Lead Lemmy Developer, Dessalines, denying the Tiananmen Square Massacre and praising the Uyghur Genocide
https://sh.itjust.works/post/8419342
Dessalines AKA “parentis_shotgun” on Reddit, is the main Lemmy dev, also the admin of lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml.
Their post and discussions on Reddit (archive as the original post must have been removed):
Please join the discussions for Lemmy.ml tankie censorship problem:
https://lemmy.world/post/16211417
And the discussions for finding/creating alternative communities on other instances:
https://lemmy.world/post/16235541
What is a tankie?
Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to authoritarian communists, especially those who support acts of repression by such regimes or their allies. More specifically, the term has been applied to those who express support for one-party Marxist–Leninist socialist republics, whether contemporary or historical.
Edit: missed that your already mentioned it, I guess the lemmy.ml link might still be useful
A list of alternative communities to the lemmy.ml ones: https://lemmy.ml/post/16531126
Yeah this is the origin of Lemmy. Reddit banned some far left subreddits years ago and so some Communists went and made Lemmy.
Just block the instance if it bothers you. Jeez.
Do you know the political views of the developers of every piece of software you use? Why is Lemmy different?
Because it’s not just any political view, tankism is part of the ideologies that support regimes which unmistakably restrict the freedom of speech. This could be an issue for an internet forum.
It’s actually not different from having a right wing billionaire buying a social media. It’s very much the same thing, and most people on the fediverse are there to avoid this kind of political influences on the platform.Because anti-communists will bicker about every single thing they’ve been taught not to like about communism and remain quiet in terms of criticism to the current system
I‘m glad that the fediverse resists excessive moderation and silencing of unwanted political opinions. I‘m not a fan of some of the things said or done on .ml but we wont do anything which is awesome. You can make your own instance and defederate, ban, block whoever you like.
To make my point clear, I made a large donation to the lemmy devs as I think they are doing awesome work. @dessalines@lemmy.ml especially is a tremendous help for the open source community.
But of course you‘re entitled to your opinion. Have a good day.
You will be surprised how much of the open source software out there is written and maintained by lefties and tankies.
Sadly conservatives seem to have either lower education and are not notorious for their sharing and selflessness.
Everyone that has been on the Internet for more than a few days has an illinformed hot-take floating around. You can learn something for a perspective even if it’s not based in fact. Read with compassion and you don’t have to believe everything you read.
Anyone else seeing the irony of objecting to ml politics being discussed on a platform built by a ml for discussing and organizing around ml politics?
To clarify, since this topic is something that I have experienced quite a lot over my two months here, now: I do not have any problem whatsoever with tankie/communist/leftist politics. I also don’t have a problem with people discussing them.
What I do have a problem with is:
- ad hom attacks calling me a “lib” when I question whether authoritarianism on the left is really much better than authoritarianism on the right
- unequal moderation, ie. being banned/having comments deleted for giving the same bitchy energy I receive over the course of a debate, without the same enforcement of the other user
- having a long conversation, in good faith, about politics, media, and disinformation, including providing sources and reading sources in return, with mods and then finding the entire thread deleted because I said something critical of China, or insisted on alternative, nongovernmental sources for news
- having these activities result in bans from subs that I have never commented in, and being unable to appeal or understand them
And I think it’s ok to think that these practices are inherently bad for a social media platform, and working with others to advocate against those practices.
The entire point of federated social media is there isn’t centralized control: every instance is able to set their own rules and enforce them how they choose to. They don’t have to allow you to use their instance and you don’t have to allow them yours.
“I don’t like how they’re moderating me” - well good thing they built the platform so you can choose moderation that suits you better
I understand your point, but when a group of ideologues has de facto control over one of/some of the largest entities on a social media platform, and bans people for ideology without warning, explanation, or recourse, this amounts to centralized control, or at the very least undue influence.
For me personally, it wouldn’t be a big issue if .ml made its bend and moderation practices clear, because I could have avoided the headache when I was first using lemmy. I wouldn’t choose to engage with a forum that has “no critique of any country that calls itself Communist is allowed, anywhere, ever, for any reason, or we will bar you from participating in all communities on this platform” and I’m sure a lot of others feel the same way. What’s more, I bet the admin of .ml know that, too, and keep these practices opaque because they are interested in new users.
Why don’t .ml users retreat to hexbear or lemmygrad, if making the moderation practices on one of the largest instances fair is so odious?
Why don’t .ml users retreat to hexbear or lemmygrad, if making the moderation practices on one of the largest instances fair is so odious?
lmao the gall of complaining about not being allowed to espouse your ideological opinion on their instance, and then suggesting they should be the ones to retreat to a different space.
