Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.

Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨samuelblock@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨fediverse@lemmy.world⁩

cross-posted from: 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 “archive.ph/2020.07.12-074312/https://…/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:

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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:

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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/linux@some.random.other.instance.world 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.

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Comments

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halm@leminal.space ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Just to weigh in here with a bit of political nuance — “tankies” are certainly defined by their leftist politics, but moreso by their apologist defense of regimes that more or less transparently use socialist or communist maxims as a cover for state capitalism or straight out autocracy.

Tankies may be the loudest voices to claim themselves Marxist or socialist, but please don’t mistake them as actually representing those ideologies truthfully or completely. Personally, I see tankies as more indebted to a cold war-style school of Soviet dogma transplanted to current autocracies. Marx and Trotsky would have rolled their eyes at either.

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- slaacaa@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Yes, I hate to be “no true Scotsman”, but they are not actually leftists, just fan of a few dictatorships, some of which claim or used to claim to be socialist.
  
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  - ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Eh, I disagree. Left isn’t “when good,” right isn’t “when bad.” There are bad leftists, and you’re looking at them, right there on .ml, grad, and hexbear. These morons actually believe not only that “those states would have dissolved themselves given the opportunity if it wasn’t for ‘western interference,’” they also have such hubris to believe that if they tried the same thing they’d actually achieve what none of them did in the past. They can’t grasp that their autocrats would never cede power either to usher in Communist Utopia™.
    
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  - halm@leminal.space ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    No, completely fair point! I think on a platform with a lot of Americans (currently locked in an election where many seem to consider the centrist candidate “too far left”) it’s good to call out the differences on the left that aren’t otherwise discerned.
    
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- GBU_28@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Unfortunately they take the mic and poison the conversation. Imo they hold back progressive adoption/discussion.
  
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  - halm@leminal.space ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I don’t disagree, therefore the attempt to disentangle the actual ideologies from the totalitarian stans who got stuck on '80s propaganda.
    
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- Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I don’t want to spiral this out of control, but I do think you might be interested in Why do Marxists fail to Bring the “Worker’s Paradise?” as well as Why Public Property? The former is a critical examination of why states guided by Marxism haven’t been worker utopias from the perspective of a Marxist-Leninist, the latter is an exploration of why Marx believed Socialism to overtake Capitalism. It isn’t a moral argument, rather, as markets consolidate into monopolist syndicates devoid of competition, they make themselves ripe for public ownership and central planning.
  
  What is Socialism? is also good, it goes over the various arguments between different strains of Marxism over what can be considered Socialist, but at this point I think I’ve recommended far more than enough articles. Really, the first one about “Worker’s Paradises” is the one I think you’d find the most interesting.
  
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  - halm@leminal.space ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Sure, those [Medium posts all by the same author that I’ve never heard of] look interesting enough at a glance — but I’ll admit to only skimming them, and I’m not going to go any further down one random, person’s online ruminations. Thanks for the offer, though.
    
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- givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Yeah, a little suspect OP’s account is a week old with barely double digit posts/comments if you combine them and most are from this post…
  
  I’m guessing their favorite (of many) accounts got blocked by .ml, so now they don’t want anyone going there.
  
  I don’t get the .ml drama tho, never. I realized it was a silly place long ago, so I blocked the whole instance.
  
  I did the same for a couple others. It takes like two seconds.
  
  Who cares if it has bigger communities than others? If that’s all I cared about I’d still be on Reddit
  
  I think a lot or people (like OP) can’t drop this mindset because they’re not on the fediverse willinging. It’s probably the only social media site where IP bans aren’t a thing. So people IP banned from the big ones, are gonna trickle down here and do dumb drama hunting shit like OP.
  
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- socsa@piefed.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  This is why it's so frustrating, because tankies being overrepresented in online leftist spaces is one of the things which harms the acceptance of leftist ideals more than most of their imperialist windmills.
  
  People aren't scared away from socialism by economic democracy, egalitarianism or radical direct action. They are scared away by confrontational and aggressive tankies defending tyrants, who seem to care more about relitigating random cold war drama than lifting up workers.
  
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- umbrella@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  that state capitalism was able to grow the poorest country in the world into one of the richest without relying on destroying the third world to do so.
  
  that sounds like a step up to me.
  
