Spyke

Coming from Reddit, the very existence of this thread is a breath of fresh air. That there are mod logs at all to be able to document this, that there is a place where it can be posted that is not under control of the mods being criticized, is an enormous improvement over an unaccountable centralized platform.

163

The other beautiful thing is that if you aren't satisfied with the behavior of mods and admin on one instance, there are literally hundreds of others to choose from. You aren't stuck dealing with bad actors if you want to participate. And if moderation of a particular community upsets the users, they are free to move to or create a similar community on a different instance.

The major downside of this is that it's going to create echo chambers, but that's unavoidable. It's not like this is a new problem. Communities that reject outside ideas outright have existed long before the internet.

47

A meme I just saw mentioned Tiananmen Square on lemmy.ml, the comments were an absolute dumpster fire

9
wit
lemmy.world

I think this is bad for Lemmy as a whole, as a community but only due to misunderstanding and generalizations... People are going to equate the "censorship" on the server lemmy.ml as censorship on Lemmy, the platform/software. That is just NOT THE CASE. Please, whenever someone mentions lemmy.ml and its censorship or the likes, be fast to mention that that is a specific lemmy server and the beauty of lemmy is its decentralization and the fact that it is open source. There are plenty of other servers.

I fear that this kind of thing drives people away from Lemmy, when it should not.

108
witreply
lemmy.world

I have replied to someone else further down with my opinion on this topic. I think it also fits in a reply to you, so I will just copy paste it here:

Yes, it might sound worrisome, but I dont think you are pushing authoritarian ideology by using Lemmy. The code itself is fine. The code is not authoritarian. The server which hosts your account is also not authoritarian.

Lemmy is, right now, the best alternative for a reddit-like platform. It is something created for the users, by the users. By using lemmy, you are not enriching the wallets of the shareholders. By using something like reddit, you provide content and a select few get to buy a new yacht.

Also, plenty of people are contributing code to lemmy. It is no longer just these 2. The code is also Open-Source. Anyone can fork it and create a new version of lemmy, with compatibility with the current version of lemmy. By using lemmy, you are allowing the possibility that, at any time in the future, someone else comes and says “I have some ideas to improve lemmy, let’s do this on my own terms”, forks it and continues the work without massively spliting the community.

44
ToxicWastereply
lemm.ee

I don't see a problem about their work, just because of their political orientation. And frankly, neither should you.

They develop good software, which is open source and everyone can inspect it. There is nothing wrong about them getting paid for it. Not giving donations to them because of what they believe would be the same as an employer running you through a political evaluation before actually employing you.

Don't get me wrong: there is nothing wrong about not donating (i did not). But not donating, solely because of some ideology a developer of open source Software has (which does not reflect in the code), seems quite stuck up to me.

-4
Lightorreply
lemmy.world

I guess lemme ask this. If the devs of lemmy were open Nazis, went to rallies, openly promoted it, etc, would you still feel the same way?

1
ToxicWastereply
lemm.ee

What are you asking about? I don't support extremist ideology - be it left or right. Extremism and violence was never beneficial to the political discourse or greater public. So i disagree with those ideologies. I vote on laws and elect people which i believe will keep extremism out of our system.

If it comes to the quality of someones work, private conviction does not matter. Sure, they might let personal beliefs bleed into their work. But there the beauty of Open Source comes into play: I can check it myself and if i don't have the capability to do so, many others do.

So if they are on the far spectrum of something i disagree and i am very greatfull for good quality of work they provide for free, i might still give a small donation. If they are actually extremist, i prefer to let the authorities deal with it. Where i come from the police actually cracks down on this kind of people and they probably are better at doing so than me myself.

Just because there will be people who ask about freedom of speech... Someone way smarter than I said something like: "Your freedom ends where someone else's freedom begins". This should be the base rule to identify extremism. So to stay with NAZIs: A far right person who doesn't want Jewish people owning a store infringes on someone else's freedom. Therefore that person is an extremist, should not be protected by his freedom and authorities should deal with them.

1

Yes yes, the authorities should deal with them but would you support them? Would you recommend their software if it was good, would you use their products?

1
iegodreply
lemm.ee

By using lemmy, you are not enriching the wallets of the shareholders.

You actually have no guarantee that any given deployment doesn't harvest and sell data. They probably don't, but it's not guaranteed.

0
Kaynreply
dormi.zone

Only if it's actually having an effect on the Lemmy project.

From what I've seen, the Lemmy devs recognize that their opinions aren't welcome everywhere, and that Lemmy should not have any biases.

28
Natanaelreply
slrpnk.net

That might still have secondary effects such as in what kind of moderation features they develop and support

1
kbin.social

Hint: the moderation tools they are choosing to develop are none.

They are intentionally refusing to develop any moderation tools despite current moderation tools not working and it being the biggest issue instance admins are facing.

-2

"Intentionally" is a bit overdramatizing, don't you think?

It's just not as much of a priority, which is still questionable.

6
Socsareply
sh.itjust.works

It also has the largest worldnews community, which bans you for discussing a literal war in Europe

11

Censorship is certainly the kind of thing that drove people away from dotworld for preemptively defederating from Hexbear by fiat.

4
lemmy.zip

I'm at the same time horrified and fascinated by them. I saw a comment that accused NATO of causing he war to "drag on". When I brought up that Russia could just leave, I got people unironically replying that Ukraine was the aggressor in the war and that it was Ukraine committing genocide and attacks on civilians. I understand that I could be trapped in a western bubble... but really? I didn't bother asking for a source because I'm sure the only source for that misinformation is the Kremlin. What's crazy is that you would think the Russian shills would be spread out trying to infect other communities with disinformation, instead they all flock to this echo chamber apparently, so it seems likely that they genuinely believe this stuff.

31

They know it's bullshit. The United States in this instance is doing the largely correct thing. However historically that hasn't always been the case. Were usually the ones attacking and destabilizing other countries. South America, Hawaii, the middle east, Korea, Vietnam and on and on. Anyone that opposed US homogene as pushed by wealthy oligarchic fascist throughout American history. Has historically met and unfortunate end.

