"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"
Welcome to MoG!
Meanwhile On Grad
Documenting hate speech, conspiracy theories, apologia/revisionism, and general tankie behaviour across the fediverse. Memes are welcome!
What is a Tankie?
(caution of biased source)
Basic Rules:
Sh.itjust.works Instance rules apply! If you are from other instances, please be mindful of the rules. — Basically, don't be a dick.
Hate-Speech — You should be familiar with this one already; practically all instances have the same rules on hate speech.
Apologia — (Using the Modern terminology for Apologia) No Defending, Denying, Justifying, Bolstering, or Differentiating authoritarian acts or endeavours, whether be a Pro-CCP viewpoint, Stalinism, Islamic Terrorism or any variation of Tankie Ideology.
Revisionism — No downplaying or denying atrocities past and present. Calling Tankies shills, foreign/federal agents, or bots also falls under this rule. Extremists exist. They are real. Do not call them shills or fake users as it handwaves their extremism.
Tankies can explain their views but may be criticised or attacked for them. Any slight infraction on the rules above will immediately earn a warning and possibly a ban.
Off-topic Discussion — Do not discuss unrelated topics to the point of derailing the thread. Stay focused on the direct content of the post as opposed to arguing.
You'll be warned if you're violating the instance and community rules. Continuing poor behaviour after being warned will result in a ban or removal of your comments. Bans typically only last 24 hours, but each subsequent infraction will double the amount. Depending on the content, the ban time may be increased. You may request an unban at any time.
Stemming from this post https://lemmy.world/post/25792088
This is why some don't see the problem with .ml, they're way more subtle. And to those I say look:
This comment was removed by a .ml mod in that thread and the user banned:
And yet, another comment from a .ml user referencing .world instead, but essentially says the same thing as @[email protected]s comment is allowed to stay up just fine for hours.
Why was that not removed? Where is their ban?
Just .ml Tankie things ig
A key feature of authoritarianism is that it is not supposed to be equal. "I'm on top. I set rules for you and you obey." Trying to adhere to an objective standard, or letting the roles be reversed for a thought-experiment, conflicts with the whole paradigm.
Authoritarians don't like nuance, full stop. You're trying to take a nuanced view to the varying opinions and perspectives that interact on Lemmy? Get the fuck out before you start inferring that we should see users who disagree with us as "people."
I tried to limit blocks to a user-by-user basis, but fuck it, I just blocked that entire miserable instance. I won't have any deficiencies in Russian propaganda exposure while Trump is in office anyway.
I blocked .ml and .hexbear and my experience has been infinitely better.
There are a few .ml tankies who try to invade other instances with new accounts. But they are easy to identify and it's hilarious to watch them be frustrated that nobody outside their bubble agrees with them.
The hours old accounts are always hilarious. Sometimes they put effort in and have something like an 8 month old account but it only posts every other month and only to whine about nato imperialism.
I don’t get why you guys haven’t just blocked the whole instance. It’ll save you a lot of time dealing with stupidity.
Honestly, I consider Tankies to be a threat to the Lemmy-verse at large. I've seen it quite a few times, new user comes, sees some Tankie going off with their shit and goes "Oh, this place is just a bunch of tankies" or "oh this place is just Voat 2.0" leaves and then never comes back. Then likely ends up being one of those Redditors who comments on those reddit Lemmy threads about how "They tried it but it was just a bunch of Tankie bs"
Sometimes they do come back, try a different instance and then realizes they just need to block them
If the bigger instances want to take their sweet time defed'ing from them, fine, but there should at least be a visible loud objection of their crap
Tankies to be a threat to the Lemmy-verse at large.
It's just... they made Lemmy. FWIW there's powertripping moderation all over the place, but I wouldn't call them a threat. Any redditor who is turned off by a take they see on Lemmy and stays on reddit as a result is really of zero loss or concern, IMO.
It’s just… they made Lemmy.
That has to be the weakest argument for keeping tankies around that I've ever heard.
The ellipses indicated I wasn't forming a beach head with the point. It's just the 'okay we will make our own place' comic in practice, which might've been an easier and more succinct thing to post.
In that case, you should be in full support of other instances defederating .ml, grad, and Hexbear.
Wouldn't want to invade their space, right?
Unless all of your arguments are disingenuous bullshit, wherein the values espoused change depending on whether they serve the end goal of tankie apologia.
