The developers who created Lemmy are leftists, and they run the lemmy.ml instance. The lemmy.ml (.ml is for Mali, btw) domain was allegedly chosen because ML can also stand for Marxist-Leninist.
I’m not an expert on the subject, but lemmy.ml users are known for being tankies. People don’t like that.
However, some of you whipper snappers don’t know that those of us with really old accounts joined back when lemmy.ml was the most popular instance. I just like FOSS things.
Edit: added “allegedly”
I’m on ML because it is the dev’s instance, that’s it. Also, I dislike how .world is run.
.ca is a bit more sane and not as authoritarian as .world or .ml. I don’t mind .world, but their admins are inconsistent, IMO
That was the state of things back in '23 when the first migration happened
As a casual lemmy user… how do you switch instances? Download your data, create a new account, upload your data?
Yeah, and them being trigger-happy with the ban hammer is why Lemmy exists at all today. All Reddit alternatives back then were Nazi hotpots, because pretty much only folks who got banned from Reddit joined the alternatives (and back then, Reddit moderation primarily concerned itself with Nazis).
They would show up on dev.lemmy.ml, too, and “just ask questions”, like if an immigrant did a certain crime, would you want them deported?
These questions served no point other than to drive the conversation tone to the right.
And yeah, I was glad that the admins were always vigilant about that and immediately banned anyone asking such ‘questions’, even if it may have thrown legitimately curious folks under the bus, because it allowed proper conversations to exist.
Of course, I have survivorship bias. I don’t concern myself with China or Russia nearly enough to have specific opinions about them.
But when someone is not being intentionally intolerant, I am of the opinion that talking to them is worth it and the only way to help center opinions which one might perceive as extreme.
But well, I also don’t concern myself with my admins nearly enough to have specific opinions about their opinions either. I don’t have to agree with everything they think, just because I’m on their instance, so I don’t care nearly as much as some other folks here.
That doesn’t follow. Truth Social exists, is full of fascists, and is way bigger than Lemmy.
If it weren’t for Reddit deciding to turn against their users in a very dramatic way, Lemmy would still just be a tiny leftist community rather than what it is now: a larger, but still small, mostly leftist, but slightly more centrist, mix of communities that fight all the time.
I came over with the initial wave of Reddit refugees. Lemmy was quite bad back then, with a lot of crap I had to block. It’s better today but it still has a very long way to go.
Also a lot of people just join a random popular instance at the start before looking into political shit like this, and they don’t want to switch later on.
At this point I’m not sure if they are tankies, or whether they’ve just been called tankies by people who call all leftists tankies.
This makes sense.
I do think “tankie” is the wrong word, as “bootlicker” sounds more apt since Russia hasn’t been communist since '91.
As in, these devs are definitely authoritarian, but communist? Absolutely not.
I’m an anarchist, these people are the kind of genocide appreciators who call all dissenting leftists tankies
Nope, clear definition:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to authoritarian communists, especially those who support or defend acts of repression by such regimes, their allies, or deny the occurrence of the events thereof.
I dont think they are tankies. I am an anarchist and I believe communism is as evil as capitalism. I am lemmy.ml so I dont think they are tankies.
Good to know, I totally thought it was a pejorative term for people who supported Kruschev’s use of tanks, and I rarely see people talking about that so I was very confused.
Note: this comment is dripping with sarcasm
I cannot support an instance where criticism of countries like North Korea or Venezuela is sanctioned with 30 day bans, even defending the Russian invasion of Ukraine is tolerated. I love open source software and it breaks my heart, but I completely blocked .ml after multiple incidents I witnessed or was part of in the news and worldnews communities.
Also I cannot really understand the argument of having an “old account”. All it means on Lemmy is having a year and a month in your profile. It is even a good idea to switch your account from time to time to stay more anonymous.