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  - halm@leminal.space ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    without relying on destroying the third world
    
    Whether you’re talking about Russia or China here, both of those countries have massive resources, both natural and in terms of population. I’d argue that they didn’t have to look for (other) third world countries to ruin; they had plenty of area and people of their own to turn to.
    
    Also, a Lemmy ML user charging into the comments to defend state capitalism in oppressive regimes kinda proves my point.
    
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  - Zoboomafoo@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    But can they hit the dismount back to communism?
    
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  - zbyte64@awful.systems ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You have a sales pitch that works for the poorest countries, what do you have for the wealthiest?
    
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- fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The Hexbear and .ml instances aren’t really tankies/communists, IMHO. Some of them, sure, but mostly it’s just a facade for their propaganda.
  
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  - givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    A “tankie” isn’t the same as a communist.
    
    A “tankie” is someone that takes China’s side (the tanks) in that famous picture of Tiananmen square.
    
    Being a “tankie” is using communism as a facade for authoritarian governments where a small group of “upper party members” are essentially oligarchs.
    
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  - OpenStars@discuss.online ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    They’re not truly communists, but wouldn’t they still be truly tankies then? Especially in the most literal sense of denying that the Tiananmen Square massacre even took place (or that anyone died from it, or that… whatever other BS interpretation the particular ~~magat~~ tanky you may read it from chooses to subscribe to)?
    
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fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I wonder how many good, reasonable people have checked out Lemmy and seen all the CCP/Kremlin propaganda then just left.

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- maxenmajs@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I was close to leaving. At first I’d been given the impression that “liberal” is a dirty word on Lemmy. It helps that PSAs like this one routinely appear on other instances to inform newcomers. Just keep spreading the knowledge and let it be known that everybody should block those communities.
  
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  - Hadriscus@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    same, that was a weird first impression.
    
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- OpenStars@discuss.online ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Personally I am sitting at 100% of the people who I mention Lemmy to irl doing so. Not only that, but they actually gave me dirty looks and admonished me for even so much as mentioning it. It is easy for us who have blocked such to forget but… the day-1 experience for someone new can be quite shocking. e.g. just search for the word “guillotine”, preferably from an instance you are not logged into, to see all the calls for literal and actual (and not joking… not really) murder of people who participate in such wildly anti-communist practices as … <checks notes> “have bank accounts”.
  
  Though maybe X is just as bad these days? I dunno, I never had an account even when it was Twitter:-D. In any case, it is grandfathered into the public consciousness, and the devil you know… you know? :-P
  
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  - fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yeah, I imagined basically exactly that happening and decided not to tell anyone about it, not yet anyway. Also, I don’t want them to get death threats from Hexbear like I did…
    
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  - communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    to see all the calls for literal and actual (and not joking… not really) murder of people who participate in such wildly anti-communist practices as … <checks notes> “have bank accounts”.
    
    I’m gonna need a source for this, that sounds too insane to be believable, and i’ve never seen anything like that.
    
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- SorteKanin@feddit.dk ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I mean, lead them to instances that defederate hexbear for starters? Seems reasonable anyway.
  
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- FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I don’t tell anyone I use this site in case they come across that stuff first. I just say I use a site “similar to Reddit”. I’m surprised that they don’t ask me the name but most of my friends don’t spend so much time online.
  
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  - fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Same, I haven’t told a soul I use it despite being active here over a year. I still believe in it though (or just really hate the idea of accepting corporate social media).
    
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- y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I’m one lol. Same with hexbear.
  
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socsa@piefed.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Honestly I think the .ml folks have shown themselves to be such zealots that they should be considered a potemtial security threat to the broader fediverse.

The more places defederate from them, the more opportunity and initiative there will be for alternatives to their largest communities to grow.

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- finitebanjo@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  One of the problems is that Lemmy.ml is literally run by some of the people who developed Lemmy.
  
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  - imaqtpie@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    It also has less users than sh.itjust.works and lemm.ee. And way less compared to lemmy.world but I guess they aren’t linked on the joinlemmy site for some reason
    
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  - P4ulin_Kbana@lemmy.eco.br ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    one with the highest number of users listed there with the exception of lemmynsfw.
    