Alright I'll bite:
This instance is already defederated from grad, which seems too eliminate the vast majority of problems as I see it. So I'd support other instance's decisions there to defederate.
Defederating .ml seems premature and unnecessary since the issues are either users who aren't actually bound by instance, or moderation practices which is not worth defederating over. I mostly think .ml isn't a problem as an instance so federating with them helps other instances grow if people get kicked out of there. Though if .ml gets reduced to a few niche communities like lemmygrad or hexbear, then yeah, defederation wouldn't be much of an issue then.
Hexbear users you know I think are funny, but they're so defederated up I know other instances may not even get a chance to do it. So that's just a freebie anyway.
This instance is already defederated from grad, which seems too eliminate the vast majority of problems as I see it. So I’d support other instance’s decisions there to defederate.
Wait, what problems do you see with Grad? Didn't you just say you didn't see tankies as a problem, and that anyone turned off from Lemmy by genocide denial is hilarious anyway?
Defederating .ml seems premature and unnecessary since the issues are either users who aren’t actually bound by instance, or moderation practices which is not worth defederating over.
Okay, I'm not in full support of defederating .ml. I get it.
But in that case, what's the problem, exactly, you were trying to express with:
It’s just the ‘okay we will make our own place’ comic in practice, which might’ve been an easier and more succinct thing to post.
I mostly think .ml isn’t a problem as an instance so federating with them helps other instances grow if people get kicked out of there.
... how does that make sense. How does federating with .ml help other instances grow when people are kicked out of .ml? How does federating with them provide any benefit when people are kicked out of .ml? There's no federated 'transfer your account' option.
federating with .ml help other instances grow when people are kicked out of .ml? How does federating with them provide any benefit when people are kicked out of .ml? There's no federated 'transfer your account' option.
There doesn't seem to be as much or the same conflicts with .ml users in communities outside .ml versus .ml communities having overbearing mods that ban people. So the federation isn't so much the issue there. I much prefer the trend of people going to and making communities on instances where the powertrippers aren't tripping as opposed to calling for defederation. Federation with users across the largest instances is a good thing.
Defederating means a lot of people would have to make new accounts anyway. Grad and hexbear are niche enough that defederating is closer to banning a group of users. .ml would excise a whole lot of users who aren't even the tankies of concern.
There doesn’t seem to be as much or the same conflicts with .ml users in communities outside .ml versus .ml communities having overbearing mods that ban people. So the federation isn’t so much the issue there. I much prefer the trend of people going to and making communities on instances where the powertrippers aren’t tripping as opposed to calling for defederation. Federation with users across the largest instances is a good thing.
Defederating means a lot of people would have to make new accounts anyway. Grad and hexbear are niche enough that defederating is closer to banning a group of users. .ml would excise a whole lot of users who aren’t even the tankies of concern.
None of that actually answers the question I asked, or clarifies the point you made that I was asking about.
Piefed and mbin exist as well.
FWIW there's powertripping moderation all over the place, but I wouldn't call them a threat.
It's more than just the power tripping, it's the agenda pushing, the misinfo, the denials, the hostility etc. they might want to see the Fediverse grow, but in a Tankie mindset way. They are always quick to bring up how any other non-Tankie instances are "Reddit 2.0" or "just bots" or whatever else.
Any redditor who is turned off by a take they see on Lemmy and stays on reddit as a result is really of zero loss or concern, IMO.
Yeah, I'm 50/50 there, maybe not the best "quality" user out there, but there's also the secondary effects to consider; going back to Reddit and then every time it comes up they reply with a "It's just a bunch of tankies" can damage a reputation
As far as who made Lemmy, Lemmy is just code, there's nothing Tankie about the code, nor is there anything left, right center or galactic. It's non-political, it's got a job "be a reddit-like link aggregator" and that's what it does, it's a tool and nothing more. It's open source so not only is there no "funding against your beliefs" concerns, all the Tankie devs could leave tomorrow and another group of people can just pick up the torch (In fact, there are a couple different Lemmy alternatives going rn, though not on feature parity with Lemmy, are coming along quick)
ZombiFrancis has infinite patience for defending tankies, it's not in good faith.
Infinite? Nah. I just know the default state for every most online spaces is pretty mask off right wing. As an American government worker I have 90% cop brain interactions in meatspace too.
