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.
I’m watching with interest what happens here. I left Reddit before for Voat for a while. It turned out that without policing (or maybe it was the type of policing) it turned into a toxic cesspit.
Policing of some kind is clearly import to human groups. In the real world, across the world and history, where is no law and order, you end up with war lords and drug lords, who setup their own rules. Take moderation away and online groups get consumed by trolls.
So I’m watching what happens with federated Lemmy with interest.
I’m not familiar with Voat. I’m not sure how it’d apply to something like Lemmy (probably fall on instance owners I guess) but the problem every “ultimate free speech TM” platform runs into is that laws exist and certain things are just illegal. 🤷
The most notable thing about people who complain this loudly about moderation that doesn’t skew their way, is that they dont want LESS moderation - They want moderation that skews to their viewpoints. They complain about being banned on ml for saying “fuck you tankie” or other dismissive nonsense, but if you visit THEIR spaces and politely disagree and provide sources you’ll get banned quicker than anyone here but none of them cry about free speech when it happens on their turf.
See that’s not my experience of the problem. They aren’t being polite. They are out right hostile. Staying calm, providing trusted source references, and remaining polite, just seams to enrage they further. They seam to want to have a slagging match, which is of no interest to me as I’m not 12.
I’m open to to the fact that (like basically anything) it DOES happen at some point, somewhere. The problem with taking the people complaining that its this big systemic push to purge them seriously is even the examples THEY give usually show themselves just being twats.
Also, as many people love screaming at me about “receipts,” if you’re getting banned left and right just for sharing a source and you’re so enraged that you’re taking up arms, where’s the modlog entries?
Then, if it IS being mad that they’re being moderated for getting shitty and acting like a cunt - could I go into their house and start pissing all over whatever they’re about? Conservative spaces LOVE hyper moderation when it aligns with them, as I mentioned previously go find an instance that aligns with your shtick - that’s the whole Lemmy thing.
I’m not giving you what I regard as my instances because I think that is combative. I don’t want combat, that’s the whole thing. I’m not really pro or anti this defederation, but I can see the problem and I’m interested in how it plays out. In it becomes a place of combat rather than debate, I’m simply leave. If there is no news or anyone to talk to, I will also leave.
If there is coordinated defederation, maybe it’ll give mods of the troll infested instances pause for thought, and make them clean house. Or not, and Lemmy bumbles along without ever hitting mainstream, until something else comes along. Maybe central instances set the tone of the whole thing, and here this is a mortal wound.
It’s an interesting “natural experiment”.