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join-lemmy.org
  •  spirit   ( @spirit@beehaw.org ) English
    123•11 months ago

    Update 3: @dessalines@lemmy.ml did state that they (singular) disagree that a genocide is taking place.

    Update 2: My conclusion

    Update: So I dug around a little deeper, and found that

    On another topic, there are rumors circulating that we are fascists or supported genocide. These claims are completely false, and like most viral twitter threads, are coming from a single Mastodon user on a personal vendetta who didn’t provide any sources. Such slander doesn’t deserve any response and is best left ignored.

    Update: More info about @dessalines@lemmy.ml

    •  SilentStorms   ( @SilentStorms@lemmy.fmhy.ml ) English
      116•11 months ago

      I don’t agree with these views at all, but I don’t agree with the view that no one should use lemmy because of the opinions of the developers. Its an open-source project, just don’t use anything hosted by them. Like I don’t support the US military, but that doesn’t stop me from using the internet.

      •  barsoap   ( @barsoap@lemm.ee ) English
        52•11 months ago

        One sore point there is that the code comes by default with a donation link (the heart at the top) to join-lemmy.org. Even without the tankie issue it should rather go to a page local to the instance explaining donation options, and the default should be “The admin didn’t set this up, if you urgently need to get rid of money here’s a link to Doctors without Borders”.

        OTOH there’s now a huge influx of people including tons of developers so I expect tankie influence to be drowned out sooner than later.

        •  conderoga   ( @conderoga@beehaw.org ) English
          9•11 months ago

          A bunch of developers isn’t going to do anything though if they retain control over everything. I think after learning about this background, and their weird claims surrounding it yesterday, the path forward I would prefer is for a strong fork to emerge of the original code that instances deploy instead.

          •  barsoap   ( @barsoap@lemm.ee ) English
            12•11 months ago

            I prophesied that to happen back on reddit but with FLOSS development culture being as it is pre-emptive forking is kinda considered the same as a pre-emptive nuclear strike. It’s just not done in polite company.

            I’m about 100% that there’s going to come a make-or break situation where, if the developers don’t concede, there will be a fork, but it could also be that the devs are conscious enough of what’s happening that they’ll cave under the pressure and thus manage to retain some influence over the project.

      •  0xtero   ( @0xtero@kbin.social ) 
        39•11 months ago

        This is just it. Software is software. You can spin your own instance and moderate it as you wish. It’s open source, so you can change and modify it.
        But right now they’re asking for donations to run their instance and help with their code.

        So before you donate money and your time/expertise/code - it’s probably a good idea to know who is asking for it. It’s not entirely clear, to be honest.

      •  bartera   ( @bartera@beehaw.org ) English
        17•11 months ago

        Exactly. I probably don’t agree on everything with 100% of developers of the tool out there. I don’t want creators of technological tools (or anyone for that matter) to be subject to purity of ideology and opinion tests. I didn’t want Brendan Eich gone from Mozilla nor anyone else gone from the tools they develop.

        •  barsoap   ( @barsoap@lemm.ee ) 
          48•11 months ago

          It’s the tankie “It’s not a genocide, no I’m not denying that people are getting murdered I’m saying that they had it coming for reasons other than being of a particular group” kind of genocide denial-support.

          About the only thing that makes tankies not technically fascist is that they come up with elaborate rationalisations of why everything they do serves the common good. They manage to rationalise any and all human rights abuses and atrocities as “necessary evil”.

          Once upon a time a German lyricist/composer wrote a song satirising that kind of attitude. The GDR’s ruling party adopted is as their hymn, unironically. Do watch it it’s glorious in its insanity.

          •  cnnrduncan   ( @cnnrduncan@beehaw.org ) 
            19•11 months ago

            Most far-right fascists also make up excuses for the genocides they support - the Nazis said that Jewish people were responsible for the collapse of the Weimar economy (and a lot of other bullshit) for example.

            •  barsoap   ( @barsoap@lemm.ee ) 
              23•11 months ago

              Yeah but fascists don’t believe it, or even put much effort in those arguments. It’s merely a signal to their supporters saying “Yep we hate Jews”.