So the tankies, the few there are in a marginalized online space? Yeah, they don't worry me one bit. They're on par, if not almost refreshing, compared to any gaming lobby I have experienced for the last 30 years.
So I see what appears to be an outsized reaction to a really inconsequential group of people. The idea that one of their takes scares off a redditor or anyone else closer to the default is almost comical as a concern.
So the tankies, the few there are in a marginalized online space? Yeah, they don’t worry me one bit. They’re on par, if not almost refreshing, compared to any gaming lobby I have experienced for the last 30 years.
Ah, yes, nothing quite as refreshing as apologia for genocide because [checks notes] the genocide isn't happening in your country.
As an American, let me reassure you of how very American a reaction that is. :)
So I see what appears to be an outsized reaction to a really inconsequential group of people. The idea that one of their takes scares off a redditor or anyone else closer to the default is almost comical as a concern.
"It's hilarious that a site built by tankies and which has three of the major instances run by tankies who celebrate genocide might scare off anyone who isn't a genocide supporter!"
Ha ha ha. Comical. Hilarious.
People have said the same thing about neo-nazis and white supremacists in the past and look who is running the country now.
It's more worth while to drum up support for defederation since that removes any instances who take it from being part of their userbase, and weakens the network effect they have here. Remember they're still dominating the Linux and Privacy communities on Lemmy and the discussion based fediverse in general.
Hey look, it's me! I saw my comment got removed and laughed "of course that tankie shit was from .ml" I said again. Considered posting it here actually but was too lazy, thanks for doing it for me in conjunction with the other ones!
Their beliefs do not hold up to scrutiny. So they use the censor method.
Hot take: I mean what are we supposed to do? I'm tired of having to witness the spread of propaganda/misinfo. I'm am even more tired of having to accept the fact that they can suppress and silence any of the smallest scent of opposition against their propaganda.
They should be defederated from every other instance. How much disinformation is acceptable? how many lies are okay? How many walls of text, questions and bombardment of links meant to stall any debate can pass as valid counterpoints when their objectives are clear?
I know I can block them but it's not about me but the fediverse in general. Their mindset is poisonous and completely detrimental to what we are trying to achieve as a collective group.
I don't want to instigate any other vote on my instance as I feel like I've already gone too far on getting a vote on hex and grad to be settled. I certainly do not want to impose my way of thinking on fellow users of my instance.
But I don't want people joining lemmy and having to see or go through this rubbish.
Do what I'm doing
cross-post good content on a .ml sub to the nearest relevant non-.ml comm
Keep talking about it, if you notice, whenever someone brings it up they always say shit like "oh you're bringing it up again, why don't you block us?" Because they would rather us keep quiet about it.
Make memes
Documentation, documentation, documentation. If you're on a .ml thread and you see some removed comments, take a look in the modlog to see what's up. Screenshot and put it together on [email protected] or heck maybe if you're just bored just look in the modlog to see if there's anything interesting. It usually doesn't take much looking lmao. See a thread where they're just going off? screenshot and post
Warn any potential new users, you would warn a friend coming to your city of the "bad parts of town" so do the same with people coming to Lemmy. If they're coming from Reddit, they probably know what Tankies are already so even just a quick "The Tankies are on lemmy.ml, Hexbear and grad, but you can do an instance block easy or choose X instance because they defed from them already" can be enough
I know I can block them but it's not about me but the fediverse in general. Their mindset is poisonous and completely detrimental to what we are trying to achieve as a collective group.
I talk about that all the time, I consider the tankies probably the greatest threat to the Lemmy-verse. I worry that if there's not enough push back we'll start getting a reputation of being "Voat 2.0"
I don't want to instigate any other vote on my instance as I feel like I've already gone too far on getting a vote on hex and grad to be settled. I certainly do not want to impose my way of thinking on fellow users of my instance.
If you feel like it's getting to be un-welcome, just focus on the above so others can join your calls. .ml really don't like it when you document their behavior and they always try to discredit it and [email protected] as a whole and any similar comms for a reason.
We might not be able to get most instances to defed from .ml and their propaganda, but the next best thing we can do is keep pushing back so any new users can clearly see that it's not just a bunch of tankies over here
Thanks for the long reply. I was just ranting but that what I try to do but I don't want my time on lemmy be spent with infighting but at the same time I cannot let their ideas go around unchecked.