OotL: What's the deal with people claiming Lemmy as a whole supports the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), dictatorships, denies genocides, etc?

I keep running into comments where users are arguing for avoiding Lemmy, claiming that Lemmy supports authoritarian governments, supports the CCP, sides with Russia in their invasion of Ukraine, denies genocides committed by nominal communist governments, and other similar political claims. I know there are communist instances and whatnot, but I'm well aware that identifying as a communist doesn't mean that someone wants a dictatorial government or denies genocides.

  • Can we figure this out and have any supporting evidence either way to end the rumors?
  • Is there any evidence that Lemmy is advocating against democracy, pro dictatorships, denying and/or advocating for genocides?
  • Is there evidence that using Lemmy supports genocidal aspiring dictators and their accomplices?
  • Even if there is one instance that advocates for atrocities, genocides, dictatorships, and clearly false revisions of history, what does that have to do with the Lemmy as a system? Can't those instances just be defederated?

To be 100% clear, I am not a communist, aspiring dictator, or support genocides. I also do not believe that communism = dictatorships and the end of human rights. I believe in democracy, equitable distribution or power, individual human rights and freedoms. If I had to define a personal political identity, I would mostly fall under the term anarchist and do not advocate for violence against innocent people despite their political viewpoints (except Nazis because they're not innocent. Fuck Nazis).

Defluo,

https://mastodon.social/@digitalpanopticon/110549307540555832

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/144clka/warning_lemmy_federated_reddit_clone_doesnt_care/

https://raddle.me/f/lobby/155371/warning-lemmy-doesn-t-care-about-your-privacy-everything-is

Here are essays from the original developer of Lemmy. (Lemmy.ml)

Decide for yourself but I think it's clear.

Guy_Fieris_Hair, (edited )

A few days ago the Lemmy devs made an update here: https://join-lemmy.org/news/2023-06-17_-_Update_from_Lemmy_after_the_Reddit_blackout

In that update about half way through they aknowlage that everyone thinks they are tankies, deny it, and refer people to the about lemmy page here: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/users/07-history-of-lemmy.html

The about lemmy page they have some very strong political views that are anti-usa media. (Most of which, I as an American agree with) . None of this really answers your question, I'm sure there's more to it I don't know. But maybe provides some context.

I am tentatively here for the ride. 🤷‍♂️. They run lemmy.ml, and by design if I am not on lemmy.ml, they don't have control over what I see, say, or do. They can have their own views, it does seem strange to put them at the forefront of the entire project though. And if they are the devs it seems they could push an update to nuke everything if they wanted. Idk what the context is to the whole thing.

spirit,

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.

Well, they denied to be fascists or support genocide, without denying being "tankies". I don't know how they would respond to such claims, but I did found out that one of the developer did (or do?) hold "tankie" views. See https://lemmy.world/comment/311333 for more.

Widget,

They're extremely pro-China. They deny the Uyghur genocide, by saying it's just as real as "white genocide". It's mostly criticisms that I would say are valid except that mixing in the Chinese propaganda kinda spoils the whole thing.

My expectation is that some people will just use it as an excuse because they actually enjoy Reddit turning into 9gag with NFTs. If it really becomes an issue, Lemmy will be forked, and new devs will lead it.

(There's also still kbin.)

ArugulaZ,
ArugulaZ avatar

Guess I made the right move when I picked kbin. I don't need to find out that the NEXT social network I use is run by political extremist jagoffs.

Widget,

There's also not really any penalty for making extra accounts at different servers. I signed up for both kbin and lemmy.world before I settled on kbin.

Xylia,

That’s exactly why I’m here.

azuth,

They don't run the social network, they run part of it, lemmy.ml.

Which you actually are federated to in kbin.social just like I am at lemmy.world. Meaning you interact with their users and communities.

This is the whole point of fediverse, nobody exclusively runs it and gets to do whatever the fuck they want with it. They can do whatever they want on their part of the network but if it starts affecting other parts (instances like lemmy.world) they can just cut them off without losing any functionality.

I also expect many many more people contributing to the development of this project as it picks up users. It's necessary, not for political reasons but because the original development team is actually pretty small.

Guy_Fieris_Hair,

They are the devs that program it all. If this blows up in a way they don't like they could push an update that nukes the whole thing, no?

