cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/16246531

I feel like we need to talk about Lemmy’s massive tankie censorship problem. A lot of popular lemmy communities are hosted on lemmy.ml. It’s been well known for a while that the admins/mods of that instance have, let’s say, rather extremist and onesided political views. In short, they’re what’s colloquially referred to as tankies. This wouldn’t be much of an issue if they didn’t regularly abuse their admin/mod status to censor and silence people who dissent with their political beliefs and for example, post things critical of China, Russia, the USSR, socialism, …

As an example, there was a thread today about the anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre. When I was reading it, there were mostly posts critical of China in the thread and some whataboutist/denialist replies critical of the USA and the west. In terms of votes, the posts critical of China were definitely getting the most support.

I posted a comment in this thread linking to “https://archive.ph/2020.07.12-074312/https://imgur.com/a/AIIbbPs” (WARNING: graphical content), which describes aspects of the atrocities that aren’t widely known even in the West, and supporting evidence. My comment was promptly removed for violating the “Be nice and civil” rule. When I looked back at the thread, I noticed that all posts critical of China had been removed while the whataboutist and denialist comments were left in place.

This is what the modlog of the instance looks like:

Definitely a trend there wouldn’t you say?

When I called them out on their one sided censorship, with a screenshot of the modlog above, I promptly received a community ban on all communities on lemmy.ml that I had ever participated in.

Proof:

So many of you will now probably think something like: “So what, it’s the fediverse, you can use another instance.”

The problem with this reasoning is that many of the popular communities are actually on lemmy.ml, and they’re not so easy to replace. I mean, in terms of content and engagement lemmy is already a pretty small place as it is. So it’s rather pointless sitting for example in /c/[email protected] where there’s nobody to discuss anything with.

I’m not sure if there’s a solution here, but I’d like to urge people to avoid lemmy.ml hosted communities in favor of communities on more reasonable instances.

  • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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    23 days ago

    All instances, except for the lightly moderated ones, have censorship issues from time to time. You can say one thing on one thread, and that same thing can get you banned in another thread on the same instance. This is an issue with the great degree of political polarization on Lemmy.

    My point is that Lemmy is multipolar. It’s divided between the right-leaning instances like Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works, the left-leaning instances like Lemmy.ml, slrpnk.net, blahaj.zone, and dbzer0, and the leftist instances like Hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml. Mods and admins on each instance are guilty of maintaining the “instance line.”

    When I called them out on their one sided censorship, with a screenshot of the modlog above, I promptly received a community ban on all communities on lemmy.ml that I had ever participated in.

    While I won’t repeat what got me banned, this is what got me banned from Political Memes on Lemmy.world, this isn’t just a Lemmy.ml thing. This is also when one of the moderators claimed they weren’t censoring anyone and were incredibly fair on a comment chain calling out their censorship, and refused to elaborate. They would not even tell me how I could edit my comments to comply with their rules.

    What does this all mean?

    Honestly, I think close to everyone knows that Marxists dominate Lemmy.ml, Lemmygrad.ml, Hexbear.net, etc. I think close to everyone knows Liberals dominate Lemmy.world. I think everyone knows that anarchists dominate dbzer0, slrpnk.net, Hexbear.net, etc.

    If your call to action is to defederate Lemmy.ml, then that’s just contributing to this polarization effect, as people would jump ship from .world and .ml to the other if it fits their views better. If your call to action is that people should move communities from Lemmy.ml to other instances, this has already happened a bit, this thread gets reposted very frequently. All it really seems to me is that you’re spreading drama.

    What do I recommend?

    Rather than trying to consolidate communities across instances, replicate communities as needed. Communities on Lemmy are more like hashtags for an instance, and instances are more like subreddits of old. Instances have their own cultures and values, so a Gaming thread on Hexbear, for example, is going to be different from a Lemmy.world Gaming thread, and that’s a good thing. All sorting can still let you see other instances, there’s no need to risk moderator dominance over communities by trying to consolidate on a single instance. Heck, this community is an example of that very process.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        just advising new users to watch where they are active; I

        Your profile has 10 posts/comments and has been around for a week…

        Are you the original OP who just keeps making new accounts to spam this?

        Or do you think 10 posts/comments over a week means you understand Lemmy and should reach out to teach “new users”?

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            23 days ago

            Nah, I replied to OP and they deleted the comment.

            Maybe that looks weird on some federated instances or apps tho.

            If it looks like I’m replying to someone else, that would explain the down votes.

            OPs post gets reposted pretty frequently, always by new accounts which tend to disappear a day or two later after some lazy posts.

            I really do think it’s the same person who’s bans are in the screenshots.

