u/LeninMeowMeow moderates a large amount of big subreddits, r/therightcantmeme, r/gamingcirclejerk, r/animememes, r/greenandpleasent (a known russian propaganda subreddit source: Center for European Policy Analysis (think Lemmygrad)) and much more.
Anyways on r/lemmy, he says that lemmy.world is right-wing and thatcherite. I reply that it is more social democratic.
I instantly get banned from the subreddits he moderates and blocked by him. I have not commented or participated in any of their subreddits before, and this is my first ever encounter with them.
Weird and concerning behaviour. I fear that tankies are taking over most left wing spaces on reddit (not that I really use reddit for politics anymore, that’s why I’m on lemmy, but for the implications to our democracies, as a non-negligible chunk of voters are politically influenced by reddit).
Any Reddit super moderator who survived the Rexodus bent the knee to Spez and did not maintain closures. They valued their stance as a moderator over others more than the shit getting pulled. He absolutely would have been present for those meetings and message rooms during that time. Anyone like that is not a friend of the average user of any platform.
This sounds almost like he’s been paid to denigrate Lemmy in hopes of keeping some of the rapidly declining Reddit population from leaving… It’s clear he’s never actually used Lemmy which is way more left leaning than Reddit honestly
I’m so glad I left the corporate cesspool that Reddit has become
Reddit? Pay their mods?!
No but I agree. It’s very sus to say the right has taken over Lemmy, and then laude lemmy.ml and hexbear for their left wing positions.
Like yeah they’re… Left wing… All the way oof the cliff, denying Tiananmen Square and trying to get actual social democrats to join sketchy Chinese communist parties.
This mods take on Lemmy is either paid for or he’s a tankie.
There was also a controversy over on r/redditalternatives with recommendations for Lemmy being taken down
I’ll see if I can find the thread sometime
Now it’s much better, Lemmy is mentioned every other day
I was permabanned from !politicalmemes@lemmy.world for pointing out (quite rudely, tbf) that some of the accounts had been recycling transparently laughable propaganda. E.g. they had said elsewhere that they were upset that Biden had undone Trump’s insulin price cap, and now they were showing up trotting out some somewhat more subtle talking points (you know the ones…)
It’s reddit, you get what you get. That’s why the majority of us stopped using it.
That therightcantmeme subreddit is absolutely full of tankies and has been for quite some time.
I still remember when they took it over. That was a weird week. Out of the blue a ton of “Stalin did nothing wrong” posts sprung up. Made it clear it was time to leave that sub after vocally calling out their bullshit.
neoliberal thatcherites and reaganites that carry out digital mccarthyism
Buzzword mad-libs.
The words themselves make sense but… not for lemmy.world lmao
Eh. It has its moments. More like Clintonites though.
The more big words you know, the smarter you are, duh.
I’ve seen those comments too, thank you for posting here
It’s weird because I also commented in that thread and my comments were arguably more confrontational. But I didn’t get banned for whatever reason.
They did say I would be banned in any socialist space for truthfully talking about the history of Leninism but they didn’t actually do it.
The tankie takeover of online left spaces is a problem but I’m not sure what to do about it. I guess try to politely point out that it’s not just a harmless difference of opinion whenever it comes up in more neutral spaces. Their preferred system means the murder of dissidents. That’s not what left politics should be about. And maybe try to create more open and non-violent left spaces where the truth can be discussed.
not sure what to do about it
Defederation from Hexbear, lemmygrad, and lemmy.ml would be a decent start, but since they have support from the Kremlin/CCP it’ll probably turn into ongoing whack-a-mole.
What do you mean by support? Like ideological support or more direct support?
Things like the internet research agency (russian keyboard army propaganda organisation ) and chinese equivalents are far more widespread than most imagine
Is there evidence they’re on Lemmy? I find this hard to believe given the anonymity of the platform.
Impossible to prove or disprove, but grad ML and Hexbear follow the exact leftist ideologies these agencies try to push.
They also push extreme right ideologies too, anything that destabilises and improves relationship with russia china is good for them.
More direct support. I think a large portion of the accounts on those three instances are bot/shill accounts run by the CCP and Kremlin. I suspect the CCP runs lemmygrad and lemmy.ml. Not sure about Hexbear.
To be clear, I generally don’t have a problem with Marxists or communists. I think that’s a facade used to cover up the propaganda. No intelligent communist or Marxist would support either the Kremlin or CCP at this point.
The fediverse is a fantastic place for propagandists. There’s no central censor, absolutely no budget for countering propaganda.
I didn’t know the power mod situation is that bad. I already started avoiding r/gamingcirclejerk when I saw them banning users for correcting easily disproven misinformation about the “bad people” they meme about.
The internet is getting weird. It used to be that I only had to worry about alt-right trolls. Now I have to look out for authoritarian fake leftists infiltrating and taking over my spaces. I don’t even care about leftism. I just don’t want to participate in spaces where I could get banned for arguing that communism doesn’t work.
What do you fear are the tangible consequences for US elections of tankie takeover of leftwing spaces on reddit?
There are one or two million eligible US voters on reddit by estimate. A decent chunk of those are progressive left. People like u/leninmeowmeow have been increasingly taking over left wing subreddits, and pushing pro-russia and “don’t vote both sides bad” propaganda, which does impact US voters.
I had a health emergency in June 2023 and was pretty much unable to use reddit until April 2024. Going back, the same subreddits felt like a different world. A bunch of subreddits I frequented, that had been social democrat and pro-ukraine, became subtly pro-russia. This is the reason I left reddit for lemmy. I felt like my political ideology (idealistically I’m an anarcho-marxist, but I still vote for the better candidate to shift the overton window, and I’m critical of Chinese and Russian imperialism, and really all the authoritarian “communist” regimes) had no place on reddit anymore.
None whatsoever. It will ultimately result in these subreddits becoming an echo chamber for a bunch of pro Russia bots to troll each other after everyone else leaves
It’s more just annoying than anything else since it means these spaces are now unusable for their intended purpose
