The discourse around this is frankly unhinged

You'd see it more if you browsed communities on .world. I've even seen it here on the instance I'm on, and I can think of some specific users who've been called as such.

I've received reports and DMs calling me one for things I've posted here.

I'm happy to hear the communities you frequent don't seem to have this problem.

Ive personally noticed a really big influx of liberals and liberal bullshit on my feed this past like month or so, and it does seem centered around .world. personally my guess is they someome got an influx of users and theyre all scared of "the radical left" when they discovered .ml

I've most recently seen a .ml praising the Taliban in an lgbtq+ community. They're not good people (or their instance draws, tolerates, and encourages those kinds of people). I don't really want that sort of crap spilling into other instances. Alas, programming.dev has not defederated from them. When instances do defederate from them, it's not censorship, it's just not pulling data from their communities or users. Users are welcome to make an account on .ml if they want to see the things on there. Do you understand the difference? If not, I can explain it a little more with some better examples if you let me know the sticking points.

I have a .world exclusive alt for when I feel like swimming through a sea of memes and I've seen this tankie drama building since the initial Reddit diaspora. I think it has come to a head thanks to an increasing number of very vocal, very prolific users frequently posting about it.

They're often upset, sometimes legitimately because a mod was being heavy handed with comment removal, sometimes because they were being an asshole and received a ban. They can't just accept it and move on. No, they must have revenge! Because access to content was removed, everyone must defederate from whichever instance... thereby removing access to all the content themselves. Much of it doesn't make sense. A hefty dallop of idealogical purity á la Exiting the Vampire Castle is in there too.

Now both the aggrieved and vicariously aggrieved are using "tankie" to describe anyone they don't like, especially actual leftists whose ideas challenge their center to center-right worldviews. With a rallying cry to get behind, a poorly defined common enemy, and a lot of idiotic theatrics, their movement is gaining some traction. I don't even know if it's the majority of .world users, but it's enough where browsing by all has resulted in my feed getting shitted up with lib drama.

tbh i don't think lemmy is big and relevant enough to have targeted astroturfing campaigns like this.

a bad actor could be watching, but i doubt it would be worth it to run interference just yet.

I've personally been banned and silenced (in just my first week or two here) for simply stating that I don't believe socialism, or any single "ism" is the ideal solution to government.

And then we have these well-documented, glowing examples of further abuse that happen regularly: https://lemmy.world/post/16211417

It's not a red scare, it's naked frustration from folks who don't appreciate censorship.

I saw that community hit trending, but I didn't know you got banned, damn. That community is sus -- doesn't really appear to be about leaving ML. I browse by all > new a lot, and I've seen a number of similar anti-"tankie" communities pop up all at once on several instances. I half think maybe a few people got upset by a recent thread on !asklemmy@lemmy.ml asking people if they're tankies.

If you don't mind me asking, what app are you using that lets you do a keyword search like that? I use Jerboa, but I don't think it has that function.

You banned me, a gay man from lgbtq_plus with no explanation.

On that note, as an anarchist I don't have the answers to some of the potential pitfalls of abolishing states, and I think it's a mistake to demand instant answers to these questions. An important lesson I've learned is it's ok and good to admit we don't have answers to everything, while still being able to recognize the harm and inequity inherent to market capitalism.

There are Trotskyists in this community, and perhaps someday they'll make a post, but I'm not going to demand it from them since this is sorta supposed to be a respite from such things.

As an ML, I believe that the best course of action is defined by material conditions, such that there is no universal set of policies that is best for every country. Countries like the USSR and the PRC came into being with extreme poverty, little industry, and surrounded by enemies, and some of the measures that they took were necessary for their survival and development, and would not be necessary for other countries with different conditions. But other measures weren't necessary at all.

Both countries eventually transitioned from a more militant leader to a calmer, more civilian government. In both cases, it would've been better if it happened faster. But there are also plenty of governments around the world that did not take such strict measures to protect themselves and were defeated as a result, often with devastating consequences, and navigating that is a challenging question for everyone, not just for MLs.

There are plenty of countries that did not take strict measures to ensure their security and fell to CIA coups, sometimes resulting in fascists coming to power and committing mass slaughter while securing their power for decades. Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran, for instance, was a true believer in democratic ideals, and the result was that he did nothing as the CIA infiltrated the country and ousted him, which led to decades of the shah's secret police hunting down and exterminating the Iranian left, which led to the situation there now.

So, it's tough to say. On the whole, I believe that the revolutions in Russia and China did more good than harm. But the skillset you use to win and secure a revolution is not the skillset you need to manage a country during peacetime, and which of those is more important at a given time is driven by external factors.

Hmmm I've looked at a lot of liberals' comment histories in the fediverse, and they seem like they're being genuine. This doesn't sound right. I think it's very dangerous to assume everyone is a troll.

As much as I dislike the liberal shit, I'm not fond of dehumanizing people by assuming they're all bots, shills, and trolls. I think it's misconceptions like that which cause the really harmful division.

Thanks to .world, a lot of liberals here now know it. The issue is many are using it like the American right uses woke: anything or anyone they don't like, generally because their political or social commentary challenges their assumptions and makes them uncomfortable.