One of the biggest topics of these days is that of mods in lemmy.ml banning and censoring people because they’re Tankies. This has had a rather sizeable discussion of people agreeing and even arguing for defederating ml. I’m sure a lot of people are arguing from good intentions, but there’s also bad faith actors among them, as I will try to show in this post. The original post was based on the moderation history of the ml instance so I respond in a similar fashion.
I browsed through the discussion for a while, and stumbled upon a comment of someone who had created an instance in response, namely [email protected] The original post in about the moderation in ml has to do with the Tiananmen Square Massacre, so I decided to make a few posts in this new instance about other historical facts which are less discussed, but that we should remember too, namely the Bengal Famine and the US support of fascism in Spain.
Initially these posts were well received and had some upvoted, but after a while I got a notification that one of them had been banned. To my surprise, I looked at the mod log of the instance and found this. So, both posts being about historical atrocities committed by capitalist countries were either banned or locked, and I had been banned from the community altogether for the reason “commie?”
I checked through the admin’s history of comments and found this.
Is this admin, who censors posts that talk about historical grievances committed by capitalism, who pins “fuck Tankies” to the instance, really a person without an agenda trying to protect a community from a supposed malignant moderation, or is it someone with an agenda trying to call everyone to the left of centrism a Tankie?
We should, in my opinion, be careful with accusing and polarising one of the biggest communities in Lemmy away, which is full of non-political content, and really examine what’s going on and what agenda there is behind it.
All yall political obsessed ppl have no business running any social media lol
I have absolutely had anti-tankie comments deleted on Lemmy.ml. I literally just said something like “Hexbear is a bunch of tankies” and it got deleted.
That being said, I wouldn’t support defederation just because they have some annoying mods.
Edit: a couple other points. OP has a 3 day old account that isn’t from ml but is named in reference to Lenin. They posted anti-US imperialism stuff to a community dedicated to complaining about ml and tankies. Thats just off topic and spamming a community. I suspect OP might originally be from ml
Read their comments. It is obvious they are a hardcore propagandist.
Yeah, even just in this post, they started engaging in bath faith arguments about how they “found an empty community” and all they did was “make a post.”
If anyone wants proof that this post is in absolutely bad faith and malicious, read ops comments defending USSR. The criticism of the other server could may as well be valid but it is impossible to know if your posts were taken down because the were critical of US or because it was obvious it was an alt for tankie propaganda. I do wish the admin of the instance knew the difference between commie and tankie though, as the first one does not warrant a defensive response and the other has an immoral agenda. Too bad many modern western communists totally swallow the authoritarian pill.
.ML already defederated from my instance, they did my work for me
Lucky
really a person without an agenda trying to protect a community from a supposed malignant moderation, or is it someone with an agenda trying to call everyone to the left of centrism a Tankie?
this is a weird false dichotomy. if they have an agenda, why must it be “everyone left of center”?
Fucking hell lmao y’all need to go back to reddit this is straight up high school drama behaviour.
Grow up, I’m serious. Of course you’re gonna get banned for brigading into a community and going “muh tiannamen square???” like that meme hasn’t been run into the fucking ground already.
Make a new community on a new instance, it really is that simple! and if people have issues with the moderation on lemmy.ml (they clearly don’t, beyond a few people who demand everyone listens to their concern trolling) then they’ll move, but otherwise you’re gonna have to accept that people really don’t give a rats ass about the united states foreign ministry and its opinions.
I just realized the lemmy.ml stands for Marxism-Leninism.
I recently joined Lemmy (realized that Reddit is going to turn to shit and I need alternatives) and created an account with Lemmy.ml because they had a lot of active tech communities.
Tankies are a no-go for me as I am Ukrainian. Even mainstream leftists, who generally have good ideas, like Yanis Varoufakis, turn into complete degenerates when it comes to NATO or Russian imperialism. And Varoufakis is just the tip of the iceberg.