Yeah I made this account with my reddit username. Made another account that I’m building up with a dif username to be more anon and less attachment so more easily abandon able
Tankies aren’t real leftists. They’re morons who honor authority over freedom to the point they’ll suck off authoritarians from history. Basically (very, very basically), they’re the authoritarian “left”… as much as anyone who is rightly left honors undue authority…
The problem is that y’all believe, that acknowledging many of the claims about those countries to be CIA hoaxes, is also somehow a declaration of approval of those countries policies.
You may not like those countries, but you’re taking that to mean you have to personally adopt the position of defending the bullshit lies you’ve been told about them.
No, it’s really not that way, unless you’re a guilt-by-association simplifying dolt. One can be a communist and not like how China is ran nor have to defend it.
I am confused now. I was just called a “leftist Nazi” and “liberal right wing nazi”. Lulz.
My point is that I think the terms “leftist” and “liberal” have been redefined again, just as a heads up.
It’s a weird situation. Billionaires successfully dissolved the left into factions of people who all in-fight over whether or not you’re allowed to say retard, or the n word (hey look I must be one of them). Identity politics. Really unimportant nonsense.
They also successfully got the right to worship billionaires.
Not to get too tin foil hat, but at this point I think it’s safe to say reddit was a psyop.
Billionaires successfully dissolved the left into factions of people who all in-fight
I think this goes all the way back. Leftist groups have been competing basically as long as there’s been a right and left. Going back to the OG “Left,” the French Revolutionaries, you see the Jacobins seize power from the monarchists, after which they start to eliminate competing revolutionary groups who have some ideological differences. In Russia, you’ve got the Mensheviks being eliminated by the Bolsheviks, and then the Trotskyists being eliminated by the Stalinists.
Wherever there is a small difference in ideology and people willing to die for it, the left will always be at each other’s throats.
On the other hand, I think the right keeps succeeding precisely because of identity politics: they unify under an identity instead of an ideology, or I guess maybe more specifically they succeed at turning identity into ideology. Identity politics are pushed by the right as a way of forming out-groups so that the majority can remain unified and always have a “them” to distract from what the ruling “us” is doing.
The lemmy.ml (.ml is for Mali, btw) domain was chosen because ML can also stand for Marxist-Leninist.
Do you have the developers actually claiming this, or only second hand information? I was under the impression that they chose .ml because they were handing those domains out for free.
Okay, so for some context .ml is run by the Lemmy devs and the devs are openly tankies (authoritarian communists). .ml, along with Lemmygrad (also run by the devs) and Hexbear are known as the Tankie Triad. While not as bad as the other two, .ml still has a lot of tankies compared to instances that aren’t part of the triad. Additionally, .ml used to be the recommended instance (until .world came along), making it one of the more populated instances. Most other instances defederate with Lemmygrad and Hexbear, but not necessarily .ml.
Basically, there’s a lot of extremely opinionated and often combative people there and provoking them (intentionally or not) is very easy.
That’s my understanding of the situation anyway.
!meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works might be helpful to better understand the situation
All three are very reasonable and fun if you go in actually willing to chat.
A thread today had every comment criticizing Republicans deleted. Why the fuck would you visit a place plagued with such censorship!?
Can you link the thread/evidence? Given the right context that’d be pretty damning.
As someone brand new to Lemmy I’m now learning a lot of horrible new info on myself based on arbitrarily signing up for a random instance.
I didn’t realize I was supposed to psychically know about lemmy lore before ever using it.
there’s always going to be this stigma against .ml users due to how the .ml instance was formed and how the general userbase behaves.
the good news is that you are always free to switch instances if you find out that you dislike the instance you are currently on. while your posts, comments, and “karma” won’t transfer, you can transfer everything else such as the communities you follow, your settings, and your blocklist.
Karma? I’ve been on lemmy for 9 months and I don’t know that there is karma? Pls tell me mine
I know that there is a number that’s visible on kbin called “reputation”, I think it works like karma, but I’m not sure. Yours is 2286: https://kbin.earth/u/@RidderSport@feddit.org/reputation/threads
FWIW, I left .ml after about a year (and around a month ago) because there were just enough threads shit flinging and just enough posts like below, and just enough people who would dismiss any argument based on seeing .ml that it annoyed the shit out of me.
