The Reddit API exodus in 2023 brought hundreds of new instances and tens of thousands of new users to Lemmy. Unfortunately, many of those instances had open registrations, Lemmy’s moderation tools were very basic (they still are), and there were not enough mods/admins to provide 24-hour coverage on the larger instances. A handful of trolls took advantage of the situation by posting grotesque stuff for lulz: CSAM, scat porn, racist memes, etc. Sometimes it would stay up for hours until someone with the right permissions noticed and took it down.

The situation is better now. Though there is still plenty of room for improvement.

Lemmy is community-centric like Reddit, rather than user-centric like X/Twitter. If you want to follow specific users then look for a microblog platform like Mastodon. Or try mbin, which combines multiple platforms as another commenter mentioned.

Ah, gotcha. I misunderstood.

Andrew Jackson was also a bastard, especially for his treatment of natives. But I meant Johnson.

It is complicated because the rules are different in each state. Also, Trump was convicted in New York state but he resides and votes in Florida.

For out-of-state convictions, Florida defers to the other state’s rules. New York would allow Trump to vote if he resided there because he is not currently in prison, so Trump can vote in Florida legally.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-felony-conviction-can-he-vote-b95e7b4c9158d999e8bc89b00fbda911

Not a weapons expert, but I imagine a 2000 lb guided bomb could fuck up a building pretty well. The tool ignored the whole “while minimizing collateral damage” part, though.

While W. sucked in many ways, there is no way he is the worst. Off the top of my head I can easily think of four better contenders: Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan (both guilty of pro-slavery fuckery before the Civil War), Andrew Johnson (fought to let the Confederates off the hook after the war and opposed the 14th amendment), and Donald Trump (first president to be impeached twice, first to be convicted of a felony, and may be remembered by future historians as the spark that ignites the next Civil War).

Seems like the world has moved away from that

Assuming that the world was once just, and recently changed to become unjust, is completely flawed. History provides endless examples of people with power and money doing horrible things and facing little or no consequences.

Oh, I completely get it. It’s a battle of delayed gratification versus instant gratification. I can take care of business now and have stress-free fun later, or I can have fun now and let future-me deal with the consequences.

Smooth, predictable operation requires forethought, planning, and willingness to stick to a process. It’s not nearly as fun as living in the moment and improvising.

No information is the best option. How bad the misinformation is depends on intent. Is the misinformation a lie intentionally told to conceal a truth? Or is it bullshit, information intended to persuade regardless of truth?

Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

From Harry Frankfurt’s essay On Bullshit

This would fit better in [email protected].

The Onion got new owners earlier this year, and they seem serious about making it a sharp and relevant publication

Loved that show.

In a similar vein, I’m curious about the modern consensus on “you guys,” as in, “what do you guys want to do this weekend?”

Or result in US businesses moving their trade dollars from tariff-affectrd countries to others that could really use the money, like Mexico or Central America.

Yes, voters choose the candidate when they participate in the primary. But before the primary ever happens there’s a lot that goes on in terms of determining who will run in the primary, and what resources they have to run a viable campaign.

Political junkies talk about the “invisible primary,” which Vox’s Andrew Prokop, in an excellent overview, describes as “the attempts by important elements of each major party — mainly elites and interest groups — to anoint a presidential nominee before the voting even begins. … These insider deliberations take place in private conversations with each other and with the potential candidates, and eventually in public declarations of who they’re choosing to endorse, donate to, or work for.”

Clinton dominated this invisible primary: She locked up the endorsements, the staff, and the funders early. All the way back in 2013, every female Democratic senator — including Warren — signed a letter urging Clinton to run for president. As FiveThirtyEight’s endorsement tracker showed, Clinton even outperformed past vice presidents, like Al Gore, in rolling up party support before the primaries.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/14/16640082/donna-brazile-warren-bernie-sanders-democratic-primary-rigged

Not only did the DNC go out of its way to steer resources toward Clinton, there were leaked emails wherein party officials were brainstorming ways to undermine the Sanders campaign with negative messaging.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/23/487179496/leaked-democratic-party-emails-show-members-tried-to-undercut-sanders

Using the default lemmy-ui you first have to find a post or comment that the user made in your community. Then you should be able to use the pop-up menu for that post/comment to unban them. It may be helpful to go to the user’s profile and search for a relevant post or comment there.

If you are comfortable using the API directly, you can send a POST request using a tool like curl or a browser plugin like RESTED. The site below provides a reference for formatting Lemmy API requests. Set ban=false. It’s a pain, though; you first need to get the community_id, person_id, and your session authentication cookie as inputs.
https://lemmy.readme.io/reference/post_community-ban-user

Delaware elected Sarah McBride, who is the first open transgender representative in Congress.

Georgia district attorney Fani Willis, who has been trying to prosecute Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election, won reelection.

Washington Congressman Dan Newhouse, one of the ten Republicans who voted to impeach Trump (and one of two in that group who survived the subsequent midterm elections), successfully defended his seat again against a Trump-endorsed opponent. That’s at least one Republican in the House who doesn’t always rubber-stamp the party agenda.

The Associated Press seems to have a decent results presentation ready to go:
https://apnews.com/projects/election-results-2024/

I wouldn’t bother watching minute-by-minute. There is a decent chance that some swing state will be close enough to trigger a recount, and/or one side files lawsuits challenging the results. This circus is far from over.