You may have noticed a distinct lack of return2ozma. This is due to their admitting, in a public comment, that their engagement here is in bad faith:
I'm sure there will be questions, let me see if I can address the most obvious ones:
Can I still post negative stuff about Biden?
Absolutely! We have zero interest in running an echo chamber. However, if ALL you're posting is negative, you may want to re-think your priorities. You get out of the world what you put into it and all that.
Why now?
Presumption of innocence. It may be my own fault, but I do try to think the best of people, and even though they were posting negative articles, they weren't necessarily WRONG. Biden's poll numbers, particularly in minority demographics ARE in the shitter. They are starting to get better, but he still has a hell of a hill to climb.
Why a 30 day temp ban and not a permanent ban?
The articles return2ozma shared weren't bad, faked, or from some wing-nut bias site like "beforeitsnews.com", they were legitimate articles from established and respected news agencies, pointing out the valid problems Biden faces.
The problem was ONLY posting the negatives, over and over and then openly admitting that dishonest enagement is their purpose.
Had they all been bullshit articles? It would not have taken anywhere near this much time to lay the ban and it would have been permanent.
30 days seems enough time for them to re-think their strategery and come back to engage honestly.
Good move, they were a clown and pointing out that they were arguing entirely in bad faith is correct. They did it under the guise of being far-leftist, but as a far-leftist myself, I have a hard time believing it was for anything other than pissing people off. Hopefully they can go practice being happy instead of doom-posting on niche Internet forums.
I won't pretend to know what the fully correct decision on stuff like this is; it's definitely complex bordering on impossible (among other reasons because I actually think it's good to have vocal easily-identifiable bad-faith accounts, because they tee up great conversations even if the original intent behind the post wasn't good and people are annoyed by it).
But that being said it seems crazy that some of these accounts are still allowed to post here freely, given what was in my view some pretty ironclad indication that they're not posting in good faith.
pointing out the valid problems Biden faces
So this touches on one of my key least favorite things about return2ozma -- I'd actually go well beyond what you saw in that one comment from him, and say that at this point, he's clearly not just pointing out valid problems. Posting negative polls is one thing, mostly completely fine. Everyone's got their viewpoint and allowed to post whatever view they want. But he'll also post specific assertions about Biden that objectively aren't true (marijuana policy being a good example), and then continue posting them after it's shown to him that they're not true -- all the while swearing that he's trying to help, just bringing up all this negative information because he really wants the Democrats to win, and so is giving constructive criticism so they can change course.
IDK man. That to me is very clear indication that he's lying about what he's trying to do, and being deliberately dishonest with what he posts. I think the posts I'm referring to were in some meme sub, not here, so maybe what you're saying about the content he posts specifically in [email protected] coming technically from reputable sources is a valid counter argument. IDK. Maybe. But to me, avowing "I am trying to help Biden" while posting objectively false criticism of him, and not really pretending it's any other way than that, is actually worse by quite a lot than avowing "I am here to post negative information about Biden." (not that that latter one is good...)
Like I say I'm not trying to weigh in on what the right answer is (either with ozma or the other similar accounts), because I don't really see a good right answer. Just tossing in my observations as a person who doesn't have to take the responsibility of trying to figure out how to handle it.
(@[email protected] - I feel a little unfair about posting this in a forum where you aren't allowed in to defend yourself; if you want to create a thread anywhere else with any response you want to make, I'll link to it from here so you can give your side of anything where you feel I've been inaccurate / unfair.)
My take is the dude just filled the board with unrelenting misery. I'm happy for the occasional reminder that Biden could be doing better. I think he's flat wrong on certain policies. But oddly enough I still get that point of view without R2O, while enjoying my time here a lot more.
God, the unrelenting misery is killing me in this platform. I think the thing I'm most sick and tired of more than anything else is the constant stream of The Usual Suspects butting in with "But what about Gaza?!" on Every. Single. Post.
Post an article about Biden proposing a ceasefire agreement in the war? Complain about Biden giving support to Israel!
Post an article about Biden celebrating pride month? Complain about Biden funding Israel!
Article about Biden forgiving another batch of student loans? "BUt Biden supports israel!"
Article about Trump getting convicted of felonies? "But Biden! Gaza! Israel!"
Article about a small town library fighting LGBTQ+ book bans? "GAZA! ISRAEL! BIDEN! BAD"
Article about a goddamn random topic completely unrelated to Biden, Trump, Israel, politics, or the US at all? "GENOCIIIIIIIIIIDE!"
