I cannot repost what Flying Squid was posting here, because it involved highly disturbing and dangerous content, including:

Content Warning

Graphic content, harassment, self-harm, and suicidal ideation, which I reported immediately.

While this behavior is shocking, it’s not completely out of left field, as members of this community and platform will already be familiar with their behavior. Flying Squid has long been regarded as one of the least productive and most problematic mods on all of Lemmy, often picking fights and abusing their mod privileges. I view this change as a positive step for Squid, .world, and Lemmy as a whole.

  • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
    0·
    4 days ago

    It’d only be enforcing what probably is going to happen voluntarily anyways.

    What the fuck? What is this comment?

    I definitely think, at this point, that there is a little cabal of people who are devoted to harassing FlyingSquid, not just about his moderation but on a personal level, and they aren’t stopping even when it sounds like he is clearly mentally struggling right now. That’s fucked up. Don’t do that.

    You said “call out his BS, get asked for evidence, show evidence, it isn’t enough” along with a lot of personal attacks towards FlyingSquid. What is your evidence of him being a PTB? Literally the only thing I have seen after asking this question a few times is that he sometimes argues with people, and a few months ago made a mistake on a report and didn’t realize that multiple copies of the same message were all different reports about duplicated spam content, IDK, some weird honest-mistake situation like that. And he’s rude to people sometimes. Nothing about banning people unnecessarily, or setting arbitrary rules for content removal, or anything like that, which is normally what I think of as PTB. Not “arguing.”

    What is your evidence for him being a PTB? I promise, it’ll be “enough,” I’ll take it seriously if there is any.

    • spujb@lemmy.cafeOPEnglish
      1·
      4 days ago

      I definitely think, at this point, that there is a little cabal of people who are devoted to harassing

      Definitely. I haven’t seen evidence (though I might be wrong) that it’s any more than one user with a bunch of discuss.online alts. One of their alts DMd me immediately after Squid’s removal saying “you’re welcome” as though I am thankful for harassment just because I don’t like the guy. Honestly I hope this user doing the harassment gets IP banned. Imagine taking pride in provoking someone’s mental health. Freakish.

      • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
        11·
        4 days ago

        What, return2ozma, the precursor to UniversalMonk? That’s the PTB is that FlyingSquid banned him?

        He’s calmed down recently, but he used to be pretty spammy and unapologetic about it. He was finally banned “officially” because he basically said that he was seeking out specifically anti-Biden stuff and posting a steady stream of it to make sure that side of the story got some heavy airtime on Lemmy, as if there was a shortage of it. I’m not convinced that that should be the final straw in terms of handing someone a ban, but there was broad agreement from the mod team that he should be banned.

        It also, as far as I can tell, wasn’t FlyingSquid that banned him. Unless it was from an alt used for admin, or something?

        https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&actionType=ModBanFromCommunity&modId=477305&userId=580006

        Edit: Update: Here’s all the actions that FS took against return2ozma. Looks pretty legit to me.

        https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&modId=477305&userId=580006

        • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.orgEnglish
          0·
          4 days ago

          He’s calmed down recently, but he used to be pretty spammy and unapologetic about it. He was finally banned “officially” because he basically said that he was seeking out specifically anti-Biden stuff and posting a steady stream of it to make sure that side of the story got some heavy airtime on Lemmy, as if there was a shortage of it.

          TIL, then I’m surprised he didn’t get banned earlier.

          It also, as far as I can tell, wasn’t FlyingSquid that banned him. Unless it was from an alt used for admin, or something?

          Wait, aren’t bans impossible to trace to the mod who did them? I remember this being something to avoid mod harassment

          • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
            01·
            4 days ago

            TIL, then I’m surprised he didn’t get banned earlier.

            Yeah, Jordan made a whole specific post explaining about the ban, it was that big an issue. That’s why I called him the precursor. He was stumping for third parties and flooding various channels with reasons why Biden is the worst, every single day, and they let him do it for quite a while before eventually taking action on it.

      • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
        0·
        4 days ago

        I already talked about that one, and found your explanation for why that was a horrible thing for him to say pretty unconvincing, but sure, I’ll look into it more. Who was he talking to? Where was this so I can see the comments context? I already gave my reaction but maybe if I looked at the full context, I would feel differently, and it’s so old a comment that it’s not on my instance and obviously I’m not going to look through 4+ months of comments to find it and see the context for myself.

          • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
            01·
            4 days ago

            Got it, thanks. So FS had an extended argument with two people with a certain amount of embitteredness on both sides of the argument, in a community he moderates, and then at some point in this extended argument, he mentioned in passing that the person he was talking to seemed like a habitual rule-breaker, also.

            I can’t find the user anymore, which usually means their account was deleted at the home instance, right?

            https://biglemmowski.win/u/Timii

            Am I wrong about that? That kind of makes it sound like FS might have had a point about how that person was talking in bad faith in that particular argument, and also in some of their other on-Lemmy conduct. Right?

            I stand by my assessment. Maybe you could say there’s no point in FS getting in that long and fairly pointless argument with two separate people, but I don’t think his POV in the argument was wrong, and there’s absolutely nothing of PTB anywhere in there. If this is some of the best example you can find going back through six months of heavy Lemmy participation and moderation, I have no idea why anyone thinks FS is “insane” or needs their moderator abilities taken away. IDK, I haven’t looked into the recent stuff so maybe they are unstable and it’s better if they’re not in authority, but still not a PTB in my opinion.

                • Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.winEnglish
                  0·
                  4 days ago

                  Whatever. Ya’ll proving my point. He has a cabal of users that make excuses and gave him tons of leeway and support when he clearly doesn’t deserve it. Those users experience are just what I found quickly. I’ve seen numerous arguments where he ends it with mod action. Him claiming there’s a good reason for it is BS when it is clearly his MO: argue with people and ban on loss.

                  Regardless. He’s … gone… World News et al are def going to be better for it.