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/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.
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.
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.
Yeah coming to lemmy and finding out about the so called communist reminded me more of those in favor of the small ruling elite like the pigs from Animal Farm was surprising. Not realizing they are the ones being sent to the glue factory while the pigs lounge around enjoying the lavish life in this so called communist workers paradise.
Reminded me nothing of socialists or at least what I think of socialism with it reminding me of more the monarchy. They seem more like nationalists who coopted socialism/communism to white wash what they actually support and overlooking the elite ruling class that they are not a part of.
Much like the fascists in Western countries who deny they are fascists and are for democracy while supporting ideas of coups for life time dictators that hold their views. Very similar groups.
They seem more like nationalists who coopted socialism/communism to white wash what they actually support and overlooking the elite ruling class that they are not a part of.
…
Yes…
They’re defenders of USSR and China…
So obviously they’re not going to actually be socialis/communist.
The problem is when capitalists lump actuall socialists/communists with the fake ones.
Obvious to you (and me), yet somehow they themselves don’t see it.
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™.
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 [edit: international] left that aren’t otherwise discerned.
Unfortunately they take the mic and poison the conversation. Imo they hold back progressive adoption/discussion.
I don’t disagree, therefore the attempt to disentangle the actual ideologies from the totalitarian stans who got stuck on '80s propaganda.
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.
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 have. 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.
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.
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.
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
magattanky you may read it from chooses to subscribe to)?I think they’re paid to spread disinformation (or run LLMs that spread it) that makes “the West” look bad and their authoritarian leaders (CCP, Kremlin) look good.
So if someone mentions Tiananmen Square they delete it or lie about it, or say “what about Mk ultra,” but not because they actually believe in anything other than getting paid.
Never underestimate the utility of a useful idiot, who will do it for free ™.
Though I will add that the West also does a fantastic job, at making itself look bad:-). In large part by actually being thus:-).
Though also the West tends to be fairly open about that - e.g. here’s a segment from the Wikipedia page for Christopher Columbus:
Some historians have criticized Columbus for initiating the widespread colonization of the Americas and for abusing its native population.[300][114][301][302] On St. Croix, Columbus’s friend Michele da Cuneo—according to his own account—kept an indigenous woman he captured, whom Columbus “gave to [him]”, then brutally raped her.[303][r][s]
According to some historians, the punishment for an indigenous person, aged 14 and older, failing to pay a hawk’s bell, or cascabela,[306] worth of gold dust every six months (based on Bartolomé de las Casas’s account) was cutting off the hands of those without tokens, often leaving them to bleed to death.[296][114][307]
So our sins tend to be on full public view - Donald Trump’s suing anyone who criticizes him in order to shut them up notwithstanding - while in contrast, try saying something like “the Tiananmen Square massacre happened”, and see how fast you get banned from Lemmy.ml. They are not the same! (the badness of The West that acknowledges errors yet does nothing whatsoever to counteract them, vs. tankies who don’t even seem to be aware of the simplest of basic facts!)
Anyway, be advised that we must stop this conversation here - the last time I even so much as questioned whether Dessalines was receiving money from the Chinese government (as someone said, which I included an exact URL to iirc) or the Russian one, to develop the Lemmy codebase (nothing necessarily nefarious there by itself - grants should be sought out, no?), my comments were removed. In fact, I only have 3 comments removed across the entire Fediverse for the past 10 months that I’ve had this account, and all 3 were removed for talking negatively about Lemmy.ml. i.e. this conversation is not on lemm.ee that welcomes a diversity of ideas - we are at risk right now of being removed just for what we’ve said so far. So, I guess, if you want to criticize them further, don’t spend too much time typing it all out I suppose:-).
I wonder how many good, reasonable people have checked out Lemmy and seen all the CCP/Kremlin propaganda then just left.
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.
I often see people say that pointing new users towards instances with a lax attitude to defederation is a good idea. I kind of understand the rationale, but I’m not sure I agree. Pointing new users to an instance federated with Hexbear seems to me to be a terrible idea.
Blaze for example blocks all the political communities. That’s… … … not entirely a normal thing that people are most likely to do and moreover to never not do that.
