Yeah, I imagined basically exactly that happening and decided not to tell anyone about it, not yet anyway. Also, I don’t want them to get death threats from Hexbear like I did…

Same, I haven’t told a soul I use it despite being active here over a year. I still believe in it though (or just really hate the idea of accepting corporate social media).

I think they’re paid to spread disinformation (or run LLMs that spread it) that makes “the West” look bad and their authoritarian leaders (CCP, Kremlin) look good.

So if someone mentions Tiananmen Square they delete it or lie about it, or say “what about Mk ultra,” but not because they actually believe in anything other than getting paid.

Thanks! It’s already happening.

I wonder how many good, reasonable people have checked out Lemmy and seen all the CCP/Kremlin propaganda then just left.

Yes good point, I suggest we deal with it by defederating hexbear and the .ml instances.

The Hexbear and .ml instances aren’t really tankies/communists, IMHO. Some of them, sure, but mostly it’s just a facade for their propaganda.

That’s not an indictment of Lemmy specifically

For me this is a major, glaring problem with Lemmy. The obtuse and bad faith arguments are a constant problem here. Some of the things that get upvoted are wildly wrong, openly biased, and would be ridiculed in most other settings.

If not for instances like Lemmy.ml and hexbear it wouldn’t be so bad, but even if they disappeared, the Lemmy user base is an echochamber that’s out of touch with reality.

Because the CCP is run by a powerful sociopaths famous for stealing information and abusing human rights.

cause chaos for a laugh spread harmful propaganda from violent dictators for money

More direct support. I think a large portion of the accounts on those three instances are bot/shill accounts run by the CCP and Kremlin. I suspect the CCP runs lemmygrad and lemmy.ml. Not sure about Hexbear.

To be clear, I generally don’t have a problem with Marxists or communists. I think that’s a facade used to cover up the propaganda. No intelligent communist or Marxist would support either the Kremlin or CCP at this point.

The fediverse is a fantastic place for propagandists. There’s no central censor, absolutely no budget for countering propaganda.

not sure what to do about it

Defederation from Hexbear, lemmygrad, and lemmy.ml would be a decent start, but since they have support from the Kremlin/CCP it’ll probably turn into ongoing whack-a-mole.

Same sub. They waited until it was almost repaired then put it down for good.

Needs more complaining about the wife and maybe a reference to the mysterious golden times 50 years ago

Because some people get food aggressive, and even a mention of a sustainable diet that doesn’t depend on cruel treatment of animals get them all riled up

Yeah, I essentially agree.

Unfortunately there are no truly benevolent democracies, but the US is democratic. It has many flaws including, those you rightly point out, and it has also done a lot to support the spread of democracy.

There’s more at stake than just democracy vs authoritarianism, but that still seems like the most accurate way of framing it. Look at the countries aligned with each side, there’s a distinct pattern.

how authoritarian regimes are aligning

Good to see this language used instead of “east vs west.”

With countries all over the planet supporting Ukraine, its more accurate to say the growing tension is democracies vs authoritarian governments.

They sent their troops to dig radioactive trenches in Chernobyl, they don’t really care about them.

I think they already did. There were rumors she would support Biden and I thought “will she get Kremlin shills attacking her on social media?” Over the next few weeks there was a bunch of noise about her private jet.

They want innocent people to die, it’s how they get people on their side. They need it for propaganda.