Realistically in this instance Russia is much closer to what the United States has been historically. Than they are any Ally of leninist regimes. But to leninists. They are the enemy of their enemy and an ally of convenience. Because overall outside of World War II etc. The United States has been the biggest constant enemy to much the rest of the world.

4
orrkreply
lemmy.world

1984 was based on the Soviet Union

6

Yeah, he was basically warning Socialists off getting in bed with Stalinists and similar regimes just because their causes appeared to align. The cure must not be worse than the disease.

7
orrkreply
lemmy.world

i would argue that he saw the soviets as the bigger threat at the time, considering the Nazis got beat a few years beforehand and a lot of the left in the west were fanboying the Soviet Union at the time (1947-1948)

-1
Buffaloxreply
lemmy.world

You are missing the point of the book IMO. The threat is not necessarily external.

It was pretty easy to see totalitarianism as a dangerous global trend at the time, since it was in Germany, Italy, Spain, Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe. Apart from Eastern Europe, these countries all "chose" it for themselves.

-2

I never said anything about the threat coming from the soviets, after all it was never about Russia invading the UK, but rather he modelled the dystopian government based on the inner workings of the Soviet Union, because he witnessed it during his time in Spain before the Stalin aligned republic and the anarchist split.

0
uisreply
lemmy.world

Modern capitalist Russia is closer to 1984 than Soviet Union. Fuck Putin.

4
orrkreply
lemmy.world

no, fundamentally the only thing that really changed is who the inner and outer party is

-2
uisreply
lemmy.world

No. For one SU did not have oligarchs. Also SU had really good(for its time) healthcare and education, while Putin's mafia closed or defunded few orders of magnitude more hospitals and clinics, than opened, many schools work in 2 shifts, some even 3. UR has party in it's name, but it lacks ideology. "Steal money here, spend it in the West, luxury for members, misery and poverty for everyone else" hardly counts as one, it is literally description of mafia.

3
orrkreply
lemmy.world

For one SU did not have oligarchs. where did the Oligarchs come from? the first wave of oligarchs came from the Russian political elite, basically claiming what was "theirs" during the communist government, now sure, most subsequent Oligarchs came about because Yeltsin and later Putin wanted to strengthen their own supporter base among the oligarchs, but all we are seeing here is what used to happen totally inside the government (because the government was the primary economic power) is now happening in a hybrid approach of government+"market".

1

where did the Oligarchs come from?

From organized crime groups.

the first wave of oligarchs came from the Russian political elite, basically claiming what was "theirs" during the communist government

Yep. Oligarchs came into existance after union collapse. And usually not political elite, but beaurocratic elite also called nomenclature.

1

I'm a progressive who thought I was moderate for the longest time because tankie rhetoric on the left. I fully recognize now though that the tankies are a laughable minority. They're just a bunch of loud people on the Internet.

-5
lemmy.world

You ironically have a post saying that Muslims are culturally terrorists and all Muslims need to fall in line with French cultural authoritarianism. Totally not tankie behavior, just regular normal, "leftist as they come" behavior, right?

https://lemmy.world/comment/2941761

You sound like another run of the mill racist, bigoted liberal who wants to smear the leftist label by LARP'ing as one for the sole purpose of attacking leftists.

-7
jcit878reply
lemmy.world

this thread is just you stalking people and copying their comments. can you do me? maybe the one where i enjoy watching mobiks getting blown up in drone videos, that seemed to upset a few tankies

3

Muslim is not a race, just as Socialism is not a race. The idea that religion deserves special treatment needs to die.

-2
lemmy.world

Obviously a bit thin skinned, but IMO lemmy.ml can do what they want with their moderation. It is not anybody else's decision how they moderate, except of course keeping it legal.

Seems to me almost all those comments are somewhat offensive, for instance calling people tankies, claiming they should go back under their stone, and frequently use the word fuck, as if those are some sort of argument. I'm guessing rule 2 is something about not being rude. Personally I find that perfectly OK not to allow rude comments.

OP should "read the room" and terms better, then maybe they could have a proper debate.

PS:

Rule 2 of lemmy.ml includes: "Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. " Clearly that rule is ignored over and over again by the above user.

I'm shocked the statement that lemmy.ml can moderate as they want is in any way controversial, yet here we are, and this post has about a third downvotes.

74
lemmy.world

Lemmy dot ml is like, one step away from becoming another Lemmygrad.

and I think thats probably by design, Since lemmygrad is defederated from a lot of the better instances, what better way to get back into them than to take over a federated instance.

Especially when the admins and lemmy creators are down with your tankie ideology and support you taking over the instance.

22
lemmy.world

I mean, if you're gonna lie about it, you could at least lie in a way thats not provably false. https://defed.xyz/check/lemmy.ml

also, dot ml is one of the lemmies i frequented (well, used to, until the tankies became such a fucking problem), so I can tell you from personal experience that lemmygraders are there, in droves, and posting constantly, from their lemmygrad accounts.

22
lemmy.world

Theres literally posts from lemmygrad on the front page of lemmy dot ml local right now right now.

12
ramreply

Just use the period. It's so weird you keep saying "dot".

Anyways, notice what I said vs what your post contains:

-13

Excuse me for giving you the benefit of the doubt of just typing .com by habit, instead of assuming you are trying to actually, legitimately talk about a site that doesnt exist.

6
lemm.ee

That's .com. I've never even heard of lemmygrad.com until now. I have heard of .ml though.

12

Lemmygrad.com was a mock site put together by wolfsballs.com fash when that was still a thing.

It was defederated from lemmygrad.ml like a year ago.

10

Seems .com's no longer up. I guess .ml's just where they migrated to, is my best guess?

-10
kbin.social

They are literally run by the same people and everyone can look and see they are not defederated. Why are you blatantly lying about something that is easily verifiable?

6
ramreply

Again, lemmygrad.com is literally on the blocked list, and it's easily verifiable. I did not know that lemmygrad.ml was where it was at now. Sue me ig.

-3

Uh, lemmygrad.com isn't the URL for lemmygrad. It's lemmygrad.ml.

But you already knew that and are being intentionally disingenuous. You should stop lying.

0
thororeply
lemmy.world

This is the only good take I've read on this thread so far. People are mad their opinions, vitriol, and/or FUD aren't tacitly approved by the mods of another instance.

