Mods
Actions
- Removed posters comments
- Banned posters from community
Mod log
- Original comment that was deleted with reason of “Tankie apologia”.
- When another user comments has suspicions of mods actions, Mod replies with this.
- Poster replies in exasperation explaining perspective, rationale, and offline experiences. Comment gets deleted and purged.
Explanation
The original comment I made was stating that alienation of someone by frustrating their political beliefs is not a way to convince them of anything.
That being their genuine friend goes a long way in helping someone rather then attacking them.
That together they both can work together for a better future.
That you can be annoyed, but that should be swallowed because that is what it means to be part of a community.
You will always be annoyed one way or another in a community, that is the beauty of a community, that there are different people that may annoy you slightly, but working together to still be a community.
The moderator disagrees with this, viewing it as “tankie apologia”.
When I replied, explaining why I made my post and my background, My post was removed and I was banned from the community.
Thank you @[email protected] for reminding me on this missing context: https://lemmy.ml/comment/17251624
In my reply post, I wrote that “advocating for war on any country is not political flavoring”.
That cannot be swallowed, and one should not befriend such a person without sufficient care for ones own wellbeing.
I had wrote explicitly thinking of people who suport Russia against Ukraine, Israel over Palestine, and Assadists etc.
My purged comment also states that “people seeking to punish / attack LGBTQIA+ people is not political flavoring”.
I whole heartingly believe trans rights are human rights.
Free HRT and gender affirming care for all!
To remove an otherwise popular comment advocating for support what I feel are healthy behaviors, then name call someone as a “authoritarian” and a “tankie apologist” is disingenuous and corrupt to me.
Remedy
Personally I would like my comments restored so at least others see a different way of looking at things. I have no qualms with remaining banned.
Perhaps I should have not commented in reply to the mod, but they had already removed my post and I had little to lose.
Otherwise, I am very tired of this on the internet, I am tired of tribalism and the lack of empathy in this world.
What do you all think, should I have even made my original comment if I already knew it would be fruitless?
Cry about it
YDI. Tankies always bring up this leftist unity bullshit when they want to play the victim, and suddenly forget about it once they’re in power and lining leftists up against the wall.
I wish there weren’t two posts from this same exchange.
To answer your question “What do you all think, should I have even made my original comment if I already knew it to be fruitless?” The answer is unequivocally “no.”
You were in an instance that doesn’t allow for authoritarianism, an instance that bans people based on their comment history even outside of that instance. You show up with the authoritarianism in your profile and try telling someone complaining about their friend not disliking authoritarianism with “just be friends.” This is all completely expected for the rules of that instance.
When people get a ban for doing a thing in a place where the rules say to not do that thing… it’s YDI.
I mean just the absolute irony of a .ml power mod accusing others of PTB. This is maybe a bit ticky tack, but I definitely get the desire to keep tankies on a short leash, and in terms of soft bans, this is nothing compared to what .ml does daily. Talk about not being able to take what you dish out.
For the record I favor time-period bans myself, unless it’s a someone being a transphobe. time period are pretty common on .ml in general from what I’ve seen unless it’s addressing some repeat/escalating behavior.
neither of these were ‘soft bans’, they were open-ended, I wasn’t exactly surprised either tbh.
I mean “soft” as “questionably justified” in this case.
In your case this is definitely some guilt by association, because you seem comparatively reasonable, not that my opinion matters. But in terms of my broader beef with .ml (which I’m not going to litigate here) I feel no need to apologize. I think the optics are pretty clear to those paying attention, and you reap what you sow. .ml broadly deserves the reputation it has, and every way that conditions how other instances interact with its users.
But I do want to reiterate for anyone who cares that I do think Diva is generally pretty chill. Again, not that my opinion matters. You do you.
May you elaborate on “authoritarianism in your profile”, I feel like that’s preventing me from understanding your perspective fully.
They’re automatically labeling you as a tankie because you’re on the tankie instance.
If you sit down at a table with three nazis, it just means there’s four nazis at the table. Same thing with tankies. You hang out with authoritarians, you are an authoritarian.
Doesn’t mean shit if you don’t consider yourself one or not.
I’m sorry, but not everyone knows that .ML is made by and has a lot of tankies. Lemmy is still fairly new. It’s not know about outside of Lemmy, and plenty of users on .ML aren’t pieces of shit. It’s not like it’s in their mission statement and they hand out uniforms.