              And I do grant tankies the point that they don’t inherently hate Uyghurs – what they hate is there being cultural aspects not under their control as that means a current of mass psychology outside of party control. The most they will countenance is “Socialism with Uyghur characteristics” next to “Socialism with Chinese characteristics”, under the condition that it’s about weave patterns of traditional hats or something, not loyalty to the party’s prerogative of interpretation: If Bejing thinks a particular weave pattern is counter-revolutionary then it is, Uyghurs don’t get a say.

              •  iie   ( @iie@lemmy.ml ) 
                2•11 months ago

                what they hate is there being cultural aspects not under their control

                china claims they were interning uighurs to prevent extremist terrorism and separatism, not control culture. xinjiang shares a border with afghanistan. the claim is that uighurs were going off to fight in syria and other regions, then coming back to start shit at home. china claims the mass detainment of uighurs was to provide language and vocational training to counter the sway of jihadists returning from the middle east.

                •  barsoap   ( @barsoap@lemm.ee ) 
                  1•11 months ago

                  One would expect people to volunteer for both of those things if they’re actually what China claims them to be.

                  In reality the parents are sent to forced labour camps while the kids are sent to boarding schools to be de-Uighurised.

          •  ThisIsMyNewAccount   ( @ThisIsMyNewAccount@kbin.social ) 
            14•11 months ago

            By what definition of fascism are tankies the same?

            I’ve seen the term tankie more here in my last week in the fediverse than at any other time in my life so forgive me if I don’t fully understand. From what I’ve gathered, it’s extreme auth-left. Though being authoritarian does not automatically mean fascist.

            •  barsoap   ( @barsoap@lemm.ee ) 
              29•11 months ago

              They’re not the same but the more you ignore motive and rationale the more similar they look. As such, they’re the same by the “definition” of shallow analysis, or over-subscribing to “the purpose of a system is what it does” which I tend to be guilty of.

        •  Nine   ( @Nine@programming.dev ) 
          35•11 months ago

          Oh boy! That entire page is definitely something. As someone born in a comunist country I can only pitty people like that. They must have had some pretty sheltered lives in order to be this detached from reality. As others have said it is impressive what they’ve done with the platform and deserve prays for it, but man those views are going to push a lot of users away, especially when they are so public.

        •  polygon   ( @polygon@kbin.social ) 
          17•11 months ago

          Not sure what I make of that. He quoted a guy, rather than giving his own opinion. We can make a lot of assumptions about why he quoted the guy, but without stating an opinion it can only ever be speculation. In a massive list of essays, which I admittedly haven’t read all of, one quote seems to be the big uproar about fascists running Lemmy?

          And then being like “Hey maybe don’t delete posts just because they’re about China? That doesn’t break any rules,” suddenly makes them in love with the CCP? I don’t have any context to judge the quote and posts regarding China literally do not break any rule. “Orientalism” is a ridiculous reason to delete a post.

          This all seems completely blown out of proportion like typical Twitter drama.

          •  barsoap   ( @barsoap@lemm.ee ) 
            34•11 months ago

            Calling something orientalism, in a Neo-Marxist context, is, roughly, calling Marx’s Eurocentrism problematic, which is 110% fucking fair. Used by a tankie it means “You can’t criticise China because you’re not Chinese”.

        •  EthicalAI   ( @EthicalAI@beehaw.org ) 
          8•11 months ago

          This. I’d really love it if someone could go through these links one by one and provide a detailed summary and rebuttal. I just want to know both sides of the issue. I totally believe in US propaganda, but highly doubt this is purely that.

          •  barsoap   ( @barsoap@lemm.ee ) 
            30•11 months ago

            I quite doubt you’ll see such thing as sane leftists generally simply discount tankie talking points out of hand – you look for certain patterns and the sources they cite and say “eh, not worth reading”, and also “eh, not worth replying to” because talking to a tankie is talking to a TV. They have a closed world-view, are able to bend reality itself to fit their core beliefs in the same way hardcore flat-earthers can.