11

Thank you. I find it sad that so many people don't seem to understand that their right to free speech, is not a right to dictate other people, or force themselves on whatever forum they want.

1
Buffaloxreply
lemmy.world

This is also up to them.

No it's not, they may walk the line, but if they cross it, the law will ultimately be enforced. So in the long run, a service can only exist if it is kept legal.

Posts like this posted here from time to time.

I'm not sure what you mean, but yes there are repeated attacks on lemmy.ml, and it's getting tiring, because it always turns out to be very speculative, and not really an issue.

an instance has a very strong political view and even a censorship

They are moderating according to their own rules. Rule 2: "Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here." Clearly the above poster violated this rule over and over.

It looks like an instance and community policies must be somehow better visible.

That's a completely different debate.

3
Socsareply
sh.itjust.works

That rule is enforced capriciously and randomly. I just caught a rule 2 ban (I'm in the screenshot) for using the word "genocide" in a way they don't like.

Meanwhile, I've reported literally dozens of hexbears for posting their pig shit memes and not a single one got removed. Apparently that's more respectful than wrongthink.

-1
Buffaloxreply
lemmy.world

Yeah, so lemmy.ml moderation sucks for you. So what? Go somewhere else.

Lemmy allows you to do exactly that.

0

Let me get this straight. You defend the moderation by suggesting that most of the removed comments were offensive or rude. But when someone provides a counterexample to that, you tell them to just go somewhere else if they don't like the moderation?

Yeah it's pretty fucking obvious you're not acting in good faith here. You don't see anything wrong with what their mod team does, even if it's to ban dissenting opinions.

2
Sodisreply
feddit.de

But they are taking away free speech!!! \s

4

Truly sad to see a majority is down voting this, meaning they believe free speech includes how a lemmy instance is moderated?!

2
Corganareply
startrek.website

About 30% (just my estimate) of the people here from Reddit had a problem with mods having too much freedom granted to them by Spez. There is an irony that such people would be attracted to a decentralized network where instances have even more freedom to shape their communities, but as you said- it doesn't really matter what people think when anyone can go start their own.

-3
Corganareply
startrek.website

Just my estimate based on observation. It's been my experience that most of the people on the Fediverse seem to want strong moderation tools, but there's definitley a contingent that would prefer a looser form of moderation (or none at all). The cool thing about the Fediverse is that both can peacefully coexist.

4

The cool thing about the Fediverse is that both can peacefully coexist.

Ya I love this feature of the platform. Some instances can be strict on what content they want to have (e.g. beehaw and exploding-heads) while others can be the libertarian platform of their dreams (e.g. personal instances).

It would be interesting to see some polling on this, but I'm no statistician and wouldn't be able to perform it in a way that wouldn't be bias, nor could I account for that bias. 😔

4

I prefer looser mod powers

Reddit mods were capricious and drunk with petty power

2
Socsareply
sh.itjust.works

Yeah the first ban I got was warranted, but this time it was just using the word "genocide" consistently with the UN definition. That's chilling as fuck and goes way beyond simple "stated moderation standards." That's straight up information warfare.

-4

"Don't worry, if you correctly call this a genocide, hexbear will ban you for genocide denial without a hint of irony."

If you were already on thin ice, this shouldn't have really been a surprise. Like most internet dwellers who get banned somewhere you're dressing up your offending comment to make it seem like persecution, but while it's not a heinous comment on its own, but if you have history I can absolutely see a mod not wanting to deal with you trolling the hexbears. And it certainly wasn't just "using the word genocide".

-3
Hauireply
discuss.tchncs.de

Reading this really troubles me. I don’t like the implication that using lemmy is pushing authoritarian ideology.

If I was born 50 yrs earlier I would literally have been put in the gas chamber. I tick several qualifiers for it.

38
witreply
lemmy.world

Yes, it might sound worrisome, but I dont think you are pushing authoritarian ideology by using Lemmy. The code itself is fine. The code is not authoritarian. The server which hosts your account is also not authoritarian.

Lemmy is, right now, the best alternative for a reddit-like platform. It is something created for the users, by the users. By using lemmy, you are not enriching the wallets of the shareholders. By using something like reddit, you provide content and a select few get to buy a new yacht.

Also, plenty of people are contributing code to lemmy. It is no longer just these 2. The code is also Open-Source. Anyone can fork it and create a new version of lemmy, with compatibility with the current version of lemmy. By using lemmy, you are allowing the possibility that, at any time in the future, someone else comes and says "I have some ideas to improve lemmy, let's do this on my own terms", forks it and continues the work without massively spliting the community.

57

I really enjoyed reading your explanation. Thank you very much.

This calms me down quite a bit. :) have a good day.

15
lemmygrad.ml

I don't think comparing communism with fasism, at least when it comes to exterminating ethnic minorities is accurate. this is an opinion shared by academics, including coauthors of "The Black Book of Communism" (the book which claims communism killed 80M-100M people, though the upper end of the range is the one which has more attention. this number is disputed, again also by coauthors)

I could explain why I believe you shouldn't do this in my own words, but I will use the words of Nicolas Werth, one of the three main coauthors who distanced themselves from the book:

Death camps did not exist in the Soviet Union.

and

The more you compare Communism and Nazism, the more the differences are obvious.

Another quote I will give is from Amir Weiner an American historian and associate professor of Soviet history at Stanford University who wrote:

[w]hen Stalin's successors opened the gates of the Gulag, they allowed 3 million inmates to return home. When the Allies liberated the Nazi death camps, they found thousands of human skeletons barely alive awaiting what they knew to be inevitable execution.

I sourced these quotes from Wikipedia: "The Black Book of Communism", references 19 and 14.

My point isn't to say the Soviet Union, or other states which had or have Marxist-Leninist governments are without critique, but that comparing them to the III Reich, at the very least diminishes the crimes committed by Nazis and makes analysis of the aforementioned States more muddy.

5
lemmy.world

Authoritarianism is bad regardless of the ideology behind it and leads to people with reasonable beliefs (communism could help people that capitalism harms) doing unreasonable things (denying active genocides being carried out by governments that have historically been pro-communism because... cognitive dissonance?) like the subject of this post.