            It’s too random that a bunch of brand new accounts all find the post and quote it with perfectly formatting including all the pictures just to repost it the same place they found it.

            Especially since the new account always claims they’re “helping new users” like they’ve been here forever.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        23 days ago

        You can aleady block instances if you personally wish, is my point. Everyone knows about Lemmy.ml having Marxists. My point is that rather than trying to move communities and keep them consolidated, embrace the differences between instances and be okay with Lemmy.world and Lemmy.ml both having Linux communities, as an example.

        I don’t share your fear of Marxism and Marxists, which is why I tend to avoid Lemmy.world communities.

        • curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          23 days ago

          You can block the instance, which blocks those communities, but that doesn’t block those users on them to be fair. That has to be done individually.

          Personally I am comfortable ignoring individuals (and not painting everyone on an instance with the same brush) and would prefer metas/groups/whatever you’d like to refer to them as for my subscriptions, so I’m definitely not the target user of this post.

          But just being clear, a user blocking an instance doesn’t block the users from that instance, so if that’s their goal, no, that’s not enough.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            23 days ago

            but that doesn’t block those users on them to be fair. That has to be done individually.

            It blocks notifications of replies.

            Sometimes I’ll notice a .ml responded to me, and if they seem decent I’ll reply back. But I’ll never get a notification and that’s almost always as far as it goes.

            Which is fine. Lots of people can make one civil comment to rope someone in a conversation.

            • OpenStars@discuss.online
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              23 days ago

              You will lose that ability as soon as Lemmy.world upgrades past 0.19.3. My instance likewise had 0.19.3 until like a week ago, and ever since it “upgraded” to 0.19.5, I get notifications now from users from blocked instances. The developers of Lemmy seem adamant that people are not allowed to ban whole entire instances, which I find… ironic for… reasons:-).

          • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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            23 days ago

            Defederation has it’s own uses, yes, but that also ironically makes it more difficult to avoid trolls. When you defederate from an instance for X reason, only the more irrational users are going to create alts to attack. Defederation is often over-used.

            • curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              23 days ago

              Not advocating for defederation, I’m just pointing out that blocking an instance isn’t going to achieve their goal.

              Obviously defederation is too large scale. Ideally, there would be an option for people to block users from the instance when blocking an instance, or something like that.

              This would avoid the exact scenario you mention because it would come down to the user level, so that troll would have to put in quite a bit more effort to get around that. Unfortunately, that’s not currently an option, along with some other features I’d love to see on Lemmy.

              Again, I’m just pointing out that blocking an instance does not achieve their goal.

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                23 days ago

                Obviously defederation is too large scale. Ideally, there would be an option for people to block users from the instance when blocking an instance, or something like that.

                I agree with this most out of what you said. This gives users the most power to curate what they see, and lessens the likelyhood of troll accounts.

        • pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          23 days ago

          different people have different needs, for example an estonian instance would have a larger need to defederate with .ml than .world would, because of the years of soviet occupation.

          • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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            23 days ago

            Sure, my point is about community replication. Defederation has its own uses, my point is that community consolidation serves very few people.

      • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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        23 days ago

        I wouldn’t want anyone going down an extremist pipeline on either side of the political spectrum.

        This isn’t a binary thing, there’s plenty of centrist extremists and echo chambers for them

          • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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            23 days ago

            Are you using “extremism” to mean “far from the status quo,” or “has absolute belief and violent justification for said belief?” Centrists can absolutely be the latter.

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                23 days ago

                The others here are using it the second way, which I agree with. Centrism meaning the “status quo” can be violently and toxically upheld.

                • There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror — that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

                  Taken from https://redsails.org/the-two-terrors/

    • Shiggles@sh.itjust.works
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      23 days ago

      Neither .world nor .shitjustworks are “right leaning” they just hate the tankies most vocally lmao. Neither would it make too much sense to call a tankie “left” leaning given their raging hard on for authoritarianism. I also think most of Blahaj would be offended by being lumped in with them.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        23 days ago

        Lemmy.world is extremely liberal, I wouldn’t classify it as left-leaning. Both .world and sh.itjust.works are generally liberal, maintaining MeanwhileOnGrad leads to more right-wing people. I did not say far-right, or even right-wing, but right-leaning.

        Marxists are absolutely left wing, not sure what your point is here. Marx and Engels were both called “authoritarian” by their contemporaries so much that Engels wrote On Authority. I don’t think it makes sense to separate Marxism from Leftism, and redefine leftism as Anarchism.

        • Shiggles@sh.itjust.works
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          23 days ago

          muh libs aren’t left leaning

          And you expect me to take anything you say after that seriously

          • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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            23 days ago

            When I say Leftist, I am using the typical definition, anti-Capitalist. Socialism, Communism, Syndicalism, Anarchism, and all their myriad forms.