Btw, lemmy.cafe is literally the only instance I’ve ever even so much as heard of that blocks all of the big 3, including lemmy.ml.
same, that was a weird first impression.
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
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…
Yeesh, I am so sorry that happened to you - tankies are just the worst, aren’t they? You could literally put a URL to those exact conversations and they would still come back with “well no, see, we aren’t that way at all bc… shut up!” They enjoy all the drama that they stir up - it’s the point (go read the actual sidebar text of Chapotraphouse and the_dunk_tank and their posts e.g. talking about defederating with the rest of Lemmy, except no they actually don’t want to do that for the simple reason that it provides moar people “to dunk on” - let me know if you want the receipt for that statement and I’ll dig it up).
It is somehow worse than talking to Trump supporters, bc at least those believe in something, as opposed to existing solely for the purpose of “the dunk”.
And then it’s so sad that the rest of Lemmy tolerates it. Not the communism mind you, I’m talking about the dunking and other harassment.
Well, we learn at least, not to mention Lemmy to people irl. It’s so sad that it must be that way… it severely limits our growth, but it is what it is.:-(
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.
I’ve been here since the app exodus and see way more posts complaining about tankies than actual tankie unpleasantness in the popular and top posts. I think most people just looking at the popular posts would not come across any more unpleasantness than they’d see on reddit
This is b/c you are on lemmy.world, which defederated from both lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net. So you only have the likes of lemmy.ml and midwest.social to contend with, which are nowhere near as extreme as those others.
Also, by the time of the Rexodus a lot of that drama had already been hashed out, hence posts like the OP are rare these days. But it is preserved if you want to seek it out.
A lot of what OP is talking about is the “unexpectedness” of making a comment that might seem reasonable to them (like “the Tiananmen Square massacre actually did happen tho”), and then shockingly they get banned even from communities that they had never even so much as heard of, never mind visited. The admins of that instance are VERY eager to whip out a VERY heavy ban hammer upon their slightest whim. Which is… fine, it’s theirs to do with as they please, but some newer people (like OP) are shocked at how anti-democratic that seems, and wish that they had been told. Especially since if you read the sidebar of places such as lemmy.world, you would not expect that behavior - all the more so from an admin instance. Hence they tell others. And then new people join, and the tanky vs. anti-tanky cycle repeats:-D.
I think you make good points but isn’t this thread about lemmy.ml and the OP on lemmy.world?
First, the entire text is cross-posted from https://feddit.nl/post/16246531 - OP had nothing to add on their own, apparently. The OOP was likewise on feddit.nl. The community happens to be on Lemmy.world.
You also brought up your own personal experiences to add to the situation, so I pointed out that you, being on lemmy.world, would have different experiences than e.g. someone on feddit.nl. I note that that instance has not defederated from either lemmygrad.ml or hexbear.net. If you don’t know what they are about, I’m saying that yes lemmy.ml are still “tankies”, but like 1% of the problems of toxicity compared to those other two instances, so much so that while lemmy.world remains federated with lemmy.ml, it has chosen to defederate from both of those other two.
Also, don’t miss the main reason for the drama in the first place: the images show the OOP being banned. i.e. what you do not see is the point here, bc of the heavy handed banning. So you wouldn’t “see” it then, as you say just looking at the popular posts, unless you happened to have been viewing the mod log on your own initiative. The fact that any divergence of opinion is being suppressed is very much the point here. It leads to the creation of an echo chamber, which allows solely the opinions of the admins to be allowed to be spoken of.
But you need not simply believe me: check it out for yourself. e.g. go to lemmygrad.ml and see what is there - it took me (not joking) like two seconds to find this comment: “Shoot him in the head” at https://lemmygrad.ml/post/6010525, all the while making fun of Americans for being violent etc. (though when it happens on lemmy.ml - example, this one admittedly took a lot longer to find, maybe 30 seconds, though it was still on the front page - it tends to be far more tame) Note I am not complaining about the violent rhetoric here, but the total lack of self-awareness. USA=bad bc of genocide, while Russia and China are “not” doing genocide. It’s a special brand of “my side good, their side bad”, that I for one do not find very intellectually engaging. Therefore I do not choose to engage with Truth Social, or the equivalent Lemmy instances.