    Why? Just why?
    
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- kuato@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  Honestly I think the .ml folks have shown themselves to be such zealots that they should be considered a potential security threat to the broader fediverse.
  
  This is the most hyperbolic take yet 😂 I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious fediverse memes.
  
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MyOpinion@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Yes avoid .ml and hexbear and life is mostly good here.

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- Jrockwar@feddit.uk ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  What’s the problem with hexbear, is it the same? Genuine question - I think the only community in hexbear I follow is “Gaming” and it’s reasonably civil there.
  
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  - Monstrosity@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Hexbear is way worse, imo. Those folks will straight up harass dissenters. Stay away or maybe just stick to your gaming sub if you’re happy there.
    
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  - Edie@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    This is the problem with hexbear: they lure you in with things like gaming and then you start agreeing with them that none should go hungry or homeless and once you realize it, you’ve become a trans redfash tankie gobbunist (/s)
    
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  - Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Hexbear has Marxists and Anarchists, it’s a non-sectarian “left-unity” instance. Lemmy.ml is admin’d and moderated by Marxists and some Anarchists. Similar, but different.
    
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  - GiantChickDicks@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I can only speak to my own experience. Most of their communities I’ve seen are not a place where nuanced views are appreciated. I saw a particularly 4Chanesque take where a guy was trashing a girl he dated for her interest in astrology. He was more than fine supporting it and humoring it while they were together. Once dumped, though, he had to use it as an example of everything he had to be tortured with in the relationship.
    
    I had a couple of things to say about that kind of attitude, but the whole of my response centered around learning to pick partners who are aligned with our own values and goals. They banned me because of my username. I have no idea why, other than making assumptions about my views and values in a negative way. A peep into my post history should suggest otherwise, but anyway.
    
    I don’t have a lot of respect for people with strong views that are sensitive about having them challenged. It isn’t a good faith argument.
    
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  - OpenStars@discuss.online ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    The hexbear community predated Lemmy iirc, so they have existed in an isolated bubble for a very long time. Imagine edgy teenagers with an axe to grind and no particular reason to avoid grinding it on anything that they set their sights onto.
    
    Despite running off so much of their own community members, including some actual developers, they seem happy with the way they are. Sadly, they are also happy to spread out from their instance and fuck up everyone else’s day as well - rulez be damned. Notably, they continually keep floating the idea of defederating themselves from the rest of the Fediverse - I mean ofc those instances that have not already cut them off - so if that gives you an idea of what is going on (they are aware of their toxicity, they simply choose to not care).
    
    That particular community might be fine though. Or not. Either way it’s probably more tolerable than many hexbear users that you will see in general across the Fediverse. You’ll see for yourself.
    
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  - MyOpinion@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Hexbear is just as toxic as ml. They will bait you to comment on topics and then remove your comments if they don’t like them. Just a terrible group of people.
    
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  - lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    My experience: I saw a post on hexbear and only one view was present in the comments below… I did not know them then… So. I thought: Let’s share my view.
    
    In the end, I got blocked for arguing and they removed my comment. And the people who responded to my comment with burning flags of a country and wanted its total destruction had nothing to fear. It was the most disgusting experience I have ever had on Lemmy.
    
    But after they removed my comment, I understood why there is only 1 view present… Because the other view gets removed.
    
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  - honeynut@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    the problem with hexbear is the same handful of users that have made it their hobby to complain incessantly about hexbear all over the fediverse
    
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- SorteKanin@feddit.dk ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Sounds hollow coming from an instance that doesn’t even defederate hexbear.
  
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  - lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    My instance does not block them either, but I do.
    
    Had 2 experiences where they tried to silence me via blocking me… And one time, the people I argued with and who wanted the total destruction of a state and posted burning flags of it did not get blocked or warned. I hope, they stay in their echo chamber and don’t ever leave their homes…
    
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Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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. 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, 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. 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.

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- Shiggles@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.
  
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  - Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Lemmy.world is extremely liberal, I wouldn’t classify it as left-leaning. Both .world and sh.itjust.works are generally liberal. 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.
    