This guilty until proven innocent bullshit needs to fucking stop.
Two different mods from the same community
TheCoolerMIA was the power tripping bastard for Diva and WillStealYourUsername is the power tripping bastard for Clocks
I agree that the mod is taking their anti-authoritarian stance maybe a bit too far, but I also can see why your perspective doesn’t always work depending on the level of authoritarian we’re talking about. “Just be their friends” is difficult to swallow, when the person you’re suggesting their befriend is someone who might, say, gleefully support Putin’s invasion, Israel’s Genocide, or Assad’s brutality, or worse. There’s limits with whom one can be a “community”. It seems that mod has drawn those limits perhaps a bit too strictly, but I can still understand them.
In my purged comment, I wrote that “advocating for war on any country is not political flavoring”.
That cannot be swallowed, and one should not befriend such a person without sufficient care for ones own wellbeing.
I had wrote explicitly thinking of people who suport Russia against Ukraine, Israel over Palestine, and Assadists.
I will edit my post to include that context.
I hope that additional context helps explain my perspective better.
Thanks. I will point out however that even without advocating imperialism*, there’s problematic takes. Things like “Stalin did nothing wrong”, which many hardcore campists can make, which can be very alienating.
* There's also the fact that from campist perspectives, invasions and imperialism by "AES" states, is not "imperialism" at all, so they will then start arguing with you about that definition.Ah yes, that brings back memories of the past.
I agree that the statement of “Stalin did nothing wrong” is indeed a very alienating take. I believe it is done as, I forgot the name for it, but something that is done to assure each other they are on an “in group”.
When a person makes that statement, and causes agitation in others, I believe they are doing it primarily to create an out group as so they know who would otherwise oppose them.
It also lets them vent their frustration, wrongly to do so, horizontally instead of vertically, as so they felt like they had a “win”.
But at the same time, a person who makes those statements is in a vary precarious state that can be helped, I was once in a similar environment and made similar mistakes.
That is why I noted that “one should not befriend such a person without sufficient care for ones own wellbeing”.
There are differing matters of my own personal opinions and conflicts of interest that prevent me from writing much more, and I do not feel that I can create such conversation in a healthy manner at this point.
There is a lot more to politics than just war. In the US, we have a burgeoning genocide of trans people. Sorry, but I’m not going to “just be friends” with someone who thinks trans people should not exist.
In the purged comment I also wrote that “people seeking to punish / attack LGBTQIA+ people is not Political Flavoring”.
Trans rights are Human Rights, Free HRT and gender affirming care for all.
In the US, we have a burgeoning genocide of trans people
Clown take… Considering there is an actual one going on on Gaza.
Words have meanings and this hyperbolic speach is tone deaf and childish.
Yeah hold your horses there.
Genocide exported becomes Genocide imported.
The boomerang is coming back, and I’m a person fascists will put on the chopping block.
USians always doing this shit… Kinda disgusting tbh
Words have meanings and this hyperbolic speach is tone deaf and childish.
Hear hear.
People are so lost in the messaging war arms race that they come unglued from reality and meaning.
Everything is presented in the most extreme possible framing and the outrage dial is always pegged to 11. Anyone not in perfect lockstep is labeled as an enemy and empathy doesn’t exist.
Or, put in a way more palatable to the current state of online discourse:
These chronically online NEETs who are dominating conversations in some social media spaces are genociding my braincells. (/s, because I know someone needs it)
For anyone wondering why we have such strict rules regarding tankies in our community, it’s because they have a tendency to try to worm their way into leftist spaces. Tankies constantly try to convince everyone that they are leftists and that being opposed to working with them is “leftist infighting”, yet they will defend nation states which oppress unions, commit genocides, or do straight up imperialism. All the same things that capitalist nations do. They either embrace these things or deny they happened, or explain that they were somehow necessary. Some are earnest in how they try to convince others, and some know their stances are not popular and try to be subtle.
Tankies are not leftists, and disagreeing with them is not arbitrary. Based on this we have decided to not platform them on 196. This is mentioned in the sidebar and anyone who does not like this is free to go elsewhere. Additionally, we usually give a warning if the infringing comments are not too bad. Both instances posted about here were instances where they were warned yet continued with their behavior.
