People who leave cults know the below the surface workings of the cult. -They are a threat to the cult and its mission.
Shunning is a technique used by cults. Cults lure people in initially with the love and acceptance they didn鈥檛 feel from outside the cult. Shunning strikes to the core of these people as they return to their previous state, actually often worse.
Actions can go beyond shunning though.
-
Guilt and Fear: Cults may attempt to instill a sense of guilt and fear in members about leaving suggesting dire consequences.
-
Character Assassination: Spreading false information or rumors to discredit the party leaving.
-
Stalking: Stalking former members to intimidate them into returning or to prevent them from speaking out.
-
Threats: Verbal or written threats are often used to scare former members into silence. (wait til Lemmy admins see this shit! -for example)
The intimidation can go way beyond these, but these are pertinent to our community. A community for people recovering from a cult and trying to caution others.
You must log in or # to comment.
The Linux cult is similar to the sectarian behavior of Jehovah鈥檚 Witnesses and the Amish. Both sects apply the above tactics to silent dissent of leaving members. The worst of them are the FOSS evangelists, they鈥檙e everywhere like a plague that manifests on Internet. Look at the down votes in this community from them, they joined only so they can down vote the truth haha because they can鈥檛 admit it that they鈥檙e wrong.
These people are sick in the brain. How can someone follow some sub because it hates its content? This is sickness and this sub is the cure, they need truth-bomb-pills everyday. They鈥檒l either recover, or get worse, in that case, there are always asylums looking for patients.
Any time I鈥檝e banned people, it never was reflected in the users stat. -They weren鈥檛 members. We鈥檙e more apt to lose people from edgy posts (like King Richard).
We can鈥檛 control vote brigading and manipulation. -That鈥檚 a Lemmy issue that even Reddit has. I have noticed though that Reddit has rules about it, and bans for life for it if it鈥檚 proven (or they catch it).
Nearly everyone if not everyone has cognitive biases and areas where they鈥檙e not so bright. Conspiracy theorists aren鈥檛 themselves because they鈥檙e stupid; they鈥檙e mostly a product of experiencing distrust in an authority at an impressionable age. (Rob Braxman is text book)
Aside from one user here, I don鈥檛 get personal. I don鈥檛 remember names of people I鈥檝e banned. They鈥檙e a victim as much as the next person.
I鈥檝e noticed that a lot of followers on you community on Lemmy are being douches, they simply follow you so they can down vote everything you say. Pretty pathetic if you asked me. Why are they so determined to follow something they don鈥檛 like to hear? Couldn鈥檛 they just move on?
I鈥檝e noticed that a lot of followers on you community on Lemmy are being douches, they simply follow you so they can down vote everything you say.
The vote brigading is all tightly timed and an administrator could (if they wanted to take the time) analyze the voting in the data base and accurately determine what accounts are guilty based on the data. -Yes; I鈥檝e ran a website before. Natural down-votes from subscribers won鈥檛 fall into a tightly wadded amount that we鈥檙e getting like that. (And people with nefarious intentions wouldn鈥檛 generally contribute to the user count). Lots of subscribers just ignore the voting, and bots may be involved. Users don鈥檛 need to be subscribed to follow (just go directly to the community, use a feed reader, etc).
If you look back at older posts, we have a great community here. We just have a lot more accounts exploiting the lack of rules, and software maturity.
Maybe I鈥檓 missing something, but that鈥檚 my perspective.