            When I say right, I am using the typical definition, supportive of Capitalism. Social Democrats, Liberals, American Libertarians, fascists, and all their myriad forms.

            Considering Lemmy is an international site, it doesn’t make sense to use the Overton Window. If we went by, say, the American Overton Window, but another user lived in, say, Spain, there’s a significant difference there. That’s why I am using the standard definitions, and not going off of any one country’s Overton Window.

            • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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              23 days ago

              When I say right, I am using the typical definition, supportive of Capitalism. Social Democrats, Liberals, American Libertarians, fascists, and all their myriad forms.

              For two of the words this is not a typical definition. Social democrats do not code as “right” anywhere in the world. And liberals are only “right” when viewed through a partisan US-progressive lens, or else perhaps in southern Europe (where the word is mostly an economic term). Elsewhere they would be closer to left or center. This whole discussion illustrates the limited usefulness of the left-right axis at describing ideas.

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                23 days ago

                Social democrats do not code as “right” anywhere in the world.

                Are you trying to say that wherever Social Democrats are found, they are the most left available? That may track, but again, Social Democrats want to “harness Capitalism,” it isn’t pro-Socialism nor anti-Capitalism, hence my categorization.

                And liberals are only “right” when viewed through a partisan US-progressive lens, or else perhaps in southern Europe (where the word is mostly an economic term)

                Liberalism is the ideological framework for Capitalism, this is, again, supportive of Capitalism and against Socialism.

                • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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                  23 days ago

                  This is a bit reductive. I accept that liberalism and capitalism are closely intertwined in the historical reading. But the fact is that capitalism won the economic battle, for better and (I agree) for worse. Attempts to replace it completely, in an interconnected world, invariably end in disaster or (China) in a reversion to capitalism. Just look at the list of them. To me this whole question feels like a disconnected high-school philosophy debate.

              • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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                23 days ago

                Social democrats do not code as “right” anywhere in the world.

                Except in Portugal, where the conservative party calls themselves Social Democrats.

                • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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                  23 days ago

                  True but that is a proper name, not the generic definition. Russia’s Liberal Democrats are ultranationalists.

              • taipan@lemmy.world
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                23 days ago

                Since you linked to another Wikipedia article, you should know that Wikipedia defines fascism as far-right:

                Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.

                • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  23 days ago

                  And it also defines it as third position, as per the article I linked earlier. Again, some define fascism as “mommy said I can’t go to the party” so oooooohhhhh.

                  Fact of the matter is fascists, if you’ve ever talked to a real one, are neither capitalist nor communist (again, hence that whole “World War Two” fiasco they teamed up for.) Thus “third position.”

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                23 days ago

                Fascism is described as both “Capitalism in decay” and as “Imperialism turned inward.” It served and serves the bourgeoisie and petite bourgeoisie against the Proletariat and Lumpenproletariat, and historically arises when the Petite Bourgeoisie is facing proletarianization. That’s why the most violently MAGA are small business owners and the like, and why they think immigrants are the ones proletarianizing them.

                I highly recommend reading the first chapter of Blackshirts and Reds by Dr. Michael Parenti, which covers the material conditions surrounding fascism and who it served.

                • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  23 days ago

                  Fascism has been described as a teacher telling a student to shut up in class too, just because someone says something doesn’t make it true.

              • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                23 days ago

                Fascists paint themselves as being a third position that supercedes the left-right dichotomy, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually true. Everything about it is right-wing and it’s not actually as incompatible with capitalism as fascists claim. Every fascist regime has partnered up with capitalists, who often support them into power in the first place.

          • OpenStars@discuss.online
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            23 days ago

            Cowbee is notorious for not actually answering questions, just throwing up the same articles to read and asking people to DM them to continue the conversation. Make what you will of that info - are deeds done in the light of logical discourse inherently “better” than those done in darkness, i.e. are facts that can stand up to scrutiny somehow more “correct” than those that can only be whispered in the dark to those most vulnerable individuals still living in the cave?

            • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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              23 days ago

              You’ll note that I did end up continuing the conversation publicly in this thread. I have only once actually taken a conversation into DMs, with Blaze, whom they can probably back me up on. When I say “feel free to DM if you have any questions” regarding theory I have linked, it’s because I don’t expect anyone to immediately buzz off and read a book or article and then get right back, it’s an open offer to continue the conversation at any point in time.

              Can you elaborate on what you mean by not actually answering questions? In this thread you can see it’'s the exact opposite, I am curious what you mean by that.

              Finally, when I make my arguments and leave links for supplemental reading, it isn’t a requirement to continue conversation. It’s supplemental, in case they have doubts or wish to learn more beyond a simple Lemmy thread. If it’s necessary reading, I usually quote a relevant paragraph and link the main work.

          • AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works
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            23 days ago

            By the standards of US and Canadian politics, yeah we’re to the left of center. But “center” has been dragged to the right so far that it’s prompting this whole argument. The Overton window had shifted so far that liberalism - which, in a current context, supports relatively unregulated capitalism and trickle down economics - there’s a whole swath of political ideologies that’s basically nonexistent within our modern day electoral politics. I’m somewhere in the anarchist range and choose to engage with electoral politics - if they chose to participate within the context of a FPTP voting system with two options, we’d find ourselves voting for the same candidate despite our likely highly differing political beliefs. In many countries that left wing is less smashed, the range of political discourse is much wider.

            Shit just works is to the left side of, but comfortably within, the current Canadian Overton window. In a global sense, the instance is kinda to the right, in the same way that Bernie Sanders is moderate by western European standards.

      • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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        23 days ago

        Being full of anticommunists who call anyone left of Biden a tankie makes an instance right wing in my eyes at least

        • Shiggles@sh.itjust.works
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          23 days ago

          They… don’t though? Unless you’re pretending saying “voting for [not the democratic candidate] is a vote for Trump” is now apparently right wing and not just a basic understanding of how first past the post works.

          Like, your definition is both wrong in terms of what right wing means, and not even descriptive of either. They’re just not tankie shitholes so I guess that makes them look bad to you?

          • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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            23 days ago

            So accusing left wingers of being right wing is okay as far as you’re concerned if it’s about an election

            Pointing out that from a left wing perspective, Biden and the Democrats are doing bad things and their supporters are right wing: wrong, not descriptive, belongs in a tankie shit hole.

            K

        • OpenStars@discuss.online
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          23 days ago

          That’s… what? What?! WHAT!?

          img

          To anyone else reading, note the @lemmy.ml after their name. There are only so many times people of intelligence can hear the most batshit insane things on Lemmy without either willfully losing IQ points or else blocking the lemmy.ml instance.

          Unfortunately, that does next to nothing, bc you’ll still see every single batshit insane comment like the above. Every. Single. One. And while it might be a bug, you can sometimes get replies from them too (while other times blissfully not).

          Maybe I’ll make an account on Lemmy.cafe, which is the only instance I’ve ever heard of that has actually defederated from lemmy.ml. Though I’m holding out more hope for Sublinks, Piefed, and Mbin too to help address such issues.

          Stay safe folks - election season is coming and there are some who want to fuck you up if at all possible (not necessarily the above comment, just in general), don’t let it happen!

          • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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            23 days ago

            If you’re planning on leaving I won’t miss you passive aggressively using only neutral pronouns for me or calling me insane.

          • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            23 days ago

            So… blocking an instance as a user just hides the instances communities, if I’m remembering the implementation details right. It doesn’t block interaction with the instances users. Stupidly misleading.

            You’ll still need to block the users one by one.

            • OpenStars@discuss.online
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              23 days ago

              Sadly, I had quite the list going, but upon blocking the instance, decided to clean up all the individual ones from that instance. Oops. Surely a “block” would imply some sort of… I dunno, “blocking” action, one might expect?

              Also, at least on 0.19.3, I would not receive notifications from people on those instances. But now on 0.19.5, I do. So… there’s that fun little tidbit of knowledge: what little blocking there used to be, has become less so over time.

              Oh well, at least this way I get to read the most batshit insane replies to things and laugh at them. Once someone is aware, it’s not really shocking, compared to a new user who would have no clue - e.g. they could be conversing with an actual PhD scientist on mander.xyz one moment and then somehow jump all the way to “no awkshually you should drink bleach, and follow up by drinking sunshine, bc (this one time at band camp?) I heard that kills the Rona”. Which sounds enormously exaggerated I know, but just remember: there are people out there eating raw meat and drinking unpasteurized milk without a care in the world, even in the face of the avian flu situation that seems to have made its way into just about every animal on earth including extremely remote polar bears and such.

              Disinformation, unlike misinformation that is more often simply a mistake, is often designed to be outright deadly, to the unprepared (though less for the sake of the actual deaths, and more for how they would then catapult the issue into the media to receive feed-forward attention).

        • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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          23 days ago

          That’s… not an accurate characterization.

          I would have voted for Sanders in a heartbeat. And a lot of other (Americans) on my instance would too. The disdain is more targeted and nuanced than that. A whole lot of us on sh.it just.works have a reasonably solid understanding of the difference between communism and authoritarian communism, and are also often geopolitical nerds to one degree or another. This often leads to us doing our best to combat what we see as bullshit disinformation and misrepresentation when and where we see it.

