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DefederateLemmyMl @feddit.nl

Lemmy.ml tankie censorship problem

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/linux@some.random.other.instance.world 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.

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810 comments

  • The thing is, the Fediverse, link the original concept of the Internet is flexible and can survive losing nodes - it just routes around and issue. If there are problems it can mutate and survive.

    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.

    This is the best solution - the answers are in our hands. Communities only thrive because the users are.posting and interacting on it. If the Mod goes inactive or an instances goes down, we can switch to a new community. That then gains the momentum and goes on to thrive. It's survival of the fittest and why having more than one community on a topic (especially big topics) is a feature not a bug because it gives the network flexibility and resilience.

    So if there's an issue with lemmy.ml, boycott it - unsubscribe, give the other communities on more agreeable instances your time and they will grow and prosper. If there isn't a relevant alternative start one.

    Lemmy prevails.

    • This is a good answer and probably the right solution (still not 100% convinced defederating isn't, ultimately, going to be the answer though).

      But your Jane/Joe Average User doesn't look to see which instance that pr0n cute picture of a cat holding a teddy bear is on. They probably don't even understand the concept of different instances showing content from others. Hell I've been online since 1992 and it took me a couple of days to get my head around it when I joined.

      So I think we need some kind of step by step "If you see X, then do Y" sticked to the instances that care about this for the people who (like me) do care about this issue.

      • still not 100% convinced defederating isn’t, ultimately, going to be the answer though

        It may be, but only as a last resort.

        So I think we need some kind of step by step “If you see X, then do Y” sticked to the instances that care about this for the people who (like me) do care about this issue.

        Yes, the map of thr Fediverse needs "here be dragons" sprinkled around.

    • This is the best solution - the answers are in our hands

      There is the problem of network effect though. People who frequent communities on lemmy.ml are often blissfully unaware of how problematic that instance is, like I was until a few days ago, and so they're unlikely to just move as they have no immediate reason to.

      It's easy to say just pack up and move ... but I've been really struggling to find an alternative for !linux@lemmy.ml, to name one example. The equivalent communities !linux@lemmy.world and !linux@programming.dev are rather stale with days old posts without comments.

      So I think it's not just something an individual user can solve for themselves, and I think that the larger instances also have a role to play here. If they would defederate from lemmy.ml, it would urge users along to move away from lemmy.ml communities towards communities on other, more suitable instances.

      Next to that, we should also spread awareness about the lemmy.ml problem, and that was my intent when I originally made this post.

      • It’s easy to say just pack up and move … but I’ve been really struggling to find an alternative for !linux@lemmy.ml, to name one example. The equivalent communities !linux@lemmy.world and !linux@programming.dev are rather stale with days old posts without comments.

        !linux@programming.dev now has 983 weekly active users: https://programming.dev/post/15328354

        I think that the larger instances also have a role to play here. If they would defederate from lemmy.ml, it would urge users along to move away from lemmy.ml communities towards communities on other, more suitable instances.

        People have choices. If they want to keep using the Lemmy.ml community, that's their freedom. The alternatives exist, if they want to switch, they can.

        Intrigued by your name change, you are really pushing for this.

        • People have choices. If they want to keep using the Lemmy.ml community, that’s their freedom. The alternatives exist, if they want to switch, they can.

          Because network effect is a thing, it's really the illusion of choice. When a lemmy.ml community has 50k subscribers and the equivalent lemmy.world or programming.dev community has just a tenth of that, it's not really a choice. People will always gravitate towards ml and the smaller community will never gain critical mass unless some strong enough outside force influences that decision.

          Which brings me to ...

          Intrigued by your name change, you are really pushing for this.

          I think defederation from lemmy.ml together with raising awareness about ml should be the outside force to move communities off lemmy.ml.

810 comments