Thanks for the long and considered response. I did misread the post header the first time.
I am glad to have maybe helped, even if only in some small way.:-)
You had a lot of really good comments in this thread. And also in general. Thank you for being here 🫡
Wait, what’s wrong with midwest.social?
I didn’t see much of it except for one burst where Hexbear was getting rowdy with my instance- that was… annoying.
There was some drama I don’t recall the specifics of but it apparently angered Hexbear enough that I started seeing a lot of them in basically every comment section.
I browse ‘all’ quite a bit, a few times a day, and I have had the same experience as you. I see more posts complaining about “.ml/tankies/etc” than I ever see problematic/whatever posts from them.
You’re both on .world, which isn’t federated with hexbear, which is the most annoying instance. They’ll brigade other communities, for example the recent thread over at https://jlai.lu/post/11504685 (view it from that instance to see the hexbear comments)
I browse all sometimes from an instance federated with hexbear and I roll my eyes quite a bit whenever I do
Lemmy.world has like 80% of the lemmy fediverse or something like that, so this I’d a problem not thag many people are actually going to run into realistically.
I mean, lead them to instances that defederate hexbear for starters? Seems reasonable anyway.
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.
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).
I’m one lol. Same with hexbear.
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.
The more places defederate from them, the more opportunity and initiative there will be for alternatives to their largest communities to grow.
One of the problems is that Lemmy.ml is literally run by some of the people who developed Lemmy and it’s one of the few instances on https://join-lemmy.org/instances and the one with the highest number of users listed there with the exception of lemmynsfw.
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
It was removed from it to avoid over centralization on the fediverse. It already has like 80% of users
one with the highest number of users listed there with the exception of lemmynsfw.
Why? Just why?
Fully anonymous porn viewing is something very much coveted, and there is also a huge industry whose target audience is net denizens so you could also make an argument that the number of users is inflated by the industry users.
I mean, I don’t believe it’s really that anonymous, and it’s an actual “industry”, more of people posting their photos.
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.
Edit to add: oic, your alts keep getting banned
Yes avoid .ml and hexbear and life is mostly good here.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Sounds hollow coming from an instance that doesn’t even defederate hexbear.
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…
User blocking merely blocks their communities. You’ll still see comments from the instance and you’ll still see posts in other communities from their users. You’ll also still have their votes influence your feed.
Defederation is the more proper tool to use. Individual user blocking is not effective.
My instance has downvotes disabled. Only upvotes matter. So, at least, I don’t see destructive voting…
And as long, as I don’t post in their communities, they can’t silence me and have to deal with my view differently than just by removing it…
Hexbear doesn’t have downvotes either actually. That seems to be the main reason they brigade. Everyone has to comment to show their negative opinion on something.
“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.
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.
Why doesn’t this one open on my mbin instance?
🤷
Don’t use lemmy.ml then?
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.
Read the post?
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.
MAU?
Monthly Active Users
It’s a user that has posted/commented within the last 30 days, and it’s the best metric for measuring the activity of an instance
MAU: monthly active users
Not everything is about growth. If that instance’s userbase or activity plateaus I’m sure they won’t mind at all.
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/davel@lemmy.ml
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.
Knew exactly who you were taking about before I even saw the links.
Because LW is just as bad.
.ml is run by angry tankie assholes.
LW is run by moral superiority assholes.
Assholes, assholes everywhere.
But .ee is where all the cool kids hang out, right?
I expected this type of response from idiots who think “omg this guy insulted my instance… that means they insulted me!!!”
Linux sub?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I don’t think any ideology has not had brutality committed in its name.
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.
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.
Hair splitting. Some ideologies are more dangerous than others.
Sure, not arguing that. But there’s no ideology that can completely preclude violence.
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.
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…
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.
stuff like this is why I have ml and hexbear in my blocklist, they don’t deserve my traffic
You really should join an instance that defederates from those instances. That is the way to actually “vote” on the fediverse, not via simple user blocking that doesn’t actually achieve what you think it does, as the other reply points out.