          The vitriol we have towards tankies is specifically a result of:

          • our dislike of the glorification of historical authoritarian leaders (Stalin; Mao)
          • the intentional blurring of the line between communism (which, bluntly, many of us don’t actually have a problem with) and authoritarian communism
          • the jingoistic support of modern authoritarian states that either call themselves “communist” despite not really being anything of the sort (China), or who have a historical lineage that runs through an (again, authoritarian) communist state (Russia)

          When looked at that way, it’s a lot closer to modern Iron Front ideology (anti-monarchy; anti-fascist; anti-authoritarian communist).

    • DudeImMacGyver@sh.itjust.works
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      23 days ago

      Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works don’t seem to have any noticeable political leanings (far right or far left) as far as I can tell. Why do you say they’re right leaning?

      • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        There are definitely some bad actors on here who are trying to manipulate the election in Trump’s favor. The sort that claim to be leftists and come to every US politics-related thread (or even ones that aren’t related to the US until they make it so) with their list of talking points about why no one should vote for Harris, but conveniently have no answers for who deserves votes more.

      • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works don’t seem to have any noticeable political leanings as far as I can tell.

        …What?

        I consider myself a raging liberal, at least in the US. A socialist. But lemmy.world is so liberal it makes me feel like a Trumpster.

        I guess I don’t feel at risk of getting globally banned like I would for disagreeing with the consensus like on .ml, but claiming .world is neutral is quite a sweeping statement.

      • barsquid@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        I don’t fully understand but it turns out if you don’t think both Donald and Harris are equally fascist you are a classic liberal and pretty far to the right.

          • barsquid@lemmy.world
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            23 days ago

            Right? The system is awful that lite is the best of the options that will actually happen. And yet here you are, every day campaigning for fascism deluxe by telling everyone who chooses lite that they are genocidal goose-steppers.

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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              23 days ago

              Harris wouldn’t support genocide if she knew it would cost her the election. There would be an arms embargo by now if it weren’t for her voters reassuring her; “No no, it’s okay! You can kill anyone you want and start WW3 and we’ll still vote for you.”

              But calling you all genocidal goose-steppers isn’t fair. You’re just cynical. You fundamentally do not believe you can change anything.

              • barsquid@lemmy.world
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                23 days ago

                Sure. But unfortunately the country is so diseased with far-right radicals that even for people absolutely opposed to Gaza as a primary motivation, such as Uncommitted (you going to call them genocidal as well?), she is still the least bad option.

                But that’s kinda my point, though. Anybody with radical ideas like “Donald will make this worse,” will fail .ml purity testing, regardless of their stance on economics. And so much so that you’ll call them a goose-stepper.

                • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                  23 days ago

                  Again, like I said, calling y’all genocidal goose-steppers wasn’t fair of me to do. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. I was mad.

                  Your cynicism is a tragedy. You can only imagine two outcomes. Either everything gets worse under Trump or things stay as bad as they are right now under Harris. There’s no other options in your mind. You are too cynical to imagine anything else.

                  And so you attack anyone who refuses to vote for genocide and then get offended when they strike back. Did it occur to you that I was lashing out because other .world posters were dogpiling on me in various threads and attacking me? Or do my feelings not matter?

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        23 days ago

        I can DM you if you want, this is already spiraling far beyond my intentions of my original statement, that I think it’s better rather than to consolidate communities and overpower an instances mods and admins, to decentralize and replicate so there’s always a space for people, on an as-needed basis.

        The short answer is that Lemmy.world is a very US-focused liberal instance, essentially the Democrats embodied in an instance.

        Sh.itjust.works maintains NCD, MeanwhileOnGrad, and other generally pro-Liberalism, anti-Communist communities, hence why I say it leans right.

        As always, you can absolutely find Anarchists and Communists on both Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works, my point is more that the moderators and userbase generally consolidate around a given stance, my point isn’t that you can’t be a leftist on Lemmy.world or sh.itjust.works.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        World is kind of the vanilla instance.

        Just.works is a “free speech” instance, I never see many communities hosted there, but a large amount of trolls make accounts there because just.works is unlikely to nuke an account.

        • Draconic NEO@lemmy.world
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          23 days ago

          Lately sh.itjust.works been more good about nuking spam and troll accounts, and they also have automated defenses set up to mitigate abuse.

      • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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        23 days ago

        from the perspective of a south american, yes, .world is biased towards north america and europe.

        • DudeImMacGyver@sh.itjust.works
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          23 days ago

          That’s not really what I mean, I’m talking about leaning far right or left on the political spectrum. I think both of them are based in NA, so it would make sense they’re more focused there, just like midwest.social

      • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        23 days ago

        Because anyone not exactly in line with his views is right leaning, that’s it. Tankies want to shame you into their ideology by calling you right leaning for thinking murder is bad, that’s basically all.

