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PieFedeology - Ideological Purity in PieFed


PieFed has done it once again, this time adding 'warning' labels for opposing ideological perspectives, well at least one; Can't find any warnings for fascism or capitalism 🤔

This can be demonstrated here: piefed.social/c/globalnews/p/1…

in reply to Loco_Mex

I think Rimu has tied this warning to the peoplesdispatch.org domain. I think this is a custom thing he did to his instance, because I didn’t find it in the PieFed codebase. ~~[ETA: it is in the codebase, in a separate repo].~~ [ETA: I’m told that no specific site warnings are baked into the code, just the feature is. For site blocks, there is an optional default list of domains, which I’m told contains only far-right/fascist sites.]

I don’t think People’s Dispatch is even Marxist-Leninist. I think it’s an international anti-imperialist media site. But I wouldn’t assume Rimu could explain the difference or care that there is one. Maybe all anti-imperialists are tankies to him.

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to davel

It being in a separate repo is great but worse if not visible anywhere. Especially as it's just an install step calling it something completely different.
in reply to davel

it is in the codebase, in a separate repo


The blocked domains are, the ones with a warning like in the screenshot are configured on a per-instance basis

in reply to mathemachristian [he/him]

Ah, thanks. If the default blocklist only contains heinous sites, then I have no issues worth mentioning with this aspect of the code.
in reply to davel

I mean it at least includes wikileaks.org, but I don't think anyone is gonna audit 3000 domains anytime soon.
in reply to Loco_Mex

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Rimu

You could have just asked, though.


Oh they could have asked, could they? Like you asked before spreading disinfo about our instance using GenAI for moderation?

in reply to db0

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Blaze

Are we supposed to bring back the whole history every time Rimu comments anywhere?


When he's being hypocritical AF about people "could have just asked", then yes I think I will.

Rimu discovers that a dbzer0 mod has been using a LLM for moderation. That mod has been somehow pretending to use OpenAI to upset the !fuckai crowd, actually it was a local freeware model. He posts about it.


Talk about underplaying the situation...

Rimu spread purposeful disinfo. He never "just asked". He ignored comments from our admins explicitly telling him he's wrong, because it went against his narrative. Was purposefully uncharitable so he could spin it as badly as possible. Crossposted to Mastodon in an attempt to initiate a pile-on. I could go on...

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to db0

He ignored comments from our admins explicitly telling him he's wrong, because it went against his narrative.


Idk, sounds to me like you're equally ignoring comments from other parties telling you you're wrong because it goes against your narrative too. "We investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing" is hardly an argument.

That's why this is a slugfest: "You're wrong! "No, you're wrong!" "No, we told you you're wrong!" "Your telling me that I was wrong was also wrong!"

Reasserting conflicting claims like they're facts isn't worth jack shit.

in reply to luciferofastora

Except they acted accountably and made efforts to fix the other sides grievances even if they didn’t agree.

Something that has not been returned and has only been met with increasing hostility.

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Loco_Mex

I admit I don't know the whole story. I don't know what evidence was produced to support the LLM claim and what efforts were made.

The few comments I read here seemed like some attempt to reconcile were made but fell apart. I can't and don't want to point fingers one way or the other, personal bias notwithstanding.

I just wanted to point out "he said something even though we said it's wrong" isn't a particularly strong argument. That's just one party's word against the other's.

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Blaze

Also:

I think it's pointless to try to count points and see who was wrong when by how much. From my perspective, there were issues from all sides during that whole story.


We have bent over backwards to de-escalate the situation, both with L.W. and with Rimu. Our admins have stepped down. People changed their usernames. Our admins overruled our mods. Literally creating tension within our instance to maintain relations with the larger fediverse. On the other hand, rimu's deliberate disinfo is still up to this day, without any statements from our team, or correction to their blatant lies. They've even blocked people calling them out, so piefed users can't see this criticism. So don't try to "both sides" me.

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to db0

Stop making concessions to them
in reply to Blaze

If you're going for the whole history don't forget the nazi smear by some german troll and rimu trying to paint db0 as uniquely ban-happy. Like this has been a busy 10 days or so with shots fired on the FAF day-after-day, this is not history yet but an ongoing barrage from their POV. Also

Rimu discovers that a dbzer0 mod has been using a LLM for moderation


there was no LLM moderation, and rimu knew this before making his post^[https://lem.lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/42212552/20361800]

in reply to Blaze

Yes, until he fucking relents.