Not for how anyone at .ml ever treated me. (And FTR I’m not a communist)
So I’d say how much you worry about it is up to you, but switching instances is also pretty easy.
so you admit you’re a tankie alt? Good job, see you on !meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works lol
didn’t you know that signing up for an instance is actually evidence of thoughtcrime?
Just drop them like it’s hot, lose nothing of value. There is probably an instance local to your nation or you can use .world which is a generic nonspecific Lemmy except they defederate from Hexbear and Lemmygrad because those instances spam so much bot content trying to convince users to off their families and neighbors.
Most of us don’t judge users but we are internally vocal about our own social challenges.
.ml is a big instances and people coming from the old web find such attractive, it feels like “the official one” we are well aware.
The have been attempts to advertise avoiding those but were not exactly a well coordinated organization.
Regardless the ideology of .ml and others big instances pose a problem in centralized power. Lemmy works best as many tiny servers organically building a network of content and ideas.
All of Lemmy is accessible as long as your instance is federated (almost all) however some may defederate from those problematic big ones, limiting the posts you can see.
You wont lose much by changing instance right now. There is no karma or rewards associated with your account. You can also make multiple on different instances with the same user name so you have a backup if your main instance goes down.
The main problem with centralisation
If the majority of user and communities live on a the same instance, and that instance goes down or becomes to toxic to keep federated then fediverse loses a large chunk of its whole. While if it a tiny instances that dissapears only a few people and communities need to migrate.
General i also think its beneficial if the owners of an instance are the same people from the communities its hosts. The role of general use instances should be more like a backup mirror
One example is the lemmy.ml problem. You see the rest of the Tankie Triad is pretty widely defederated from, but lemmy.ml isn’t despite doing much of the same things, just a bit more subtlety.
Because lemmy.ml is such a big instance and has a few of the biggest comms (By subscribers only, which means a bunch of dead accounts boosting the numbers, by MAUs a much different story unfolds) many instances admins are hesitant to defederate from them
Big instances carry too much power and influence and if you’re a toxic instance like .ml, it can be used to basically bully other instances into remaining federated with you
the ideology of .ml and others big instances pose a problem in centralized power.
it’s not centralized, .world is considerably bigger and way more conservative, like it even has a splinter /c/196 populated with everyone who thought neo pronouns and basic levels of respect were too hard
it’s not centralized, .world is considerably bigger and way more conservative, like it even has a splinter /c/196 populated with everyone who thought neo pronouns and basic levels of respect were too hard
It’s funny that you still feel the need to spread this slander. Almost like you’re still upset that you spent months defending a blatant troll using an old conservative canard.
I include .world in the category “other”
For the record i am also starting to feel like sopuli is getting a bit crowded. Don’t get me wrong everyone is welcome i just think we can benefit from more independent niches and corners.
Don’t worry much about your instance. .ml is fine, but Lemmygrad.ml in particular is a very strange place. Have a look if you want to read what non-religious people hostile to the United States/West think. Sometimes they make good points but they’re such fundamentalist assholes about everything.
tbf, if you’re not hostile to the US at this point, I’d seriously question your sanity. You don’t need to be a tankie for that.
Just remember that a lot of people on here also used to be the most annoying redditors. Their opinions are worthless.
You’re not expected to know.
Just sign up somewhere else.
All accounts are throw away.
You can always move to another instance. The instance I joined first is very lovely but they’re a bit heavy on defederation, so half of the comments are unavailable. It’s actually very nice, but fomo is too strong with me. When I feel depressed by humanity, I switch back to that one again and feel better, not seeing all the bullshit.
