this post was submitted on 02 Dec 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.
- YDM new - You Deserved More: The commenter thinks you got off too lightly.
- 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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So other political ideas are not allowed on politicalmemes? That's not open and democratic.
FYI: Lemmy isn't a democracy. The Threadiverse is made up of different communities and they all have different rules. Whoever creates and moderates a community (or server instance) gets to choose. It's not open nor is it a democratic process. They can do arbitrary rules. I've been banned for violating rules. It's like a a party you got invited to. And the host gets to pick the theme. And we have many hosts with all the different instances and communities.
Thank you for being fair.
Yes, Lemmy is pretty democratic - there is literally a "create community" button right at the top, see?
I guess what you mean is that Lemmy doesn't do "liberal democracy" (which is just a whole lot of liberalism and very little democracy) - but democracy has never been about electoralist spectacles.
What I meant is, Lemmy isn't governed by the people. It is governed by the admins and moderators. And well... these aren't really appointed or elected by the users... nor can the people impeach them. And the power doesn't even come from the people. Most they can do is come or leave. But they're not really in control of any decisions. And I don't think they have any rights. So I don't think it's any form of democracy. Sure, I can assume that role. But I don't think this alone makes it a democracy. Most of the demos don't do that. So their influence is limited and they have mods and admins decide for them... So It is a bit of a weird form of governing.
Okay, you're not wrong... so I'll modify my statement and say that Lemmy is about as democratic as social media gets at this stage - which, I'll concede, isn't saying much.
This is making me despondent - well, more despondent than usual.
I mean it's only my opinion, and not super straightforward to apply these concepts. So my take on it might not be entirely right...
I'm not very disheartened. If I look at the Threadiverse, I definitely see some negative dynamics we inherited from social media. And I think the atmosphere could be better. More constructive and welcoming. Less geopolitics news articles... And it's far too easy to write simple truths and oppose people instead of writing nuanced comments with substance to them... We've had instances shutting down because there was too much responsibility in one single person and they burned out. Personally - I'd like to see several things handled differently.
But there's also a lot of fun to be had, potential... I think overall the mods and admins and developers are doing a good job. Things I deem unacceptable like hate and spam get deleted and other than that I'm relatively free to write whatever I like. The negative aspects I wrote in the previous paragraph are more concerned with the platform layout and the users anyway, and less so with the governing structure...
It's just difficult to manage a diverse crowd of people and cater to all of them. I'm not even sure if democracy is the correct solution for that. At least how it usually works in the real world with countries. We could come up with arbitrary direct forms of governing, since this place is powered by technology and software. I mean why appoint a fixed set moderators anyway? Software could just make every user have a web of trust and everyone could decide individually whom to delegate power to. Or who or what filters their perspective. We could get rid of admin power and follow a concept that's currently tried with Nostr which handles that part of the hierarchy very differently...
I think all of that hasn't been fully discussed yet. And it's difficult to come up with good solutions, because things come with downsides as well. Like fostering echo chambers which might not be great either. It's just difficult and complex. And nothing is perfect in the real world. And so far the Fediverse is the best Fediverse we have...
The PRC isn't open and democratic, either, so I don't see your issue.
Can you show me an example of a pro-USA/NATO/Taiwan activist or commentators or journalist who operates openly from Beijing please?
How are LGBT rights in China too?
Pinkwashers are the lowest form of scum.
Pinkwashing what? I'm making the point that these are valid aspects to measure how free the people of a country are. In the USA and many western countries, there are journalists, activists, commentators etc who are openly pro-Beijing in their rhetoric. Are there equivalents in China who would be pro-NATO/Taiwan/USA?
Why are LGBT rights suddenly just something to ignore when it comes to this when China is bought up?
Like I said, pink washers are the lowest form of scum. You'll be talking about Hamas "throwing gays off buildings" next.
I'm assuming you don't pretend that a society that Hamas governs would be a free society. Right?
My question remains unanswered: In the USA and many western countries, there are journalists, activists, commentators etc who are openly pro-Beijing in their rhetoric. Are there equivalents in China who would be pro-NATO/Taiwan/USA?
Loool. There is is. Pinkwashing Zionist scum
I said absolutely nothing about the conflict there. Israel can be barborous in whole and it would have nothing to do with how civil society would look if Hamas governed them. The USA and Israel were utterly wrong to bomb Iran, but that doesn't magically make Iran a free society.
My question remains unanswered: In the USA and many western countries, there are journalists, activists, commentators etc who are openly pro-Beijing in their rhetoric. Are there equivalents in China who would be pro-NATO/Taiwan/USA?
Don't care about your question, pink washing Zionist
So you have no answer.
"Answer my question! Answer my question! Debate me! Debate me!"
No, fuck off.
You came to me. You reply to me, I'll reply back.
I replied to condemn your disgusting use of pink washing, I don't give a fuck about your "you have to answer my question!" Debatelord bullshit.
