Are bots now explicitly permitted? Or is just that users are banned from revealing them, making bots implicitly permitted?
edit: this is exactly the sort of BS that drove me away from Reddit - shutting down the 3rd party accessibility apps was messed up, but when they started banning people for reporting rule violations it became intolerable
if you see a bot, report it. accusing other users in the thread is just toxic.
how can you know its a bot if testing for it is forbidden?
you cant know either way. just report
That's not a solution. From the sidebar:
Users that . . . weaponize reports . . . will be banned.
One of the things that went wrong with reddit, is some mods weaponized that rule itself, using it to provide immunity to rule breakers they agreed with by banning people who reported the rule breaking behavior.
Its unreasonable to ask users to report bots while simultaneously forbidding us from testing if its a bot before making the report. It reeks of having a pro-propaganda bot agenda.
One of the things wrong with reddit is you are told to report comments. Mods delete and ban the ones they don't like. They keep the ones they like.
This works well if you agree with mods and agree with approved trolls...
One of the things that went wrong with reddit, is some mods weaponized that rule itself, using it to provide immunity to rule breakers they agreed with by banning people who reported the rule breaking behavior.
if you think the mods have a pro-propaganda bot agenda, why would you want to use their community? there are hundreds of Lemmy instances and thousands of other fediverse servers.
Damn, this is gonna be a hard rule to follow for a lot of people here lol.
Hmm... this sounds like it is copied from !news@lemmy.world. Sounds like an AI move, just sayin
/s in case it isn't obvious
Incivility in a sidebar update about civility:

Works for me, thanks for the communication mod team!
Depersonalisation as an attack in a political context has a long history, AI paranoia is just the newest iteration of this.
I guess, AI paranoia is comparable to calling someone a government mole in meatspace.
Bots:
It's free real estate
this is the first time I've actually thought you might be leading us to a better discussion.
" This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban."
So nobody's going to call me a Russian bot anymore?
You can't be called a bot or paid actor anymore, so I guess we'll settle for Russian free actor?
There's no need 😉
They will, everything they disagree with is a bot
I thought nazi was the go to still.
Similar to reddit, only the popular opinion gets support, everything else gets attacked. Since it is mostly Americans and American politics, it's mostly a very western centric viewpoint that many other parts of the world label as propagandist. It's literally taught in German textbooks for example.
On reddit the user base is large enough that some alternate opinions got through. Here you get banned or removed if you don't tow the line of America #1.
Not everyone that disagrees with your viewpoint is a troll. Not everyone that has a global view of the world is a paid Russian bot. Some are very easy to spot as written by LLMs. But most are not.
I think you're going down a very slippery slope here. All those reddit subs that become echo chambers started this way.
politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:

- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News