There is only a singular instance in the entire Fediverse that blocks all of the big 3 including lemmy.ml, from what I can see: lemmy.cafe. And roughly a month ago it was still federated with hexbear.net - though that was due to a bug/oversight and when it was pointed out to the admin was immediately corrected. It is a tiny instance, with only 18 users per day or 44 per month, which leaves me wondering how “robust” it is - how long has it been in operation? How long would it expect to remain? (I recall instances such as dmv.social dying off with little to no notice, though that was due to the CSAM attacks that have since been mitigated by software).
I may switch to them regardless - they have some nice features (including a link for new users to check out !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca - so friendly and welcoming!!:-), though was waiting for the likes of Sublinks, Piefed, and Mbin to catch up a bit in case they would be better than any implementation of Lemmy. Anyway I’ve been busy irl lately and not wanting to spend time thinking about this.
I say all this in case my personal example could help illustrate: there are barriers to switching.:-) Though I don’t know if everyone suddenly jumping onto that same instance would count as much of a “vote”, and especially people not doing such shouldn’t count as a vote in the opposite direction, either? Though I do take your point, ultimately we cannot control others, only ourselves, so it is our “fault” for accepting the way that things are now, rather than seeking to change them.
Also if it helps to add: many people feel that communities such as firefox@lemmy.ml that have ~2/3rds of all monthly active users for a firefox-specific community essentially hold hostage the content that they want to see, without an account that can interact with it. Ideally the politics would be separated from the non-political content - much like the NSFW tag + especially the settings button to filter out such if desired - allows us all to exist in the same space free of any conflict (barring the occasional outlier, which I’ve seen only like once or twice in the entirety of last year), however, people (such as users of those big 3 instances) refuse to label their politically extremist content, and do other things not in good faith like brigade even instance-specific communities (I can find an example if you like, also relevant is that the option to set them to “private” does not exist until… is it 0.19.6 iirc?).
So for some people, it is not enough to simply leave, they want to help migrate everyone out. By increasing awareness of the situation.
You may want to consider the fact that instance blocks on the user side don’t actually effect that, they are not in any way like defederation, not by a long shot. They simply filter communities from those instances, and not much else. It doesn’t even hide user interactions from those instances.
They simply filter communities from those instances, and not much else. It doesn’t even hide user interactions from those instances.
Yep. “Block instance” is basically “block all communities on this instance”. Its API-level behavior leaves a lot to be desired.
Some UIs will filter users from blocked instances (posts and comments). I know Tesseract does, and I think maybe Boost does?
Oh that’s so awesome! Mbin, Piefed, Sublinks, and even if Tesseract is currently running Lemmy (though I thought you mentioned wanting to switch it to Sublinks or something when that gets ready), it too helps mitigate some of the known issues. I do have enormous respect for the hard work and effort put into the Lemmy codebase… but I am even more excited to think about the possibilities of growth that lie ahead!:-)
I mean I think that’s the idea, they didn’t want people blocking the instance to disrupt normal discussions by hiding the users.
Their intent wasn’t to offer an alternative to defederation, but rather for blocking all an instance’s communities manually.
My post criticizing China’s high-speed rail network was yanked. I was surprised and immediately thought of Reddit.
Where on reddit was as bad as .ml? Other than maybe the Donald or conservative?
Same. Their SCS incursion and claiming it as their own.
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
<EDIT> So this came off a bit abrasive. But the point I want to convey is that if you want to have deep/heated political discourse, either do that on a community (and instance) suitable for it, or use an account specifically for political discussion. I think it helps everyone. The mods can referee communities with more clear boundaries, the lurkers/users don’t need to worry about political debates when looking up tech support or whatever, and you (the reader/political dissident) can still enjoy your discussions with less worry about being randomly banned. </EDIT>
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. Or maybe they just see you out and about and decide to ban you on sight because they don’t like what you said. There’s nothing stopping that.
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 the actions taken on their behalf. Mastodon recently implemented a notification for when blocks and defederation remove your follows or followers, and this is a great first step. 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.