            You’ll be able to head over to random socialist places and find people who can readily address points, cut through the historical revisionism and selective reading that tankies do, but you’ll have to actually, well, ask questions and things might get egg-headed. If you address tankies directly I recommend going for broad-strokes arguments and questions and refuse to let yourself be dragged into areas that can’t be wikipedia’d quickly, say, the status of unions in the USSR. An unprepared tankie is not unlikely to flat-out claim that they were independent from the party. Ask them about whether they think people should be sent to Gulag over their interpretation of Darwin, suchlike: They will either deny it, at which point they disagree with Stalin which means that he did, in fact, do things which were not right, which is inconsistent with what they believe in, or they will support it, outing themselves as batshit crazy plain for everyone to see (and also disagreeing with post-Stalin USSR scientific community, much less the world’s scientific community).

            Coming to the question of “why are tankies the way they are in the first place” though we come, at least from an Anarchist POV, to vanguardism as a core feature everything hinges on: The idea that for radical change to be possible, the masses must be led by a revolutionary vanguard. Marxist-Leninists all tend to fall into that category in one way or the other (and there’s plenty of e.g. Trots who are cringe but perfectly fine human beings) but it’s tankies who take it up to 11 by declaring themselves (and of course Stalin etc) infallible, and any opposition to their exalted “infallible” positions as counter-revolutionary. Thus, if you are not of the exact same opinion as them you’re the enemy and voila you have a cult going that can justify anything to itself.

            This “change is caused by small groups leading broad masses” thing then leads to the “everything is a proxy war” type of thinking you see: It is inconceivable for tankies to think that Ukrainians would have a free will, a desire to decide their fate, and as they were drifting further and further away from Russia of course the CIA must be behind that. It’s pure projection.

            (And, just for the record, yes, even Anarchists technically form vanguards. From “farming commune doing its thing and writing revolutionary poetry” to “Let’s stop right-wing militias from slaughtering native people and then live among the natives and talk about humanism”, see Chiapas).

            (Also, Tankiedom is a CONTELPRO programme, their purpose is to make lefitsts in general look bonkers and inherently oppressive. Convince me otherwise).

            •  EthicalAI   ( @EthicalAI@beehaw.org ) 
              13•11 months ago

              I mean my stance is anarchism or left libertarianism, and I agree with most of what you said. But I also am just totally unfamiliar with these regimes. The only thing I’ve ever been taught is “bad”. I don’t really trust what I have been taught to be honest. I feel like there is a lot more nuance than the American POV. Also I’ve traveled enough to know that propoganda is EVERYWHERE. Every country propagandizes every other country. So it’s just hard to know what’s true about geopolitics tbh.

              I think China and the USA are both terrible regimes, but in such a way that it’s generally fine to live there, which is a weird modern phenomenon. I bet Russia and Cuba aren’t what the US teaches. I suspect NK is a repressive hellscape IRL same as on TV lol.

              •  barsoap   ( @barsoap@lemm.ee ) 
                12•11 months ago

                Cuba can arguably be called democratic by now, though in a very different form than capitalist democracies. EU media is often apprehensive about the whole issue but acknowledges change, while in the US it’s the same old talking points up to “Batista did nothing wrong”, depending on where you look. It’s a bit further ahead in that aspect than Vietnam, which the US has much better relations with.

                Russia tends to get completely misunderstood by everyone but its neighbours: Moscow’s rule has been based on conquering and oppressing neighbouring regions ever since the Mongols left. It provides them access to раздолье, meaning both expanse and liberty, a word with right-out mythical meaning to the Russian soul, though maybe Americans might actually understand. There’s a wide-spread notion among Russians, looking outside, that they want to be a “normal” country, but what that would entail completely eludes everyone, including the opposition.

                Because, well, everyone is dozing, not just the depoliticised masses. Quoth Pushkin:

                Whatever heavy load it carries,
                The wagon’s light on steppe and street.
                Grey Time, the coachman, never wearies
                And never leaves the driver’s seat.

                At dawn we jump inside the wagon,
                Quite happy for our necks to break.
                Scorning all soft delight and languor,
                We yell “Get going, for fuck’s sake!”

                By noon we’ve lost that daring folly,
                Being jerked around. We’re wagon-sick
                Afraid of every hill and gully,
                And yell “Slow down, you lunatic!”

                But on we rush round every bend.
                We’re used to it, come evening’s yawn.
                Heading to night, to journey’s end,
                We doze. Time drives the horses on.