Rimu started shit and he needs to make amends.

in reply to Blaze

Are we supposed to bring back the whole history every time Rimu comments anywhere?


Until Rimu stops acting like this and learns better, yeah.

in reply to Eugene V. Debs' Ghost

Plus there's rimu trying to tie lemmy as right wing (to maga and 4chan clones) because they used it as a platform...

Actually rimu is perfect fit with the lemmy.world admins and mods. Try to do the but are just incredibly terrible at messaging.

in reply to Blaze

The omissions in this timeline about brigading sockpuppets and falsified nazi smears...

But to list that timeline and act as though this is out of context or unrelated to an ongoing crashout... we are reaching some Hasan's dog collar level of bullshit.

in reply to Blaze

Yes, it's very important to remind people what sort of a troll Rimu really is.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Blaze

You think defederating because they call for death upon Zionists is a win?
in reply to Rimu

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to mathemachristian [he/him]

Why isn't BBC listed as "British propaganda?" Same with many other western propaganda outlets. It seems like when leftists do it, it's propaganda, but when the west does it it's mostly fine for Rimu.
in reply to Cowbee [he/they]

Bro my "left" leaning dev blocking all enemies of USA. If we put on a map only the highlight ones are permitted:
in reply to ZeroHora

I'm assuming Rimu meant the left wing of fascism, not in general lol
in reply to NotMushroomForDebate

Yep, Rimu blocked me from Piefed.social and Blahaj.zone followed (along with feddit.org), so there's no chance I can get a reply because neither the comrade I replied to nor Rimu can see my comments, lol.
in reply to Cowbee [he/they]

This is genuinely so funny. As is typical, most of the well-sourced comments you make never receive anything rigorous in return, and they can't even claim trolling/harassing/AI/bot or anything because your comments are always cool-headed and respectful.

So I guess the best retort is to just completely hide your comments from their users? Lest they become curious and actually consider reading a book or an article?

in reply to NotMushroomForDebate

PJ had Rimu block me because I called him out from a Lemmy.ml thread and explained why modern historiography doesn't point to the 1930s famine in Ukraine and the surrounding areas being a "genocide." They banned me for "genocide denial" as a consequence, which presumably they would also ban those opposing the idea of "white genocide" in South Africa if they were being honest.
in reply to Cowbee [he/they]

The best part of it was it happened after their piefed pr person swore up and down rimu didn't interact or believe anything on mwog.
in reply to mathemachristian [he/him]

in reply to Edie [it/it/its/its/itself, she/her/her/hers/herself]

Before starting work on PieFed I spent 3? years studying right wing disinformation - qanon, antivax, all that and that blocklist is an output from that. Every site on that list was reviewed personally.
- Rimu


🤦🏽

in reply to redrum

That seems to be about the other list. The noqanon one.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Edie [it/it/its/its/itself, she/her/her/hers/herself]

I'm not sure. The post was about this list and the warning about a supposed Marxist-Leninist web. How an antifascist list has been created is unrelated, then, the logical conclusion is that was created at the same time or that was a bad faith and manipulative answer.
in reply to Goferking0

Who knows? Only Rimu. Maybe because they blew up the Paper of Record’s disinformation piece that manufactured consent for genocide.


Edit to add (and mentioned recently):
Disputing genocide accusations that the imperial core flings on its enemies, though, that’s his “red line.”

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Rimu

Apparently piefed smuggles in domains from a completely different repo that clearly isn't just "right-wing domains"^[https://github.com/rimu/no-qanon/blob/master/sources/Fake%20news/README.md] and it requires an admin to unblock them all individually.

Every site on that list was reviewed personally.


so it is a personal semi-hardcoded blocklist, that requires an admin to go through and re-vet every site individually to see if they agree with your assessment or not.

There’s an ideological slant to PieFed for sure, and it’s very much in favor of the left.


lol. lmao even, you put a warning on electronicintifada.net like come on now

in reply to mathemachristian [he/him]

It's not smuggled, during initial setup when installing the blocklist it prints this on the screen:

Added 'No-QAnon' blocklist, see https://github.com/rimu/no-qanon

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to rimu

If I saw this, I would not assume that Gawker, WikiLeaks, or FOX Weather would be included in a blocklist called "No-QAnon". The list itself might not be smuggled, but it's not accurately representing itself either. If it has simply evolved over time, then it needs to be renamed or split into separate blocklists.

Additionally, if someone installing this changes their mind or realizes that what they received is not what they expected, then requiring them to either directly modify the database or click "remove" over 3000 times is arguably a dark pattern.

