He generally shows most of the signs of the misinformation accounts:

  • Wants to repeatedly tell basically the same narrative and nothing else
  • Narrative is fundamentally false
  • Not interested in any kind of conversation or in learning that what he’s posting is backwards from the values he claims to profess

I also suspect that it’s not a coincidence that this is happening just as the Elon Musks of the world are ramping up attacks on Wikipedia, specially because it is a force for truth in the world that’s less corruptible than a lot of the others, and tends to fight back legally if someone tries to interfere with the free speech or safety of its editors.

Anyway, YSK. I reported him as misinformation, but who knows if that will lead to any result.

Edit: Number of people real salty that I’m talking about this: Lots

  • socsa@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    37 minutes ago

    On lemmy, this is far more likely to be some weird tankie shit about western propaganda. Though it is definitely noteworthy that the far right and far left seem to push a lot of the same misinformation on here.

    Also, in general lemmy trolls are super easy to spot because they don’t do anything else. All they do is whine about democrats or post Russian propaganda and never engage on any other topics.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    29 minutes ago

    The misinfo crowd has been twiddling their collective thumbs since the election and trump winning. Can’t make up bs about egg and gas prices anymore. They’re half-ass trying to incite intergenerational conflict between X, Z, millenials, etc. Guess they found a new target. Exact same MO. Repeat the claim ad nauseam, refuse to acknowledge any contrary argument, their argument is objectively false.

  • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    3 hours ago

    There are major issues with wikipedia, I say this as someone with thousands of edits. But I know exactly who you are talking about and they spread pure BS.

    The last time I saw them their account was called “ihatewikipedia” or “fuckwikipedia” or something like that lol and they were just spreading conspiracies. Or useless drama. Like they were going on about how wikipedia “invades your privacy”, it IP blocks people and tracks IP’s linked to editing.

  • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    46
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    8 hours ago

    It’s likely this is a bot if it’s wide spread. And Lemmy is INCREDIBLY ill suited to handle even the dumbest of bots from 10+ years ago. Nevermind social media bots today.

    • kava@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      56 minutes ago

      To be fair, it’s virtually impossible to tell whether a text was written by an AI or not. If some motivated actor is willing to spend money to generate quality LLM output, they can post as much as they want on virtually all social media sites.

      The internet is in the process of eating itself as we speak.

    • Willy@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      edit-2
      2 hours ago

      Ur a bot. I can tell by the pixels unicode.

      Edit: joking aside you bring up a good point and our security through anonymity cultural irrelevance will not last forever. Or maybe it will.

  • Zier@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    42
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    10 hours ago

    Wikipedia is an alien plot to get Earthlings to read more. DON’T FALL FOR IT!!! . . . ./s

    Please donate to Wikipedia if you can.

  • Supervisor194@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    58
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    11 hours ago

    Interesting all this WP news I’m hearing today. Last week I downloaded the entirety of Wikipedia. Anyone can do it, the base archive (no pictures) is only about 25G, although the torrent is slow AF, took me… almost 2 weeks to download it.

    I did this because I feel like this might be the last chance to get a version of it that has any vestige of the old order in it, the old order being “trying to stick to ideals and express truth rather than rewriting history to the fascists’ specifications.”

    I’d love to be wrong, but if I’m not, I feel like it will potentially be a good reference in the future if needed.

    • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      82
      ·
      11 hours ago

      This is in the news because Wikipedia is refusing to rewrite history to the fascists’ specifications.

      https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrdydkypv7o

      It’s possible that India will succeed at eroding by a little bit Wikipedia’s resistance to having things rewritten because of various powerful people demanding it. But, if you’re looking for an organization that’s resistant against those demands, I don’t think you will be able to find one that is anywhere near the equal of Wikipedia in terms of the scale at which it operates combined with the resistance it puts up when people do this.

      • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        44 minutes ago

        That’s interesting and terrifying all at once. If the Indian government is successful, it will basically set the precedent for other powerful entities such as autocrats, oligarchs, and corporations to also force Wikipedia to edit their content to suit their desires. I donate frequently and will keep making sure they can win.

    • OminousOrange@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      10 hours ago

      Kiwix is a self hostable option for this, and you can get other content databases as well, like wikiHow, iFixit, and Khan Academy.

      The downloads are much faster than two weeks too.