                …quite a lot of soul-searching will be needed for Russia to get its shit together and install a GPS on that cart of theirs. Luckily they messed with the wrong people: Ukrainians, due to cultural closeness, are about the only people capable of cutting off Russia’s balls cleanly and thus throw the country into a proper existential crisis instead of trying to find, again, glory in old patterns. There’s nothing wrong with Russia attaining glory – just not like that. It worked out for them in the 1500s conquering what we now call Russia, but the time of imperialism is definitely over. Which is btw why Europe is so “unexpectedly” hawkish: The EU is a decidedly anti-imperial project, “let’s band together, united in diversity, so that no empire has a chance to challenge us”. Russia’s behaviour is an affront to all of that and cannot be permitted to stand.

                As far the US is concerned it’s good ole cold war memories, they like fucking over Russia because it’s the USSR. I mean it would be kinda rich, the US criticising another country for being imperialist…

            •  thoro   ( @thoro@lemmy.ml ) 
              5•11 months ago

              Look I’m decidedly on the fence because of what I perceive as my own ignorance on these topics, but I’m sorry, if the reaction to the lead dev’s link bomb like this is to just dismiss it without rebuttal and take the Western media’s word at face value, then I have to at least entertain the notion that they might not be wrong here.

              Manufacturing Consent ingrained a deep skepticism of mainstream media in me that has only served me well for over a decade. It’s not a dismissal of mainstream sources, mind you, but an understanding of their biases and a healthy skepticism and unwillingness to tow the line without my own independent research or the backing of a source I fully trust.

              Unfortunately, I find that my anarchist comrades often hold strong opinions on these issues when they have not done any of this research themselves or have only done surface level research at the same level of an average liberal. This again leaves me on the fence until I feel comfortable having an opinion.

              In the meantime, the lead devs may have their own ideological views, but they have really not been pushing anything heavily on this platform and have been accommodating. I don’t think the FUD spread over their beliefs helps any of us, and while they may be ML instead of anarchist or liberal, this culture also helps ensure that anti-racism, anti-transphobia, anti-capitalism, and more are cultural staples of the platform and acts as a deterrence to trolls and real, outright fascists from viewing this platform as a place to call home.

              A Reddit clone with a leftist, not liberal, culture is one I fully embrace, personally.

              •  barsoap   ( @barsoap@lemm.ee ) 
                1•11 months ago

                just dismiss it without rebuttal and take the Western media’s word at face value

                The former is true, the latter very much not so. There’s only so much historical revisionism and selective reading one can take before, indeed, categorising a source as untrustworthy and not worth the bother. Tankies cross that threshold quickly if you know anything about actual USSR history… just as the other side does with their black book.

                This “listen to and engage with all sides no matter how dishonest their engagement is” sounds rather lib-pilled to me, TBH.

                I don’t think the FUD spread over their beliefs helps any of us, and while they may be ML instead of anarchist or liberal, this culture also helps ensure that anti-racism, anti-transphobia, anti-capitalism,

                You cannot be anti-capitalist and simultaneously stan the CCP, or state capitalism in general, doesn’t compute. Those devs are also deleting threads about things like homophobic laws in Russia – while they’re themselves pro queer rights they also can’t countenance any kind of critique of Russia.

                That’s two-faced and intellectually dishonest.

                Manufacturing Consent

                OMG Noam Chomsky. You know he’s a persona non grata in Europe for his genocide denial? He’s also guilty of that “USA bad therefore anti-USA good” type of thinking, the hard-left kind of American exceptionalism. He should’ve stuck to formal linguistics.

                If you want to read American Anarchists may I recommend Bookchin.

            •  iie   ( @iie@lemmy.ml ) 
              4•11 months ago

              sane leftists generally simply discount tankie talking points out of hand

              how is this sane? tankies might well be wrong, but I don’t see how they’re obviously wrong. the west does lie about its enemies. a million iraqis died on a lie in our lifetimes. i’m not here to fight a court case, i just find the dismissal baffling.