Seems like I will need to create a new Lemmy.world account for technology communities.
I checked Varoufakis, and I really don’t know what you mean. He’s openly against the Russian imperialist invasion:
“Without hesitation. Unconditionally. When I see civilians in Kharkiv or Kiyv preparing Molotov cocktails with which to defend their homes from the advancing Russian tanks, I cannot but cheer them on” “Today we must stand with Ukraine, unconditionally. And we must say it out loud: Putin is a war criminal” “To help Ukrainians find a path toward peace and freedom, we must also choose to put their interests above our ideologies and fixations. I am a left-winger. But, while people in the Ukraine are dying, I do not have the right to focus on whether the economic ideology or political biases of President Zelensky are to my liking. I must support him – to the extent that Ukrainians are looking to him for leadership now. Period. And I hope that those whose politics differ from mine do the likewise: place the task of pushing Russian troops out of Ukraine above their ideological preferences (e.g. a Ukraine that is a NATO or an EU member).”
He adds more stuff and says that we also must support Palestinians and whatnot, but he’s clearly, openly and unapologetically against the invasion, isn’t he?
I should have been a bit more clear when I said “Varoufakis is just the tip of the iceberg”, what I meant is that he is somewhat more empathetic than you typical western “leftist”.
That being said, if you read the details of his proposals regarding Ukraine (I will note he doesn’t speak Ukrainian, or russian, and has never lived in Ukraine, let alone Donbas), you can very quickly identify tankie-lite type gibberish.
The same article that you seem to quote also says:
And I hope that those whose politics differ from mine do the likewise: place the task of pushing Russian troops out of Ukraine above their ideological preferences (e.g. a Ukraine that is a NATO or an EU member).
Everyone in Ukraine wants to join NATO and EU. This is complete bullshit. But this is relatively modest stuff, it gets better:
This is not to suggest that the Ukrainian fighters should surrender. No, if I were them, I would keep fighting come-what-may, to the bitter end. What I am saying is something different: That a diplomatic solution needs to be found as soon as possible.
The bitter end can be avoided by providing our country with any needed western weapons (including long range cruise missile) and providing us with both the right to strike the russians (anywhere in russia) and any relevant intel info to do so. This is already happening, but it took nearly 2.5 years, with a lot of slow walking (and a lot of death and destruction due to the delay). Varoufakis cannot even comprehend the possibility that weapons and the ability to strike your enemy is important when you are being invaded.
Given that NATO will not intervene, and that sanctions take a long, long time to succeed (if at all), the only way of driving Russian troops out of the Ukraine is through a diplomatic solution.
What would an agreeable diplomatic solution entail? Three things: First, an immediate ceasefire followed by the withdrawal of Russian troops. Second, the opportunity for Putin to portray any such agreement as a form of victory – a deal that gives him something close to what he wanted. Third, it must be an agreement guaranteed jointly by Washington and Moscow, guaranteeing an independent and neutral Ukraine as part of a broader agreement that de-escalates tensions with the Baltics, Poland, around the Black Sea, across Europe.
An immediate ceasefire followed by the withdrawal of russian troops? They are just going to leave? There is no way this statement was done without malicious intent. Ukraine was neutral before 2014; guess what happened to change this?
Such an agreement would leave everyone a little dissatisfied but also grant Ukrainians the chance to re-build a free, democratic and independent Ukraine. Many issues will have to be settled but, once de-escalation begins, a healing process can commence. For example, the EU can pour investments into Ukraine, well before any move to admit it into the EU. Once Washington and Moscow jointly guarantee a de-militarized zone along the Russian-Ukrainian border, the contested Donetsk-Luhansk region could be administered along the lines of the Northern Irish Good Friday agreement in a manner that guarantees the rights of all ethnic communities under the supervision of Kiyv, Moscow and the European Union.
Once again Varoufakis demonstrates his malicious intent. Russia is not interested de-escalation and Varoufakis knows this. The Good Friday part is comical. It’s like a satirical comedy show about western “leftists” talking about Ukraine.