Pinkwashing what? I’m making the point that these are valid aspects to measure how free the people of a country are. In the USA and many western countries, there are journalists, activists, commentators etc who are openly pro-Beijing in their rhetoric. Are there equivalents in China who would be pro-NATO/Taiwan/USA?
As I said, you reply to me - I'll reply back.
Lol. "How was my obvious pinkwashing, pinkwashing!!??"
What was I trying to pinkwash?
No, fuck off
So no ability to explain it.
And I'll do whatever I like, and without your permission.
No, fuck off
Make me. You can't.
I will never stop replying.
The point is that Iran or Palestine or China, or whoever being unjust targets of US/western imperialism or bad faith allegations or genocide doesn't automatically make their societies egalitarian or democratic. Both things can be true.
No, that was never the point, you just randomly brought up LGBT rights in China to pinkwash
I also bought up their poor journalistic and political freedoms.
And yes, that is my point.
Your point was, indeed, you pinkwashing
No, it was not.
The OP claimed, or strongly suggested that China is more democratic than the west. This seems farcical given the points I raised.
Perception doesn't mean anything. It depends on what the population defines as democracy, which can differ between countries due to what they're used to and their propaganda. China does rank horribly in the democracy index.
"Perception doesn't mean anything! Except for the perception of western neo-liberals who hate China. Obviously the people of China can't be trusted to know their own feelings: they're too propagandized. Instead we should trust The Economist, a nice neo-liberal and western source (which means it's unbiased and true)."
Look, I don't agree with the democracy index fully either. Its set of criterias isn't entirely ideal imo.
But I intended to bring it up as a separate source from OP's claiming something else than them, not as a source of truth.
You clearly don't understand my problem with the original source presented. It's not about who was asked. The issue is that it's entirely from asking people how they feel about their democracy. This depends on what they associate with democracy, what they believe democracy needs, and how happy they are with their representation. My primary issue with it is that you can't compare countries when the criteria differ from country to country.
Like, this isn't just a China thing. For example, my country has a mechanism that ensures the people are effectively the highest power in the country. Even to the point of being able to veto any law we don't like. As a result, I actually struggle to reconcile other countries that essentially just seem to have open elective monarchies with distributed power structures as actual democracies. There's no real rule of the people there to me. But most of the western world would disagree with me there, because they see democracy in a way less absolutist light. There's also the matter of the US, whose democracy has always been questionable considering they only have two right wing parties and nothing else, but USians see (or saw before Trump) themselves as a role model of democracy.
The reason I brought up propaganda is because it absolutely influences perceptions. A lot of the reason why perception of democracy tanks is because you don't feel represented. That's a lot easier to fix if you get everyone to think the same as the party in charge. Hence the value of propaganda.
Anyway, I understand you not trusting the democracy index, but unlike the source given by OP it's based on observations of facts, not feelings. Of course, the observers or facts could be biased, that is a valid concern. But then the counter is a Chinese facts-based source, not an opinion survey.
That a very softened way of saying that it's blatant propaganda with zero credibility.
"You can't trust the Chinese people themselves, because a right wing western propaganda outlet says something different!"
No, I understand it extremely well.
Yeah, nothing biased about this sentence, lol. Please tell me about this perfect anarchist utopia you live in.
When you actually poll them, they really don't. At best the feel that there is some platonic ideal of America that has perfect democracy, but they never think the current government lives up to it.
Like how you think you live in a country "that ensures the people are effectively the highest power in the country."
Bahaha. Yeah, sure mate. Unlike those irrational orientals, those perfect icons of rationality at the Economist are able to create a metric for measuring "Democracy" that it pure fact, no feelings or perceptions involved. And what do you know, it just happens to give the exact result that aligns with ideology they already held! Yes, the Chinese people may think they know what they think, but they're too underdeveloped to know their own thoughts, we need enlightened western pundits for that.
"Could be biased". Lol, in the sense that it's outright propaganda where they start at the conclusion then with backwards to arrive at it, yes.
You do realise that opinion surveys literally are a form of "fact", right?
Again, I'm not saying that. There's a difference between relying on the feelings of random poll responders and determining something based on specific criterias challenging facts. Present a pro-China source doing the latter and you've got an argument.
The bias is the point. My entire point there is that people with different perspectives have different opinions. My perspective shapes my bias, which shapes my opinion. Same applies to everyone else. My perspective is a bit extreme, so similarly my opinion is a bit extreme too.
Well, that is the case. Switzerland lets its people freely launch binding votes to modify the constitution (to which the government is held) and veto laws via referendums. This makes the people effectively the highest power, as they can control what the government can do and also have the last say on any law they try to pass.
I really don't think you're getting my argument correctly. And no, I don't think you know even if you claim you do.
You keep trying to make this about chinese vs western when that's not my point at all.