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  - Diva@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Being full of anticommunists who call anyone left of Biden a tankie makes you right wing in my eyes at least
    
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- DudeImMacGyver@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works don’t seem to have any noticeable political leanings as far as I can tell. Why do you say they’re right leaning?
  
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  - Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.
    
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  - ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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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  - brucethemoose@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.
    
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  - Stovetop@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.
    
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  - givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.
    
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secret300@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Don’t use lemmy.ml then?

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- OpenStars@discuss.online ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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- EatATaco@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Read the post?
  
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db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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- EleventhHour@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.
  
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- samuelblock@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  For me, it’s not the fact that the instance exists that’s troublesome, it’s the fact that it’s popular, potentially luring new users into a pipeline. It’s truly a shame how big it’s gotten…
  
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- umbrella@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  you mean the us-led neoliberal ideology?
  
  if so agreed
  
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- Objection@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  immiserated possibly a billion more
  
  Hmm, this graph must be upside-down or something, weird.
  
  Image
  
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TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Yeah the moderation on .ml is insane, users are better off letting them fester in their toxic little bubble.

They’re falling behind in MAUs, slowly but surely. It’ll work itself out.

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- synae@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Not everything is about growth. If that instance’s userbase or activity plateaus I’m sure they won’t mind at all.
  
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- Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  MAU?
  
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Dasus@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

lemmy.world/u/davel@lemmy.ml

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.

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- szynaptic@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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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- Rhoeri@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Knew exactly who you were taking about before I even saw the links.
  
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- davel@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
  Image
  
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helloworld55@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Frankly, who cares? If you don’t want to see or participate in tankie propoganda, then don’t. People point out that lemmy.ml is the hub for a lot of communities, so it isn’t reasonable to switch to another instance. And then they bring up communities like !Linux@lemmy.ml Guess what, Linux isn’t meant to be a hub for political discourse, and for the most part, it isn’t. Use lemmy.ml how you want to use it, and if you want to participate in other political leanings, go to a different instance. No one is really stopping you, and that’s the whole idea of the fediverse. And there really isn’t any value lost, because this isn’t a “choose one and only one” situation. You’ve got all of the fediverse at your fingertips

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- bear@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  Use lemmy.ml how you want to use it, and if you want to participate in other political leanings, go to a different instance. No one is really stopping you, and that’s the whole idea of the fediverse. And there really isn’t any value lost, because this isn’t a “choose one and only one” situation. You’ve got all of the fediverse at your fingertips.
  
  Until you make the mistake of replying with the wrong kind of comment to the wrong sub, and get banned from the entire instance and lose the ability to post on many of the largest subs on this side of the fediverse.
  
  Admin overreach and abuse is a major issue for the fediverse because it affects more than just the user in question. Admins of large instances get to decide who has access to the users and communities on their instances, and very often the users of the instance aren’t even aware of it. Mastodon recently implemented a notification for when blocks and defederation remove your follows or followers. Users deserve to know when they are impacted by decisions such as these.
  
  I love the fediverse and want to see it thrive, so we need to stop putting our heads in the sand on this issue. It’s always discussed as if it’s an issue with a few problematic instances rather than the systemic issue in need of a solution that is is.
  
  Admins need the tools to protect their instances from real abuse, but we need to balance that with the right of the users to know what’s going on and not be unfairly deprived of the social aspect of this social media experiment, especially without knowing.
  
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merthyr1831@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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Diva@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I agree with you that this conflict needs a resolution, it’s possible lemmy.ml has done some things wrong, that’s why I support a two state soltion that guarantees lemmy.mls security.

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moosetwin@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
stuff like this is why I have ml and hexbear in my blocklist, they don’t deserve my traffic

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Gammelfisch@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
My post criticizing China’s high-speed rail network was yanked. I was surprised and immediately thought of Reddit.

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IndustryStandard@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Brand new account makes smear post against Lemmy.ml

Yep the .world feds are at it again.

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queermunist@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I just don’t understand why people like OP even left Reddit.

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Carrolade@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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bunitor@lemmy.eco.br ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
the software was created by marxist-leninists. maybe deal with it?

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electric_nan@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
If all you want to see are opinions and memes that fit within the political confines of the New York Times, then .ml probably isn’t for you. Lemmy.world has taken a very brave (and rare!) stance of being a champion of neoliberal politics. The mods and users here will do everything they can to make sure you aren’t exposed to any political philosophy to the left of Henry Kissinger.

