking channels and weapons (vehicles, infantry, civilian, sci-fi). That last one really confuses the algorithm.
I never saw it as trad-wife being a coordinated attack on feminism but like, damn. Now I can.
Yup. Putin is the prime cause behind much of the world’s reactionarism, in my opinion: he is a despot and oligarch, and has helped other dictators into power.
Thank you.
I’ve been thinking this for a decade+ but absolutely no one seemed to have figured it out!
I bet the kremlin sponsored the anti nuclear in 1980 sweden, it all makes so much sense.
He’s certainly not helping, but prime cause? No way. The prime cause is that the system is fundamentally broken. The last round of fascists didn’t need Putin’s help, and it’s odd to think this batch is somehow different.
Like the NYT suddenly cares about Palestinian women.
For more than a century, Russia and the Soviet Union sought to weaken their adversaries in the West by inflaming racial and ethnic tensions.
FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF, NYT. DID YOU FORGET FRED HAMPTON? DID YOU FORGET THE FBI BLACKMAILING MLK?
Yeah, like the US needs help inflaming racial and ethnic tensions. It’s literally been the goal for 4+ decades.
What feminist movement? The Women’s March was able to achieve every single thing it set out to do.
Curious given how Putin publicly considers feminism/LGBT rights/general progressivism as western weakness and degeneracy, you think he’s support feminism in the West if it’s soooo bad for us
The goal is to divide, not actually support.
Functionally Russia is doing the same thing the Thalmor did on fucking Skyrim. (Where they actively worked to inflame tensions and ensure a stalemate in the civil war.)
