Lead Lemmy Developer, Dessalines, denying the Tiananmen Square Massacre and praising the Uyghur Genocide
https://sh.itjust.works/post/8419342
Dessalines AKA “parentis_shotgun” on Reddit, is the main Lemmy dev, also the admin of lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml.
Their post and discussions on Reddit (archive as the original post must have been removed):
Please join the discussions for Lemmy.ml tankie censorship problem:
https://lemmy.world/post/16211417
And the discussions for finding/creating alternative communities on other instances:
https://lemmy.world/post/16235541
What is a tankie?
Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to authoritarian communists, especially those who support acts of repression by such regimes or their allies. More specifically, the term has been applied to those who express support for one-party Marxist–Leninist socialist republics, whether contemporary or historical.
i’m open to the possibility that you’re right, but my experience is that criticism of the cia or zionism is tolerated to a much greater degree on .world than criticism of china or soviet russia is tolerated on .ml.
can you point to specific instance-wide bannings for talking shit on us foreign policy or zionism?
It’s tolerated in different ways. Ostracization and orchestrated mass downvotes are used rather than bans. .world utilizes methods of control that are more subtle than .ml. Which is consistent with how the CIA/West exerts control compared to China.
Our propaganda techniques and mechanisms of control are more multifaceted and less brutish and obvious - which isn’t a good thing. It means that we create a veil and drape it over the eyes of our people so that they don’t even realize that they are being controlled. This is the ideological state apparatus of the West that is drastically more effective than anything a socialist state has managed to create. Of course, we both have repressive state apparatuses as well, and our police are arguably more brutal than theirs (especially if you aren’t white and female), but there is less need to use that when you are able to brainwash your public so effectively with subtle acts of ideological correction. And convincing them that hundreds of strangers are mad at them is a good way to minimize dissent from being articulated in the first place, as well as distractions such as typical liberal rage bait and “red team bad” distractions
i think this is pretty hard to draw a direct comparison. first, a few mods/admins deciding to ban is not the same as hundreds of individuals voting. even if half of them are bots (no one games lemmy votes, though, do they?), that’s still a far cry from someone stepping in and actually silencing a user.
second, while i think you’re right about the nature of western societal control, i don’t think there is any conspiracy to enact that on .world. maybe i’m naive though.