Now this article was written in 2022, but even in 2024, he continues to think in russo-centric terms. Here is an article from Jan 2024:
…advocated for the West to negotiate an immediate end of the Ukraine war by trading the retreat of Russian troops for a pledge to keep Ukraine out of NATO. To me, what mattered most was that the West did whatever it took to push Russia’s troops back to where they were on 22 February 2022, while enabling Ukraine to flourish within liberal democratic Western Europe.
He is still rambling on about NATO and advocating for a return to the line on Feb 22. Don’t get me wrong, I think we will be very lucky to get back to those lines by the end of the war, but it’s russo-centric, pro-imperialist worldview that makes me wonder whether everything else he says is just bullshit.
Thank you for the write up! These snakes are so good at fooling most people into believing complete gibberish.
Marxist-Leninists in an overwhelming majority oppose the current Russian government. Putin isn’t at the service of communism or the USSR, he’s a capitalist, oligarch, fascist kleptocrat, waging an illegal war between countries that used to be brothers in the USSR times.
I never heard Varoufakis talk about modern Russian imperialism, what does he say about it? In my experience, hardcore commie internet personalities such as Hakim or Second Thought oppose the current Russian imperialist government.
Of course there are stupid idiots everywhere, including ml, and there are bound to be “leftists” whose entire ideology is “USA bad, so NATO bad, so Putin good”, which is insane because USA bad and NATO bad but modern Russia also bad. But as I say, in my experience in leftist spaces (as a hardcore leftist), this is very fringe and not representative of commies or Marxist-Leninists at all
countries that used to be brothers in the USSR
my sides. This is genuinely one of the most ridiculous things I have heard, and that’s something coming from a person who is exposed to nausea inducing amount of USSR propaganda every day here. I am literally speechless. People tortured and killed, families torn apart, overwhelming protests for freedom crushed with tanks and young men and women poisoned with gas to the point of not being recognizable. BROTHERS? No man, no Georgian or Ukrainian sees Russians as brothers. We see you for the only thing you have done over and over again - invaded, killed, tortured and raped us.
I genuinely want to believe you, but my attitude towards western leftists has radically changed after the full scale invasion. That being said I actually hold pretty strong anti-oligarch views that are not taken well by the vast majority of Americans (lived in north america for 10 years, travelled extensively). Great place, great country, lots to see, but it’s extremely corrupt and people are heavily brainwashed by oligarch word salad and overly focused on the PR component of various widgets/services/companies. But the reactions I saw (not everyone in the US, Sanders has a pretty sober take on russia) made western leftism a bridge too far for me.
I’ve discussed Varoufakis in a reply to your other post. One other example would be Corbyn and his supporters; they pretty much de facto support russian imperialist (they make vague statements that imply otherwise, but it’s a ruse). Many German leftists are also largely aligned with russian imperialist goals.
There is also the issue that I don’t just oppose the russian government. Based on my personal experiences living in russia for 10 years and seeing how my former friends reacted in 2014 (and 2008 for that matter) and a wide range of sociological research, I have come to the conclusion that:
- At the very least a strong majority (~65%) of russians are genocidal imperialists. As per research, preference falsification is largely overstate by polemicists and is not a significant issue. The real question is whether genocidal imperialists constitute an overwhelming majority or a very strong majority.
- Russia is not going to change (based on the statements and actions of the allegedly “liberal” opposition and extensive knowledge of russian history). Putin is going to die in 15 years and someone else similar or worse will take his place. The russians will never do anything to change this dynamic. They had a unique chance with the relatively peaceful breakup of the USSR and we saw what they did. At any rate, I am not going to risk my life entertaining foolish fantasies.