It's at the point where I've cut back on Lemmy usage entirely because every comment thread I click on is like navigating a fucking minefield of misery. Nothing good can ever happen, no policy changes can ever be celebrated, no events can be remarked upon, without someone butting in with a reminder that Genocide Mother-Fucking Joe is personally shoveling coal into the palestinian child incinerator. No post can ever leave you with any emotion other than the thin veil of doomerism settling upon your shoulders, a pall of depression casting itself over the tragedy of the world, and a sense that modern society is an Aristocrats joke that has long since crossed the line from "horrifying" to "funny," then back to "horrifying," then back to "funny," before settling itself so firmly in "horrifying" that the audience is casting nervous glances and hoping that someone else is the first to call the police.
Well said. For each article, they’d consistently select the source with the most inflammatory headline and perspective and post it in several places at once, ensuring a clearly negative perception of Biden for casual browsers.
There’s no shortage of criticism of Biden on Lemmy. We should all want the most factual articles posted to support well-informed discussions of his actions.
He admitted to me, after I accused him, that he searches a news aggregator for "Biden" daily and posts the negative stuff he sees. I believe he said it was to hold dems accountable or something. That exchange was maybe a month or two back and might have been either here or on [email protected]
Let's go with that example. If you posted multiple times per day about puppy mills on a community about animals, that would be a bit much. I post multiple posts about Trump per day but its generally reflective of overall media coverage. I just go to my preferred sources and browse their home pages for news that seems interesting. I don't seek out anything in particular.
I think I agree more with the spam angle than the "only bad news" angle. As others have said it's fine to have a viewpoint and mainly share articles in line with that viewpoint. However doing it many times per day, every day, when the number of posts here is limited anyway, does impact the community.
In any case, the main thing is to be consistent and ideally make whatever the rule is very clear. And I would say this should be turned into an explicit rule or explanation under an existing rule.
Personally I just read what I want to, and if it seems bad faith, downvote and move on.
i agree, jordanlund is opening themselves up for extra scrutiny with this.
spam and displaying signs of getting off on angering users (trolling) is absolutely a valid and nonpartisan reason for a ban. but as soon as the mods start citing actual politics (outside of clear examples of misinfo, which is not in play here) it gets dicey and accusations of bias pile up fast, which is exactly what we are seeing play out right in these comments.
Normally I'm not one to even entertain the thought of commenting on a political thread, but I feel it would be disingenuous to click the button without any feedback in this case. This decision leaves me with a large enough lack of confidence in the future moderation of this community(especially given we're in an election year) such that I can't in good faith leave it on my feed and I will be blocking this comm after this comment.
While I agree that Ozma deserved a ban for spam, the justification used for this is frankly appalling. Misrepresentation of bias as bad-faith, especially with the admission that largely good sources were used is unacceptable.
Look, I have zero illusions to how popular of a decision this is in this comm, and this isn't my instance so who the fuck cares what I think.
but
I have a very hard time seeing this as anything other than a disagreement over personal political tastes, rather than anything to do with a violation of some unwritten rule. Your comm already has rules regarding article quality, misinformation, and off-topic posts and comments that could be used as a justification here if it applied. If there was a problem with the volume of posts for which he was responsible (i think this is the legitimate concern here), then you could either call it spamming or there could easily be a rule added limiting the number of posts per day that applies globally and isn't reliant on subjective judgement.
I've been very vocal about my own political opinions, and have myself been accused of bad-faith trolling and of being a covert agent of some type or other. Speaking for myself, I think there's a pretty obvious bias (maybe preference is a more fair term) when it comes to the coverage and rhetoric about the upcoming election in the US specifically. There's legitimacy to the observation that inconvenient bad press about Biden is ignored/rationalized/dismissed on a 'lesser evil' and 'at all costs' political rationale that I (and I think ozma) tend to react negatively to. Breaking through the iron curtain of electoral politics to people who genuinely share political values (not all of them, mind you) sometimes involves repeated reminders and presentation of counter-partisan coverage. I personally appreciate ozma's contributions because often these posts and articles encourage real discussions about the limitations of this particular politician, and people like @[email protected] frequently jump in and provide nuanced dissection and context to what would otherwise be an easily dismissed issue.