For me personally, it wouldn’t be a big issue if .ml made its bend and moderation practices clear, because I could have avoided the headache when I was first using lemmy.
Well it seems like all those people are able to understand and live by those moderation practices just fine, maybe it’s a good thing that you’re not on .ml? Lemmy.ml has been happily existing as their own thing and their own rules, don’t you think it’s a little backwards that you’re suggesting they relinquish their community so that… what, everyone who’s not currently a part of .ml can move in? Is this a new form of digital colonialism I’m just not aware of?
If you really don’t like .ml then block them, or get your instance admins to de-federate, or, idk, maybe just know whose house you’re in when you’re engaging in arguments along ideological fault lines? They have a different opinion than you and don’t tolerate users who push that boundary, that doesn’t sound unreasonable when there are 600 or so other servers you could move to or start your own. If they haven’t banned you outright congratulations, you get another chance to participate.
IDK, I’ve somehow managed to avoid more than 1 or 2 comment removals on any of the instances (despite being infamous in .world for getting into it all the fucking time) over the last year, maybe it’s not a problem with their moderation but a problem with… dare I say it?.. you?
Not really, it’s software which specifically allows people to defederate, so it’s by design that you’d have splinters.
Right, which is why pointing this out is especially silly
Yes please do tell me more how you’re censored by Lemmy devs in a post on the top of Lemmy crybaby.
Regarding lemmy.ml: yes, you should avoid it. It does not make sense to create politically-neutral communities on a politically-oriented instance.
Regarding Dessalines: The great thing about Lemmy is that I don’t need to give a shit about the lead developer’s politics, because he’s not in control of how Lemmy is used, and if he ever tried some kind of heinous cross-instance power grab, it would get shut down before it got started.
Regarding the cognitive dissonance required to A) value decentralization of power, and also B) support the CCP: 🤦
Regarding the cognitive dissonance required to A) value decentralization of power, and also B) support the CCP: 🤦
One of the tenets of Marxism-Leninism is that a dictatorship is required to guide the proletariat to communist society (which would be completely stateless). So the dissonance is inherent in Leninist dogma 🤷
Dictatorship of the Proletariat. This is used in contrast with Capitalist Liberal Democracy, which Marx called the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie. It doesn’t refer to a literal Dictatorship as we commonly understand it, but instead to whichever class controls the state, Capitalists or Workers.
Lenin didn’t invent the concept of the DotP, that was Marx, and was his way of advocating for violent revolution, which in Engels words is “the most authoritarian action one could take” in his essay On Authourity.
As for Communism being Stateless, yes, technically, but as a long result of elimination of contradictions. Marx didn’t see the state as an “evil” so much as a tool that would eventually just be unnecessary, same as Money, not a temporary sacrifice for something eventually greater. This is outlined in Critique of the Gotha Programme.
Are there people that don’t know that Lemmy is developed by Marxists, and their instance is run by Marxists? Thought that was common knowledge, that’s why Lemmy exists in the first place, it was developed along Communist principles.
Great. now we have fediverse Stalin :D
Are you referring to me? Or Dessalines?
If you’re new to Lemmy then it won’t be common knowledge at all.
Could be, but again, Lemmy was made along Communist principles, it’s safe to assume people interested in Communist principles are going to be here.
That’s not quite correct, they are Marxists Leninists, who are the more Authoritarian and reactionary counterparts.
All Marxist-Leninists are Marxists, not all Marxists are Marxist-Leninists.
It’s accurate to describe them as Marxists still.
technically accurate sure, but it implies that all marxists are tankies, which is absolutely not true.
what precisely would be the problem with referring to them by the specific term for what they are?
What separates Marxists from Tankies? I’ve seen dozens of definitions of tankie.
It’s important to recognize that Marxist-Leninists far, far outweigh the number of anti-Lenin Marxists. You don’t have to agree with Lenin to acknowledge that at this point he is almost as relevant to Marxism in a geopolitical context as Marx himself.
oh i see now you’re on lemmy.ml lol, good thing i avoided that endless bad faith argument
What part of that was bad-faith?
your accusation of bad faith is, itself, bad faith.
Kind of but not really. They’re state capitalists.
How so? Where along Lenin’s analysis of Marxism does there become a jump away?
Uh the fact that the workers didn’t own the means of production but the state did. Spare me all the philosophical pretzels about how the state WAS the people haha.
Since when does Marx say that a Worker-State isn’t Socialist? You may wish to revisit Critique of the Gotha Programme. No need to read Lenin there! Marx was no anarchist.