I will end this post with quote from a Ukrainian solider who died in the summer of 2022 (it’s commonly misattributed to the former Ukrainian ambassador to Kazakhstan):
The more russians we kill today, the fewer russians will have to be killed by our children
I’ve read through both your replies, and I want to say that thank you for your detailed perspective, it’s good to hear, and I generally agree with the overall sentiment while I disagree with a few things. Right now I don’t have the time to answer both in detail, so I will answer you when I find some time later today or tomorrow, with a better thought out answer. A lot of food for thought in your comments anyway, you have quite a bit of insight on the whole thing and it’s a pleasure to read well-thought, well-structured comments like yours, so already thank you for that.
Thanks for taking the time to read.
All good man.
I probably come off as a bit categorical, but I have my reasons for this. A lot of the foreign policy positions of western leftists make me question whether they are sincere (or even in their right minds) when it comes to social/economic issues; where I am somewhat more in alignment (w.r.t. corruption, oligarchs and the need for radicalism in resolving the aforementioned points) with them.
Cheers!
Marxist-Leninists in an overwhelming majority oppose the current Russian government.
No, they don’t.
Of course there are stupid idiots everywhere, including ml, and there are bound to be “leftists” whose entire ideology is “USA bad, so NATO bad, so Putin good”
If that wasn’t their whole ideology, they wouldn’t be tankies. Even in ml, which is much less radical than grad or hexbear, discussions are firmly split between “Russians go the fuck home” and “nato provoked Russia” and the usual idiot talking points. Just search “Ukraine” on ml and see what people say in the comments and what he’s upvoted.
Did what you said and searched “Ukraine” in ml. First post had a poll about citizens from EU and from US wanting the war to end. Went to the comments, first comment, 15 upvoted: “then tell Putin to to home”. Response to that comment, 4 downvotes: “how original”. As I said, the overwhelming sentiment, because people generally aren’t idiots, is that yes, USA bad, NATO bad, and USA has been pushing NATO further to the east and that’s a really bad thing, but also Putin isn’t a saviour of Russia and a freedom fighter but a Russian oligarch in an imperialist war who additionally pushes fascist-like policy at home such as degradation of social rights, boosting of religion, and militarisation of the country. Criticism of NATO and the USA doesn’t amount to “Ukraine deserves to be invaded”.
Marxist-Leninists, in an overwhelming majority, oppose Putin and the modern Russian state, since it represents the opposite of what the USSR represented.
Marxist-Leninists, in an overwhelming majority, oppose Putin and the modern Russian state, since it represents the opposite of what the USSR represented.
Lmao.
I said ml was less radical. You still ignored the pro Russia shit in that thread. But if you want to talk about tankies as a whole, check grad and hexbear for more than 5 seconds.
I will add that (most?) MLs don’t openly claim support for the russians, but their positions and rhetoric is almost always pro-russian imperialism.
The “nato provoked Russia” argument is for idiots who don’t know russians, don’t anything about russian history and culture and who have never lived.
Marxist-Leninists in an overwhelming majority oppose the current Russian government.
Would you like to remind me what the second largest party in Russia is, currently? And what their stance is on the current government’s actions?
That, of course, is not even getting into all of the “BUT THE WEST PROVOKED THEM” apologia for Ukrainian genocide by Western MLs.
The second biggest party in Russia is as communist as the biggest party in Germany is socialist: exclusively in name. The communist party of Russia was co-opted, and currently absolutely doesn’t espouse any ideal of communism, the only thing it does is to channel nationalist sentiment of people who were alive during the USSR, and redirect it towards support of the current regime. No communist in the west supports the Russian communist party, and I say this as someone from a western country who is involved in hardcore leftist spaces, where people generally espouse the opinion: “USA is an imperialist country, NATO is a US tool to further their interests and to skew policy outside the US in their favour, but also Putin is a kleptocrat and an olicarch. He pushes fascist policy like degradation of social rights in his homeland, imperialism and expansionism such as the Ukraine war, and he’s a consequence of the dismantling of the USSR and the auctioning of the country to the most corrupt bidder”. Hating NATO and hating Putin are complementary positions, not contradictory, and as I said, in my experience it’s what most hardcore leftists espouse.
