cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/16246531

I feel like we need to talk about Lemmy’s massive tankie censorship problem. A lot of popular lemmy communities are hosted on lemmy.ml. It’s been well known for a while that the admins/mods of that instance have, let’s say, rather extremist and onesided political views. In short, they’re what’s colloquially referred to as tankies. This wouldn’t be much of an issue if they didn’t regularly abuse their admin/mod status to censor and silence people who dissent with their political beliefs and for example, post things critical of China, Russia, the USSR, socialism, …

As an example, there was a thread today about the anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre. When I was reading it, there were mostly posts critical of China in the thread and some whataboutist/denialist replies critical of the USA and the west. In terms of votes, the posts critical of China were definitely getting the most support.

I posted a comment in this thread linking to “https://archive.ph/2020.07.12-074312/https://imgur.com/a/AIIbbPs” (WARNING: graphical content), which describes aspects of the atrocities that aren’t widely known even in the West, and supporting evidence. My comment was promptly removed for violating the “Be nice and civil” rule. When I looked back at the thread, I noticed that all posts critical of China had been removed while the whataboutist and denialist comments were left in place.

This is what the modlog of the instance looks like:

Definitely a trend there wouldn’t you say?

When I called them out on their one sided censorship, with a screenshot of the modlog above, I promptly received a community ban on all communities on lemmy.ml that I had ever participated in.

Proof:

So many of you will now probably think something like: “So what, it’s the fediverse, you can use another instance.”

The problem with this reasoning is that many of the popular communities are actually on lemmy.ml, and they’re not so easy to replace. I mean, in terms of content and engagement lemmy is already a pretty small place as it is. So it’s rather pointless sitting for example in /c/[email protected] where there’s nobody to discuss anything with.

I’m not sure if there’s a solution here, but I’d like to urge people to avoid lemmy.ml hosted communities in favor of communities on more reasonable instances.

    • @givesomefucksEnglish
      -2•1 day ago

      On the other hand, I’ve blocked both those instances months ago and it’s been great.

      Strangely I did notice I got banned from a blahaj community like a week ago despite not commenting there for at least 6 months, maybe ever?

      Which is kind of the whole point of me blocking them

      Both have mods/admins that are very very opinionated about things. And they tend to refuse to let things go (much like OP or you making that sub)

      So if they see something they dont agree with, they’ll pre-emptively ban an account, because, and this is doubly important right here:

      It’s trolls feeding trolls drama in a big loop

      You making that sub, OP making this post…

      All you’re doing is encouraging them

      Can you really not understand?

      I’ll try and remember to come back and check if you respond, but I don’t get notifications from instances I’ve blocked.

      Edit:

      I was banned five days ago apparently for this comment from a year ago:

      https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/3159844

      Definitely not because I blocked that mod five days ago and they desperately found a way to “get back”.

      Great example of my point tho, silly instances like that there’s no point in fighting them, just block their instance and go about your life.

      • Draconic NEOEnglish
        4•1 day ago

        You were banned in blahaj.zone for your comment on Chess:

        They take the whole trans women allowed/not-allowed in sports thing very serious there, and I agree with them mostly. The sports thing is a dog-whistle transphobes use because it sounds reasonable even though it really isn’t. It is especially unreasonable in a game like Chess (which your agreement to could be seen as agreement with trans-segrigation in sports). It’s likely they reacted way too harshly, outright permanent instance bans over something small like that are very extreme, a warning would’ve probably been the best thing to do, maybe a temp ban at most.

        • @givesomefucksEnglish
          -2•1 day ago

          Weird, maybe because I looked at world’s modlog and not theirs like you seem to have done.

          I clicked on the link, it was a comment from literally a year ago lol.

          https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/3159844

          I blocked the mod of that sub about a week ago, so they likely went and saw my last comment there and banned me for it.

          Like I said tho, I’m perfectly fine with it. I blocked their whole instance a long time ago, I think it might have actually been that thread that clued me in it wasn’t worth ever going there again.

          Thanks for finding that tho! I’ll remember to check an instance’s own modlog in the future for more details.

          Quick edit:

          (which your agreement to could be seen as agreement with trans-segrigation in sports).

          Nah, I was explaining how the only way to get better at chess is to play better people, and there’s no reason for any classes based around gender. And the explanation for difference in skill, is simply that the best men refused to play women, so they never improved. The first female grand master was only that good because her dad was crazy good and made her and her sister play him constantly.

          You need the experience of high level play to be able to play at a high level, and any gender divide in division just prolongs that. So I was arguing against any segregation at all.

          That’s why they let it stay up a year until I blocked the mod of that community.

          And suddenly it was transphobic.

          • Draconic NEOEnglish
            2•1 day ago

            Yeah I saw it on their modlog. It’s very useful to check the modlogs of remote servers, especially since admin comments removals and site-bans for remote users don’t federate in the modlog.

            (which your agreement to could be seen as agreement with trans-segrigation in sports).

            Nah, I was explaining how the only way to get better at chess is to play better people, and there’s no reason for any classes based around gender. And the explanation for difference in skill, is simply that the best men refused to play women, so they never improved. The first female grand master was only that good because her dad was crazy good and made her and her sister play him constantly.

            You need the experience of high level play to be able to play at a high level, and any gender divide in division just prolongs that. So I was arguing against any segregation at all.

            I guess it was likely a miscommunication or misunderstanding. They probably thought you meant something different than what you actually meant.

            • @givesomefucksEnglish
              -1•1 day ago

              They probably thought you meant something different than what you actually meant.

              …

              You think they do an annual review of threads?

              It was over a year ago I made the comment, they banned me for it five days ago.

              I don’t know man, it’s weird you’re not getting that, but it doesn’t really matter.

              I’m sorry if I’m explaining it poorly.

              I did remember it wasn’t I blocked a mod, I explained why I might not respond. And apparently they didn’t like that I had blocked their instance

              • Draconic NEOEnglish
                -1•1 day ago

                I don’t know, it’s hard to say what actually happened. I will admit that it seems weird but I don’t want to jump to conclusions about how or why they did it, maybe you could post about it on [email protected] to get different opinions on it.