So what’s going on here, most likely, is that the intake of new users is declining as opposed to people specifically being driven off the platform (as some users allege).
The difference, one would assume, is that on the whole, Reddit’s political biases influence more what is not shown (much like lemmy.ml banning people for any criticism of Russia, China, or North Korea, or the echo chamber in hexbear), whereas Lemmy’s tankie issue also manifests as people actively sea-lioning (e.g. Cowbee) and (especially from hexbear) overt trolling, which shows up more in people’s faces. Both are issues, neither are good.
I absolutely love how afraid they are of a single poster who isn’t even trolling. Cowbee is just explaining stuff in a Marxist framework and is a prolific poster. But they talk about Cowbee like he’s a malign spirit or a virus. They talk about him like he’s Howard from the for-profit online university.
Throwback to my all-time favorite MeanwhileOnGrad comment:
Cowbee isn’t just another tankie. He knows his theory and will use it to dazzle you with bullshit.
Like they’re so close to getting it, but the ideology is just way too strong (and comfortable) man…
Yep, I just thought it was funny, lol.
But they talk about Cowbee like he’s a malign spirit or a virus.
Cowbee has become Sigma from Mega Man X.
At this point we should create a
version of the medal emoji 
. For when posters have posted hard enough to haunt the lib’s minds.Or at least a cute puppy ghost version
A spectre is haunting Lemmy.
There’s a weird phenomenon I have seen on the fediverse where posters complain about people responding to them with (usually minor) criticism as if their posts are personal property or something. It’s very bizarre behavior. If you’re throwing your opinion out into the void, others can and will respond. Often any pushback must mean you’re either MAGA or a foreign spy to these posters.
And it’s not like replies are always debate attempts either. Often when I respond to something it’s because I want the next guy thumbing through the thread to see a rebuttal or re-contextualization of the conversation because I know how much my view of the world has been influenced by random comments on the internet.
Personally I think lemmy is really cool and reminds me of a less shitty internet where there is more than a single allowed opinion per site/subreddit/platform. The calls for defederation just perpetuates the shitty internet we have now imo.
Oh this thread has a rare goat appearance!
“brigading” being a silly accusation example #9586473
Also:
And I cannot think of any better example of that than hexbear.net, which is why I am such a fan of either outright defederation if that is the only option, or at least making that instance opt-in rather than force it to be opt-out, which apparently seems to cause many people to flee us and go either back to Reddit or to Bluesky or whatever, hence opting out of the entire Threadiverse. Basically: either hexbear goes, or the newbie users do.
Uncritical support to hexbear for single-handedly driving away fragile ‘apolitical’ redditors from the entire platform.
Uncritical support to hexbear for single-handedly driving away fragile ‘apolitical’ redditors from the entire platform.
this is a godsend imo and that along make lemmy far superior to reddit.
The ghost of Joseph McCarthy haunts the minds of many Americans still…
Goat getting angry at blaze for having multiple accounts not interacting with mowg? But ml is the issue? Lololol
Goat really hates that Blaze debunks goat’s massive lies. It really irritates the zio-nazi that facts disprove his echo chamber.
Thank you comrade Seal, very cool.
cowbee is sea-lioning?
The people that would operation sea lion Greenland accuse the communists of sea lining, what is this 1938?
As someone who rips on libs all the time, I’m just frustrated that Cowbee gets all the ire 😤
It’s probably because Cowbee cites sources and does research, whereas I’m just like “eat shit”.
As comrade @RedSturgeon@hexbear.net said, what makes them most frustrated is simply not falling for their provocations. They can easily dismiss hostile and agressive actions mentally, but what truly gets under their skin is remaining reasonable and calm about it, as though their own provocations have no impact on you.
I try not to take cheap rhetorical wins either, taking their arguments at the most charitable and debunking them anyways, as that’s more effective.
You are a far more patient person than I, and I thank you for your service 🫡
Thank you!
I feel like I would fail both on the psychological front and on the research front, yet you take it up in the trenches everyday somehow
It’s honestly not too difficult. I simply speak on what I’ve researched enough to be confident on, and I don’t let the opinions of clear reactionaries shake me just like I wouldn’t do so of flat Earthers. That being said, it does get tiring, haha.
The hardest part is always not reacting to the terrible things they say in replies
The number of times I’ve rewritten comments to tone them down is way too high, haha.
I don’t mean to discredit your efforts, but if you really want to go under their skin you have to do so without denigrating them, just speaking facts. It will boil their blood because they know they have to lie to maintain their worldview or they have to remain willfully ignorant.
So of course they will do anything they can to target the users who cite the most sources and put the most effort into what they’re doing. They might even genuinely believe Cowbee is a paid agent of CPC, because they can’t think anyone would willingly spend so much effort into research and education, without being paid for it.