Edit: We also don’t mind tankies being active on 196, we only mind them defending tankies or proselytizing.
I just read the question from the other user why you don’t isolate yourselves and just wanted to say that I’m thankful that you don’t.
It baffles my mind how Lemmy is full of users agreeing that Trump is Putin’s asset and that facebook, xitter and TikTok are full of propaganda but are too afraid to take the necessary stance here, like you are doing.
It must be tiring but you’re doing Lemmy as a whole a big service and I just wanted to let you know that it doesn’t go unnoticed. Thank you!
Is there any reason why Blahaj doesn’t just wall itself off to the public and become a private instance only usable by its own members?
Any reason why the tankie triad doesn’t?
At least the tankie triad doesn’t claim to be for inclusion while they ban people who disagree with the admins, and have rules that point to wanting to be a walled-garden while inexplicably remaining open to the general public. It’s also pretty funny that Blahaj disable’s down voting on their instance, but then brigade every single thread pointing out how your admins and moderators are extremely ban happy and often make knee-jeek reactions, with down votes.
If the rules and moderation want to take a “nuke everything even vaguely resembling a threat” approach, then they would have an easier and better time simply being a private place that only vetted members can use.
YDI. I’m really tired of people going into blahaj communities and telling the users there how to act towards people not in the community. The communities aren’t for the purpose of courting “allies”, etc., and I think going into minority communities and insisting the communities must have a purpose like that or users and mods should treat outsiders with kid gloves is alone enough to deserve a ban.
I think going into minority communities and insisting the communities must have a purpose like that or users and mods should treat outsiders with kid gloves is alone enough to deserve a ban.
I also mod on a different comm on blahaj and still got banned in the same thread This isn’t about being trans, this is about how they enforce their vibes-based ideological rules
I think you deserve the ban, too, for the same reason. From one of your comments in the linked thread:
The advice on offer in that thread reeks of terminally online in a way that is extremely unlikely to accomplish anything productive in real life other than isolating yourself into increasingly small cliques.
Again, you’re advocating the idea that a given community must be for advocacy, recruitment, education, etc., if it is demanded of the people not modding the community.
Again, you’re advocating the idea that a given community must be for advocacy, recruitment, education, etc., if it is demanded of the people not modding the community.
not sure what you’re saying here
You said they’ll never accomplish anything but isolation. I’m saying assuming they need to accomplish anything is a bad premise. Is that clear?
It was what the OP in the original post was asking for though.
Ok? I’ve already expressed my opinion on that. You seem to support that OP and did so in a pretty insulting way. I’ve also expressed my opinion on that. Not sure what new information you’re bringing here…
They even go out into other communities to find people to ban who never interact with their community. I was banned (and posted details in YPB) and I’ve never commented in a single community on their server.
I could assume that maybe an individual person is in the wrong, but it seems like 50% of the posts on YPB are about blahj.
Just because the moderators are located on a server purporting to serve a minority community doesn’t mean that people should bend over backwards to defend their toxic behaviors.
This isn’t about being trans, this is about how they enforce their vibes-based ideological rules
100%
Hello! I am the mod in question.
This is the post text copy pasted for anyone not wanting to click in and read the post:
I know someone that thinks tankies are allies against American imperialism, and they say that any movement to the left is better than capitalism, even if it’s Russia or CCP branded leftism. They say that nothing that Russia or CCP has done is worse than what American imperialism. This all came up after I mentioned the tankie triad, and they said they were subscribed to multiple communities on there and didn’t disagree with what they were seeing on there. Let me know if there’s a better place to ask or if there’s any other threads or resources I should refer them to. I will be forwarding this thread to them, so your help would be greatly appreciated.
Your original comment was in reply to this post. The 196 community has a no tolerance policy for authoritarians (it’s in the sidebar), so whether or not I am power tripping then depends on whether or not it was reasonable of me to read you as a tankie or your comment as apologia.
The original comment I made was stating that alienation of someone by frustrating their political beliefs is not a way to convince them of anything.
This is true. I make the same point in another comment. I read your comment as making the same point. My issues with your comment relates to the original post making it clear that their friends supports russia and ccp and their actions, both authoritarian nations which have and are currently committing various atrocities. Please keep in mind that russia is my neighbour, and that I constantly see refugees from Ukraine and I know people who have been killed in the war. I would also like to state that I do not condone similar actions by capitalist nations. I am a socialist myself.