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    23 days ago

    When I called them out on their one sided censorship, with a screenshot of the modlog above, I promptly received a community ban on all communities on lemmy.ml that I had ever participated in.

    Note, that just means you were sitebanned. This is how the software displays this.

    Also [email protected]

  • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    The solution is that an instance that cheerfully associates itself with an ideology that wiped away the lives of many tens of millions of people and immiserated possibly a billion more - that instance should be relegated to a dusty basement room where new users won’t easily find it.

    • Samuel Block@lemmy.worldOP
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      For me, it’s not the fact that the instance exists that’s troublesome. The bigots can have their space if they want; that’s the point of the fediverse. My issue is the fact that it’s so popular and potentially luring new users into a pipeline. It’s truly a shame how big it’s gotten…

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        Yes, sure. As a liberal, I’m pretty suspicious of even speech-policing, let alone bans or (here) defederation. But I just wish more people understood that the ideas these people claim to support are not anodyne. They’re not just sticking it to The Man, they’re not democrats or even Swedish-style socialists. They’re defending the indefensible. Addendum: To be clear, I think even many of them don’t understand this properly.

    • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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      23 days ago

      immiserated possibly a billion more

      Hmm, this graph must be upside-down or something, weird.

    • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      To be fair, those deaths can be blamed on the brutality of the likes of Stalin and Mao. Communism didn’t kill those people— but its authoritarian nature certainly provided fertile ground to be abused by monsters.

      Like most things political, it’s highly nuanced and complex. I don’t particularly like to defend communism, but an ideology alone can’t do anything. It requires bad actors who use that ideology for their own ends.

      • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        A few things. Communism isn’t Marxist leninism. Communism isn’t authoritarian. And it’s not just Stalin and Mao. It’s literally everywhere Marxist leninism has ever been attempted. Communism is a classless stateless society. Therefore a Marxist leninist government will never become communist. Because they are defined by their class separation of those with political power and those without, and the strong overbearing presence of the state.

        There’s nothing objectionable to Communism whatsoever. And no one should have any qualms about defending it ever. What we should question is why one group of authoritarians the Marxist leninist desire to be so closely tied to it. And another group of authoritarians the capitalists demand everyone be afraid of it.

      • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        Many would say that this is disingenuous reasoning. The fact is that the brutality was committed in the name of the ideology, and that whenever the ideology has been tried out, it always - always - ends the same way. For exactly the reason you suggest: any ideology that precludes dissent is ripe for abuse.

          • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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            23 days ago

            Disingenuous or ignorant. By definition a Quaker or a Jain cannot commit brutality in the name of their beliefs. Conversely, an ideology which puts the collective before the individual, such as fascism or communism, is, a straightforward recipe for brutality.

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              Quakers are just an extension of Christian ideology. Jainism I don’t know enough about, but any religious identity will eventually develop the concept of justified violence when faced with the existential threat of a larger opposing religion.

      • Handles@leminal.space
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        I think that, more to the point, no matter the culpability of communism in Soviet politics, tankies seem more enamoured with the latter — the militant, strongarm regimes — than the actual ideals and principles of ideology.

  • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    As the dev’s flagship instance, there is only so much that can be done. There is also only so much that should be done, since they should have the right to run their own instance however they see fit. They did put the work in to create the service, after all.

    I think the most reasonable solution around this is to simply push mbin a little harder. Since .ml will always garner a certain degree of attention as the dev’s instance, simply pivoting more attention to a lemmy-related service may be the best option to make us more appealing to less politically-interested people overall.

    • Draconic NEO@lemmy.world
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      There is also only so much that should be done, since they should have the right to run their own instance however they see fit.

      Disagreed, I’ve seen them trying to force their hand on other instances into running things the way they want them to, so I think it’s only fair others hold them to some standards as well. After all in the Fediverse there is some leverage you do have to get other instances to compromise, by way of simply refusing to operate with them anymore. Obviously that doesn’t mean completely bossing them around, which is why I said compromise, not comply. It also is still their choice whether or not to follow through, it comes at the cost of them no longer inter-operating with servers they refuse to compromise with, but I think that’s more than fair enough as a trade off.

      It is also a good idea to push for alternatives, but even so, if the issue isn’t addressed it will still be problematic on those problems due to the size and weight the instance and its communities carry in the Fediverse.

