The lemmy.ml Problem

Dear Admins and Users of lemmy.world,

I am writing to express my concerns about the impact of lemmy.ml on our community. It has come to my attention that lemmy.ml frequently disseminates propaganda and engages in historical revisionism. Moreover, there have been instances where their admin privileges were used to suppress dissenting views, reminiscent of the already defederated lemmygrad instance.

While personal blocking of lemmy.ml is an option, it does not address the broader issue of new users potentially being influenced by misleading content. It is crucial that we protect our users from a continuous stream of biased information.

To illustrate these concerns, I have provided a link to a detailed post on the Fediverse that documents these issues comprehensively [Here].

Given these points, I urge the admins to consider a defederation from lemmy.ml. If their users wish to remain part of Lemmy.ml, that is entirely acceptable, but we should take steps to prevent the propagation of harmful misinformation, especially in their comment sections.

Thank you for your consideration.

76 comments

Not only are they heavily censoring content and comments, they do it at the database level so there's no mod log of the events, and users are unaware that their content has been removed.
- You can still see that your comment has been removed, but you can't see the biased mass removals of content, like mass purging all China critical comments from a post, unless you're quick enough to screenshot the modlog.
  
  They're purging the modlog somehow. I received a message from an admin of another instance who let me know that he happened to see my comment disappear, but he couldn't figure out how it was removed because there was no record of it. When I went back to the comment to check, it looked like it was still there to me. So, I'm not sure exactly what they're doing, but they're doing something funky.

Do it defederate the bloody bastards. Admins are now banning people from all .ml communities for disagreeing on a different community. I believe some guy got banned from all .ml communities for posting things .ml didnt like about tianamin square.
- I believe some guy got banned from all .ml communities for posting things .ml didnt like about tianamin square.
  That was me, yes.
  
  Damn lemmy small af lol

I also got banned from all communities on .ml that I had participated in after making a joke about how Tienanmen Square was like a glue trap for tankies. Really bad image for Lemmy. Considering we're growing as a community, I don't see why we should allow authoritarians to participate. Allowing that will just ingratiate their standards into the culture of the platform.

Please defederate from lemmy.ml it's pretty much the new hexbear.

I absolutely agree. For the sake of the Fediverse and it's potential to be great, cut out the malicious propaganda machine Lemmy.ml.
- its* potential to be great.

Calling to defederate merely on the basis of political opinion might be premature. However, I suspect defederation will happen for legal reasons: they host users who openly support terrorist organizations designated as such by the EU. LW is subject to Dutch law - hosting such content is more of a gray area than CSAM, but still very much illegal in most countries.
The reason I'm not pushing here with examples is because I have not yet contacted the mods/admins to remove said content. They may have simply not been aware and I'll give them that chance. But even seeing that content has a chilling effect on users who would contribute - even in unrelated communities.
- Like in the other comment, it's not their view on politics what is the problem. Its that they straight up lie. They try to rewrite history and deny well established facts. And if you try to call them out, they lie even more and ban you.
  
  Who is "they"? The entire instance? Every single user in every single community on that instance You don't think people around here spread lies too?
  Hexbear and lemmygrad were instance-wide operations. They existed for the purpose of disruption. Lemmy.ml is not that and has never been. It holds a large body of individuals who share the same beliefs, but that's not the whole instance.
  And are we establishing a dedicated, impartial, fact checking body to evaluate everything? If not, then defederating the entire instance based on "lies", determined by people with their own biases, is about as slippery a slope as you can possibly get.
  Besides, you keep talking about "lies" but what I see in the evidence you linked is mostly about admin actions. So let's not punish the users of either instance for their admin, let's open some dialogue about it.
  But the greater issue here is that the whole concept of this federated platform is basically moot the more fractured the federation becomes. If admins can't put aside biases and commit to the idea of federation, then it isn't going to work, and this would create the most evidence of that. I agree the admin actions over there are eyebrow raising, but the biggest instance defederating from one of the other biggest and oldest instances is cutting off our arm, their arm, while making this whole thing less useful and even more confusing for new users.
  I don't know if there's a good answer, here. Rogue admins in charge of massive instances is not something that can be dealt with easily. But defederating is going to cause more issues than it solves.
- It's not defederating on the basis of political opinion. It's defederating on the basis of extreme intolerance towards and censorship of people who have different, non-fringe opinions that aren't even controversial in most parts of the world.
  Right now, the instance hosts a lot of let's say mainstream, non-political communities, purely because lemmy.ml was the first instance and so "popular" by default. The way the mods over there behave, it's clear that they're not suited to be a mainstream instance for these communities. Unfortunately due to network effect, people won't just move.
  The only way to dislodge these communities and move them to more neutral instances is if larger instances like lemmy.world start defederating lemmy.ml.
  