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pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
i created !de_ml@lemmy.blahaj.zone to help people leave lemmy.ml

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merthyr1831@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
“turn this place into an echo chamber” motherfucker Lemmy world has 10 times the users, and the only “echo chamber” shit I see is insistent Kamala Harris cope and seethe whenever someone mentions Israel or Palestine.

Meanwhile Lemmy . world mods change the TOS to spite individual communities, ban discussion of piracy despite it being perfectly legal and present on a different instance! Grow up.

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manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Anti-communism is the root of fascism

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Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I censored them. All of them.

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doctortran@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I feel like I’ve been saying it from the beginning, but for all of the problems Reddit has that Lemmy ostensibly solves, it opens the door for far worse moderation problems than Reddit had.

We can shit talk Reddit admins all night and day, but their long-standing and often problematic insistence on neutrality was nevertheless beneficial for the site’s growth.

And I think one of the fundamental problems with Lemmy is that too many of the people in charge of various instances don’t have a similar philosophy. They want to choke the place, and curate it to their exact specifications.

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SoJB@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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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peopleproblems@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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OpenStars@discuss.online ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
(1) shoutout to the community at !newtolemmy!newtolemmy@lemmy.ca for helping guide people into things like how to make a functioning link to communities and users, and I posted something there myself mentioning a variety of ways to curate someone’s experiences, e.g. to block extremist content. I would share a link to that here… except links to posts are not fully functional on the Fediverse, since they take you off of your home instance and require jumping through hoops to avoid that. Also, if that community does not show up for you, like if visiting that link it looks empty, then subscribe to it and wait about a day. The Fediverse is not so easy to use as people keep saying it is…

Though ironically, as you said, what’s the point when nobody even knows of that community’s existence. Worse yet, a lot of “guides” pointed to in the sidebar of a large number of instances either have next to no information, or at most only a single years-old post with a ton of comments like “thanks” and “^THIS” that you cannot easily get past b/c of how the Lemmy web UI makes you load only a portion before making you go to the bottom and load another, and another, and another, and another… almost none of which have anything useful to add, and yet the instance admins (which people like Blaze and I have specifically told) choose not to point to a “community”, and instead leave those years-old links to posts. Speaking of, and funny enough, in the case of lemmy.ml go to the sidebar and click the “What is Lemmy.ml” - the result is hilariously on-brand!:-P

(2) measuring community engagement stats can be tricky - for one thing, the numbers when viewed from an external instance are often wrong, but going to the home instance and looking in the sidebar iirc offers the true values. Also, “subscribed” means next to nothing, and instead active users per month (AMU) is where it’s at. With that in mind then:

linux@lemmy.ml has 2.23k AMUs

linux@lemmy.world has 1.39k AMUs

after that it drops precipitously, e.g. linux@sh.itjust.works has just 36 AMUs

Still, linux@lemmy.world is not nothing, with 39% of these users - a lower-bound estimate since many people are likely subscribed to both.

(3) And Linux@lemmy.ml is the #3 community on that instance. The large majority of the other communities - asklemmy, memes, news, privacy, technology, etc. - all have counterparts on other instances.

One counterexample that is pretty bad is firefox, with lemmy.ml vs. lemmy.world having 3.82k vs. 0.72 AMUs, respectively.

So, do whatever you want, but it is what it is. Personally I’ve user-blocked lemmy.ml b/c… well, you can see it yourself from the replies to your post here, it’s just not worth the hassle of having to receive such in my feed (though sadly, user-blocking seems to make extraordinarily little difference compared to not doing such). All I can suggest is that while it may not be “easy”, we can each of us be a part of the change that we want to see in the world. Find, subscribe to, and POST on communities that you would like to see grow.
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lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

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.

It depends on what exactly do you consider the problem to be, but my understanding is that solutions to the more general problem of “what server a community is in” are already in the works (multicommunities and stuff).

As for a more local kind of change… Be the change you want to see. Start up, and maintain, those alt communities that would serve as counterweights to the ones that are in .ml. Also, understand why they are in .ml in the first place yet still manage to function.

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