Update from Lemmy after the Reddit blackout : technology

[-] spirit@beehaw.org 104 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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

@dessalines@lemmy.ml is /u/parentis_shotgun on Reddit. Source: https://archive.is/Ky9vd
/u/parentis_shotgun moderates some subreddits, including r/InformedTankie, r/asktankies, r/GunZedong. Source: https://www.reddit.com/user/parentis_shotgun
/u/parentis_shotgun got banned from r/socialism for "refuting the 'China is genociding Uyghurs'". Source: https://archive.is/CwFZC
/u/parentis_shotgun then launched lemmy. Source: https://archive.is/132fW

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.

Previous discussion on the moderation policy on lemmy.ml including response from @dessalines@lemmy.ml : Expressing concerns about moderation policy on lemmy.ml
Accusation of a Mastodon user (probably the one they are referring to): https://mstdn.social/@feditips/106835057054633379
Essays from @dessalines@lemmy.ml: https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/socialism_faq.md

Update: More info about @dessalines@lemmy.ml

[-] SilentStorms@lemmy.fmhy.ml 101 points 2 years 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@lemm.ee 46 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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.

[-] SilentStorms@lemmy.fmhy.ml 17 points 2 years ago

Yeah, developers of new instances should probably edit that out.

I don't think its a huge issue though, looking at that page the number of people who have donated more than $10 is like... a dozen.

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[-] 0xtero@kbin.social 34 points 2 years 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@beehaw.org 13 points 2 years 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.

[-] lodion@kbin.social 20 points 2 years ago

Neither of those show the claimed genocide denial/support.

[-] lodion@kbin.social 54 points 2 years ago

I was wrong, yes there is:
https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/socialism_faq.md#whats-going-on-with-the-uyghurs

[-] barsoap@lemm.ee 42 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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@beehaw.org 17 points 2 years 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@lemm.ee 20 points 2 years 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.

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[-] ThisIsMyNewAccount@kbin.social 12 points 2 years 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@lemm.ee 25 points 2 years 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.

[-] WTFisthisOMGreally@kbin.social 5 points 2 years ago

Idk how to save comments so replying

[-] barsoap@lemm.ee 8 points 2 years ago

Click on the three dots next to reply, click on the star.

...wait you're using kbin. No idea.

[-] noodlejetski@beehaw.org 7 points 2 years ago

...bookmark it in your browser?

[-] Nine@programming.dev 31 points 2 years 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.

[-] EthicalAI@beehaw.org 9 points 2 years ago

Which country if you don’t mind me asking?

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[-] ThisIsMyNewAccount@kbin.social 26 points 2 years ago

So they’re pro-CCP, Uyghur genocide deniers?

[-] polygon@kbin.social 13 points 2 years 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@lemm.ee 29 points 2 years 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@beehaw.org 7 points 2 years 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@lemm.ee 23 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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@beehaw.org 8 points 2 years 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@lemm.ee 10 points 2 years 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...

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[-] 0xtero@kbin.social 26 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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

[+] coldhotman@nrsk.no 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

[deleted]

[-] EthicalAI@beehaw.org 16 points 2 years ago

His response to that issue is really solid.

[+] coldhotman@nrsk.no 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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[-] Lowbird@beehaw.org 16 points 2 years ago

People have a tendency to call anti-trans hate "politics" even when they would never call racism and sexism that. But it's just hate speech.

Giving hate speech free rein does not help anybody, and I'd argue it especially doesn't lead to more actual free speech, because that just leads to the most hateful people taking over a platform while most people, not willing to put up with that, just leave. And voila, you get shit like Voat. It doesn't solve everybody's differences when hate speech is allowed to thrive, it just boosts the hate speech over and above everything else, and creates a hateful echo chamber. This has happened so many times now.

Even choosing to do nothing and not ban the instance would have been a choice based on ideology/politics/whatever you want to call it, imo. "Software should allow any and all speech, including hate speech" is not a neutral or apolitical stance either.

For all I know, he could be trans, or have trans friends or family, and in the current world state, where trans people are being subjected to escalating real world suffering .. If it were me, I wouldn't just step aside and allow my personal project to be used to hurt me or my loved ones, either. I'd be upset if a friend created software, allowed it to become a powerful tool for people who'd wish me dead, and then just handwaved all responsibility and refused to do even attempt to do anything because any attempt at moderation would count as "politics" while creating the software in the first place and freely allowing it to be used for hate... Wouldn't be, somehow?

[-] Rentlar@beehaw.org 78 points 2 years 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.

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[-] pixel@beehaw.org 70 points 2 years 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

[-] JackFromWisconsin@midwest.social 13 points 2 years ago

It's so refreshing having a statement written by two people, instead of a board of lawyers.

[-] heartlessevil@lemmy.one 54 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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

[-] sarsaparilyptus@lemmy.fmhy.ml 9 points 2 years ago

To Dessalines it's not genocide because they had it coming, so it's all internally consistent

[-] thedarkfly@feddit.nl 48 points 2 years 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.

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[-] rs5th@lemmy.scottlabs.io 47 points 2 years 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@lemmy.ca 31 points 2 years 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!

[-] jivandabeast@lemmy.browntown.dev 9 points 2 years ago

Agreed, it feels a lot more intimate and the growing pains are honestly not that bad

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[-] McBinary@kbin.social 25 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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?

[-] cura@beehaw.org 43 points 2 years ago

This project was funded through the NGI0 Discovery Fund, a fund established by NLnet with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet programme, under the aegis of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement No 825322.

Source: https://nlnet.nl/project/Lemmy/

[-] Los@beehaw.org 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Duplicate comment.

[-] cityboundforest@beehaw.org 23 points 2 years 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@beehaw.org 14 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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.

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[-] sourcerer@fosstodon.org 20 points 2 years ago

I hope after a year i will forget what reddit was.

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[-] JurassicPork@lemmy.one 20 points 2 years ago

Thanks for sharing! Great project. Think I'll head over and donate 😊

[-] lukini@beehaw.org 7 points 2 years ago

Wow they went from 1 user to 27. It feels like way more than 27 people

(I'm aware of what they meant, but it's incorrect in English)

[-] SamVimes@beehaw.org 16 points 2 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator

[-] lukini@beehaw.org 6 points 2 years ago

Yes, every single English speaking country uses a period for decimals. And English Wikipedia requires it in their style guide.

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