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.
Read fkn anything on lemmy.ml and this is obvious.
And? I’m not a tankie and not a marxist. Hell, I’m not even a socialist. Hell, I identify as a leftist, but I bet lots of folks would tell me I’m nothing of the sort. But I’d rather be on an instance with folks to the left of me than to the right (to the very, very minimal degree that I care about who else is on my instance). I don’t remember why I didn’t sign up for .world, but at the end of the day does it really matter?
The only impact I’ve seen are smear posts like this one, and folks who dismiss opinions if they see a user is from .ml. shrug If that’s as far as folks can look, I’m not interested in talking with them anyway.
I have hexbear blocked in my own settings; if folks want to block .ml that’s no skin off my nose. Ain’t respecting user freedoms great?
Dessalines AKA “parentis_shotgun” on Reddit, is the main Lemmy dev,
So I see you are on a Lemmy instance. If we’re going to smear instances based on the politics of their devs, I’d think you wouldn’t want to use ANY Lemmy instance.
Please don’t conflate tankies with leftist thought. They are not leftists. They are fascists with strong ties toward fascist regimes that are “known” to actively usurp elections around the globe.
A good metric is: a very hardline Communist might have an argument for why effectively slavery is ethical because social and economic planning requires people to engage in jobs they actively do not want to do. I personally consider that the reason that Communism can never work at scale but that is a discussion that needs to be had.
A tankie will just justify anything that China or Russia do. Usually with an attempt to deflect by pointing out something the US or, increasingly, certain EU countries did.
But, regardless: There is another issue with your “just let everyone taolk it out” nonsense. Because the ml moderation team(s) and admin staff have increasingly been using mass bans and false claims of xenophiobia to shut down anything that is not tankie bullshit. So there is no discussion. Just one sided propaganda in some of the largest communities on lemmy.
To expand on the moderation strategy a bit. A LOT of people who aren’t increasingly of one nationality and ethnicity have a lot of problems with ResetEra’s moderation strategy. The mods and admins are known for using a heavy hand and outright mockery against anyone who they disagree with and the remaining community stumble over each other to be part of the “cool crowd”.
But you can also very easily see why the vast majority of leftists and PC gamers and… Asian people left. Because they have a policy to only edit user posts when they contain actively dangerous/illegal statements. So you can see when someone catches a permaban because they dsiagreed with an admin or joked about the corporate interests behind brexit. And you can see the discussion of the remaining users on why that was so fucked… up until the thread gets permanently locked.
With the model ml (and certain other more "world"ly instances…) use… you don’t. You just see comment branches disappear the moment anyone pushes back on some propaganda. And if a user pisses off the admins, they get banned straight up. Often with some comment about how they are racist or xenophobic in the modlog with all of their comments removed but NOT in the modlog. And that is a problem because, unless you were actively following along with that discussion, you never see anything other than MAYBE “wow, a lot of really racist people disagree with this very smart discussion on why Chinese Taipei was always a part of China and is totally not a sovereign-ish nation called Taiwan”
I’m more of a libertarian communist, communist economic theory I think is excellent. That doesn’t mean that communist regimes of the past make any sense, because of their authoritarian bend.
Turns out political opinions arent black and white.
It sounds like you are a Democratic Socialist from this tidbit.
I kind of feel the same way. I think the economic theory behind communism/socialism sounds much more beneficial towards our progress as a species and towards a more sustainable existence. I just don’t agree with the authoritarian methods of implementation. I think that if socialism is going to succeed, it will need to come about in a gradual democratic way.
Nothing wrong with holding a political stance, but they routinely ban people for specious reasons. With some of the biggest communities on .ml this is a problem for the growth of Lemmy.
Nothing wrong with holding a political stance, but they routinely ban people for specious reasons.
OP should have left the politics and personal smears out of it then and opened a discussion about moderation practices. And as OP points out, the person he’s primarily smearing is the main Lemmy dev. What’s the endgame there? Trying to get the main dev thrown off his own project?
OP should have left the politics and personal smears out of it then and opened a discussion about moderation practices
That’s… exactly what OP did, though. Did you even read the post?
To brand the lemmy.ml as the censorship hell that it is.
deleted by creator
Maybe political repression and the mass killing of protestors and the internment of ethnic minorities has very little to do with a countries mode of production. Maybe you guys can advocate for an alternative mode of production without defending genocide and using the military to crack down on protests? And maybe liberals can do the same when Western Capitalist Countries do it?
please… :(
You should know /politics and /news ban anyone critical of israel and Lemmy.world is ran by Zionists.
Lemmy.world is ran by Zionists.
Do you mean people in favor of the existence of a state of Israel (original meaning) which is most of the Western world, so unsurprising, or in favor of the colonization after the 1993 “two states solution” agreement?
If it’s the later, do you have proof?I’m from Israel, and no one is using “Zionism” in the second meaning.
Zionism is, by definition, support for Israel as a Jewish state.