      • m-p{3}@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        8 minutes ago

        Just some context, Hertzner gave the shaft to the Kiwix project and took down their content servers without any apparent notice (Kiwix’s side of the story at least), and they had to rebuild it with another provider.

  • sylphrin@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    33
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    12 hours ago

    What is this false narrative? Genuine question, I’m out of the loop and might not recognize the misinformation if/when I see it.

    Sorry if it’s a stupid question, couldn’t work it out from a quick scan of the comments.

    • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      89
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      12 hours ago

      Yeah, the comments have gone completely off the rails.

      The false narrative is that Wikipedia is doxxing the identities of its users to the Indian government, because they kowtow to any fascist government that asks them to. The reality is that the Indian government is mad about content on Wikipedia, has taken Wikipedia to court, and they’ve been fighting in court to avoid changing the content or revealing the user identities, and have proposed a compromise where they reveal some parts of the user identity to only the judge in the case, so that some procedural things can be satisfied without compromising the privacy of their users and also without getting WP shut down in India because they’re thumbing their noses at the court.

      What’s actually happening sounds reasonable to me. The way the person is presenting it sounds like Wikipedia is doing terrible things on purpose and we shouldn’t support them, and to me it looks like they’re totally uninterested in addressing the discrepancy.

      • Scubus@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        76
        ·
        11 hours ago

        I have heard that wikipedia makes a ton of money, way more than neccassary to run the site. The excess is getting funneled into the pockets of millionaires, in the ballpark of 300m/y. Is this not true? With this further understanding, would you be able to link a source verifying/disproving this claim?

        To be clear, I have always been pro wiki, it stunned me when I read that.

        • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          61
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          11 hours ago

          It’s not true. Audited financial statements are here:

          https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/

          Their gross income for each of the last couple of years was around $160 million. I have no idea where you got the idea that there’s “ballpark” $300 million per year of “excess,” but that part definitely is totally untrue and a few minutes of checking can disprove it. I assume the rest of it is made up also. Wikipedia is one of the top ten web sites in the world. I have no real idea whether $160 million is a reasonable amount of money to use to operate the site, or whether there is “excess” someone is siphoning off, but the specific statements you’re making are disprovable, and I tend to assume they originally were made up for the same reasons as the other made-up statements I’m talking about in this post.

          • RustyEarthfire@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            9
            ·
            9 hours ago

            It does look like they don’t currently have any funding issues. They have 1.5 years of reserves and give about 15% of their income out in grants to other organizations. And like most web sites, the actual hosting costs are a relatively small part of their operation.

          • Scubus@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            10
            arrow-down
            15
            ·
            11 hours ago

            Nice, appreciate it. I would assume I mistve read one of the posters you were referring to. I didnt care enough to check myself, as I have never had enough money to donate in the first place. But wikipedia is in my top 4 most used websites, so your post caught my attention and you seemed to be educated enough on the situation to simply ask you. Seemed like a pointless he said/she said without your source though, hence requesting it.

            • nomy@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              35
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              10 hours ago

              Lazy users just posting whatever 3rd hand half truth they misunderstood is a scourge. It might as well be a glue-pizza recommending AI post.

              • slackassassin@sh.itjust.works
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                16 minutes ago

                Glue pizza might actually be better. Ask yourself why anyone would need to make cheese stick to pizza. Because that’s not really a typical culinary issue. So, the answer came from practical effect strategies for a commercial cheese-stretch shot.

                Now, I’m not saying that there isn’t still an issue with this type of misunderstanding. But, it’s not “hur-dur, just glue it” that everyone always paints it as.

                It’s more interesting than that and raises issues about how questions are framed and how answers are digested.

              • Scubus@sh.itjust.works
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                4
                arrow-down
                4
                ·
                edit-2
                3 hours ago

                Except i didnt “just post” it. I asked someone who seemed knowledgable. Pardon me for seeking correction.

                Nb4 you tell me to “just google it” while putting on your signature look of superiority

                Edit: better yet, i asked it in response to an incredibly vague post which offered no info on the claims actually being stated. So, what, everything posted about wikipedia is untrue? Well someone in this thread said its a good source of info, guess i need to disregard that too.

                • nomy@lemmy.zip
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  25 minutes ago

                  You made a claim with absolutely no references or sources then asked someone else to disprove your claim. That’s not how conversations or debates work at all. If you’re incapable of fact checking even the most basic statement conversations with you will never be productive and you’ll only be a useful idiot repeating the last thing you misread, do better.