-2

I'm not attempting to argue communism is not bad in my comment, I believe this is even more true if you believe communism is bad.

I am strictly saying comparing Nazism and communism does not give a full picture, which is, AFAIK, something that experts in Soviet history, some of which I quoted, agree with.

What I'm trying to say is that comparing the two you risk either reducing the weight of crimes committed by Nazis, which are worse than those committed in any communist state, I hope you'll agree and also risk loosing the detail distinguishing the two.

I would elaborate further, but I want to make this comment shorter to make what I'm saying a bit more accessible.

21
lemmy.world

I think you mean 80 years. Unless there were genociding gas chambers in 1973 I haven't heard about.

(And I would have been put in one too, just not in 1973.)

0

I am kinda skeptical as zig has admitted to using sockpuppets and retracted their statement which doesn't sit well with me.

5

I agree it sucks but at least you have that option considering the nature of the Lemmy project.

14
Lee Dunareply
lemmy.nz

I'm trying to fill small communities including on lemmy.ml and it feels like I'm the only one filling in.

And this's a bad move for the small community on lemmy.ml

2
lemmy.world

Lemmy ml has always been radically pro-fascist, honestly it's your fault for having made communities there. Start again but this time make sure the server is someone trustworthy

7
Lee Dunareply
lemmy.nz

What? I don't have a community, I'm not even a moderator. I'm trying to help lemmy to grow by populating small communities because there are a lot of people complaining because lack of content.

3

I'm quoting your comment

Yes. People who just consume content can easily switch. But for people who create content this is not that easy, especially for users who created communities there.

Look there community on lemmy.ml who might have similar things to say about China or Uyghurs. Do they have to move?

0
lemm.ee

I’ve already done that twice. It’s annoying, and a pain in the ass to reset subscriptions and blocks. If I am forced to do so again, I don’t know if I will. I doubt I’m alone in this feeling.

4
sh.itjust.works

Hah I'm in that screenshot. I just caught my second ban for suggesting that mass deportation of children might qualify as genocide.

It's infuriating, because if you talk to actual survivors of genocide, they use words like "vigilance" and "never again." Meanwhile, tankies literally just want to gatekeep the word to protect their ability to simp for tyrants.

59
kbin.social

Mass deportation of children is literally (one of) the dictionary definitions of genocide.

32
Auxreply
lemmy.world

Not if done by Communists. According to tankies.

4
figaroreply
lemdro.id

Power to you. I feel like whenever I say anything trying to inject some form of "genocide is bad" into one of their conversations, I get about 20 comments telling me I'm a shitty person for saying that. Or like, a copy and pasted book that they want me to read and then I'll understand why genocide is "justified."

It's fucked.

So yeah, thanks for your effort, you aren't alone 😅

-1

They don't seem to understand that genocide, as a term, does not exclusively mean a violent purge nor Holocaust. The erasure of a group of people can happen with minimal violence too.

It's hardly surprising though, considering the USSR regularly practiced genocide with "Russification". This wasn't so much the violent kind, but more trying to erase a people's culture and make them assimilate into Russia's.

To tankies, that's not genocide, even though it is erasing a culture to impose your own.

-1
Zaktorreply
sopuli.xyz

Your removed post does talk about genocide, but it also talks shit about Hexbear users. Which I get, I won't join instances that federate with them, but it's not exactly comporting with their Rule 2 of "Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here."

Like to some extent yeah, tankies kind of provoke it because apologia for oppressive regimes actively invading their neighbors is itself offensive, but you're conveniently spinning this to be about genocide rather than the aspect of the comment that would run risks of removal in most communities trying to not foster flame wars. And since you've been banned before, it's hard to believe this isn't your first time doing it.

-11

Always has been.

It's one of the reasons why lemmy never really took off until the great reddit migration despite having a decent software product.

55
feddit.cl

tankies + fedidrama = classic lemmy

44
Etterrareply
lemmy.world

This is where I learned the word tankies. It sounds like British slang honestly.

18
local106.com

In typical internet fashion, rather than read these mod logs and decide who was right, I'm just going to say "down with the CCP" a bunch of times there and see if I get banned.

39
thororeply
lemmy.world

The real, cool, interesting content that isn't worthy of deletion at all

-6
explodiclereply
local106.com

Obviously I'm going to post it when relevant, not in reply to beef stroganoff recipes.

6

Oddly specific. I'd like this to become a new meme please. The beef stroganoffadors will have no idea what's going on.

2

The creators are known to lean towards tankie rhetotic and I‘ve read they chose .ml because of Marx and Lenin before. That rose concerns from the beginning so it‘s hardly surprising a moderator there would do this. It is very concerning nonetheless and threatens to throw the creators‘ work into jeopardy because at that point you might as well use twixxer or whatever it‘s called now.

34

This is great news. It's their way if encouraging you to swap instances! You shouldn't stay on the main popular instance, it defeats the entire point of decentralization.

30

Fascists aren't morally healthy humans. Authoritarians can't cope with social reality, where different people can have different opinions and loyalties and yet support each other. They always seem to end up succumbing to patriarchal cults, where Lenin-Hitler-Mao-Trump gets to do whatever he wants to your sons and your daughters, and you and your working class have no recourse.

28
lemmy.world

In my country we have antifa for antifascists. Are you here some kind of anti-tankies? Because I see far, far more posts about antitankies fighting supposed tankies than I see people fighting fascists.

23
reddthat.com

Tankies wpuld literally support the reincarnation of hitler if he said "america bad" they worship genocidal dictators on the sole grounds they oppose America. They hold literally no leftists values. They just like authority

15
bouhreply
lemmy.world

Thing is, I've never seen a tankie. I've already talked to many fascists here on lemmy though.

1
Cryophiliareply
lemmy.world

Depends on what subs/instances you frequent. Since the reddit migration brought a lot of liberals and centrists to lemmy, many of the tankie types have been drowned out by sheer numbers and have retreated to hexbear and lemmygrad etc.

However, there's also a decent number of fasicsts and neocons who came from reddit and are all over exploding heads, shitjustworks etc

I don't really see those users much because I don't frequent their spaces. I tend to be in more leftist spaces so I see more tankies.