There are those who say “real Zionism” is supporting settlements in Gaza and the west bank, but there are also those who say “real Zionism” is an Israeli state existing alongside a Palestinian state. That’s like a US democrat saying a “true patriot” would support supplying a social safety net for the well-being of all citizens, while a US republican would say a “true patriot” would support a small government that doesn’t restrict the will of all citizens.
Personally, I feel that referring to Zionism in general as support for Israeli control over the west bank and Gaza started as a (partially successful) tactic to de-legitimize the existence of Israel. Not saying everyone who uses the term incorrectly is an antisemitic or whatever, but that’s basically where it came from.
while a US republican would say a “true patriot” would support a small government that doesn’t restrict the will of all citizens.
I don’t think they say this much anymore since all Republican policies are explicitly about restricting the will of their fellow citizens.
Personally, I feel that referring to Zionism in general as support for Israeli control over the west bank and Gaza
I never used it this way or considered it this way until the past few months. 🤔 Now you’d have a hard time convincing me that it’s not what it means.
I don’t think they say this much anymore since all Republican policies are explicitly about restricting the will of their fellow citizens.
Thant’s not really the point, though it does kinda feed into a general issue with the way both out countries (assuming you’re from the US) are divided - When was the last time you had an actual talk with a republican in order to understand what he/she thinks?
I never used it this way or considered it this way until the past few months. 🤔 Now you’d have a hard time convincing me that it’s not what it means.
Err… that’s just the definition of the word? You can look it up on any dictionary.
We could talk about the current government, it’s policy or the opinion of Israelis but saying the entire concept of Zionism equals support for Israeli control over the west bank and Gaza is not only factually wrong, it collapses the Israel-Palestine issue into a winner-take-all situation, where both sides are encouraged to beat each other in the hopes one of them will give up before both are dead.
When was the last time you had an actual talk with a republican in order to understand what he/she thinks?
Every day until the Pandemic. My republican friends now work in a different office than I do. It’s not hard to see the policies and politicians they vote for though, and I can read the handwritten signs in their yards explicitly calling me an idiot, moron, or traitor for having different views than they do. (I see those every day BTW.)
it collapses the Israel-Palestine issue into a winner-take-all situation
I’m just looking at what I’ve spent the past several months witnessing via news reporting and video clips. I’m not debating what the dictionary says about it. (And in any case, dictionaries reflect usage not prescribe it.)
Every day until the Pandemic.
Cool, good for you (seriously). Do you honestly think they’ll say they’re against the freedom of the individual, or is it that you think they’re against it? Not saying you’re right or wrong, just asking if you’re describing what you think they’ll say, their own beliefs or the beliefs/consequences of their party. It’s an important distinction, especially when trying to engage in dialogue with them.
I’m just looking at what I’ve spent the past several months witnessing via news reporting and video clips.
Maybe I don’t follow enough news outside of Israel, but I do read quite a bit and there wasn’t anything about Zionism. Could you maybe link to one or two sources?
I’m not debating what the dictionary says about it.
I’m actually not debating at all, right now I’m trying to understand you, and I’m having some difficulties. My best guess is, you seem to have issues against the Israeli army and government (me too, btw), and somehow decided that’s Zionism. Zionism is more than a century old, and there are plenty of people who call themselves Zionists, yet don’t support all the IDF and the Israeli government did during the past few months (you’re talking to one right now, and Biden is another example). Do you think these people are wrong in what their opinions are? That they’re lying? That they’re not using the correct word, even though that’s the same usage as in the dictionary?
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.
They do the shit constantly and dudes profile pic on git hub is still Fidel Castro
But go off defending these people I guess lol
I’m not defending these people. I’m saying illinformed hot-takes are common on the Internet. However they are an useful opportunity to understand an opposing perspective even if they’re based in factual inaccuracies.
In my experience, most people are great. If a stranger has a wildly opposing opinion to myself, it’s rarely because of differing values and more likely because of differing experiences.
But what we’re saying is that there’s a difference between a mistake/a hot-headed take and a pattern of abuse.
Patterns of abuse need to be taken seriously and no amount of “we’re all human” will mend that, until they themselves choose reform. Plain and simple.
People who choose not to agree to the social contract of tolerance, do not need to be treated with tolerance. Period
Indeed, but this is more about admins banning users from the entire instance because they don’t share the same political views.
.world does this all the time though, especially if you criticize Israel or Biden (or other CIA projects)
That’s fair. I appreciate that every instance host has the right to moderate their community any way they want however moderation rules should be clear and consistent. Banning people for posting respectful criticism of communism is inconsistent with the rules of lemmy.ml
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.
Yes let’s all just pretend their propaganda is actual opinions held by real people.
This entire thread glows and is extremely consistent with CIA goals.
You’re beyond naive if you think the Marxists are brainwashed, yet you and the “people” in this thread aren’t.
Really loving the “What does it matter if they support genocide???” commenters in here. Really showing where their priorities are.
Who gives a fuck
Judging from other threads on the matter, a lot of people don’t even know what “tankie” means.
So here’s a pro tip: replace “tankie” with “dipshit” and the meaning remains the same.