      •  0xtero   ( @0xtero@kbin.social ) 
        35•11 months ago

        There’s also these:
        https://raddle.me/f/lobby/96713/heads-up-the-tankie-behind-lemmy-ml-got-banned-from-r
        https://raddle.me/f/TankiesGonnaTank/89852/the-lemmy-ml-admin-is-banning-anyone-that-mentions-stalin-or
        (google cache since the site is down) https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KNky1TdNscwJ:https://lemmy.pineapplemachine.com/post/5781&cd=13&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=se&client=firefox-b-d

        And I believe there’s some allegations of them hosting the lemmygrad.ml instance, which is basically full on tankie home.

        Basically, they don’t think Uyghur genocide happened, they don’t think Stalin did anything wrong and they love Xi.

        And now they’re asking for your money

  •  Rentlar   ( @Rentlar@beehaw.org ) English
    91•11 months ago

    Sure, I think the tankie and extremely pro-CCP/Kremlin views expressed by the developers and lemmygrad server members are outright dumb. But I do appreciate that they leave room for all of us of differing views to exist without constantly clashing, by creating this federated system.

    You know you’ve done well when you’ve made something that’s bigger than yourself and your own interests.

      •  Rentlar   ( @Rentlar@beehaw.org ) English
        5•11 months ago

        Sorry if I didn’t provide sufficient proof, depends on which aspect you would have liked me to clarify on?

        tankie views: essays on github by the main developers I’m not trying to argue right or wrong in this comment, just to show these are texts representing the beliefs held by the lead developer.

        Tankie moderation: Orientalism stipulated as reason for comment rule and ban on a Ukraine-related thread

        Creating something bigger than themselves: From open sourcing lemmy, and structuring lemmy in a way that gives liberty for instance owners to rule as they please.

        •  Scary le Poo   ( @Scary_le_Poo@beehaw.org ) English
          3•11 months ago

          Thanks for the reply and info. So basically he’s a communist of some stripe or another. I am hard left (USA hard left so left of center for those of you who live in normal countries) so my views do not align with his.

          I can’t figure out how this relates to software development though. Who gives a shit if he’s a communist or if he bleaches and waxes his asshole every Thursday? Literally to the point of people suggesting forking lemmy (these people clearly have absolutely no idea how software development works to be suggesting something so stupid).

  •  Pixel   ( @pixel@beehaw.org ) English
    79•11 months ago

    For all the issues with the lemmy developers (and they’re completely valid, though I’m not as familiar with the ins and outs of the discourse given how new I am to the fediverse) I appreciate their candor. I guess part of it is just that I’m used to corporate speak when receiving website updates and what not, but as long as they’re receptive to changes that the platform needs and continue to make the platform more stable, safer, and more feature-rich, it’s nice having a home on the fediverse run by genuine people, even if they’re people I’m not the most aligned with ideally – to be charitable

  •  heartlessevil   ( @heartlessevil@lemmy.one ) English
    61•11 months ago

    On another topic, there are rumors circulating that we are fascists or supported genocide. These claims are completely false, and like most viral twitter threads, are coming from a single Mastodon user on a personal vendetta who didn’t provide any sources. Such slander doesn’t deserve any response and is best left ignored.

    My “Not involved in genocide denial” T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt

  •  thedarkfly   ( @thedarkfly@feddit.nl ) English
    58•11 months ago

    It seems to have become a habit that most good things about the internet is linked to the EU. I’m really grateful. That being said, I hope that Lemmy can become a collaborative project uniting a lot of devs rather than rely on two people.

    About the scandal; as long as their opinions do not influence the platform I don’t see them as relevant to Lemmy. If they are illegal, let justice do its work.

    •  flora_explora   ( @flora_explora@beehaw.org ) English
      4•11 months ago

      While I agree with the first part, I think the last sentence is a really really bad take. What is and isn’t illegal depends very much on governments and is usually pretty arbitrary. And especially leftists get persecuted overly harshly in many countries of the global north. So even though I don’t agree with the views of the two Lemmy devs, I don’t wish “justice” on anyone.

      •  thedarkfly   ( @thedarkfly@feddit.nl ) English
        3•11 months ago

        Yes, good point. It’s more like: we as a society must decide what is and isn’t acceptable as far as free speech goes and enshrine this in law. Then it is a matter of applying the laws rather than judging case by case as individuals.

        In this case, The political discourse of the devs doesn’t seem directly related to Lemmy’s development. Of course, libre software is very much in line with leftist ideology; what I mean is that they do not seem to impose their views or skew ours through their work as devs. They don’t even use their position as devs to publicize their discourse; people had to dig to find them.