The thing is, they don’t think they’re lying. They think that if we were telling them the truth, this information would inevitably permeate the highest echelons of institutional media and academia. They operate under an epistemological framework where these institutions are cornerstone of reality, and any fact or historical occurrence they haven’t acknowledged is suspect.
The idea that powerful ideologues of American imperialism like Alan Dershowitz and Larry Summers can wield their high positions at an institution like Harvard University to skew the trajectory of academics doesn’t even enter their minds. They barely grasp the idea that there’s a reason why people like Jeff Bezos would buy the Washington Post.
The need for external validation, like from an established institution, is probably the most difficult thing I’ve had to try to overcome myself, in order to move my own views further to the left.
Every step I’ve taken is met with accusations of there being hidden personal motives, even though I make my interest and biases transparent.
Even when they can’t find a personal interest in my moves, like when I was talking to an Italian friend about how he should organize with his locals, who are making an effort to make things better, and was simply giving him some tips to improve his own life, he just tells me literally: “I feel like you tell people this stuff to self validate yourself and do it to feel comfort.”
It’s incredibly frustrating and makes me want to lash out in anger, but I can’t afford to do such things or the accusations of mental illness and hysteria start piling in. Liberals have even started telling me that caring for Gazans is actually a sign of me being mentally ill, overactive empathy they say.
They might even genuinely believe Cowbee is a paid agent of CPC, because they can’t think anyone would willingly spend so much effort into research and education, without being paid for it.
I’ve seen this accusation a few times, actually. Usually among those that can tell that I do know what I’m talking about for the most part, and that I do believe it as well. As cool as that would be, though, I’m not a CPC agent.
And like, even if it were true, it doesn’t disprove anything you actually say. You could be from Mars or something and it still would have 0 bearing on whether or not the things you say have merit.
But liberals know they can’t attack socialist arguments, so they need to attack the person, and you give them so little to actually attack that their only response is to invent conspiracy theories about you.
True, good point! And agreed on the conspiracy theory bit, another I’ve seen is the idea that other users are my alts, which is funny too. It all does end up working towards making socialism more reasonable, though!
In true conspiracy theory fashion, it is completely internally inconsistent. You are both way too active to be a regular person and must be a bot, but also other users must also be your alts, because if they find it suspicious that you spend too much time talking to them, the answer is obviously that you are secretly spending even more time talking to them via alts.
I know, if I had the time to also use alts I wouldn’t have time for anything else! Great point again!
One would have to imagine that the kind of person who can do extensive research for the highest bidder could earn more than the CPC could offer to post on social media. Then they’d be like “well, his motivation is political” and it’s like “no shit, that’s the base case. We fucking hate capitalism. Let me explain:”
Excellent point! Though I would love to be paid by the CPC to do the shitposting I do, haha.
Open Stars’ entire goal is to move people to PieFed, which has stronger censorship tools (such as not displaying replies publicly if a blocked user replies to someone, on Lemmy it only hides it for the blocker) and is ideologically anti-communist at a developer level. One of the ways they do that is by accusing Hex users of being “overt trolls,” and therefore dismissable without evidence, and repeated unsubstantiated claims of me personally being a sealion. This is despite the fact that they’ve had my 3 accounts blocked for over a year, yet I’m still their go-to example.
40·1 day agosuch as not displaying replies publicly if a blocked user replies to someone
This is slightly wrong, it’s not that it doesn’t display it, it’s that it completely drops the comment. The comment is never added to the instance’s database. It also is never federated, which I believe has the result that if you are talking on a community on the same instance as the blocker, the comment never makes it to other instances.
ⓘ This user is suspected of being a cat. Please report any suspicious behavior.
Interesting, so it’s even more abusable than I thought!
Yup. Of course, replies to that reply will also never show up. So this is one of the reasons I wouldn’t use piefed, if user A has blocked user B or instance B, you won’t see the reply from user B or instance B and replies to that reply (regardless of who or from where). So there can be an entire interesting discussion being had that you as a user on some piefed instance cannot see, not because you blocked someone or an instance but because someone else did.
ⓘ This user is suspected of being a cat. Please report any suspicious behavior.
Yep, it’s a really short-sighted decision with major ramifications that is entirely the product of the type of McCarthyites that would make their own Lemmy alternative just to curb communist influence. I was even considering proposing a PieFed commie instance to keep that connection going and increase exposure, but this seems like it wouldn’t work at the moment.
Did you know, attempting to upload an image with “Anonymous” and (“No.” or " N0") can[1] decrease your “reputation”[2] and you might[1] be denied that upload, with as the code itself states: “deliberately misleading error message”. Source
1: If the text check hasn’t been disabled by the admin of your instance.