This is not my instance so It's not up to my judgment what the right or wrong thing to do is here, but .world being an instance that has already de-federated with most others with louder left-leaning politics, the overton window has already been considerably narrowed. By removing the loudest dissenters (who are 'not wrong, just assholes'), you run the risk of warping reality for those who don't care enough to confront coverage they might find uncomfortable and might prefer a more quiet space to affirm their politics instead of being challenged. You're cultivating an echo chamber simply by cutting out the noise you find disagreeable. The goal of agitation is to get exactly those people to engage more so that we can move the overton window further left and accomplish more at the electoral level in the future. It isn't 'bad faith' to be motivated by that goal, it just might be unfair to people who are comfortable with where that window currently is and would rather not be challenged by it moving further left.
Is okay: Having a viewpoint, whatever the viewpoint
Isn't okay: Pushing a particular chosen viewpoint regardless of how well it aligns with the information you're drawing from, being upfront about that being your strategy, and then following through to a beyond-parody level of annoying everyone and repeating yourself day in and day out
IDK why everyone's so eager to read a pretty detailed explanation of why the issue isn't his viewpoint, and then follow up right away with extensive hand wringing over the idea of censoring his viewpoint.
Because it's pretty clearly about his viewpoint, since the cited comment in the post is 'this is my viewpoint, and that viewpoint is why i'm posting these things'
If it's about the volume of posts call it spamming and address it with a rule about post limits. Calling it bad-faith is necessarily about the reason he's making the posts, not how many of them there are or the quality of the articles.
IDK why everyone’s so eager to read a pretty detailed explanation of why the issue isn’t his viewpoint, and then follow up right away with extensive hand wringing over the idea of censoring his viewpoint.
It's actually not a disagreement. :) I actually agree with a lot of the substance of the articles. Biden needs to address his support in minority communities for example.
The problem comes from posting negative news purely to be negative, over and over and over.
It becomes less constructive and more about harping on Biden, a la Fox/Newsmax/Oann.
I'm willing to bet they just don't think having a bias is bannable
If I have an issue with the kinds of things someone else is posting, and they haven't actually broken a rule, I either downvote it, argue with them about it, post my own content that represents my own perspective, or all three. I don't cheer for that user to be banned simply because I don't like their bias or agenda
Yeah, I'm sorta startled that admitting to wanting to highlight negative truths over cheering for someone is considered bad faith. Bad faith is misrepresenting an issue, not selectively posting reputable sources. This is one mod decision that I think is wrong and bad.
Unsurprising to see the usual suspects agitating on this issue in the comments section.
I honestly don't know how I feel about this, other than that a temp ban is better than a perma-ban. Ozma is annoying as shit, but that's not a strong admittance of bad faith, even if it's obvious by his posting to anyone with functioning eyes. At the same time, he does nothing but continuously post this dreck, and a community necessarily must trim bad-faith actors to maintain itself. Otherwise you end up with a shithole like 4chan.
It's tough you know? I can't tell you how many times I looked at reports and gave them the benefit of doubt, then hit this one and was like "Ok, yup, it's time."
Looking at the coments here there's lots on both sides, folks who are like "yeah, I blocked him ages ago!" to "how dare you!"
FWIW, I've been in touch with them in PMs, there's no hard feelings on either side, we'll see how it shakes out when they're back.
Mostly right there with you. It’s disturbing to see mods just publicly admitting their process is capricious and wack expecting to be congratulated and lauded for openness.
I never thought I’d be posting AMAB next to a lib.
[if ALL you’re posting is negative, you may want to re-think your priorities. ]
It's okay to do that about a specific politician if that is your true opinion. However, it does seem like this person was arguing in bad faith by admitting he is aware things are not as bad as his posts seem.
If someone pumped the gas and was posting dozens and dozens of pro or anti Trump stuff? Yeah, I think I'd do the same.
We did have quite a few pro-Trump posts as he was winning primaries, which made logical sense. I'm also planning on megathreads in July and August for both conventions.
You should make spamming too many articles within a certain X time a rule then. I think it needs to be more objective. This is getting into partisan territory.
I checked my block list and already had this covered. I don't need that kind of shit in my life. But good on you for making it a better place for everyone. I 100% support banning folks just to make a board less miserable to visit. Both sides is good. Agenda is bad.
See, I'm not interested in Devil's advocacy. The board was overwhelmed by negativity that just made me want to not come here at all. When I blocked them, this became a better place to hang out immediately.
I don't care about the justification (either of the moderation or how I enjoy the board). All the rules and everything is just an attempt to codify how to keep the place enjoyable and useful. If someone makes the place less enjoyable or useful, get rid of them. I don't have room in my life to engage with people or content that just makes me want to be elsewhere.
