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.

  • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
    43·
    12 days ago

    Then as a student of history, are you saying the Tsars, Kuomintang, Batista regime, and so forth were better for their citizenry than the Communists? It’s very well-recorded just how bad the previous regimes were and how dramatically material conditions improved post-revolution.

    This feels like arguing with a Jehovah’s witness. To your credit, you’re not getting annoyed or abusive in the face of my contradiction. But then that’s also a hallmark of religious people: absolute certitude, which provides a certain peace of mind.

    The fact that I have carefully cited multiple different sources from multiple periods and patiently responded to your bold-faced attacks makes me a “Jehovah’s Witness?” What about those supposed “much better alternatives to Capitalism?” Where are those? I have responded to every point you’ve made, and your response has been to belittle me and take the high-ground without responding in kind. That’s rude.

    • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.worldEnglish
      33·
      12 days ago

      Arguing is tiring, and here the payoff will be small since the conversation has moved on, few others are reading. I’ve made my point.

      Look on the positive side. Humans being what they are, it’s not usually reason that wins debates, but rather the agreeableness of the participants. So you’ve probably won this one by default.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
        43·
        12 days ago

        I think I won both on agreeableness and reason, given that I responded to each of your points and you responded to none of them while calling me a religious fanatic.

            • AchtungDrempels@lemmy.worldEnglish
              33·
              12 days ago

              The hexbear cowbee. But let me rephrase. Are you not engaging in world communities to act as a missionary among the non believers?

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
                43·
                12 days ago

                The Hexbear Cowbee is a 4 month old account, the Lemmy.ml Cowbee is 9 months old. The Hexbear account is the alt that I go to for fun, the Lemmy.ml account is the one I go to to try to correct misconceptions surrounding Marxism. I usually avoid .world communities though, as they are more prone to censorship, I try to stick to Lemmy.ml or other instances unless I see something particularly egregious on .world.

                • AchtungDrempels@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  42·
                  12 days ago

                  as they are more prone to censorship

                  More prone than who? ml?

                  Pretty sure i have seen you say this explicitly at some point, but i’ll just take these easy to find snippets from 6 days ago, where you talk about what you’re up to outside of hexbear, although tbf you were talking about slrpnk users here:

                  I’ve spoken with a few users, carefully pointing out how by being anti-Marxist but not also being anti-liberal, and further having no links to theory of any sort beyond aesthetic choices, opens them up to opportunism. They seemed to vaguely accept it, hope it can get through to them.

                  I am trying to convince individual users when the opportunity arises.

                  You’re doing great! Also with your “reasonable nice guy” facade!

                  • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
                    43·
                    12 days ago

                    More prone than who? ml?

                    Yep, if you’re a Marxist, you risk being censored on .world

                    You’re doing great! Also with your “reasonable nice guy” facade!

                    Do you disagree with what I said there? I fully believe solarpunk is especially at risk of opportunism, I fully back that, and even some of their users agree that they should do more to combat that, such as linking solarpunk theory and trying to be more unified in message.

                    Secondly, what do you mean by “reasonable nice guy facade?” Do you think I have been unreasonable or secretly evil? What’s your point?