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Rimu

in reply to Allero

It depends on your definition of easy. Here is the admin UI for unbanning domains.

image

Also they can go into the database and empty the domain table.

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Rimu

Wait so there is nothing in the code to check if the list on that repo got updated since after the setup? Are the admins supposed to maintain their own list or not?
in reply to Rimu

Easy as in "there is a UI button/switch during initial setup". Essentially, not banning all these domains should be equally as easy as banning them.
in reply to Allero

I don't believe software can be neutral. By making banning them equally easy as not, we're saying that those choices are of equal worth - doing that is taking a side and it's the side of giving fascists an easier way in. Nope! That's how Mastodon gets forked into Truth Social.

Interesting how this thread started out about me being too right wing and now for other people it's about me being too left wing. Heh.

Can't please everyone and I'm not trying to.

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Rimu

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Rimu

Jesus, some folks so revved up they can't stop brigading :D

Thank you!

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Rimu

So ignoring the censorship aspect entirely: Admins are asked if they wish to block right wing domains, and then if they say yes, the software blocks (some right wing domains and) left wing investigative journalism sites like The Gray Zone. Russian news sites like RT, Sputnik and TASS, Harry Potter related sites, all of Telegram, vk.com (Russian-language social media site), Video hosts like Peertube and Rumble.

Is the whole reason you made this list so you could sneak in some personal vendettas? Also pretty suspicious that the BBC isn't on there. Or CNN. Or WaPo. Or Ynet. Or Mako. Or Times of Israel. Or DW. Given the era we live in, and their complicity in genocide, surely that'd be a higher priority than almost any other website if you're aiming to block harmful news sites with right wing editorial lines.

in reply to Rimu

“There’s and ideological slant to PieFed for sure”

Slant?!?! It’s a giant goddamn left-wing circle jerk propaganda machine 🤣

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Cowbee [he/they]

It definitely isn’t lol. Banning all right wing sources while allowing left wing really screams liberalism over left wing lol.
in reply to FreedomAdvocate

Many of the "right-wing sources" are left wing sources that Rimu wants to drag as right-wing, and left wing sources get a warning while liberal ones do not.
in reply to Rimu

There’s an ideological slant to PieFed for sure, and it’s very much in favor of the left. That could be why maga.place and lemmychan.org use Lemmy and not PieFed.


PieFed bakes in preferences against left wing groups, and you've been launching a crusade against anarchist instances lately. As much as you believe yourself to be left, you've done your best to left-punch wherever you can, and have unilaterally made decisions greatly impacting the functionality of PieFed to suit your overwhelmingly liberal views. This isn't even getting into how you agree with racist conspiracy theories like the idea that China is kidnapping people for organ harvesting.

Also, it's nice that you admit that PieFed has an ideological slant and that you do develop PieFed with that in mind, socsa swore up and down that that wasn't the case for some reason.

Also, since Rimu permabanned me from Piefed.social at PugJesus' behest after I critiqued PJ's views from the left, they won't see my comment, sadly.

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Cowbee [he/they]

It's also very telling they named it noqanon.

While sounds great weird that would trigger ml warnings as no one would consider qanon that

in reply to Goferking0

Yep, Rimu does the tactic of conflating the left and the right to make their position as a right-wing liberal seem to be left. It's just rehashed horseshoe theory bullshit.
in reply to Goferking0

The noqanon list and the OP warning sign are two different things.

The first is a default url blocklist that gets pulled on first start of a Piefed instance and which contains extreme right-wing and mis-information outlets.

The domain warning sign mentioned in OP is a separate list only manually added to the piefed.social flagship instance.

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to poVoq

This gets back to how poorly designed piefed is and rimus explanations.

The domain block list having more than qanon and being part of the install while not saying anything about what it actually brings in is poor design choice. Along with it apparently only being disabled by individually checking the list in the ui.

The domain warning sign mentioned in OP is a separate list only manually added to the piefed.social flagship instance


Rimu made it sound like they were connected in the qanon repo

in reply to Cowbee [he/they]

To heap insult on top of injury, Rimu has now unilaterally, and without any notification (to anyone it would appear), chosen to silently suppress anarchist.nexus and quokk.au from appearing in the PieFed.Social instance chooser. So, just more of the same old trolling and drama farming from him that we have been getting for weeks now.

vs

in reply to Unruffled [they/them]

I'm sure it's been in the pipeline a while but the instance silencing feature being added is great timing
in reply to Unruffled [they/them]

Modlog Reason for the action is only shown if it is from trusted instances, so abusive mods wont have an audience. Admins can still see the reason though.


pughitler is a mod on piefed.social and nobody seems to care about his abusive behavior.

rimu gets temporarily banned for 'emulating a zionist' and now suddenly it's a priority to address moderator abuse... via censorship shocked-pikachu

incredible

in reply to Diva (she/her)

pughitler is a mod on piefed.social and nobody seems to care about his abusive behavior.