    • socsa@piefed.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      33 minutes ago

      I am pretty convinced that .ml is legitimately used as a Russian troll training ground before they get promoted to Facebook and reddit.

    • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      82
      arrow-down
      9
      ·
      16 hours ago

      Yeah, there’s kind of a Poe’s Law situation.

      A lot of the sincere tankies, though, at least want to talk about what they’re into, and have elaborate reasons why it’s all true. The low-effort “I can’t even be bothered to try to mount a defense, I just wanted to say Wikipedia is doxing its users and kowtowing to fascist governments, and now that I’ve said it my task is done” behavior is a little more indicative of a disingenuous propaganda account in my experience.

      • Serinus@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        50
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        edit-2
        13 hours ago

        elaborate reasons why it’s all true

        Usually it’s “just read these 10 hundred-year-old books” that they absolutely have not read.

        And if you ask them to make a point from those books, they can’t. Apparently they’re only comprehensible as a whole.

      • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        9 hours ago

        That’s now poe’s law, it would be Occam’s razor.

        The most likely scenario here is not many puppet accounts spreading sarcasm or parody but rather that there are many actors that all true believers in what they are all saying. They sound the same because they are feeding off the same talking point.

    • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      67
      arrow-down
      11
      ·
      15 hours ago

      Yeah, I was trying to talk about the situation without specifically linking to the comments or starting any kind of brigade situation. I figured being vague was better than being inflammatory, and anyone who cared enough would know what I was taking about, which seems to be accurate.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      53
      arrow-down
      8
      ·
      15 hours ago

      be anymore vague

      1. be any more vague

      2. be vague anymore

      Don’t split the lanes, man.

        • M137@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          28
          arrow-down
          10
          ·
          edit-2
          11 hours ago

          I seriously don’t understand this kind of reaction to being corrected about mistakes. All it does is show everyone that you’re even dumber than previously shown via the mistake and makes it obvious you don’t care to learn anything from it so you’ll continue being just as dumb.
          Learn from it instead and thank them for teaching you something.
          But you’re clearly not mentally grown and/or smart enough to not react like a 5-year-old to someone pointing out you’ve made a mistake. And it’s hilarious that you don’t realize how childish and dumb you make it clear you are by this kind of reaction and choosing to show it with a reply.

      • robocall@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        11 hours ago

        Wow. Thanks for sharing that profile… that is dedication to the niche issue of smearing Wikipedia.

      • Blaze (he/him)@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        22
        ·
        15 hours ago

        Doesn’t LW have a rule against desinformation and asking for reliable sources since the cat vegan food affair?

        • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          23
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          14 hours ago

          It only applies to misinformation that might cause significant harm to some organism, which doesn’t apply to this.

          Personally, I don’t think that LW should make the attempt to police misinformation completely, since it’s sort of a judgement call a lot of the time. I think it’s better that people be able to argue out whether something is true or false, or intended disingenuously or not, all on their own without the mods needing to decide for them, because misinformation has such a big grey area that you can’t make an objective determination and be right about it 100% of the time.

            • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              26
              ·
              13 hours ago

              strongly recommend you look into Phillip’s own activity: habitually stalking users, accusing them of spreading misinformation, and hiding their true intentions. his presence is toxic as fuck, and I don’t trust their “analysis” one iota.

              • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                19
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                12 hours ago

                I think directly accusing people of spreading misinformation, explaining why, and letting them defend themselves if they want to, is a pretty good activity to do. Mostly, I only do it when something really annoys me, like for example someone claiming a free encyclopedia project for the internet is supporting genocide, kowtowing to fascist regimes, and many of their editors are quitting because it isn’t even safe to contribute to the project because they will dox you whenever asked.

                • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  4
                  arrow-down
                  21
                  ·
                  12 hours ago

                  this is not the first time you have made spurious accusations of spreading misinformation. it’s toxic as fuck. I wish you’d just get out of the fediverse instead of launching new instances when people start to ban your account.

              • Deceptichum@quokk.au
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                15
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                12 hours ago

                So are you the same person as the linuxsucks and Wikipedia accounts?

                Because that’s the vibe I’m getting from your posting.

      • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        24
        ·
        15 hours ago

        The last thread OP participated in features a comment from OP countering something said about Wikipedia by wikipediasuckscoop. Looks like that’s who.