It's super easy for me to agree when I already had the dude blocked, of course. If there was a voice I liked hearing from, I'm sure I'd feel this is all very dictatorial. But I don't. I think that person is insufferable and people coming to the board for the first time are more likely to stay without their posts being here. And that's plenty of justification for me.
Edit: snipped a paragraph that was just rambling and redundant.
God damn this was way longer and more effort than I wanted to put into this. Guaranteed autocorrect has fucked up a bunch of things I'll need to edit if I even catch them.
Anyway, tldr: fuck that guy and glad riddance. That was an autocorrect failure but I like it so I'm leaving it.
Kind of incredible someone can be banned for posting too many negative stories about Biden (and admitting they like posting them, I guess?) while the mods here ignore users that post comments denying that specific homophobic instances occurred. Happy Pride! 🥳
I did, that’s why they’re already banned on Blahaj.
Edit: Also, I literally just spoke to you about it right now and the comments are still up on lemmy.world, so I’m not sure what message I’m supposed to take here other than these comments don’t break the rules.
I find it's about 70/30 when it comes to temp bans. 7/10 I get PMs of "sorry, I'll do better" and then 3/10 it's... well... (note, this was a different user)
...and people behaving like this is why we cannot have nice things. I can remember the days of BBS (often heavily moderated) as contrasted with the (mostly unmoderated) USENET.
I think things on the unmoderated side were only barely holding on prior to The Eternal September; in hindsight, it is surprising things worked as well as they did.
There are several commenters I would have blocked before r2o, especially if bad faith is the reasoning. But I appreciate the openness and the work put into moderating.
I generally agree with your reasoning. In a ranked choice world, they would likely have a candidate they would back, and support. I think many of us here would be happy to be in that world.
Reminder for everyone to vote every election, and local and state are super important, it's where you have a chance to get ranked choice in the discussion.
I agree with this take on r2ozma. They obviously criticized Biden and the DNC relentlessly, but to me it came from a place of frustration from wanting better representation. It’s a good case study in how the 2 party system generally fails us all.
Or banned for posting only negative stuff about trump? I don't really post, but I'm definitely "guilty" of always being critical of trump, and most Republicans in general in my comments.
We have negative posts on here when Trump as much as farts. If there is anything bad faith it is claiming that there is a balance in positive and negative posts about Trump.
The articles return2ozma shared weren’t bad, faked, or from some wing-nut bias site like “beforeitsnews.com”, they were legitimate articles from established and respected news agencies, pointing out the valid problems Biden faces.
I clicked that link and wow... what sort of people trust a site like that lol?
We don’t accept articles from Fox News or Newsmax for the same reason, it’s clear they have an axe to grind.
That seems a little strong, even though they are shit sources. I don't want right wing views censored because I want a chance to tell everyone how wrong they are.
Thank you. The goal is to have informed discussion of our opinions, not the opinions of the source. That’s not possible when the source material is focused on interpreting the facts rather than presenting them.
Admitting that you only share the bad side of something isn’t arguing in bad faith.
I actually sort-of agree that we shouldn't be banning people because of a "slanted" viewpoint just because of how difficult it is to do that fairly, without creating more problems than it solves.
But only sharing the bad side of something is absolutely arguing in bad faith. A normal person looks at the world and says, what do I think? And then they say it. They're not on "Team Biden." They're not on "Team Russia." They're just a person speaking for themselves, and the people they support, they decided to support because they decided good things about them, but if they learn bad things about those people, it's not like they'll try to cover them up or support that person anyway. They just say what they think about it, not picking only one side and presenting that exclusively.
The example I would keep bringing up for this is the people on Lemmy who support Biden in general, but also give him lots of criticism because of his support for Israel. That's a normal person. They say I like good things, and I don't like bad things. I don't pick one team and then only say the good things about that team and only the bad things about the other team. That's bad faith. That's dishonest.
I mean everyone does it to some degree. It sort of hurts if the side you are supporting is doing something criminal, and there's a little bit of an impulse not to focus on it. But just deciding that you're only going to present one side of the story, no matter what good or bad information emerges, because you think it's "needed" or because that's "your side," is dishonest. It's bad faith. And definitely when you do it to the degree that ozma did it, it goes beyond the level of "well everyone's got their viewpoint" and starts to become "how can I persuade other people to this viewpoint, I have very little care whether it's right or wrong, it's just the viewpoint I have decided to try to persuade them of."