        If their political discourse is harmful, I’d argue that it is not to us, as individuals, to condemn them and to choose an adequate punishment, e.g. boycott the seemingly unrelated Lemmy project.

        Of course, it is obviously to us, as individuals, to decide if we want to participate on Lemmy, or even donate to the devs for their work on Lemmy. I choose to do both even when I don’t agree with the devs and when I think their discourse about human right in the CCP and Russia might be harmful.

  •  rs5th   ( @rs5th@lemmy.scottlabs.io ) English
    57•11 months ago

    This update, specifically how funding is happening, helped me understand some of the reasoning behind the narrow focus of the Lemmy developers. I appreciate them foregoing their regular paychecks to work on stability. Hopefully things settle down soon to the point that the extra eyes and hands on the project are more helpful than they are distracting.

  •  mbryson   ( @mbryson@lemmy.ca ) English
    44•11 months ago

    I’m really enjoying Lemmy to be honest. A decentralized platform rekindles the feeling of internet forums and the excitement of finding something new in each community. Seeing such a candid report from the developers is nice as well and reaffirms my decision to stay, regardless of reddit’s decisions or direction as a platform.

    Keep up the great work everyone involved!

  •  Cass.Forest   ( @cityboundforest@beehaw.org ) English
    36•11 months ago

    I do appreciate the transparency from the Lemmy devs and re their views (whether only alleged or actual) on controversial topics, I think the issue is not in the software itself and in how the devs themselves are using it. However given the nature of the fediverse and how Lemmy is programmed, you can use the software however you like, as we do here on Beehaw.

    Similarly, we can look to the “death of the author” debate to settle this. I’m not going to discuss what that is and what it isn’t here (as that isn’t the purpose of this post or this comment), however, I will state that my definition of “death of the author” involves critically enjoying a piece of media despite its author’s bad views if and only if those views aren’t inherent to the work and they aren’t profiting off of my consumption of the work itself. Beehaw is like that. Sure the creators of the software are involved in a controversy, but the way the devs use their own software is not an inherent feature of the software. Beehaw has a fantastic setup and ethos, so I find my home here. Sure, there’s not that many specific communities, but that’s what federation is for.

    Another analogy, however accurate (no analogy is perfect): people lobby governments with money to get them to pass problematic legislation, but people still participate in the economy.

    note on that analogy because I feel it needs saying

    Yes, I know that participating in the economy, especially in the United States where I live but really anywhere is a bit necessary to, well, exist most places if not everywhere, but people unknowingly support controversial people all the time. See Nestle and their controversies. Even bringing that up reminds me of the illusion of choice and how everything is owned by five companies (and even then mostly everything is owned by like two VC groups). I’m digressing, of course, but I hope you see my point in bringing this up.

    TL;DR: The way the devs use the software should not impede our use of the software given that the devs’ views are not inherent to any use case of the software.

    •  StrayCatFrump   ( @StrayCatFrump@beehaw.org ) English
      17•11 months ago

      I agree with the first part. I completely fail to see how the analogy at the end applies. Capitalists and their corporations lobby the government to pass legislation that directly fucks the economy to make it worse for working-class people who use it (and, in fact, depend on it for their basic survival). So it’s much, much more like Reddit where people have to use the one corporate system that exploits and oppresses them than like someone developing a piece of FOSS software that other people can use independently. In fact, if you try to build a separate economy, the state’s violent enforcers (police and/or military, depending on the context) will come in and abuse and murder you and tear apart your independent economy and force people back into the fold.

      •  Cass.Forest   ( @cityboundforest@beehaw.org ) English
        4•11 months ago

        My point with including thr analogy about the economy was to say, in essence, “people do bad things with money all the time yet we still use it,” although, again, I will bring up how this isn’t a good analogy because of our reliance on capital to obtain things like healthcare, food, and housing.

  •  McBinary   ( @McBinary@kbin.social ) 
    29•11 months ago

    Thanks for the link. I don’t know the story, but I find it interesting that these two devs are essentially being sponsored to develop Lemmy. What sort of incentive does the sponsor have for funding this development?