In the past week I’ve been absolutely roasted for criticising two different countries. Normally I’d be okay with that, I can handle a mild toasting and after all debate is a good thing.

On both occasions though I was flamed for mentioning human rights issues that are established facts and have been known for many, many years. I was critical of the actions/laws of their governments and not the people, their race, religion, general political ideology or nationality.

On both occasions I was bombarded by long posts that parroted propaganda, and in the case of one country I was told (on multiple occasions) that I was ignorant, racist and even fascist for mentioning the issues I did. I’m not complaining about how I was treated, but as a reminder, I was discussing internationally-recognised human rights concerns that can be verified and based in fact.

I could just be paranoid but I’m fairly convinced the responses weren’t from patriotic citizens. I think they were paid trolls or bots, and I think their purpose was to quiet negative talking points about the countries that were mentioned.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

  • aloofPenguin@piefed.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    4 days ago

    sigh very typical…

    if this problem gets too out of hand, my mind went to defederation. perhaps too extreme? there has to be a reason the .world admins didn’t do it yet. idk if .social defed from ml, but perhaps reason…?

    • AskewLord@piefed.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 days ago

      they don’t because the mods want users to make up their own minds. and that’s fine.

      I don’t want admins/mods making my choices for me, I want to make them myself.