And of course there was that one disastrous week or so where we gave federation with hexbear a chance and they just flung tankie shit everywhere.

8
bouhreply
lemmy.world

Again, that's anti-tankie memes I see every week. Not tankie ones. It's the anti-tankies who are very active, not the tankies.

4
wishthanereply
lemmy.world

They're active in comments, but they're also a small minority

6

In the US, antifa vs. fascists is the actual conflict bubbling up in real life. Only online do people care about tankies. They're a test for moderation and decentralization so people can keep them from being disruptive, not a real concern for freedom of expression. Critical support for Russia's invasion (or disruption of support for Ukraine) is way more likely to come from the alt-right fascists than pseudo-left online tankies.

8
lemmy.world

That's mostly because pseudo intellectual "leftist" tankies are almost exclusively found online. There's no real presence irl

-3

Other than, you know, the millions and millions and millions of them organised in parties throughout the world.

6
lemmy.world

it's probably because most instances have defederated with 'tankie' instances like lemmygrad or hexbear, so all you really see is ragebait screenshots of tankies saying stupid things. although most of these posts seem to be coming from one user

-6
bouhreply
lemmy.world

The only posts I see about tankies are from anti-tankies.

11
Honytawkreply
lemmy.zip

Yes, like they say, because the tankie posts are blocked.

Is it really that difficult to understand?

-1
bouhreply
lemmy.world

The why is there so much anti-tankie propaganda? Like so much more than antifascist propaganda?

4

Because liberals sleep in the same bed as fascists and both are ready to fight socialism tooth and nail?

7

Because like all true "moderates/liberals" they love attacking the left.

5

Anything that threatens the western hegemony and imperialism must be destroyed because it threatens the comfortable life that the 1st world gets though neo-colonialism which is institutional racism at a international level.

Tankies want to make the first world share their treats with the "unwashed masses" of the third world and pay them a fair rate for their resources and labor.

"The electable left" (aka liberals, democratic voters, etc) are actually crypto-fascists. Fascism doesn't attack the liberals way of life. It isn't a serious threat to their treats so they don't rail against it.

4

Because people aren't familiar with them and need to be made aware of what they really are. Too many people don't see the damage these trolls cause because they get blocked and only see the complaints and I'm realizing that defederation has worked in their favor. If anyone actually read the shit they post they would realize they are conservatives trying to make the left look like psychopaths. They appropriate LGBT and other social justice causes in order to attempt to infiltrate the left and rot it from within. Also, they use liberal as a slur.

3
norareply
slrpnk.net

Tankies and fascists are just as bad. What are you trying to suggest?

-1

I'm not suggesting anything. I'm pointing out a bias: eventhough fascism is rampant in the west, to the point there was a coop attempt in the US a few years ago. Yet people on lemmy are very hard fighting tankies where ever they can find them, even baiting with anti-tankie memes on a very regular basis.

Tankies are not treated like fascists. There is a war waged against them on lemmy eventhough tankies don't exist in the west.

Tankies don't exist in the west because, as it was said, tankies and fascists are the same kind of extremists, but in the west we have fascists already. You don't have both tankies and fascists in the same place.

So here we are, with western people on the hunt against tankies. To me they are fascists waging a cultural war on social media.

-2
lemmy.world

That's because we're on .world and the main tankie instances are blocked. OP is talking about leaks into other instances. It's a bad faith argument. Fuck tankies.

-7

Tankies aren't communists. It's like saying Trump is a LGBT supporter.

0
lemmygrad.ml

"Tankie" is just a pejorative that anti-communists use for Marxism-leninists.

The developers of lemmy are Marxist-leninist communists.

13
lemmy.world

Here, let's do a litmus test. Who is to blame for the Ukraine War? Would you decry the US if they falsely claimed to own most of the Gulf of Mexico and threatened civilian ships? If so, would you also decry China for claiming most of the South China Sea, including waters which are literally closer to other countries than to them?

Every communist is not a tankie. A tankie is someone who defends actions by Russia and China, despite decrying the same actions if the US takes it. I really don't see it as an economic thing at all, although that's certainly where the origin of the word comes from. I see it as someone who thinks everything that the US does is bad, and anything US adversaries do is good. It's a lot more geopolitical in my eyes.

Think of it this way, it's the polar opposite of a nationalist far right conservative when it comes to foreign affairs. Tankies are just one cut away from being the same.

0

Here, let's do a litmus test. Who is to blame for the Ukraine War? Would you decry the US if they falsely claimed to own most of the Gulf of Mexico and threatened civilian ships? If so, would you also decry China for claiming most of the South China Sea, including waters which are literally closer to other countries than to them?

I get that it's a convenient rhetorical technique to try to turn the conversation onto the views common among communists that you find objectionable. I don't agree that it's relevant to the conversation at hand, though.

Every communist is not a tankie.

The thread of "authoritarian" communism that's typically branded as "tankie" runs directly to Marx. I'm interested to know if you're able to find any non-marxist communist tendencies to hold up as an example.

Where are your model communists? Or are you just anti-communist?

3
lemmy.world

Marxist-Leninists aren't communists. They're Stalinists. Authoritarians.

-2

This is Bizarro world vibes based history. Read a fucking book literally any book. Stalin lead the USSR after Lenin lead the revolution founded on the principles of communism which were developed by Marx.

6
lemmygrad.ml

Marxism-leninism was first synthesized by Stalin. Stalinism isn't a thing, but Stalin was a Marxist-leninist. Stalin was a Communist. Marx was an authoritarian communist as well.

"tankie" is just a red-scare pejorative for communists.

5

And I'm a unicorn. You can call yourself anything you want but it doesn't make it true.

1

Stalinism is a thing. Just like Leninism, Maoism and Dengism are things. Each of them is just a interpretation of Marxism. They each critique, adapt and expand on the previous iterations of Marxism to fit new conditions.

-3

lol no

"Marxist-Leninist" is enough of a self-own for us, we don't need to invent new terms to insult communists. Real communists are just sad, naive idealists, and we pity them more than anything.

Tankies are a whole separate bag of fucked up. They support Russia, which is clearly not communist. They're really just anti-USA edgelords.