Basically, .ml Tankies (I don’t consider all .ml users to be Tankies just because they’re a .ml users) are authoritarian bootlickers “communists” pretending not to be who routinely deny the human rights violations of the CCP/Russia and hold them up as the gold standard. They refuse to recognize China, Russia and even NK as being authortarian regimes or if they do, its OK/Neccessary because it takes down the west/capitalism. If you have a historical fact that puts any of those countries in a bad light, they’ll probably deny it happend or is just “western propganda.”
So they believe and spread things like the Russia narratives on Ukraine (When it happened they were parroting the whole “special military operation” thing, the current thing is that it was “just a diplomatic maneuver to bring Ukraine to the negotiating table”)
Hex and Grad are very in your face about it, but .ml tends to be more subtle, often opting instead to remove dissenting comments and ban users before letting threads get out of control. So, as a result many instances defed from those 2.
.ml is run by the head Lemmy devs who are, unfortunately, hardcore Tankies themselves and tend to enforce the Tankie mindset throughout with more subtlety through mod/admin action. Or allowing known propaganda outlets to fester
You can check out !meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works if you want to see some documentation of their actions, words and censoring. What I’ve linked here is but a mere sampling of what’s been collected there
^ This is the most accurate explanation. I was on .ml for quite a while before I realized the pattern that any time I criticized Russian attacks or war crimes, I got downvoted and brigaded. Any time I promoted Ukraines right to defend itself I got downvoted and brigaded. Often my posts were removed. Try to mention tienamen square there ;-). They will come troll threads on other instances from time to time too. I just block them these days and refuse to subscribe to any .ml communities.
New users, I recommend blocking this account in particular. This person is completely off the rails, and spends their time on Lemmy pushing debunked western propaganda.
Yea, Western propaganda, like how Russia is just actually the good guys and was totally justified in invading Ukraine to stop the Nazis! Or maybe the “Banderists” or was it actually just a diplomatic maneuver?
I have lots of documented evidence on !meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works to support my stance on lemmy.ml, Tankies and the Tankie Triad, where’s yours? Because the last time I replied to you with all my evidence you checked out and never replied
That’s not true. You’ve openly admitted you only accept corporate or western government sources. The same ones pushing the propaganda you like.
And if it’s an outlet that challenges your narrative, you say it’s not a legitimate source. So it’s this endless feedback loop of trying to prove CIA narratives with you pointing to either the government story, or the news laundering it, with this self-reinforcing nonsense.
No amount of linking to accounts from journalists on the ground or involved in negotiations, or CIA documents revealing hoaxes, has ever budged you an inch or convinced you to question your worldview. Evidence doesn’t work on astroturfers.
More completely made up anti-commie shit. It is not popular in any of those instances to think that Russia isn’t a fascist fuckup of a government.
There are fully factual bases for denying nearly every western smear. That people are invested in hatred formed by US/western propaganda, means all facts and reality are “tankie propaganda”.
Me: Brings receipts
Tankies: “Yea…bu…but… well ACkShuLly it’s just because of your HaTREd as a result of you being fed WeStERn PrOPaGAnDa, so it’s all INVALID! FAKE NEWS!!”
Thanks for the tag!
Your “receipts” include two screenshots of one guy posting links to news sites who wasn’t even from said instance and it had negative vote score. The other is a mod action with 0 context. How you possibly think that represents any popular opinion astounds me.
How do I get your level of entirely unearned self-confidence?
(Takes a deep breath, clears mind, gets into character)
This meme format is a product of capitalism, posted to a capitalist instance, and you should be ashamed. Instead of posting an image of a capitalist pig, why aren’t you out in the streets burning shit down??/? There’s no good capitalist. If you’re not out in the streets overthrowing capitalism and burning everything down, RIGHT NOW, you’re part of the problem! Rabble Rabble Rabble, guillotines, violence violence violence.
In a nutshell, anyway. Or at least that’s how it was from users there on every 3rd post/comment before my instance finally defederated.
The main problem is that any criticism of China is met with an instant ban, as per “Rule 1, 2”.
Oof. That is a lot to take in. Thank you for this; it all makes sense now.
Here’s a sub that has fun watching the Tankie Triad.