It’s shocking to me when people say that reddit moderators are more overbearing than here. They’ll literally ban you for how you vote here. Lol
i created !de_ml@lemmy.blahaj.zone to help people leave lemmy.ml
On the other hand, I’ve blocked both those instances months ago and it’s been great.
Strangely I did notice I got banned from a blahaj community like a week ago despite not commenting there for at least 6 months, maybe ever?
Which is kind of the whole point of me blocking them
Both have mods/admins that are very very opinionated about things. And they tend to refuse to let things go (much like OP or you making that sub)
So if they see something they dont agree with, they’ll pre-emptively ban an account, because, and this is doubly important right here:
It’s trolls feeding trolls drama in a big loop
You making that sub, OP making this post…
All you’re doing is encouraging them
Can you really not understand?
I’ll try and remember to come back and check if you respond, but I don’t get notifications from instances I’ve blocked.
Edit:
I was banned five days ago apparently for this comment from a year ago:
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/3159844
Definitely not because I blocked that mod five days ago and they desperately found a way to “get back”.
Great example of my point tho, silly instances like that there’s no point in fighting them, just block their instance and go about your life.
You were banned in blahaj.zone for your comment on Chess:
They take the whole trans women allowed/not-allowed in sports thing very serious there, and I agree with them mostly. The sports thing is a dog-whistle transphobes use because it sounds reasonable even though it really isn’t. It is especially unreasonable in a game like Chess (which your agreement to could be seen as agreement with trans-segrigation in sports). It’s likely they reacted way too harshly, outright permanent instance bans over something small like that are very extreme, a warning would’ve probably been the best thing to do, maybe a temp ban at most.
Weird, maybe because I looked at world’s modlog and not theirs like you seem to have done.
I clicked on the link, it was a comment from literally a year ago lol.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/3159844
I blocked the mod of that sub about a week ago, so they likely went and saw my last comment there and banned me for it.
Like I said tho, I’m perfectly fine with it. I blocked their whole instance a long time ago, I think it might have actually been that thread that clued me in it wasn’t worth ever going there again.
Thanks for finding that tho! I’ll remember to check an instance’s own modlog in the future for more details.
Quick edit:
(which your agreement to could be seen as agreement with trans-segrigation in sports).
Nah, I was explaining how the only way to get better at chess is to play better people, and there’s no reason for any classes based around gender. And the explanation for difference in skill, is simply that the best men refused to play women, so they never improved. The first female grand master was only that good because her dad was crazy good and made her and her sister play him constantly.
You need the experience of high level play to be able to play at a high level, and any gender divide in division just prolongs that. So I was arguing against any segregation at all.
That’s why they let it stay up a year until I blocked the mod of that community.
And suddenly it was transphobic.
Yeah I saw it on their modlog. It’s very useful to check the modlogs of remote servers, especially since admin comments removals and site-bans for remote users don’t federate in the modlog.
(which your agreement to could be seen as agreement with trans-segrigation in sports).
Nah, I was explaining how the only way to get better at chess is to play better people, and there’s no reason for any classes based around gender. And the explanation for difference in skill, is simply that the best men refused to play women, so they never improved. The first female grand master was only that good because her dad was crazy good and made her and her sister play him constantly.
You need the experience of high level play to be able to play at a high level, and any gender divide in division just prolongs that. So I was arguing against any segregation at all.
I guess it was likely a miscommunication or misunderstanding. They probably thought you meant something different than what you actually meant.
They probably thought you meant something different than what you actually meant.
…
You think they do an annual review of threads?
It was over a year ago I made the comment, they banned me for it five days ago.
I don’t know man, it’s weird you’re not getting that, but it doesn’t really matter.
I’m sorry if I’m explaining it poorly.
I did remember it wasn’t I blocked a mod, I explained why I might not respond. And apparently they didn’t like that I had blocked their instance
I don’t know, it’s hard to say what actually happened. I will admit that it seems weird but I don’t want to jump to conclusions about how or why they did it, maybe you could post about it on !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com to get different opinions on it.
cheers
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.
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.
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…
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?