2: Literally Social Credit Score.
ⓘ This user is suspected of being a cat. Please report any suspicious behavior.
Incredible, every accusation is truly a confession.
And hey, if your reputation is severely bad (<-10) you cannot downvote
We had a code review yesteday, and this is only half of what we found.
ⓘ This user is suspected of being a cat. Please report any suspicious behavior.
PieFED
Stuff like this is why I don’t venture onto the wider fediverse for the most part (just a couple specific communities outside of Hexbear that I’m subbed to). It’s just weird to see how much some people seeth over the tankie triad.
I think criticizing Russia, China, or North Korea is only bannable if you’re also annoying.
skill issue
“Hexbear doesn’t allow criticism of China!”
Meanwhile comrade Xiaohongshu getting a million upbears for their latest comment calling the CPC neoliberal.
Libs just cannot fathom that “Gyna auforitarian” is not good criticism and we don’t allow shit criticism.
Libs just cannot fathom that “Gyna auforitarian” is not good criticism and we don’t allow shit criticism.
With how meaningless the word is when used in the way liberals use it, it’s not even criticism at all, it’s just name calling.
Authoritarianism is when you don’t get to vote once every 4 years to decide the colour of the party that will impose neoliberal austerity
Assuming you mean China and are agreeing with XHS’s take on the CPC being neoliberal, it’s important to note that all that’s been announced is further cooperation with the IMF, and I believe this is more catering towards XHS’s tendency to exaggerate doomerism and bloomerism, such as their firm support for Mamdani while denouncing the CPC as falling for neoliberalism even after they announce pivoting more to a consumption based economy than export-focused, like XHS has been clammoring for this whole time.
While it’s certainly worth watching the CPC and being wary of the IMF, I have not seen compelling evidence to suggest that the CPC is abandoning socialism or anything. We also know that China’s procedural model causes gradual change, from the ground up, and know that there is a leftward shift among the younger generation in China. As these youth enter the CPC, so too will there be a shift in stances held by the CPC, influencing it.
I appreciate XHS’s posts from the perspective of having a viewpoint I don’t necessarily see as much of, but I think they tend to lean too heavily into doomerism or bloomerism, and that this has a negative impact on their predictions and analysis, I believe.
such as their firm support for Mamdani while denouncing the CPC as falling for neoliberalism even after they announce pivoting more to a consumption based economy than export-focused, like XHS has been clammoring for this whole time.
Is that for me or xhs?
xhs
Hey Cowbee! My above comment was referring to lib critique of “authoritarian” China. I agree with your analysis, though I’m hurt by the total inaction with Venezuela.
Also, I deleted my alt account yesterday because of the name thing. I hope it’s ok, sorry mate, didn’t know I was infringing
Ah, gotcha! Regarding Venezuela, there isn’t much China can too millitarily. Economically, we will have to see, but the PRC is pretty conservative at a foreign policy level, as much as I’d appreciate the PRC flexing their economic might in Venezuela’s defense.
Regarding the alt naming, no worries! It’s no problem, really, it’s flattering. My concerns were with 2 areas:
-
Building a “cult of personality” that supports me less critically and doesn’t hold my wrong takes accountable when they happen
-
Having people accuse you of being my alt, such as what softestsapphic did.
Again, it was very flattering, but I’d prefer if you engaged more as your own account or unique alt-name. I appreciated your posting, too!
-
Liberals cannot tolerate their own racism being censored.
“It’s not racism/sexism/homophobia if they deserve it.”
The liberal mantra
user being abusive towards users, transphobic, only there to throw slurs
Gets banned
it can only be because I was saying bad things about putin
@Cowbee@hexbear.net catching strays again…
Open Stars has had my accounts blocked for over a year and I still live
Landlords hate this one simple trick!
Cowbee is like the nicest user on here. Interesting that they smeared him specifically, I guess otherwise people might actually read his posts on their merits and think that socialism is good or something, can’t have that.
I’m so mean to these people where’s MY recognition
sea-lioning
How dare Cowbee not let me make up random shit without any evidence!
I do not think that all or even most Threadiverse instances should defederate from lemmy.ml, but on the other hand it would be extremely nice if just ONE instance would do so, which we could then share to people on Reddit as a nicer entry point for those more centrist-leaning users who are primarily people from the USA.
Won’t someone PLEASE think of the North American centrists
brevity is the soul of wit, and OpenStars is the probably the wordiest mf on the fediverse
Still think it’s just a Philip the bucket alt
- in .worlders heads
A spectre is haunting Lemmy, the spectre of Cowbee.
