this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2026
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MeanwhileOnGrad
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123 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 it 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.
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 arguments that lack mutual agreement.
Brigading/Trolling — If you're here because this community was linked in another thread, please refrain from maliciously 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 banned. Good-faith and honest communication is an exception.
Tankies can explain their views, but may be criticised or challenged for them. Any minor infraction of the rules may result in a warning and possibly a temporary ban.
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 last only 24 hours, but each subsequent infraction doubles the duration. Depending on the content, the ban time may be increased. You may request an unban at any time.
founded 3 years ago
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Is this surprising?
Yes. Everyone who joins the fediverse has to learn that lemmy.ml is a "communist" Russian propaganda outlet, and it's surprising to them because Russia isn't communist and communists don't support imperial capitalists. It will remain surprising to all new joiners for the foreseeable future.
Every day that someone joins the fediverse is a day that someone will be surprised to learn that lemmy.ml is a Russian propaganda outlet. The day that stops being a surprise, one of two things will have happened: either the propaganda outlet will have closed, or the propagandists will have won.
Yup.
I was about a month into Lemmy before comments made it clear what .ml was. Gotta keep posting so new users know.
Well yes, but OP isn't exactly new.
People explore the fediverse one piece at a time, and at vastly different rates. I started with lemmy.ml, but I am online to the point where my therapist recommended I cut back, and I consume political news like nicotine, so I think I cottoned on relatively quickly. Even so, it still took me some amount of time before it clicked that I was probably browsing a website run by the FSB. A lot of people only join humor or niche topic comms, and/or they may only browse for a few minutes a day (or week), so it might take them a while, if they ever realize at all.
Not to mention that lurkers always outnumber contributors by at least an order of magnitude.
I started on lemmyworld instead of ml so have never experienced that instance directly, but i imagine due to federation a lot of people might not even realize that its their own instance the putting out the propaganda. As long as the instance admins aren't blocking a ton of other instances, its not like there's a huge difference between the content that's served to the user.
Sure. I didn't say "omg r u stoopid who doesn't know this?!" did I? I've seen OP around enough to be surprised myself at the notion that they may not have encountered tankies.
It doesn’t seem like it was their intention to reprimand you, it’s an open discussion after all.
I didn't take it that way, I was just answering why someone might be surprised to learn about lemmy.ml even after they've been around the block a few times. It's often taken for granted that beginners will have gaps in their knowledge, but even long-experienced experts will have foundational gaps occasionally that everyone in the domain assumes is universal knowledge. Just the nature of learning about stuff.
Can you say this louder for the Linux community? XD
lol it's one of the axes I grind everywhere I go. It seems like human nature to believe that expertise is a linear progression and that someone "more expert" should know everything that someone "less expert" knows, plus some. It's tricky because in casual conversation, that's likely how it's going to appear, because experts generally do have a firm grasp of most of the basics. But there are always exceptions, and if you dig deeply and broadly enough, you'll find them. At least I do, and in many different domains of expertise.
It's one of the reasons I detest the idea of "the smartest person in the room", because there's never such a thing. Good teams don't just pick one smartie and let them make all the decisions, they work as a team.
A fucking men.
Not really, I just document things as I go here for others and to build the megathread even more