Id say make a lemmy.zip account, its nice over here
Yeah, I might consider an alternative instance, just for the sake of the general spirit of federated service. I already have a Lemmy.world account, but I create multiple accounts depending on topics of interest (works really well with Firefox containers too).
Tankies are a no-go for me as I am Ukrainian. Even mainstream leftists, who generally have good ideas, like Yanis Varoufakis, turn into complete degenerates when it comes to NATO or Russian imperialism. And Varoufakis is just the tip of the iceberg.
Based Zizek will always be around
To be honest, when I saw the title of the community, I knew something like this was going to happen
Politics is endangering the whole Lemmy, with instances defederated because of their political views and a lot of censorship.
Calm down folks! This is a web forum, people should be free to share what they think (without harassing anyone) without being censored, creating a biased platform.
I’m not into non-free-speech instances (like lemmy.world), but I do understand and respect their decision because it MAY decrease harassment between users. But please don’t defederate with everyone otherwise it would still be a biased platform. Let people choose what to see and just ban spam and real harassment (I’ve used too much this word).
I’m not into politics myself and it drives me crazy that we can’t rely on fine communities because they are on instances defederated by big instances because of their political views.
People should be welcome and free to discuss just about anything, authoritarian governments and their propagandists should be kicked the fuck out.
Indeed, defederation as the instance level should really be a a last resort, especially now that we have user-level muting of instances.
I’m not into politics myself and it drives me crazy that we can’t rely on fine communities because they are on instances defederated by big instances because of their political views.
To be honest it’s not always politics, Beehaw didn’t defederate for political reasons but lack of moderation tools
I’m not into politics myself and it drives me crazy that we can’t rely on fine communities because they are on instances defederated by big instances because of their political views.
I didn’t realize genocide apologia and using admin powers to push it was such a minor concern.
This is where the nature of federation really shines. .ml is one of the biggest lemmy communities? It doesn’t have to be. In fact as lemmy is still so new and various situations continue to shake out I would wager that in a few years time the top current communities will be replaced. And later on those will be replaced. Censorship resistance is built into ActivityPub by virtue of its decentralization.
And I fully agree with that, it’s good that the platform is resilient against censorship. I just disagree with jumping on the bandwagon of the people who accuse people of being tankies and then proceed to censor anti-western imperialism historical posts.
This doesn’t tell the devastating story I think you were hoping it would tell. Your posts there, while not wrong and not even necessarily disagreed with by the people there, were off topic and obviously just an attempt at whataboutism.
Whilst we’re on the topic of bad faith actors, you seem to be intent on drumming up drama by posting things that you know are off topic, that you know are likely to get you removed and then cry foul about it here. Yes, the term “commie” as a synonym for tankie is wrong and a little concerning, but you’re not making a strong case here.
Maybe they are some shitbag centrist, who knows. That doesn’t change the fact that the tankie instances are doing tankie things completely consistent with the behaviour of tankie mods which are notorious to anyone with experience of them either here, on reddit or elsewhere.
Your posts there, while not wrong and not even necessarily disagreed with by the people there
They were the most upvoted posts in the community, so no, they weren’t disagreed at all
were off topic
How can it be off-topic? There’s no declared purpose of the community in the sidebar other than a few rules, and were literally the first posts of the community
and obviously just an attempt at whataboutism
Making an entirely new post in an entirely new community is an attempt at whataboutism? I happen to be Spanish and to take the issue of fascism very seriously, since my ancestors suffered it directly and I still suffer its consequences. What part of making a new post about it is whataboutism when I’m not even comparing it to anything??
posting things that you know are likely to get you removed
Wait, a post about fascism in Spain, and a post about a famine in India, are going to get me removed? Do you realize what you’re saying? People aren’t allowed to talk about other international grievances for how long exactly after the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre without getting accused of whataboutism, being Tankies, and getting banned? Do you realize how anti-communist discourse works?
the term “commie” as a synonym for tankie is wrong
That’s not what they did. They banned me for being a communist, not a tankie, they didn’t use it as a synonym.
the behaviour of tankie mods
I’m not here to argue about that, that’s a topic that has been discussed a lot already in the original post, I’m here to talk about bad faith actors jumping in the supposedly anti-tankie reaction to ban anti-imperialism content and anything that smells of communism.