  Defederation is a tool of last resort. Before taking that step as a community we should attempt to engage the admins to align them towards more acceptable behavior. Migrating communities away from instances with petty and abusive admins is always a good idea, and this absolutely qualifies.

Ooooh lemmy drama

There are some good points here, but I think defederation should always be a last resort and especially so in this case, given that we are talking about lemmy.ml here.
Since it was the former flagship server (in activity, at least) before LW came along, there are still many thriving, non-political communities hosted there. To cut them all off would be a net-negative to the average Lemmy user, I would argue.
That's not to say that I agree with the actions of the .ml admins, or think that opening a dialogue with them about moderation policies isn't a great idea, of course; I just think it's overall a better approach to let the individual user figure out for themselves which communities/instances they want to engage with and which ones they want to avoid.
- there are still many thriving, non-political communities hosted there
  And that, in fact, is my main concern with ml. They have lots of communties which are non-political for sure but, these communities come along with an assortment of lies and Propaganda. At which point the negative outweigh the positive?
  And even in the non-political Communities your comments gets censored when they are not on line with their views.
  
  but, these communities come along with an assortment of lies and Propaganda.
  So block those individual communities that post what you consider propaganda. Hell, even block the whole instance - that option is readily available to you.
  At which point the negative outweigh the positive?
  With a server like, say, Hexbear, this would be an easy calculation. Defederate and what does the average user miss out on? Not a whole lot. On the other hand, .ml has a wide variety of technology, open source, gaming, hobby, etc. communities that don't even touch on politics.
  I regularly visit many of them, so for me at least, it would take a lot more on the negative scale to even break even.
- there are still many thriving, non-political communities hosted there. To cut them all off would be a net-negative to the average Lemmy user, I would argue.
  Agreed. To address this, I started this thread to see which lemmy.ml don't have alternatives on other instances: https://lemmy.world/post/16235541
  Hopefully that can help people who want to avoid lemmy.ml.
  I guess at the end of the day, people should be able to choose whether they go to the lemmy.ml communities or the alternatives
  
  See, now that's a much more positive approach. Users making informed decisions and organically migrating is much more in keeping with the Fediverse spirit than admins wielding the defederation hammer, IMO.
- The non-political communities on .ml are poisoned by mods who ban users based on their political opinions they voice in other communities. If you're critical of China, you will likely be banned from all communities on .ml, regardless of if they're political.
  
  They banned the Plex mod, who was doing good work, for basically nothing as far as I can tell. Effectively killed the community. Rest in peace BrooklynMan
- let the individual user figure out for themselves
  What a ton of people will figure out is that the fediverse has a serious problem with propaganda and moderation. They'll come check out the Fediverse, see it's full of extremist political content, and go back to Reddit.
  I'm thrilled about the potential of the Fediverse to be something great, but I won't even tell anyone I use it in it's current state.
  Defederating malicious propaganda instances like Lemmy.ml should be a no-brainer. It's not "people I disagree with," it's a murderous authoritarian government's tool for spreading lies.
  
  First impressions to new users is an important factor, I agree, but is Lemmy really "full of extremist political content"?
  Scrolling through the first 4 pages of Lemmy World today, I see no extremist content at all. All of the political posts are standard liberal/left-of-centre talking points and the only things related to .ml content are three posts complaining about tankies, off the back of the original post that made a splash yesterday.
  I can't see anything that would be putting potential newcomers off in droves.