-6
kbin.social

No, they're tankies.

It's a description of morons that think authoritarian rule and/or genocide is ok if the people doing claim to be communists despite having no relation to the ideology. Those people aren't communists, at best they are lying to themselves.

(Yes, I get it. You're a tankie)

-14

No, he just failed to account for people. I see this is where the sealioning starts so I'm out. Have fun jerking off to another genocide with your tankie friends.

-10
Auxreply
lemmy.world

Tankies ARE fascists! Like all communists.

-12
redteareply
lemmygrad.ml

Historically, who funded fascists and who fought them?

5
Auxreply
lemmy.world

Italian fascists were communists. German fascists were communists.

-1

I have a feeling everyone involved in those equations would disagree.

0
bouhreply
lemmy.world

Yet, but specifying this, you focus the discussion on the flaws of the left, rather than the actual fascists who are training, arming, and preparing coops in the western world, like they did in the US not so long ago.

Yet here we are talking about how communists are also fascists...

4
uisreply
lemmy.world

So Trump is communist? Since when?

3

Us VS them totalitarian mentality. Doesn't matter how you call these fucks, they all are the same.

-4
Honytawkreply
lemmy.zip

Not all fascists are communist, but they say all communists are fascist

-11
lemmy.world

They're using "fascist" when they mean "authoritarian" or "totalitarian".

In all fairness, there's very little difference. Communism isn't supposed to be authoritarian, but paint enough murals of someone and see what that does to their ego.

-1

You should read some communist literature before pronouncing about it.

5

I am all for a temporary defederation.

.world has power. It has the people and the content. Flexing a little in support of human rights is 100% a good thing.

16

Yeah, it's hard to come up with a more tone-deaf or ironic character to pick.

::: spoiler Chainsaw Man manga spoilers Literally the control devil in a world where the entire population can forget tragic events if the correct creatures are permanently killed. :::

6
lemmy.ca

Their "anti-Orientalism" (read as pro-tankie) policy has been known for a good while.

14
Rentlarreply
lemmy.ca

Sure, there was a post back in June posted in ![email protected] about a dam in Ukraine being destroyed. Obviously a contentious topic. There were several threads speaking poorly of Russia and its administration, many such threads were deleted and users banned, with "Orientalism" typically cited as the reason in the modlog.

It's the admins' right to dictate what is or isn't acceptable. Generally they are hands off on most topics, but Anti-Russia, anti-China sentiment is looked down upon by admins and often removed/banned within lemmy.ml. Just saying that this choice of new moderator doesn't change their moderation philosophy, it only complements it.

1

That's a weird description to give it in the mod log.

Anyway it's fairly obvious to anyone who isn't a tankie that their leadership bans dissent and wrongthink. Imagine if places banned you for calling someone a lib like .ml folks love to.

3

Never thought the official lemmy instance itself would have to be part of a temporary defed

14

Meanwhile dbzer0 is still federated to Hexbear, despite having a strict "no tankie" policy.

11

The Lemmy devs are tankies so of course the instance the devs run is gonna follow tankie ideology

9

Created my first account on Lemmy there before I know what the admins were like.

Just deleted that account.

9

It didn't immediately click with me when I joined that ML meant Marxist Leninist even I used to be one.

9
kbin.social

Is this a mod or modteam of a few communities, or is it a global mod outside of community mods?

I'm not shure how to read the modlog.

7
Terevosreply
lemm.ee

I unsubscribed from world news on lemmy.ml as soon as I heard about them being tankies. Lemmy.world has the same community with mostly the same posts anyway.

8
Lee Dunareply
lemmy.nz

I mean this really upsetting since they have c/technology and c/privacy communities. Someone might post something like high-tech surveillance of actvtists or Uyghurs

-1

There's a reason I don't mod any communities on that instance. I don't understand why other people would either.

-1
staticreply
kbin.social

Too bad It's impossibe too see wich mod is doing what.
It could be a general lemmy.ml policy, it could allso just be that the first worldnews mod is opiniated , and chose his own modteam for worldnews.

6

It just says mod/admin on lemmy.ml , on kbin you can see the mod-username.

5

So what's the problem? It's a ban-happy three-person mod team shaping a community. There are other communities with the same explicit subject. When a community's mods move it in a direction you don't like, you join or make a different one, and the nature of Lemmy means they haven't even camped an important community name.

It's not even a particularly tankie sub, there're posts calling Russia warmongers still up and at +82. Seems like most of the removals were posts trying to pick fights. And while tankie bashing is often fun and warranted, it's not really extreme censorship to say that's breaking a rule saying "everyone should feel welcome here".

4
Spzireply
lemm.ee

I’m not shure how to read the modlog.

  1. Visit the instance in question, for example https://lemmy.ml/
  2. Scroll to the bottom or Ctrl+PgEnd, click on "Modlog": https://lemmy.ml/modlog (as you see, you can also just append /modlog to the URL)
  3. Filter by action, or filter by user. For example, enter your own name to see if you have been banned

This way, I just found out I've been banned on lemmy.ml for this comment which surely is snarky, and technically disrespectful. They did not ban Krause (parent comment). So I guess spreading lies is fine as long as you do it "respectfully". Speaking up to that gets you banned.

6

Yea, that's just a proper response to the parent post. Now I agree that lemmy.ml is an instance to avoid.

3
lemmygrad.ml

Well, it seems to me that all of the removed posts seem to be accompanied by valid reasons as to why they were removed. Maybe it would help if people read the actual posts/post titles that were removed instead of bandwagoning on dumping on lemmy.ml.

7

dumping on lemmy.ml

I just had an idea call the dump-tank where we troll tankies and post their retorts and laugh at them.

0

I was initially sus of lemmy.ml since they defederated from nsfw instances

7

Is this post just crying because you got banned? Why not just wait the 13 days to ride it out?

Lemmy.ml isn't even your instance, and posting in .world isn't going to reverse your ban.

.ML was always explicitly leftist, and run by communists. They're just nice and try for a reasonably ideologically diverse community.

You clearly aren't interested in following their rules (your use of the racist comparison of Xi and Winnie the Pooh breaks their "no bigotry" rule, and you can't seem to post sourced posts that fit their communities.)

