I keep running into comments where users are arguing for avoiding Lemmy, claiming that Lemmy supports authoritarian governments, supports the CCP, sides with Russia in their invasion of Ukraine, denies genocides committed by nominal communist governments, and other similar political claims. I know there are communist instances and whatnot, but I’m well aware that identifying as a communist doesn’t mean that someone wants a dictatorial government or denies genocides.

  • Can we figure this out and have any supporting evidence either way to end the rumors?
  • Is there any evidence that Lemmy is advocating against democracy, pro dictatorships, denying and/or advocating for genocides?
  • Is there evidence that using Lemmy supports genocidal aspiring dictators and their accomplices?
  • Even if there is one instance that advocates for atrocities, genocides, dictatorships, and clearly false revisions of history, what does that have to do with the Lemmy as a system? Can’t those instances just be defederated?

To be 100% clear, I am not a communist, aspiring dictator, or support genocides. I also do not believe that communism = dictatorships and the end of human rights. I believe in democracy, equitable distribution or power, individual human rights and freedoms. If I had to define a personal political identity, I would mostly fall under the term anarchist and do not advocate for violence against innocent people despite their political viewpoints (except Nazis because they’re not innocent. Fuck Nazis).

  • Naura@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    2 years ago

    Well the whole point is that no one person “owns” this to push an agenda to the entire fediverse. Each server is its own and connected by this software. It’s like Reddit broken into 1000000 pieces and held together by this software. If you want to ban something within your server you are free to do so. Is a server fucking toxic? Then you don’t connect.

    Star Trek has their own server up and running already and it’s Startrek.website. It isn’t connected so if they decide that haters should be banned, it will just be locally.

  • Terberlo@lemmy.oneEnglish
    3·
    2 years ago

    Just my $0.02 Back in ~2020, the only Lemmy instances which had activity were the ones that people flocked to when their Subreddit was shutdown. It went something like:

    1 - Group sets up a hateful Subreddit 2 - Group members begin to repeatedly violate Reddit’s TOS 3 - Reddit bans the Subreddit 4 - Some groups had enough cohesion to send their subscribers to a Lemmy instance to try and salvage the situation

    As a result, when I joined the Mastadon Fediverse in 2021, I heard the rumors about “Lemmy is only used by people who were banned by reddit. That’s why it’s only Tankies there.”

    • danc4498@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      This is what I figured. When I signed up I was a bit grossed out by how prominent that instance was.

  • Guy_Fieris_Hair@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    A few days ago the Lemmy devs made an update here: https://join-lemmy.org/news/2023-06-17_-_Update_from_Lemmy_after_the_Reddit_blackout

    In that update about half way through they aknowlage that everyone thinks they are tankies, deny it, and refer people to the about lemmy page here: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/users/07-history-of-lemmy.html

    The about lemmy page they have some very strong political views that are anti-usa media. (Most of which, I as an American agree with) . None of this really answers your question, I’m sure there’s more to it I don’t know. But maybe provides some context.

    I am tentatively here for the ride. 🤷‍♂️. They run lemmy.ml, and by design if I am not on lemmy.ml, they don’t have control over what I see, say, or do. They can have their own views, it does seem strange to put them at the forefront of the entire project though. And if they are the devs it seems they could push an update to nuke everything if they wanted. Idk what the context is to the whole thing.