this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2025
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MeanwhileOnGrad
2015 readers
98 users here now
"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"
Welcome to MoG!
Meanwhile On Grad
Documenting hate speech, conspiracy theories, apologia/revisionism, and general tankie behaviour across the fediverse. Memes are welcome!
What is a Tankie?
(caution of biased source)
Basic Rules:
Sh.itjust.works Instance rules apply! If you are from other instances, please be mindful of the rules. — Basically, don't be a dick.
Hate-Speech — You should be familiar with this one already; practically all instances have the same rules on hate speech.
Apologia — (Using the Modern terminology for Apologia) No Defending, Denying, Justifying, Bolstering, or Differentiating authoritarian acts or endeavours, whether be a Pro-CCP viewpoint, Stalinism, Islamic Terrorism or any variation of Tankie Ideology.
Revisionism — No downplaying or denying atrocities past and present. Calling Tankies shills, foreign/federal agents, or bots also falls under this rule. Extremists exist. They are real. Do not call them shills or fake users as it handwaves their extremism.
Tankies can explain their views but may be criticised or attacked for them. Any slight infraction on the rules above will immediately earn a warning and possibly a ban.
Off-topic Discussion — Do not discuss unrelated topics to the point of derailing the thread. Stay focused on the direct content of the post, rather than engaging in unrelated arguments.
Brigading — If you're here because this community was linked in another thread, please refrain from voting, commenting or manipulating the post in any way, this includes alt accounts. All votes are public, and if you are found to be brigading, you will be permanently banned.
You'll be warned if you're violating the instance and community rules. Continuing poor behaviour after being warned will result in a ban or removal of your comments. Bans typically only last 24 hours, but each subsequent infraction will double the amount. Depending on the content, the ban time may be increased. You may request an unban at any time.
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Is it just .ml or is most of lemmy instances run by tankies?
It's mostly the Tankie Triad consisting of Hexbear, Lemmygrad and .ml
I tend to focus on .ml because Hex and Grad are generally defederated from by most major instances because they are even more extreme than .ml on top of the fact that there's a perception among instances that if they defederate from dessalines' (head Lemmy dev, main .ml admin) .ml instance there will be retaliation in the form of pull back of technical support for their instance (Which, yea, I could totally see him doing that)
There are some communities and some users who also lean tankie. !world@lemmy.world is often pretty crazy, and I have the feeling some users of slrpnk and dbzer0 also go nuts from time to time
dbzer0 has a ton of great communities but they've had some real weirdo niche mods come to light lately. I'm hoping they address it, it'd be a change of pace from the general admin approach on lemmy which can feel extremely hands-off on most instances.
oh yea i couldnt put my finger on dbzero, are they are tankie or not, ive seen quite a few users with pro-extreme rhetoric.
dbzer0 is the pro-piracy instance. That's the entire political stance. Most users are some kind of anarchist, some are tankies or tankie sympathizers who are there because dbzer0 don't defederate from Hexbear, and I've spotted a libertarian once, but all users on dbzer0 think piracy is a good thing to one extent or other.
What’s a decent lemmy instance? The ones named above are the ones I use lol.
slrpnk and dbzer0 are both fine, and .world is a bit fractious but still quite solid. Blahaj is good too! Really the only instances I'd suggest avoiding are Hexbear, Lemmy.ml and Lemmygrad
Bahaj is a pretty nice place. The mods I've interacted with there seem to have their heads screwed on straight. We will see how long that continues.
people are fine, as long as they dont visit the main politics.world communities, or anyof the affiliate. there some semi-wierd pro-ziolnist thing going on.
I was permabanned from the political and news subs for writing, WITH REPUTABLE SOURCES, Russia's election meddling AND for saying feminist things. I spoke with the mod who banned me publicly and he was unable to support his ban based on the rules, but kept it intact. Those subs imo are compromised by their mods
yea i just skim those subs, prior to being purged as effort by reddit to reduce user numbers on the site. too easy to get into conflict with trolls and get yourself banned.
Hello 👋🏻 :D
There's definitely something changing with dbzer0 when it comes to Tankies. They actively avoid criticising them now.
dbzer0 is ostensibly an anarchist instance, but it is often the kind of anarchy which is cozy with tankies and is otherwise very attached to one particular brand of anarchism that aligns with a lot of the tankies' anti-west, anti-enlightenment ideals.
anarchist's often fall into the trap of being useful idiots for tankies because they both have the first step of tearing down current power structures.
happens all too often
Kronstadt, Russian Civil War, Mao
Speaking of, where's kolektiva these days?
that explains why those people give me strange vibes.
Tankie Triad users have been known to make trolling accounts across instances to stir up trouble in this manner
Can confirm dbzer0 is full of nutters.
I haven’t run into much tankie activity in any of these places. Other than users from tankie servers dropping in.
Is there an example from slrpnk you would point to? I feel like people here sometimes get very tribalist and assume anyone criticizing liberal nations or institutions from the left must be a tankie, but that’s quite silly.
what's slprnk all about anywho? looks cosy
It is! It’s supposed to be a more positive space for people to discuss solutions to tyranny and ecological problems, though as an online space there can generally still be some negativity. I still find it a mostly positive place. The sort of consensus ideology is libertarian socialism but any kind and respectful people are welcome, regardless of ideology.
There is a lot of Anti-US posts.
Some are EU-flavored (which I'm fine with).
But then you have a lot of pro-PRC flavored types which is just cringe. Like "I'd rather trust China" or "I'm rooting for China against the US" some BS, like.... ?!? 🧐
The EU is right there! Why choose China when you literally have a functional democracy elsewhere?
There's just a covert (not that covert actually) operation trying to promote China as this some sort of beacon of prosperity, and some even start to belive that China has "free healthcare" like what lmao
Like... Anti-US post are fine, just don't promote China as a replacement, its not any better.
i bet these people never actually live in china, or want to MOVE there, they just love to say it behind the screen. same goes with pro-russia tankies, probably living in places like the EU, canada,,,etc.
My instance doesn’t seem to be, at least.
Mine either, phew.
My instance only has like six users.
Mine has 2, but I'm not sure how active the other one is.
the triad is. Conservative ones seems to have been completely seperated from lemmy, and most people commenting with conservative views are easily blocked or reported. cons dont seem to have much effect on lemmy like they are on REDDIT and youtube.
.ml IS THE Largest of the triad, followed by lemmy grad and hexbear.
Not really. A few years ago Lemmy was primarily based out of the dev's servers, and then like beehaw and hexbear. So you could have struck that claim in like spring of 2023.
They were sort of the original instances that didn't require an application to join. So a lot of communities started there.
But then the reddit API stuff happened and Lemmy exploded, relatively speaking. A whole slew of instances started up, and a whole lot of people entered the picture.
And, uh, the culture of Lemmy changed to say the least.
Not only .ml but not most of them
But then, it’s not just about the tankies. Most instances have their own definition of what is fine and what isn’t, and if you don’t believe what everyone else does, you’re going to get banned
its problematic when the instances are solely political based, and there are puritanical tests.
so, a lot of instances on lemmy
you'll be the nazi, the fascist, the liberal, the tankie, the leftist, the transphobic, the woke... of a group, and they'll hate you for it. You're not one of those? Doesn't matter, they'll call you something because you don't agree with them, and that will be their way of discrediting you
It's bound to happen when the admin team contains at least one person that voices their opinions, unless they're really willing to be open
This community is no exception.