It seems the 50501 movement is facing some predictable problems on commercial platforms.

On Reddit, the 50501 subreddit has temporarily shut down over abuse. This comes after reports from users that the community is “obviously being astroturfed”. No word as to when it will be back online.

It seems things are not much better over at Facebook, where there is apparently frequent calls to stop protesting this and that, with a Reddit user commenting that the group “feels like it’s imploding”.

This is hardly surprising given how commercial social media has repeatedly shown itself to be easily manipulated, but it’s still fascinating that it’s bad enough to shut down the whole Reddit community. Although we are certainly in a better place over here we are not immune: Make sure to be vigilant and to report suspicious activity.

If anyone is on Facebook, maybe now is a good time to give people there a few pointers towards Lemmy/PieFed.

    • Alaik@lemmy.zip
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      4 days ago

      For what it’s worth… I’m a reddit refugee. Got a temp ban for “upvoting violent content” because someone said they hope someone personally got whay they voted for and saw the writing on the wall.

      The moment they start banning decade+ old accounts for upvotes… yeah I’m out.

      Lemmy seems pretty legit so far. Admittedly being so decentralized comes with some things that aren’t as user friendly interface wise but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

      • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 days ago

        Your experience will depend on the instance you’re on and the concept can be a challenge to explain to reddit refugees.

        I’m very careful how much I support violence on .world for example because they take a “both sides are the same” approach to discourse (aside: they seem to be doing better but I’m not holding my breath).

        Your instance (.zip) seems to be better than most.

        • thanks AV
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          4 days ago

          Shitjust works scrapes every comment on every instance and bans people without notice for anything they don’t like so there’s that to keep in mind too apparently

          • Alaik@lemmy.zip
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            4 days ago

            Is that a big problem? I mean I get calling for genocide of people or something being ban worthy but if saying it’s morally correct to punch a nazi is a problem…

            • thanks AV
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              3 days ago

              I got served an unironically white nationalist 4chan post and apparently posting “kys” in a comment is, regardless of any context, justification to admin ban me from an entire instance/multiple communities with no notification.

              I only found out bc I messaged a mod I recognized in a sub I was banned from and they said it wasn’t a mod action it was instance admins or something and there was nothing they could do

              I get it but also like nobody forced you to trawl my comments in other instances and block me pre-emptively for not following your rules. I also should 100% be told about an action like this regardless of how flimsy their justification is.

              I shouldn’t have to figure it out myself and then go find out how to contact the admins of an instance I’m not even on. All that effort just to argue a case about how they took my shitty comment out of context.

              (All this on the instance that hosts the community about .ml mods unilaterally banning people for saying mean things they don’t like.)

      • cabbage@piefed.socialOP
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        4 days ago

        Welcome! Happy to have you here. :)

        I’m curious - did you know about Lemmy before you got banned? How did you discover us?

        • Alaik@lemmy.zip
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          4 days ago

          I had heard it in passing but only really in earnest once people were pitching it (Lemmy) as a reddit alternative after the announcement that upvoting content is banworthy.

    • cabbage@piefed.socialOP
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      4 days ago

      Potentially, but it seems people on other social media will have a hard time leaving no matter how bad things get there. At least on Reddit it doesn’t seem like users are particularly aware of the fact that it’s a problem with their platform.

      I think we should not depend on any moment, but rather contribute and gradually work towards this being the best place to be, and let change happen gradually.

      Ps: For those nevertheless spreading the word, I think https://50501.chat/ and/or https://piefed.social/f/50501 are two particularly useful links. :)