SYLOH,

It's open source and not centrally run. So they can't really "push an update" and even if they could, it would be quite easy to revert and continue development in a different direction.

azuth,

No, the instance owners would have to manually download and install the update. Which I doubt they will do at the same time especially if there is not something important fixed or added with the update.

sangle_of_flame,
@sangle_of_flame@lemmy.world avatar

instances aren’t forced to update, however

if the update nukes an instance, most instances probably just won’t update (and someone’s likely to fork the lemmy source code)

Naura,

Well the whole point is that no one person “owns” this to push an agenda to the entire fediverse. Each server is its own and connected by this software. It’s like Reddit broken into 1000000 pieces and held together by this software. If you want to ban something within your server you are free to do so. Is a server fucking toxic? Then you don’t connect.

Star Trek has their own server up and running already and it’s Startrek.website. It isn’t connected so if they decide that haters should be banned, it will just be locally.

csolisr,

The biggest problem I'm aware of is that the lead developers of Lemmy the software are also the administrators of Lemmygrad. Which makes separating the art from the artist very difficult.

spirit, (edited )

I believe that one of the Lemmy developer is a "tankie". See https://lemmy.world/comment/311333, also https://lemmy.world/comment/329485 for supporting evidence. And the dev clearly stated that they (singular) denied a genocide is taking place.

But I don't think using Lemmy itself supports the atrocities. However, it is difficult to explain all these to outsiders if we want to attract more users, especially when there are other Reddit alternatives.

Donjuanme,

I think they (the people who say that) have either: an innocent fundamental misunderstanding about how the site works, a stubbornness about trying something new and strawmanning it sight unseen, or a malicious intent to keep users from migrating to a new platform (so they can continue to demonize the other to their audience on the current platform).

Something this platform offers is the ability to create your own platform, and integrate it with other hosts as you see fit, along with excising hosts that put out content you do not want to see (this can even be the "designers" community).

Terberlo,

Just my $0.02 Back in ~2020, the only Lemmy instances which had activity were the ones that people flocked to when their Subreddit was shutdown. It went something like:

1 - Group sets up a hateful Subreddit 2 - Group members begin to repeatedly violate Reddit's TOS 3 - Reddit bans the Subreddit 4 - Some groups had enough cohesion to send their subscribers to a Lemmy instance to try and salvage the situation

As a result, when I joined the Mastadon Fediverse in 2021, I heard the rumors about "Lemmy is only used by people who were banned by reddit. That's why it's only Tankies there."

VenoraTheBarbarian,

From what I understand Lemmy was created by people who support Russia, China, etc. But if we avoided all platforms run by people we disagree with there'd be no platforms left.

At the end of the day there are many servers, each with their own vibe and values. You can just pick one that doesn't ick you out. (Not YOU you, whoever is wary of Lemmy)

cryptosporidium140,

deleted_by_author

    •
    danc4498,

    This is what I figured. When I signed up I was a bit grossed out by how prominent that instance was.

    FrowingFostek,

    Fuck nazis indeed. If Lemmy really is this nefarious entity these individuals claim it to be, the user base would just migrate again.

    Personally Communists dont bother me much, and tankies are manageable. If this platform takes a shit we'll all head to another one.

    Enjoy the ride it's been pretty chill so far.

    bane_killgrind,

    They don't need to migrate, people can just defederate the dev-run instance and fork the project.

    I think denying a genocide that is happening is immoral. If this instance gets cut off because of that it's a good thing. I'll need to register with some other instance.

    magiccupcake,

    There's no need to migrate really, the devs of lemmy don't control other instances, and if they mess up the software too bad, it could get forked.

    nttea,
    nttea avatar

    Communists are tolerable to me but red-brown Russia apologists are not.

    FrowingFostek,

    Agreed, fuck red fascism.

    CynAq,
    CynAq avatar

    As a communist, you guys are tolerable to me too, I think we'll get along.

    Fuck Nazis and tankies btw. I don't call myself communist to turn around and support imperialists on the next breath.

    tst123, (edited )

    deleted_by_author

    •
    missingno,
    missingno avatar

    The lead developers and the admins of the lemmy.ml instance.

    tst123, (edited )

    deleted_by_author

    •
    SoNick,

    They are, yes. It's why I went with a Kbin instance instead of a Lemmy instance.

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