They were the most upvoted posts in the community, so no, they weren’t disagreed at all.
I just want to point out that you have said in another comment that they were the first posts, so it’s not exactly surprising that they were the most upvoted at least at one point in time.
Beyond that this is such transparent concern trolling and your posts were so obviously off topic, and your attempts to feign ignorance so woefully unconvincing that they don’t even bear responses. Anyone who thinks this is a scandal is already a tankie like you, volodya ilich, meaning they can’t see this for the transparent bullshit that it is. That kind of credulity is a requirement for becoming a tankie in the first place.
I cannot imagine anybody being convinced by this.
a tankie like you
…and there we go, the magic word to end all discussion in this platform. You guys keep disregarding any and all criticism of capitalism and accusing it of whataboutism and tankieism. Again, how many days have to pass from whichever commemoration of a heinous act committed by a communist project until people can discuss the problems of capitalism and imperialism without fear of being accused of being tankies?
Now you’re conflating tankies with anticapitalism in general, another classic tankie trope. You don’t have a monopoly on the concept, although you love to pretend you do because the only way your ideas could have any legitimacy is if it is literally a binary choice between neoliberal capitalism and what amounts to state capitalism. Just like in your mind it’s a binary choice between US imperialism and red imperialism.
No thanks, I’ll take my actual anticapitalism and anti-imperialism instead of a red flag any day.
You don’t seem to have much self-awareness about this, so I’ll just repeat it: you are not convincing anyone. Let it go. Take the L. I’m sure any attempt to rebutt this will just be you showing your butt all over again. I doubt you’ll listen to this because myopic, tone-deaf self-righteousness seems to be another tankie trait, but at least I tried.
your ideas
My ideas being “stop doing supporting fascist dictatorships and stop creating famines in Bengal”, right? Because what else do you know about my ideas from the post?
Just like in your mind it’s a binary choice between US imperialism and red imperialism
Again, you’re making things up and accusing me of things I haven’t said, and accusing me of being a tankie because you assume my ideology to be a given one. You may think I’m tone deaf, you may think my critique here is not legitimate, and all of that’s cool, but how am I a tankie?!
Holy shit, you’re still pretending you’re not a tankie. Not a tankie, but you chose the name volodya ilich, which is a deep cut about Lenin’s childhood nickname.
And you’re still pretending you don’t understand what was wrong with your posts. Who are you saying this for? Do you actually think anyone believes you? Is this an elaborate troll? I wish I knew but this is beyond parody. If you are doing parody: you didn’t make it obvious enough. I’m so sorry.
If you think a reference to Lenin makes you a Tankie, you have no idea what tankies are and you’re just blatantly anti-communist, that’s the issue here. Thinking that Lenin is an admirable Marxist theorist, doesn’t mean you support tanks invading Hungary, and you’re either mistakingly or willingly conflating communism with authoritarianism, which is absolute bullshit.
You guys keep disregarding any and all criticism of capitalism
Spend three seconds on Lemmy and you’ll see how wrong this is.
You posted where you and your content were obviously not welcome, and you got banned. I don’t think that is the work of a bad faith actor at all.
As explained in my post, the community had no content prior to my upload.
I agree with you! These guys are destroying lemmy.
Hehe, you reminded me of this amazing song. Thanks. And no, I didn’t reply to the wrong thread. But at the end of the song she says “beware of me”, which is quite fitting for this thread, I feel.