      • WanderingVentra@lemm.ee
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        23 days ago

        Do you have an example of how they’ve tried to force their hand on other instances? That’s not really a thing they can do…

    • OpenStars@discuss.online
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      23 days ago

      And shout-out to Piefed and Sublinks as well. All three of those look so promising! They have a bit of catching up to do but… yeah, I agree with you. Plus, being written in a more widely-known language (the likes of Python vs. Rust), I would hope that it would catch up rather quickly?

  • SoJB@lemmy.ml
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    23 days ago

    ITT: genocide supporting fascists get triggered by being called genocide supporting fascists

    We get it, you’re jealous about how leftists are always on the correct side of history.

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      The funny thing is I thought you were talking about all the genocides, including those led by Russia, but then I saw your handle and realized you mean only those done by NATO and their allies.

    • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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      23 days ago

      This is like the perfect comment as to why a lot of people find ml users insufferable and toxic.

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        23 days ago

        Most of their comments are perfect examples. Everyone except them is a fascist liberal who loves genocide.

        Even Uncommitted, who have basically the same opinion as everyone that Harris is in the wrong but Donald would be worse. Fascist genocide lovers.

      • OpenStars@discuss.online
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        23 days ago

        b-b-bUt SuReLy rUsSiA hAs NeVeR dOnE a GeNoCidE?!

        Or ChInA eItHeR?!

        The USA supporting Israel is… ahem, never mind, anyway it’s not anywhere on the same class as Russia CURRENTLY and ACTIVELY being the very ones DOING the genocide.

        Nobody is that dumb. Therefore that’s beyond ignorance - that’s sheer, willful obstinacy.

  • muculent@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    These are just my thoughts based on what I’ve read so far. Do what you will with it. This is just my general advice.

    If you like a community on an instance, make friends on it. If you network with enough individuals that feel the same way about a community that you do, fork that community onto a new instance and carry on. I see others weighing in on too much control, not enough control, defederate, remove moderator or admin control from individuals that censor, ban, on lean one direction over another. You’ll find these power dynamics are more prevalent or less prevalent depending on the instance you’re on or communities your partipate in. If you feel strongly enough about it, be the change you want to see and determine what best course of action you should take that is within your power. Whatever you choose I hope you find or potentially create a community or instance that works best for you.

  • Dasus@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    One of the mods over there is a Russian who refuses to answer whether he’s pro-Russian or not, says Russian propaganda doesn’t exist, pretends to be American while intensely engaging in American threads, denies Uighur genocide, etc etc etc.

    https://lemmy.world/u/[email protected]

    https://lemmygrad.ml/u/davel

    He has some older account where there was Russian being used but I think he may have deleted it or I just can’t be arsed to look enough rn.

    Anyway, one of the clearest pro-Russian trolls I’ve seen. Lemmy.ml is full of them, I don’t know why lemmy.world federates with them.

    • Rhoeri@lemmy.world
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      Knew exactly who you were taking about before I even saw the links.

    • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      Wait, now I’m a Russian pretending to be an American? This tale gets taller every time you tell it 😂

      He has some older account where there was Russian being used but I think he may have deleted it or I just can’t be arsed to look enough rn.

    • szynaptic@lemm.ee
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      23 days ago

      Because LW is just as bad.

      .ml is run by angry tankie assholes.

      LW is run by moral superiority assholes.

      Assholes, assholes everywhere.

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          23 days ago

          I expected this type of response from idiots who think “omg this guy insulted my instance… that means they insulted me!!!

    • OpenStars@discuss.online
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      Genuine question: HOW though?!? I’ve user-blocked the entire instance, yet I see those comments basically everywhere I go, plus they used to not be able to reply to me and have a notification sent to me, but now on 0.19.5 that seems to have been un-done. In no way is a user-block like a personal defederation.

      Also, fully 100% (not making this up) of everyone that I have told Lemmy about irl has said that this issue is why they refused to join the Fediverse. As the number of alt accounts goes up (some of them mine) yet the total number remains mostly constant, that spells doom for us eventually.

      And it is not fair to the users of lemmy.ml either, for the rest of us to see the instance they come from and immediately brace ourselves for an onslaught - thereby potentially misinterpreting what they say, just b/c their fellows are so arrogant and insensitive and we have come to expect that from them.

      The whole “just ignore the cancer and it will go away” approach leaves much to be desired, imho. Feel free to do as you please, but that’s not what I am talking about: you asked, and as a result now you know some (certainly not all) of the reasons why others may not wish to do the same.

    • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
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      23 days ago

      You mean you personally blocked them? You need to actually be on an instance that defederates them for it to mean anything. User blocking hardly does anything, it just hides communities from that instance, that’s all it does.

      • Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        No I just blocked the instance. While there is a chance those mods could be mods on other servers. The hamfisted and out right petty ways they employ are less likely to get a pass elsewhere. I have no doubt many lemmy.ml users are okay. Its just the reddit style modding that I’m avoiding.