YSK: lemmy.ml is managed by dipshits, and lead lemmy developer is a dipshit
That’s not a really good example. You can replace “dipshit” with “potato” and it will mean the same too.
YSK: There are countless posts by “concerned” users shrieking about tankies. What is the point of these “informational” posts? Looking to stamp out opinions you don’t like so you can turn the fediverse into astroturfed-to-hell-and-back reddit 2.0?
Okay but this isn’t “oh no, there are tankies around”, it’s the admin of one of the largest Lemmy instances systematically suppressing information about massacres and genocide.
There’s quite a big gap between banning “opinions you don’t like” and defederating from a systemically auth-left instance, in the same way that defederating from an auth-right instance would be a no-brainer.
There is a big gap between auth-left and auth-right thought. Auth-right thought imposes violence as an inherent part of the ideology because it promotes the idea of racial supremacy, they have to actively commit violence to achieve their goals. Auth-left uses violence on perceived threats to their order, not based on features people are born with. I do not agree with China’s actions on Tiananmen Square or their treatment of Uyghurs, but these two things are definitely used by the US as a fulcrum to attack China.
Do you not find it odd how much importance is placed on Tiananmen Square after all these decades? Do you not find it odd how hard the US hammers the point of the Uyghur genocide while at the same time fully funding and supporting the genocide of Palestinians? The tactic is to flood communication channels with propaganda to achieve domination over the narrative and this is the sort of thing we’re seeing here with countless posts about tankies. Why are we supposed to take American narratives as gospel to shut down opposing narratives?
Bold to go with the pro-auth-left take
I’m just going to ignore the long responses to stuff I didn’t claim in the first place
I don’t know why the lemmy.ml admins don’t just defederate from everyone but lemmygrad and hexbear. It’s clear that only their extreme views are allowed and they must spend a lot of time banning “libs”.
It would do everyone a favour really. We’d have less instance politics and hopefully more content, and make it the fediverse more attractive to the average person.
I’ve added it to my blocked instances and I’d recommend others who have an issue with the way the communities on that instance are moderated and the way it’s managed to do the same.
Fortunately there are alternative instances and communities that are less authoritarian with their moderation.
Sure, that’s the beauty of federation and defederation.
We’d have less instance politics
How is “defederat[ing] from everyone but lemmygrad and hexbear” not instance politics? Politics, at its core, is the way we distribute political goods, such as physical goods, access to information (including instance posts), and legitimacy, to name a few of the options. What is your definition of politics?
Maybe politics was the wrong word, what I mean is drama.
Don’t lemmy.worlders like to defed for slight disagreements? Just do it and save us from your brainworms.
I’ve seen the label “tankie” be thrown around to describe so many different things to the point that it has lost all meaning to me. I’ve seen it used to describe fascists, I’ve seen it used as a way to discredit someone’s argument without engaging with it, I’ve seen it used used to invalidate arguments because they were to the left of the person throwing the label.
The definition presented uses the word “authoritarian” which, in my eyes, falls on a similar category of “used on so many things it lost all meaning”. (Example)
Using the words authoritarian and communist simultaneously doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to me: As far as I am aware, a communist society is a stateless society. However, Wikipedia defines “authoritarian” as
“Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of democracy and political plurality. It involves the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting.”
Notice the words “strong central power”. Isn’t that a contradiction of what communism is? Please do correct me if I’m wrong.
I’ve seen in the comments people saying that de-federation is not an option because of .ml’s large communities, but, in my eyes, that doesn’t make much sense. .world is a big instance, just recreate the communities from .ml that you don’t want to miss out on. Everyone on .world will be forced to use them, since they can’t post on the .ml version any more. If .ml is as awful as people make it out to be, everyone will de-federate and move to the .world alternatives.
You are defining “communism” to mean not whatever Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and friends did. That’s fine. Repudiating those monsters is great. However, when you do that you might as well call your thing anarcho-something and not “communism” to make it clear that you are not a fan of having a vanguard of idiots seize power and rule on behalf of a dictatorship of the proletariat in order to eventually hope to achieve a communist society by first having a strong central power as a transitional phase.
Keep on not licking the tank treads crushing freedom like the ones that destroyed the Prague Spring of 1968 and the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 and you won’t be called a tankie
I certainly block every .ml community I see and it’s working great for me.
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.
Denying historical events and refusing to come to terms with their causes and repercussions is not a left or right problem.
You can be as communist as you want but pretending that events with photographic evidence didn’t actually happen put you in the same category as moon landing deniers in my book.
And yet so many people believe in religion without a single scientific proof. But yes, I got your point.
For the record there are a lot of shameful events in your history too, but I am sure your own government has done its utmost to hide those facts.
Just that in the US there is a massive anti China and anti Russia propaganda. Do not get me wrong, I don’t disagree with a lot of their policies, but the US isn’t also spotless and a role model in a lot of ways.
The US has so much red on its ledger it will never be balanced. And there are plenty of apologists for atrocities in our history. They’re just as bad as the Chinese or Russian (or pick whatever country you want because they’re all guilty to some extent) when they do it.