Don't you dare call out his actions, but he'll gladly smear you over his private kingdoms where you can't defend yourself.

in reply to Unruffled [they/them]

Rimu is single handedly generating so much misinformation and nonsense that essentially anyone else who works on Piefed alongside of him is becoming radioactive. Not sure how much I want to trust someone who is willing to help further Rimu's behavior. Working on Piefed used to be a bullet point and it is rapidly turning into an asterisk.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Rimu

You're the single biggest troll in the fediverse. Congrats on the dedication to the bit you're doing.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Rimu

Cute, but not enough, not by a mile. Calling Piefed "left-leaning" is a LARP at best.

You’re treating these neoliberal interpretations of bias as some sort of intellectual debate to "inform" folks, instead of the existential threat it is to the nature of online discourse.

Sure, left-wing discussions are "allowed" as long as they wear their scarlet letter and stay in the ghetto where we put them.

I spent 3? years studying right wing disinformation


Guess some of it rubbed off.

in reply to Loco_Mex

All the bullshit they say about silencing and 1984 is as always, a classic case of projection.

Please enlighten us on where we should be getting the full objective unbiased reality from, the New York Times maybe?
God forbid a media takes a pro working class / global south bias instead of the usual neoliberal status quo ideology.
Call them out on it and they'll deny they even follow any ideology, they're just being Objective™.

in reply to Loco_Mex

Are you sure this is a "warning"? /s

Sounds like an indicator of quality, instead. Even the icon is in red, the color of hope.

in reply to AzuraTheSpellkissed

This is a strong and succinct argument, cheers.

We need peoplesdispatch.org I think it's valuable thing to have a take on events from their angle. Yet it needs to be read with an understanding that they have an angle. Using the warning icon to provide that understanding is clunky and wasn't really intended for that purpose. There has been some drift in the usage away from the original idea behind the feature.

One day it might be good to have a different icon for providing context, separate from providing warnings.

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Rimu

For fairness purpose all outlets should have labels
in reply to Rimu

It's just an armband. You know. To help with context.
in reply to Loco_Mex

no offense to the mods, but this is a bit of a nothing burger situation. calm down.
in reply to Loco_Mex

If I hadn't given the instance to someone else, I would have considered leaving a community note on Rimu's user page with a red exclamation mark saying "this user is a complete idiot".
in reply to mrdown

in reply to Goferking0

Yeah. My question was not a serious one. I knew the answer.
in reply to mrdown

Nah but they have some for theintercept and electronicintifada ...
in reply to Loco_Mex

I wish lemmy admins could take the code away from these dorks.
in reply to GuyIncognito

I mean... Same for Fediverse, and Federation?
in reply to GuyIncognito

I understood the reference, but if we're going by that logic, the Fediverse itself is a federal ploy.
in reply to GuyIncognito

Then Lemmy, Kbin, Mbin, Mastodon, Friendica, Misskey, Bookwyrm, Pixelfed, Loops, Peertube, all made from disparate developers from around the world, are all one US Federal plot?

Why would they prefer a decentralized, difficult to control social media network over the centralized ones that are already entirely under the control of right-wing billionaires?

in reply to ProdigalFrog

No one said they prefer it, but they’re also not going to ignore it, because they want to maintain their dominance of the public discourse. Previously. Previously. Previously.

Though with that said, I doubt PieFed is an op. Some people are so propagandized that they’ll do the work for free and without any direct involvement. Some people are just that “patriotic”.1

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to ProdigalFrog

Controlled opposition of course. The prevailing ideology can reinforce and sustain itself anywhere, even in a completely decentralized media environment. Dissenting opinions can be safely relegated to smaller venues while liberal orthodoxy prevails in the more visible ones. Thus, reddit is recreated.

However, don't read too far into this, I was basically just making a joke about how "piefed" has "fed" in it.

in reply to Loco_Mex

Two years ago, Lemmy.world tried a similar move with their MediaBiasFactCheck bot. It was soundly rejected by the community, and they finally relented after weeks of outcry. Why is @Rimu putting us through this again?