I think dissenting views is helpful in a community, even crazy psychotic and editorialized views.
If instances defederate just because they have different viewpoints is going to get really lonely in the fediverse.
A more generalized rules of cooperative federation would be a better solution then doing a case by case debate. I.e.
Instances we federate with must have a clearly defined moderation policy at the instance level
Any user banning at the instance level must follow the published moderation policy
Just the basics.
- It's not so much that they have dissenting views, but rather that they throw the ban hammer around for anyone remotely suggesting that they have a really skewed perception of history and that they are actively disseminating propaganda and engaging in historical revisionism. The post that OP mentioned illustrates that very well, and those are things that have happened on .ml for months now.
  I agree about the instance level moderation policy, and I'd like for the LW team to take it up with the ML admins. But at the same time, we should seriously consider defederating in the case that they are unwilling to compromise.
  
  This is why federation should have a standard that needs to be followed. Been saying that for a year now.
  Instance level administration/moderation has an effect on the democratic system that is the backbone of the entire federation. We can choose not to federate all their actions, but it still has an effect on instance A when something isn't visible on instance B and instance B visitors can not not vote on it. It skews the outcomes for everyone.
  So there should be a standard for federated instances to administer and moderate fairly and honestly, in line with established and public rules.
- It's not that their views are diffrent they straight up lie. And if you call them out, you get banned from all communitys and silenced in any way possible.
- They do not have a clearly defined moderation policy, they are flagrantly banning any dissenters to their political views from communities unrelated to the posts in question. Allowing them to grow more power in the space by keeping them federated with other large instances is a bad thing imo.
- It's not "dissenting views," it's authoritarian propaganda.
- No, crazy psychotic views are not helpful to a community.

I'm with roflmasterbigpimp here because I mean look, strongly-worded letter format
This guy fucks

The lack of moderation on lemmy.ml is a problem. For example:
https://lemmy.world/post/20285303

Ok so I'm no one here and not on the .world team.
So don't take what I'm saying personally or anything bc I'm not meaning it in any kind of angry or combative way. Not trying to argue with you or anyone.
I'm not of the same beliefs that .ml or the developers are. So I guess you can say you and I agree that yea their messed up I get it.
But that's the issue with the whole fediverse thing. Even though I do agree with you about .ml
People are allowed to do whatever they want and believe whatever they want. That's not up to you. Don't Take that as an attack, I'm not meaning it as one.
Think of it this way:
It's like .ml making this post but about your personal beliefs (they probably already do)
OR
let's pretend lemmy was heavily conservative instead of liberal making this exact post. You'd think wtf ?
You get what I'm saying ?
But that's not up to them to get what I'm trying to say ? Yea it's fucked up but ppl are allowed to believe whatever they want. Even if what they believe is shitty. The thing is, one person doesn't and shouldn't get to make that call for everyone else.
No one person knows what's best for everyone
- I could agree with you if they would not specifically suppress anyone not agreeing with them. That is the big issue, meaning that anyone there only sees that one side of everyone agreeing with their nonsense, with no chance to get out.
  And we absolutely know that making shit up is not good for people and where that can lead to. It does not need to be "best', just not the absolute worst.
  
  Unfortunately though... that is lemmy though dude. That's what I'm trying to say.
  It's by design. That's how and why the fediverse is the way it is. It's stupid yes I don't agree with it either. But that is the truth.
  Echo chambers. That's how they want it.
- let’s pretend lemmy was heavily conservative instead of liberal making this exact post.
  I think you misunderstand the issue, so as you mentioned conservative, let's illustrate it with an analogy.
  The situation with lemmy.ml right now, and apologies for the reddit analogy, is the equivalent if on reddit the batshit crazy mods of formerly /r/the_donald or /r/conservative could ban you from /r/linux because you said something bad about Trump on /r/memes. At that point it's not about dissenting opinions, it's about them wielding power they shouldn't have over those dissenting people.
  An instance that operates like that shouldn't be part of mainstream lemmy and host general purpose communities. The only way to take that power from them is to shun them, i.e. defederate.
  
  I wonder what your "call out" looked like that then actually got you temp banned from all those communities, have you laid that open anywhere too?
- No one person knows what's best for everyone
  But we do know what isn't best for everyone, and that's lies and disinformation.
  
  Thank God you're not in charge of anything important in real life lol
- Well put
  
  Ty

76 comments