Why aren't you interacting on instances you want to be on, and that want the kind of interactions you offer?

6
mobreply
lemmy.world

I understand it's offensive, but how is comparing Winnie the Poo to Xi racist?

10
lemmygrad.ml

To be clear, I'm trying to communicate that it's considered racist/bigoted by Lemmy.ml's mods, and that's the reason the user was banned.

While I see it as bigoted, I understand that it's commonly used in lemmy.world (where we are) and I'm not going to police it's use, dunk on the user using it, or report it the way I would in .ML, Lemmygrad, or Hexbear.

The fediverse is an ideologically shared space, and I'm doing my best to reasonably interact on other instances!

With those qualifiers, would you still like me to share my reasoning?

10
mobreply
lemmy.world

I'm not really to worried about Fediverse politics. Shits ultimately silly. Everyone will end up in their own weird radicalizing echo chambers soon enough, seems to happen in all social media.

I just didn't understand how comparing the president of China to an American cartoon character with no racial connotations was racist.

8

That's cool, I just wanted to be clear on how I'm trying to interact - it's easy to miscommunicate on the internet!

My issues with "Xi as Winnie the Pooh" center around the way it's presented in the Western internet. Xi is often depicted with harshly yellow skin, and with comically slanted eyes.

There's clearly a commonality between how racist caricatures of Chinese people have been created historically, like this:

https://thomasnastcartoons.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/the-coming-man-20-may-18811.jpg

https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/ckjoq7/xinnie_the_pooh_street_art_mural/ (sure, it's not a real mural, but it was upvoted 400+ times)

9
lemmygrad.ml

Cope and seethe because... It's lame for OP to crybully about a temp ban, of a single community, on an instance that isn't even theirs?

This is the corniest attempt to stir controversy.

9
lemmygrad.ml

I'm sorry, I don't speak Chinese. Can you say what you mean without trying to be coy? Or do you know that it violates the rules here?

2
harkreply
lemmy.world

"Cake day: July 27th, 2023"

I never had a reddit account but joined lemmy when I heard the commotion and liked what I saw. Although I've never had a reddit account, I have lurked there, and you and many others here remind me of the typical reddit users who basically think the left begins and ends with the US democratic party and anything outside of that is "fringe".

20

Not sure how I reminded you of that because I don't think leftist thought is the norm at all. I welcome opposing thought, I just don't care for mindless spam of "tankies", which has been so broadly applied as to become a meaningless label. These reddit types swarm in and demand instances defederate in order to cultivate their preferred echo chamber.

5

Except I can look at your profile and see your first comments were four months ago no matter what you did on your profile in that specific instance to set your cake day.

My lemmy.ml account is meanwhile 3 years old without shenanigans.

It's not becoming. If anything, Lemmy became more milquetoast, Reddit liberal with the boom in .world accounts from the Reddit migration.

Not dissimilar to what happened with Reddit after the Digg migration where more "centrists" popped up and /r/conservative eventually grew, though Reddit was never leftist, just liberal with some right libertarian.

8
harkreply
lemmy.world

Correlation is not necessarily causation. A platform getting popular means people holding more mainstream opinions getting into the space, a lot of whom get offended when confronted with the unfamiliar. Now, when it comes to nazis, fuck them, they can get the fuck out with their hateful ideology, but I don't see why people are so strongly opposed to communists other than buying into propaganda vilifying them.

3
harkreply
lemmy.world

Except the fervent "anti-tankie" movement here is quick to label anyone to the left of a US democrat as "tankie" and is really aggressive about wanting to defederate from any instance they think leans in that direction.

3

I find it incredibly annoying. As you implicitly point out, calling everyone to the left a tankie is a great way to dilute the meaning of the word.

Someone who defends Russia for their actions in the Ukraine War and says the US/West or Ukraine is to blame deserves to be relentlessly derided. But communism in itself is hardly focused on something like that. It's just a subset of individuals who we should all be calling out.

1
kbin.social

Claims to be, actually isn't. Just an idiot tankie. Tankies aren't communists.

-5

Lemmy was always on the fringe. The founders are literal hardcore unironic "China did nothing wrong" communist tankies.

3

Oh fuck thats on lemmy, i thought it was reddit.

We gotta fix that, of course when a discussion gets out of control/racist we ought to lock it, maybe a warning and disclaimer. but i see no justification for fully removing these.

4

Meanwhile .world removes and bans digital copying posts and communities really hard.

-1

Sorry to say that it always was authoritarian. Lemmy was created for authoritarian tankies and bigots to spout their hatred.


Originally written by [email protected]

See their post announcing Lemmy: https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/cqgztr/fuck_the_white_supremacist_reddit_admins_want_me/

https://web.archive.org/web/20230626055233/https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/cqgztr/fuck_the_white_supremacist_reddit_admins_want_me/

Hey all, longtime Marxist-leninist, recorder of left audiobooks, and megathread shitposter here.

Posting this in light of a recent one week Reddit ban I earned for shitting on US police, as I'm sure many of us have gotten in recent weeks.

So I've spent the past few months working on a self hostable, federated, Reddit alternative called Lemmy, and it's pretty much ready to go. Unlike here we'd have ultimate control over all content, and would never have to self censor.

Obviously as communists, we agitate where the people are, so we should never abandon Reddit entirely, but it's been clear to all of us from day one, that communities like this stand on unsteady ground, and could be banned or quarantined at any moment by the white supremacist Reddit admins. This would be both a backup and a potentially better alternative. Moderation abilities are there, as well as a slur filter.

Raddle isn't an option obviously since it's run by this arch anti tankie scum, ziq.

I wanted to ask ppl here if they'd like me to host an instance, and mod all the current mods here.

The instance that post mentions at the end became Lemmygrad. Lemmy.ml and Lemmygrad are the same people, and the creators of Lemmy hosted Lemmygrad (and are thus admins there).

This was their first post announcing Lemmy as a real thing you could go use. (It's also why a good chunk of the Threadiverse is absolutely infested with tankies.)


Feel free to check out meanwhileongrad for countless examples of this hateful content--fully encouraged and even repeated by the developers of lemmy themselves.