By planting the idea that the post might be bait, and by framing tankies as simply being a different flavor of leftist, you make light of this oppression as simply a “difference of opinion”. In response to this I would say that I also have differences of opinion with fascists, among many other flavors of authoritarians.
This is my reading, and how I still read it. I removed your comment as we don’t like platforming tankie rhetoric, and I sent you the following DM:
You did not respond to this DM, but instead reply in the thread for which you were warned, resulting in your ban. Your reply contained much of the same rhetoric, and specifically mentioned that you want leftists to cooperate with many kinds of marxists, which I read as including leninists and maoists, since that is the context of the post. Why did you not reply to my DM instead? You make it clear here that you specifically wanted to explain your position to me. I read this action as not wanting to speak with me, but instead spread your rhetoric.
Restoring your comments is something I am against, but I am not necessarily against unbanning you.
Before I write anything else, I would like to apologize about not responding to the direct message.
I typically use the Jerboa client and it seems to have failed to bring my attention to your direct message, either on the part of bad user interface or user experience design.
I would like to assure you that if I had seen your direct message, I would have replied to it in a timely fashion and not have written the reply post.
For my part in this I see that I could have clarified what I consider tankie apologia in my DM (as I have now done above), however I still don’t see that your comments were anything but apologia.
It’s true that pushing people away can result in them further cementing their beliefs, but in the case of what should and should not be allowed on 196, we believe that platforming that kind of rhetoric is even more harmful. Again, your original comment was very clear in its message that supporting russia and the ccp is “political flavoring” and that minding this is “squandering over geopolitical matters”.
Your followup comment did not alter my reading of your message, and even if it did it would not warrant restoring your first comment.
I have tried to write in multiple formats and ways, but I feel at the end of the day I cannot in any way make you understand my perspective or empathize with how I see things.
I feel that no matter what I say, I will not be sympathized with or empathized with, as I feel that you have already made up your mind who I am.
Let us keep our judgements, comments, intentions, and understandings to ourselves.
Nothing was gained and nothing was lost.
Goodbye.
I feel that no matter what I say, I will not be sympathized with or empathized with, as I feel that you have already made up your mind who I am.
It may be just me but after reading your post and most of your comments I still don’t have a clue what is you were trying to say.
Punching left is a mandatory requirement for being on 196. If you don’t want to infight and purity test, you won’t be welcome there. They’re basically full on McCarthyists, peak Anarcho-Natoism rivaled only by NCD.
It’s perfectly possible to hate tankies while at the same time seeing the potential benefits of socialism or communism. Most people don’t hate tankies because they are communist, its mostly because they are insufferable propagandists who leap to defend every tin pot dictatorship that happens to be fighting against US interests.
Right, you can support the idea of socialism just so long as it stays just that, an idea, untainted by contact with reality. The moment anyone tries to implement anything, one of two things happens: they take reality into account and survive, and then get denounced as a “tin pot dictator,” or they don’t, and they get overthrown or assassinated and you can imagine that they would’ve been perfect if only they’d survived and uphold them as a martyr. As a result, anti-tankies generally can’t point to any leftist project they consider even moderately successful, which raises the question of why on earth they even want to be associated with leftism in the first place, let alone how they can possibly expect to convince others to get on board.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/modlog?userId=9224558
We banned this user a long time ago for being a very obvious tankie
And proud of it! Of course, after you ban people like me, then people more moderate than me will be labelled tankie and banned, and so on. It’s just your version of “woke” or “pinko.” Better to reclaim the word than to deny it and play into your red scare bullshit.
yikes
Ooooo 👻 I’m also proudly “woke” too ooooo 👻 the horror
Most of Lemmy is “woke” and fine with it. Nobody cares that you are a communist. We only care that you defend murderous dictators like Putin, and for example, think it’s fine for the Russians to abduct Ukrainian children rather than returning them to their families. That’s the sort of issue folks have with tankies. But keep feeling oppressed because you are communist, by all means.
Most of Lemmy is “woke” and fine with it.
I’m aware, you use a different lexicon to punch left. Tankie means the same thing as “woke,” it just means anyone to the left of whoever’s speaking,
If you say so.
