Following the announcement by beehaw admins to defederate from lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works, there has been many posts and messages regarding that decisions and what other instances will do.

I personally believe Lemmy/kbin can only thrive if there is a free flow of content between different instances, with instance admins taking a back seat and focusing more on the infrastructure and making sure the technical bugs are smoothened out. Community mods can moderate their communities, and users can block the communities they don’t find appealing (there’s even a toggle in settings to hide every NSFW post from your feed altogether).

We don’t want to create walled gardens, nor do we want to make Lemmy more confusing than it already is for new users. We will not be defederating from any instance if there is even one good community on it that our instance users might find useful. So far we have only blocked lemmygrad.ml, and right now we have no plans to block anyone else.

  •  coolin   ( @coolin@beehaw.org ) 
    6•1 year ago

    Lemmygrad is specifically problematic for being predominantly Marxist Leninist (as the .ml suggests). I think you’re probably right that people just reject them outright because of AH THE COMMUNISTS WANT TO END CAPITALISM red scare type stuff present in Western countries, but where I specifically find Lemmygrad (and other tankies) being way too negative to interact with is when they get into defending Communist regimes.

    If you asked the average Lemmygrad user, they too would be enveloped in propaganda, though this time coming from communist regimes and praxis they’ve read. They have been deluded into believing Stalin and Mao were good leaders, that authoritarianism is okay if it advances their favorite political agenda (though for some reason also claim that these countries aren’t authoritarian), and that these regimes should be implemented everywhere.

    The worst of it all is their constant genocide denial. Yes, the USA and other Western countries have done a similar amount (maybe even more?) of really bad stuff in this area (e.g. natives, apartheids, roma, etc. 💀), but I think broadly a well educated Western citizen, especially a leftist one, should be able to understand and admit that what their country did was wrong and should never be done again. A Lemmygrad user instead defends things like the Uighur genocide and Holodomor, saying both that they don’t exist and are “western propaganda” while at the same time entertaining the counterfactual and saying if they did happen it was justified because the West did it too and they were being very mean to communism 😡.

    When you get to that level of malevolent stupidity, you start to look more and more like a fascist that supports genocide and absolute power of the state and that uses strategic ambiguity to express your toxic beliefs, than you do a leftist. I don’t think anyone suggests we stay federated with a fascist instance because fascists are misunderstood after “years of propaganda pushed by western countries” to discredit Hitler and Mussolini, but here you are doing the moral equivalent.

    •  0x4E4F   ( @0x4E4F@lemmy.fmhy.ml ) 
      3•1 year ago

      If you asked the average Lemmygrad user, they too would be enveloped in propaganda, though this time coming from communist regimes and praxis they’ve read.

      Of course, that is how you spread ideas, through propaganda. That is how western countries did it as well. That is how we got here, to Lemmy, lol.

      They have been deluded into believing Stalin and Mao were good leaders, that authoritarianism is okay if it advances their favorite political agenda (though for some reason also claim that these countries aren’t authoritarian), and that these regimes should be implemented everywhere.

      I have seen people judge, but have never experienced what it would be like living under the ruling of a benevolent dictator. I’m not saying Stalin or Mao were like that, I’m saying that I live in a country that used to be socialist and had a dictator like that… trust me when I say this, we were better of with what we had previously.

      So, please first experiece first had what it is to live in both types of societies before you judge. Every story has 2 sides, so does this one.

      The worst of it all is their constant genocide denial. Yes, the USA and other Western countries have done a similar amount (maybe even more?) of really bad stuff in this area (e.g. natives, apartheids, roma, etc. 💀), but I think broadly a well educated Western citizen, especially a leftist one, should be able to understand and admit that what their country did was wrong and should never be done again.

      I don’t think any of them actually deny that. They usually just compare those acts with what western countries have done. Go on and have a talk with them, none of them deny that. They know that they did terrible things, but try and debunk the western theories “russia bad, usa good”… thay all have sceletons in their closets, there is no denying that. You can’t keep an empire as large as the US or USSR afloat and not have done any bad deed to anyone, that’s just nuts. There will always be collateral damage.

      George Washington was pro slavery, yet he’s still praised and printed on bills, right? So that’s normal, but this isn’t, lol.

      A Lemmygrad user instead defends things like the Uighur genocide and Holodomor, saying both that they don’t exist and are “western propaganda” while at the same time entertaining the counterfactual and saying if they did happen it was justified because the West did it too and they were being very mean to communism 😡.

      Denying it is not OK. But, I get their stand point - the US denies doing soooo many things, why should we be any different 🤷. They’re cutting slack, why not us.

      I still haven’t seen anyone deny those tjings, but if I do, even though I am a socialist by beliefs, I will most definitely confront them. Their beliefs are not mine and I would rather have the truth out than hide it under the carpet. BUT, the whole truth, not just one side of it. Let’s take everyone’s dirty laundry out, not just the USSRs or USes, both of them. Because people usually think that bodies are piled up on only side of the lawn, which is a lie of course.

      When you get to that level of malevolent stupidity, you start to look more and more like a fascist that supports genocide and absolute power of the state and that uses strategic ambiguity to express your toxic beliefs, than you do a leftist.

      Expressing absolute power in a state can sometimes be a good thing. Depends on a lot of things, but in certain countries/federations, it just works. I could state examples here, my own country being one of them, but it’ll just be too long of a post.

      And you percieve them as toxic, I don’t. Why? IDK, I just don’t 🤷. Maybe it’s because my own beliefs allign in 90% of theirs.

      Defederating is the issue here, not the content of that instance. You don’t like something, fine, block it. Lemmy has that option. I block communies I don’t like all the time, I have about 20 blocked ao far, why is that so hard, I really have bo idea.

      I don’t think anyone suggests we stay federated with a fascist instance because fascists are misunderstood after “years of propaganda pushed by western countries” to discredit Hitler and Mussolini, but here you are doing the moral equivalent.

      I couldn’t care less if anyone stays federated with a faschist instance or not. It doesn’t make 1 single bit of difference. I don’t like it? I block it. It really is THAT simple 🤦.

      In fact, I would even like to be federated with a faschist instance. Why? Meeh, might unblock it from time to time, just to troll them and get on their nerves.

    •  crank   ( @crank@beehaw.org ) 
      1•1 year ago

      I guess since personally i practically never looked to reddit for analysis of china i do not feel like it is a big deal in a replacement for reddit.

      Actually i never looked to reddit for politics at all. I felt it was the weakest part. No matter if soneone was saying something i agreed or disagreed with they always were saying dumb shit.