-2
lemmy.sdf.org

tldr: went to a to a pro-A community and post anti-A comments and got banned. Why is this so. I just want to populate the small communities on Lemmy.

What do you expect. I imagine, if some pro-commies go to and provoke the pro-Ukraine communities, they'll also easily get banned. What do you expect? READ THE Room. Proceed with caution.

-4
Eldritchreply
lemmy.world

Why would Communists provoke Ukrainian communities? Russia isn't Communist. Russia and China are authoritarian allies of necessity. Not ideology.

10

Oh I know that. And I can even tell you why. Even though I don't agree with their reasons I can understand them.

It's not about ideology. Leninism is a toxic irredeemable ideology. But not something they share anymore. It's more an enemy of my enemy thing. The United States has been a toxic destabilizing force throughout the world. Possibly worse than leninist regimes. Overthrowing or assassinating leadership that opposes US oligarch fascist hemoginy. Regardless of ideology. Russia and the US have far more in common ideologically. Which is part of why they're our enemy still. But now an ally of convenience to leninists.

Though I would like to point out that lennonism is a toxic ideology in and of itself. The United States is not and we could and should overthrow the wealthy fascist oligarchs that have been setting our policy for the last hundred years.

1

In general, to the not so educated or layman, commie=tankie=Russian. I know it is not accurate, but that how it is.

2

To be clear, I agree with lemmy.ml on this, but I'm not interested in arguing that stance.

Instead, I think the more important piece of this is that this just further validates the fact that people should be using smaller instances. A more diverse set of Lemmy instances allows defederation to be used more freely as an actual moderation tool.

Someone who posts something an admin on another instance dislikes may see themselves banned from appearing on that instance, which when you have just two or three large instances serving all the content, is an effective shadowban on 1/3rd of the platform. More smaller instances minimizes the impact of defederation, banning, etc.

Anyways, stop only using lemmy.ml, lemmy.world, kbin.social, and lemmy.ee. It's fine to start out there, but find a niche and an instance that fits that niche, then move over there. If you're making a community, consider putting it on a smaller niche instance that would more specifically fit your content and federating it to the bigger instances manually.

We're all power users in here, so it's not as if it's a big deal to move, though apparently 0.19 will have some tooling to assist in that.

-5

The problem is that smaller communities have less content. Yes, they federate with larger communities, but they only pull data every so often. My first fediverse account was on kbin but the fact that it's so difficult to have active conversations there (plus the hard coded invisible porn filter) made migrate to lemmy.

People who crave activity will naturally centralize.

2
Dsklnsadogreply
lemmy.dbzer0.com

I think you are doing what the same thing a far right guy would do. Give money to the guys handling your ideas ;-)

4
YeetPicsreply
mander.xyz

I think anyone saying "behave under the rules I set or I kill you" is an authoritarian.

I'll wait while you invent reasons why this definition only fits the USA and not Russian or China.

12
fedia.io

That moment when you pretend to fight against imperialism - by implicitly supporting imperialists in the PRC.

6

Americans don't live under totalitarian mind control, you brainwashed goon.

11
lemmy.world

I don't know, claiming parts of other counties as their own on official maps seems pretty imperialist to me. I also don't know what your definition of totalitarian is if you believe the US is totalitarian. I've heard claims of authoritarianism before, but claims of totalitarianism make even less sense. It seems like an effort to render a word meaningless by misusing it.

America is imperialist, as is China, Russia, and every other major world power. It's just what large states tend to do. I suspect MLs view imperialism only through the lens of capitalism, when imperialism far predates capitalism. Capitalist imperialism is only one form of an empire projecting its power.

10

I don't know, I've met plenty of American tankies, anarchists, socialists, and communists. This is some real "reject the evidence of your eyes and ears" level shit. I can't twist reality into enough of a pretzel to make this viewpoint have any validity. It's laughable.

7

I bet you also believe America sent genetically engineered super mutants soldiers to Ukraine to overthrow Russian freedumbs.

2

First of all, not American.

Second of all, nine-dash line and neo-colonialism in Asia, Africa, South America and Europe says very differently. As does the Han supremacism that Xi surrepitously perpetuates.

2

China is imperialist to a degree, but they're certainly not invading countries all over the place like the US. People here like to claim that bringing up the US is whataboutism even though the US is the prime example of imperialism currently and the US likes to preemptively point at China and Russia to distract from their own actions.

1
lemmy.world

Don't usually see this much autofellatio without a @lemmygrad or @hexbear following the username.

0
lemmy.world

Those of us who want to freely discuss geopolitics without fear of getting banned care.

14

There are multiple world politics communities and multiple other news/politics communities that also discuss world politics. One community going ban happy is irrelevant.

7
Spzireply

who cares?

Those of us who want to freely discuss geopolitics without fear of getting banned care.

Then do it from a different instance?

To move to another instance you have to be aware of the issue. To be aware of the issue you have to care about it.

it’s their instance. Complaining about it flies in the face of what lemmy is entirely about.

Or do I not understand the entire point of lemmy?

Maybe just one half. True, one half is that every instance can do what it wants.

The other half is, that users can do what they want. In order to be able to do what they want, they need information about instances.

People speaking up about what many people would consider frown-worthy instance behaviour is an important part of that process.

We are free to warn each other.

3
lemmy.world

Totally transferring to another instance and losing your post history is kind of a shitty solution when they could just not have authoritarian moderators instead. They're also Lemmy's developers.

-1
Kaynreply
dormi.zone

You can always observe and research the instance you're about to create an account on to protect yourself from unpleasant surprises.

This is not a new development for lemmy.ml.

7

I joined back in June and lemmy.ml was absolutely doing all of this shit back then. Anything even mildly critical of China was banned for "orientalism." They've never been shy about the fact that their instance is run by tankies.

4

Users don't even need to leave lemmy.ml, they can just use their lemmy.ml account and post elsewhere.

4
Chozoreply
kbin.social

Totally transferring to another instance and losing your post history is kind of a shitty solution

You don't have to do that, though. You can just post on a different instance from your normal account.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe instance admins can remove your content that's posted to another instance.

3

You're free to abandon your account and they're free to not hire authoritarian moderators. Why should it be on you and not them?

-4