Yikes
Punching left
The tankie mind cannot comprehend the authoritarian axis of the political compass or why people on the opposite end of it hate them.
Or more likely they do, and just like to pretend.
Tell me the most theory you’ve ever read is a political compass meme without telling me.
Immediately likening the political compass to PCM sounds like a you problem.
It’s not perfect but it’s infinitely more accurate than boiling stances down to “left” and “right.” Which I assume is the goal so you can paint any criticism of tankies as “leftist infighting.” It isn’t. Go be a tankie somewhere else.
Immediately likening the political compass to PCM
Sorry, I’m not familiar with that acronym, what does “PCM” stand for?
It’s not perfect but it’s infinitely more accurate than boiling stances down to “left” and “right.”
No it isn’t. It was invented by right-wing libertarians to promote their ideology. For the record, I test in the bottom left quadrant, like a -9 on the authoritarian-libertarian scale, like any other normal person.
It’s complete nonsense and views politics through a purely idealist lens, ignoring materialist analysis. “Right libertarianism” doesn’t exist, because capitalists will just seize power and create/take over the state to pursue their own interests. “Left-libertarians” are either armchair idealists or aspiring martyrs.
In a world where people like Mohammad Mossadegh and Jacobo Arbenz didn’t get couped, I’d be happy to be a “left-libertarian.” In fact, I was before studying examples like those. But I’m sure you have no idea who those people are since your politics come from memes.
Go be a tankie somewhere else.
No.
Claiming to not be authoritarian while also accepting the tankie label is a bold strategy.
I didn’t say that. Everyone gets libertarian on the political compass test unless they just randomly hate gay people. Stating that I get Libertarian on the political compass test is not some claim to being Libertarian. Every single “tankie” or Marxist-Leninist I know tests Libertarian, because it’s a very stupid test for a very stupid model.
Libertarian vs authoritarian is not a useful dimension for understanding politics. Like everyone else, I’m a “libertarian” while I’m out of power and an “authoritarian” while in power, the only difference is that I’m honest enough to admit it.
“Authoritarian” just means the government doing stuff you don’t like. And the average anti-tankie “leftist” doesn’t like any leftist project that doesn’t immediately deliver a perfect utopia - happily accepting the capitalist status quo as a “lesser evil” over trying to improve society somewhat.
“I’m only an authoritarian when I’m in power”
Yeah, that’s why I’m not going to ally with you to help you get power, genius.
And again, you’re not denying the tankie label. I assume you know the etymology of the phrase if you’re as well read as you pretend to be, so sincerely, fuck you.
“Authoritarian” just means the government doing stuff you don’t like.
Oh really? Does it? That’s a convenient definition.
And the average anti-tankie “leftist” doesn’t like any leftist project that doesn’t immediately deliver a perfect utopia - happily accepting the capitalist status quo as a “lesser evil” over trying to improve society somewhat.
If you think Russia is heading in the direction of less authoritarianism and more communism then I hate to break it to you, but the exact opposite is happening. It failed to deliver an immediate utopia. It failed to deliver a medium-term utopia. And it seems like in the long run this war will result in a complete collapse of the Russian economy. But I’m sure they’ll get there one of these days.
I think what the average anti-tankie leftist doesn’t like is the idea that we should replace one bunch of power hungry authoritarians with another bunch of power hungry authoritarians flying a different flag, but doing more or less the same shit.
I support direct action, unionization, and revolution, I just don’t also support states that suppress unions, like you do. Improving society somewhat doesn’t look like implementing a military dictatorship.
You can’t support hierarchical dictatorships that take away the rights of workers and call yourself a communist, leftist, etc. etc. You are an authoritarian even now with no power.
It’s fun seeing the mod immediately prove the point while also not addressing any of the issues you bring up.
I felt their comment is obviously not true? Have you seen objections modlog ? Anyways, I am trans, a socialist, I am in favor of everyone having access to HRT. I don’t like NCD or nato. I am not afraid of the woke, I am the woke.
so you support the youth clinic providing HRT to trans Chinese teens?
While western countries are restricting youth access to HRT, China is establishing a clinic dedicated to increasing youth access.