Like I say I don't know how much the mods should get involved in detecting that and banning it. But definitely it's not how things should be (and anyone who tells you that most people operate that way is not accurately describing any healthy functioning message board even within the low bar that is the internet.)
The example I would keep bringing up for this is the people on Lemmy who support Biden in general, but also give him lots of criticism because of his support for Israel. That’s a normal person.
I'm about to break decorum here, but who the fuck are you to decide what constitutes 'normal' behavior? 'It's ok to criticize Biden so long as you still generally support him' is a pretty brazen example of 'bad faith' argumentation IMHO.
I think his comments are more damming evidence of his bad faith engagement than what's being presented in this post. None of his articles were lies, and considering how most people only share the good, being committed to only sharing the bad to give some fucking perspective isn't in and of itself necessarily bad faith engagement.
Anyone seeing this and unfamiliar with Ozma may look at this and see it being a bit of an extreme reaction. Dude has plenty of comments that support the fact he wasn't just adding perspective, though, that could be added for more context.
The great thing about the Fediverse is that a single mod or admin cannot permanently block a user, but if necessary multiple people (mods and admins) can cooperate to block a user.
i have my disagreements with this community’s mod team but i do appreciate this step.
i fucking hate biden too, but i blocked that account long ago because they clearly were here to troll and do nothing else. anyone who wants to pick up the perceived “torch” and do what they were doing in good faith this time is more than welcome in my book. i really welcome diversity of posts when the person behind it isn’t clearly getting a kick out of the rage they stir up.
Theres lots of blind support and promotion for team blue on here that I think Ozma was providing a needed counter balance. You say you dont want an echo chamber but I think this acomplishes the opposite.
So whats the ratio of good to bad news that we must share in order to not be banned?
Theres lots of blind support and promotion for team blue on here
Every time we have this conversation, this same point comes up, and it's always totally imaginary.
The whole board is full of people giving Biden shit (chiefly for Israel at this point; honestly it might be a different story if he wasn't giving them weapons, but as it is, I think you'd be hard pressed to find any story about US aid for Israel that doesn't have its top rated comment as giving his war criminal ass a hard time for it. As well they should.)
But the trolls like to create a reality where they are the only ones that are willing to criticize Biden, and anyone who's taking any note of their particular brand of wildly dishonest and repetitive-almost-like-someone's-doing-it-as-a-job anti Biden postings, just is part of some kind of imaginary monolith that doesn't want any criticism.
The fact that it's never true and looking at the comments for like 2 seconds will illustrate that it's not true, somehow never deters people from saying it.
There lots of comments on ozuma articles saying they are bullshit as well. If people that only post positive stuff don't get banned it's just an echo chamber, it's just as bad faith as only negative at that point.
The whole board is full of people giving Biden shit
And more often than not is followed by a variation of "vote blue no matter who" or its heavilly downvoted or gets several replies all telling them how dumb and wrong they are. Thats what I meant, but I admit that it isnt as one sided as my comment might imply.
Anyways, I dont think their descicion of only sharing negative news about biden is not inherently in bad faith. In fact, I believe them admitting to doing so proves the oposite, they were telling people directly what types of news they are sharing and what their view of the situation is, instead of pretending to be objective when theres clearly a bias.
Today I made three threads about court case updates. 1 about the Georgia case, 2 about Florida, because it was new and newsworthy.
If I did a deep dive on Cannon and posted every single misdeed she's done since becoming a judge, people in the group would be right to go "Hey... um... you OK? Working through some issues?"
If I did it day, after, day, after day and then posted "Yeah, I'm only interested in bad things." Someone would be right to tell me to go touch grass.
I still cant see how Ozmas posting was in bad faith.
Obsesive? Sure, it could be seen that way but it says nothing about their intentions other than they were prioritizing negative/critical news of biden and the dem. party, and I can see why, since theres a strong push back on the fediverse against those types of news.
Thats not a bad faith argument anymore than a liberal posting something bad about trump because it fits their narrative. Like many leftists I hate democrats more than Republicans because Republicans don't pretend to care. Republicans will tell you to your face who they are, democrats will lie to your face about inclusion and acceptance and proceed to legislate like their conservative counterparts.
There are no 1775 democrats. Every single 1775er is a Republican. That's a wrap right there but I'm gonna keep going because then it sounds like I'm avoiding the rest of your points.