I’m not an anarchist. But pretty sure “Capitalism but the booj is the government”. Isn’t Communism
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This whole lemmy tankie dev thing has been discussed ad nauseam here for the past year or so. Not sure what solutions you suggest, but if I were to filter my software by who’s an asshole dev and who’s not, that list will end up really short.
As far as the ml instance goes, I don’t agree that we should start defederating left and right with any and all undesirables, but to each their own. At least people now will be in the know, and it might take some weight off lemmy.world
I’ve only been on Lemmy a month, and this shit is already exhausting. Isn’t a main point of this whole fediverse thing that you can just block entire instances as well as users? Why is this even an ongoing topic that spans multiple communities?
Isn’t a main point of this whole fediverse thing that you can just block entire instances as well as users?
You can do exactly that. OP wants everyone to do it.
I’m new here, so pardon my lack of understanding. But if this lemmy_.ml place is engaging in such disagreed upon behavior by so many people, why hasn’t it been banned so I’m not even seeing it in the first place? I’ve recently learned there are whole lemmy servers ignored or banned by most other civil lemmy servers due to their bad behavior, why not ml?
If this really has been going on for over a year, and so many communities are against it, why is it not banned?
Who would “ban” Lemmy.ml? There isn’t a “master instance” over all, each instance is an island.
Lemmy.world is currently discussing whether or not to sever ties with Lemmy.ml, just like Literature.cafe alreay did.
Lemmy.world has already defederated from Lemmygrad and Hexbear, the 2 largest Marxist instances, so Lemmy.ml is the last major Marxist-friendly instance that Lemmy.world interacts with.
For clarity, Lemmy.ml is seen very positively by some servers, and negatively by others. You are getting viewpoints largely from Lemmy.world, whereas other communities like db0, Hexbear, Lemmygrad, Blahaj.zone, or otherwise may have different or opposite stances.
That’s the beauty and messiness of federation.
Please bear in mind that I’m a lemmy.ml user (though not a tankie, nor marxist, nor even socialist.)
Look at OP. How many lines are about smearing someone for their politics and beliefs (Even the subject line covers ONLY that), and how many are about the need to improve moderation practices at .ml (precious few, not even the subject line).
IMO that’s one reason. The discussion rarely ends up being about moderation practices even when that’s the stated goal. It ends up being about not liking someone’s views.
The other reasons - you can personally block that instance if you choose, but for it to be hidden from EVERYONE on an instance, the admins of the instances need to make that decision. (To defederate.) There are lots of potential reasons not to do so, and I think many of them boil down to not throwing out the baby with the bathwater since there are plenty of users on ml like me who are not tankies and are just having the same discussions we’d have anywhere.
I got a 3 day ban from one single community at .ml within my first couple days here for using the term “whataboutism” - I suspect it was an automod action. I wasn’t really happy about it, but eh? shrug
I have the same answer for folks now that I did when social media was somehow full of US conservatives claiming they could no longer speak their minds on social media. No one is obligated to give me or you or anyone a platform. If Lemmy.ml is that much of a shithole, it will eventually get defederated broadly, and everyone who isn’t a tankie will stop using it.
The occasional thread like this, or someone complaining that my opinion is invalid because I’m an ml user (has happened maybe three times) are the only times I ever think about it really.
OP has been here two months, and they were shocked to find out an instance literally named after Karl Marx and John Lennin would pretend to be on the left but support authoritarian governments…
And they assume since they just “discovered” it, no one else knows.
YSK
Why should I give a fuck
Because fuck you if you are tankie apologist.
Yeah, but the dude who makes my sandwiches might be one as well…
Then fuck him as well.
To me it is weird that every day on lemmy I see new posts complaining about all tankies… but I never actually see any of the content they are complaining about. And outside of lemmy, I never see or hear the word ‘tankies’ used at all. I’ve asked a couple of people I know in real life if they ever seen discussions about it in their parts of the internet, and none of them people I’ve asked have ever heard the word before.
So… like I said, I find it weird. It’s like some kind of lemmy boogieman.
that’s because they’re deleting posts. you don’t see it until you are subjected to it
Here’s an idea, block .ml and SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY.
It feels like 30% of all Lemmy use is capitalists whining that they don’t have a central anti leftist authority to block everyone they don’t like, by linking the same two fucking posts from over at least 1 year ago or posts where they “argue” by shouting “fuck you Tankie” and it didn’t go their way.
If you don’t like how its run, leave. THATS THE WHOLE POINT. If you want a central authority thats gonna be strongly pro-capital, go back to Reddit. Either way:
SHUT. THE FUCK. UP.
your tantrum is much more cringe than any complain post I’ve ever seen lmao
