I got banned earlier today with the message “rule 1”, no other information about why, or which comment broke the rule. As far as I can tell it was this one, which just says “We want the bot gone. That’s it. It’s really that simple.”
So I checked the modlog for other bans, and @aniki@lemmings.world was banned today as well, also just for “rule 1”, probably either for the comment saying “a stupid bot writing useless bullshit” or “This is what you call “Not listening to criticism.””, neither of which are an attack on any person.
(Also earlier today @MindTraveller@lemmy.ca was banned with the message “fuck off”, which I’m pretty sure is not a reason to ban someone from a major community, but doesn’t appear to be related to the MBFC bot.)
One more today, @stormesp@lemm.ee was banned, again just “rule 1”, last comment being this one, again not an attack on any person.
So what’s the deal here? I couldn’t find any rules for mods on lemmy.world with a brief poke around, but are we letting mods run major communities like little fiefdoms, banning people for criticism?
It’s different in my view. As the mods and admins are experiencing a loosely coordinated brigade of vitriolic messages. It’s no surprise to me that they responded by filtering out those who are being persistent in bad faith communication. But they have in fact been receptive to improving the bot based on feedback. They have not, however, instantly determined and implemented any improvements.
Reviewing the situation as an outsider. It seems that the mods and admins are not wrong and those complaining are ill-informed about many aspects of what they’re complaining about and are being belligerent in their ignorance. But even if they were 100% informed and correct about Media Bias Fact Check, their behavior has been out of line.