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    23 days ago

    My post criticizing China’s high-speed rail network was yanked. I was surprised and immediately thought of Reddit.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      Hey, remember when you said you’d vote for the Dem candidate if Biden was replaced? How’s that going?

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        23 days ago

        As with most time sure they meant, if Biden stepped down and a primary was run, not if he unilaterally appointed one of the least popular presidential candidates of all time.

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          Oh yes, just like I’m sure she was being completely sincere when she said all Biden had to do to earn her vote was ‘call for a ceasefire’ within the coming year.

          Turns out when MLs don’t say a single thing in good faith, people start remembering and stop taking them seriously. :)

    • monobot@lemmy.ml
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      While I understand someone not agreeing with the way some instance or community is managed, I see value in different opinions.

      Lemmy is great for exactly this purpose, we can have different instances and are able to be exposed to different ideas.

      I can not understand the need of some people to limit their exposure to different ideas.

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      It’s why I try to get more people to read theory, the people leaving Reddit usually are the types who care enough to keep up with current events and willful enough to abandon Reddit over ideals, but generally haven’t yet read leftist theory.

      To be clear, many people do read theory, they just aren’t the same people trying to recreate Reddit.

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    23 days ago

    I knew it was bloody and thousands had been slaughtered, but I’m so surprised they fought back. I never learned they actually had the chance to. So many survivors and observers too. That’s reassuring.

    It means that the Chinese know their government is not omnipotent. That’s why all legal communication is unencrypted and monitored. If citizens were allowed to communicate as they do in the West, they’d be able to organize and overthrow the CCP.

    That’s what they are afraid of. The people aren’t afraid of the mechanized power the PLA has, and as demonstrated in 1989, the power is in numbers. If the CCP doesn’t wipe out all memory of Tiannemen Square, they are doomed. But the CCP can’t. Unless they cut China off from the rest of the world entirely, the knowledge will remain. The CCP can only get stricter and harsher, speeding up the time for a pressure cooker to explode. They know this. The people know this.

    At some point in the future, they will go too far, and the people will end it.

    • OpenStars@discuss.online
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      Just like the USA’s experiment with far-right ideology, and also just like the COVID pandemic - knowledge that it will eventually implode seems not to matter one bit.

  • merthyr1831@lemmy.ml
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    23 days ago

    Every influx of users and the usual suspects who are DESPERATE to have Lemmy turn into Reddit start pissing and shitting themselves that maybe their American liberal opinions arent dominant anymore.

    This shit is pathetic.

    • ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
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      Hope you at least see the irony in being able to come here to criticize our ‘American liberal opinions’ in a thread about the systematic censorship of people criticizing yours.

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        23 days ago

        It is hilarious to see that on every single “we should defed from the tankies” post, the tankies always show up to demonstrate for us all first-hand precisely why we should defederate from the tankies. Not b/c of their political views, but b/c of the abusive toxicity.

    • lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com
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      How can it be dominant on ml instances, if it’s removed after 10 seconds by scared ml mods that can’t handle different views on anything?

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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      Yeah, no… We just don’t like people who straight up deny history that actually happened nor do we like fascist fuck heads. Seen enough bullshit from your instance to know it’s full of Nazi dumbshits acting like they’re actually leftists. Not to even mention the mountain of hypocrisy shown by the admins and moderators.

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      You mean that people are annoyed that tankies like you, want to turn this into an echo chamber that’s just like the right wing republicans…and that bothers you?

      Edit: checking your history… yes you’re a solid tankie idiot.

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    23 days ago

    Even outside of the Tankie instances the Fediverse is filled to the brim with literal terrorist simps, both within the general user base as well as the various community mods. You literally get comments removed or even banned for having nuanced middle ground positions that aren’t propaganda for one side.

  • Draconic NEO@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    “So what, it’s the fediverse, you can use another instance.”

    Dismissal of this type of criticism by just telling people to use another instance or saying “fediverse is decentralized” is unproductive, and honestly should be called out as harmful because it ignores the fact that instances when they become large enough and centralized enough, carry weight and can be extremely problematic like shown here.

    A big part of dealing with these types of problems is to make people aware of them, another one is to deal with it at the instance level by defederating the problematic instances and cutting off the communities so that network effect doesn’t continue to rear its ugly head. Just creating new communities isn’t enough, if it was this wouldn’t be the problem that it is. When people tell others to stop complaining and dismiss the criticism because the fediverse is decentralized it seems like they either don’t understand the issue, or they would just rather it not be addressed.

    So while many people would prefer we just leave well enough alone, that’s not condusive to these problems being dealt with, people need to talk about them, and action needs to be taken.