What about the widespread love of Jin Xing? There are many Trans Chinese legal victories and it is true that there is more progress to be made. One such legal victory is discussed in this documentary of Trans Chinese people:
Prescribed HRT is generally difficult to get in china per what I’ve read in my time in the DIY community, but if this is wrong then good. How available HRT is varies by country in the west and the rest of the world. Germany, austria and one other country (which I can’t remember) recently made it clear that they will embrace HRT for youth and criticized the cass report. Norway, where I live, isn’t great at prescribing HRT but they are currently expanding the infrastructure needed to diagnose and prescribe HRT. Things have improved a lot compared to how things were years ago. There are clearly issues still of course. It’s not a problem free system. Fuck riksen (a transmed hospital).
I don’t run around thinking that everything going on in china is bad. I know some of the stuff we hear is overblown, but I know they are also doing some vile shit much like many western countries.
Also, unions are severely suppressed in china. Do you want to address that? They are a state capitalist nation. My issue is with blindly celebrating everything going on there, not with anything they are doing right like embracing green energy.
There’s also the current genocide they are committing, but I suppose you don’t believe that is actually happening, or that what the US and isreal are doing somehow makes what china is doing okay.
oh how nice to be born in a country that has made so much from oil and gas why have they not used this money to be anywhere near China’s green energy infrastructure investments?
union representation could be improved i agree
when was the last time a union followed through on punishing a millionaire/billionaire
what westen nation, recent union action has resulted in a state-level policy change? The structure of the CPC enables direct democracy and the ability for anyone to affect state level policy change.
The reeducation facilities have been closed for years, the birthrate in Xinjiang has increased and is comparable to the average, and the economy there is growing
Do you have any photo/video evidence of the current genocide?
Taiwan numba one
I understand the part of “punching left” and “purity test”.
But what do you mean by “NCD”?
“NonCredibleDefense.” It’s a community for ironically-but-actually-unironically celebrating the military-industrial complex, the brainworms are absolutely bizarre and I blocked it long ago.
They want to be edgey but at the end of the day they are bootlickers
Thank you for explaining!
NCD is [email protected]
Thank you. The banner tells all. 😐
PTB this mod has also not even read their own sidebar!
Assume the best, but don’t tolerate sealioning/just asking questions/concern trolling.
Don’t rush mod actions. If a case doesn’t need to be handled right away, consider taking a short break before getting to it. This is to say, cool down and make room for feedback
Send users concise DMs about verdicts about them, such as bans etc, except in cases where it is clear we don’t want them at all, such as obvious transphobes. No need to notify someone they haven’t been banned of course.
Explain to a user why their behavior is problematic and how it is distressing others rather than engage with whatever they are saying. Ask them to avoid this in the future and send them packing if they do not comply.
First warn users, then temp ban them, then finally perma ban them when they break the rules or act inappropriately. Skip steps if necessary.
I did? We removed comments first, sent warning DMs, and then only banned when they didn’t comply. We have a no tolerance policy for tankies, so skipping some minor steps is in line with the guidelines.
Nooo … that was supposed the good one, I thought we lost all the shitty mods with the attempt move to .world
PTB.
Blahaj is run by zionist monsters. Everyone who is not pro-genocide should boycott it.
I haven’t seen any indication of that, can you elaborate?
They block anyone who mentions Gaza as a “Nazi apologist”
I just looked through 5-6 pages of the modlog on blahaj and the only “nazi apologist” bans I could see were people making excuses for Elmo.
i have never seen a zionist on blahaj. Give examples, please.
Their banning falsely for “Nazi apologism” if you mention Gaza
lol
Can you provide context?
They block everyone who mentions Gaza as a “Nazi apologist”
May you provide a modlog entry of this?
I think this is their comment that got them banned:
I would argue now that there is a Jewish genocide there is no basis to treat the swastika as anything more than a religious symbol equivalent to the star of David, but older, because Aryan religions and non-Jewish Semite religions didn’t start in 586 BCE unlike Judaism
Yeah I don’t see a problem with removing this. There’s a lot of wild comments from this account removed as well. Lots of name calling.
Technically, it’s correct, even if the way they say it makes them smell like a nazi. The swastika in particular was first observed in a carving that has been dated to around 10,000 BCE, which is obviously well before the invention of Judaism or Christianity. Of course, that’s well before the idea of a “Caucasian” race as well.
Look at my modlog, but I think the original posts are long deleted. I clear out every 14 days to try not to feed EVERY AI model.