Republicans have been stonewalling Congress since 2010. Both parties have issues with partisanship and gatekeeping but you're confusing 3 points all together at once. 1) conflating effective governance within the limits of a bicameral legislature, designed to advance only through compromise, with hypocrisy. 2) trying to lie about republicans somehow having more integrity than Democrats 3) telling yet another lie implying that Democratic legislation is anywhere near as conservative as what republicans put out and bonus point number 4) pretending democrats have contributed to the advancement of neo fascism by playing hide the sausage with the term "conservative" in the same way or at the same level as Republicans have.
The argument that Republicans are honest about who they are is itself a Republican talking point. Look at how they flip flopped on matters of law and order as soon as Trump got convicted. Stop letting yourself be deceived. If you're a leftist who hates Democrats more than Republicans you sound like what would have been considered a useful idiot by the Soviet Union, cutting off your leg to spite your face.
Shit, going down through my posts on PoliticalMemes there's not even a pattern. Over the past week, I've got:
Making fun of a Trumpism
"'Fascist' is overused online"
A post critical of China's anti-LGBT policy - I guess we can count that one as a "LIBERAL AGENDA" moment if we really want to stretch
"Why do online fascists always have anime profile pics"
"Reagan was a homophobic murderous shithead"
"MAGA doesn't understand what socialism is, they just hate gay people"
Pro-Palestine post
What's... what's the agenda, based on my posts? Like, obviously, I get that I'm a shitlib to you people, but I don't flood communities with agendaposting.
It's really disappointing to see you constantly delete comments you perceive as rude or uncivil with extreme vigilance but then be stupid enough to allow bad faith posters like return2ozma repeatedly try to control political narratives for months on end. I'm really tired of seeing your name in the Modlog policing politeness but then sleeping on issues like this. Anyone with half a brain could have recognized ozma's dishonesty a long time ago.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself for the mess you've allowed to propagate for an extended period of time, you ought to consider extending the 30 day ban to a permanent one, and you have to be better moving forward.
I think you should have given them a three day ban earlier as a warning. Three day bans are nothing. I used to be a moderator and have been banned myself. Three days is like a timeout, and no one is hurt. It just says "cut it out".
I personally HATE having 10 articles all about the same thing posted and reposted. Then reposted again for the next week as if they're new. The anti-Big-D-Democratic posts of this user were not reposted. They brought new stories from places I wouldn't visit and read or have in my biased news feed. Everyone's "news feed" is biased, it learns what you engage with even if you try to be unbiased.
Banning people who post differing opinions is shitty. It becomes an echo chamber. Today it is Trump and Biden. But <insert slippery slope argument here>.
New feeds are biased. Lemmy is not a news feed. There are no non pay for use websites that don't have a bias.
This lack of reading and thinking comprehension is also a suck on humanity. You, like most Americans, have no idea how to even read things without inserting your own heavily slanted bias.
Absolutely nothing? Were you spinning "Israeli interests secretly control the entire world" conspiracy theories over here too, or was that just in c/technology?
Very disappointing. This is a politics group, not a news group. Politics is entirely about opinion and views on how to operate society. This is exactly the place for someone to post content that aligns with their political, moral, and philosophical views, even if that doesn't align with your own. There is no such thing as a neutral observer in politics, and trying to force it just biases this group toward what the moderators view as "neutral" through their own biases. While bad faith posting (spam, etc) is a concern, it needs to be clearly defined and distinguished from simply expressing strong political opinions. Silencing voices for perceived bias undermines the purpose of political discussion.
I am interested by how thoroughly you are mischaracterizing what jordanlund took time to explain in detail as far as what was the issue -- i.e. the dishonesty, and not the political slant.
I don't think I'm alone in saying that the mod team here gives way more leniency to slanted political posters and allows them to speak their mind, than the community as a whole thinks is reasonable (actually I think for pretty much exactly the reasons you're laying out.)
That's kind of how supporting ideals work. You end up mostly defending bad people. The anti child labor movement doesn't need moderator defense, but someone supporting it will.
"Both good and bad news about Biden is out there. I prefer to share the bad news. But you know that already." (Emphasis mine)
I cannot see how that is an admission of bad faith (or dishonest as the mod said in the original post) in any fair interpretation. Unless you are defining "bad faith" as "something I disagree with" or "something that hurts my argument".
Not acknowledging that loudness and volume shapes who gets heard is not how you reduce bias. You're only replacing one bias with another. If you let bad faith actors run free they will silence all others with volume alone, making it impossible to find and hear legitimate non-artificial opinions.