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Daily reminder that ALL atrocities are bad. Yes, even of your favorite polity
(media.piefed.social)
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2026
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Political Memes
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Saying the first one is how you get banned from tankie communities.
Good.
I was accused of "Orientalism" last week and banned for three days from the community (Memes@lemmy.ml) with all of my comments nuked because I said Xi Jinping and the CCP are bad (largely due to what they're doing to the Uighurs) and that the Xinnie the Pooh meme isn't inherently racist (though as I said in the nuked thread, it definitely could be used for racist purposes that I hadn't even realized a connection for initially because ~~anti-Asian racism~~ orientalism is simply a blind spot for me).
This week I had a comment removed for "Electoralism" from LeftyMemes@lemmy.dbzer0.com because I said Kamala Harris turning towards supporting the DSA is a good thing that we shouldn't drag her for.
Obviously the first accusation is pretty transparent as far as guessing what orientalism is (as well as the real reason for the ban), but I had to look up what electoralism even is. After reading the Wikipedia article I'm 99% sure it doesn't fit what I said in the slightest, and I'm 100% sure I don't know what rule I violated over there.
So anecdotally in my brief time here, Lemmy moderators do seem to be much more removal/ban-happy than the Reddit moderators I'm used to, but at least it's way easier for competing communities to out-compete the crummy ones. If your city's subreddit (i.e. /r/tampa) goes to shit because one moderator power-trips and the others could not give a flying fuck if they had a gun to their heads, you're just out of luck. There is no such thing as tampa@differentredditdomain.whatever. You have to pick from some off-brand /r/tampa2, /r/realtampa, /r/bettertampa, etc. Then the /r/tampa moderators report you for "brigading" and you're on the admin shit-list.
Anyway, I guess the lesson I learned about Lemmy is that Memes@lemmy.ml and LeftyMemes@lemmy.dbzer0.com have one or more overzealous tankie moderators. Very well, that's what the block feature is for, especially if they don't answer my appeals like I expect will happen. There are other meme communities.
I just don't know where to draw the line.
Like I hear rumors that lemmy.ml is infested with tankies but I generally do not see that anecdotally as I've lurked over the years. Their posts tend to be a lot more moderate, but as I found out, at least one of the moderators in one of their communities is pretty tankie. I also got dogpiled with votes in the "Is Xinnie the Pooh always racist?" discussion, so it could be the silent majority are tankies or otherwise rabidly pro-socialism/anti-racism. So you're saying I should just block the entire instance off of one bad experience and some rumors? I ended up just blocking the community a few days ago.
Then there's lemmy.dbzer0.com which is an anarchist instance as I understand them, so the instance itself is not tankie but lets tankies do their thing. So if I block the instance I'd just be throwing the baby out with the tankie bathwater?
Tough choices. I feel like blocking instances for things like this would very rapidly make my fediverse very small, especially given the entire foundation and growth of the platform arguably arises from decentralization in protest of auth-right social media platforms. I would rather rub elbows with tankies discussing non-tankie topics than proactively cut myself off from all suspected tankies and thus a huge swathe of the fediverse.
Edit to add after I saw the last line of your comment (did you add it late? does Lemmy support ninja-edits like Reddit?):
I'm pretty sure that my announcing that I blocked the two users who were arguing with me and asserting that I was racist for not realizing Xinnie the Pooh could have racist connotations as well as saying the Uighur genocide is western propaganda is what actually got me banned and all of my comments nuked. Obviously they're too far gone, but they wanted to make a spectacle of me and as soon as I noped out they realized I could no longer be fit for purpose.
Yeah, the trick then becomes, "At what percentage, with how many anecdotes, do I consider a community/instance Bad Faith Central?"
Like I said, getting 20+ downvotes and 0 upvotes followed by a ban for my "Huh, I never realized the potential racism connection between Winnie The Pooh -> yellow -> Asian before this conversation, but I still disagree that anyone who criticizes Xi Jinping or the CCP is racist" comments was a large red (heh) flag in my face that made me instantly block the community, but the other one (+6/-6 comment removed for "Electoralism" for saying attacking Kamala Harris for supporting the DSA is silly party purity cannibalism) is a tougher call.
There's also the issue of insulating myself from differing viewpoints essentially creating my own echo chamber. As you indicated, for me Lemmy isn't just Fun, it's also a way for me to interact with and learn from different people around the world. I hadn't met someone IRL who had anything positive to say about the CCP until I was well into being a grown man, for example. I do value hearing from those people because there is bound to be some truth to what they say, and it helps me grow as a person and think about my own government more critically.
But you're right in that critical thinking is not necessarily Fun, and can be exhausting or even a waste of time in scenarios like I mentioned where by the 5th reply it was no longer about realizing that some people might be using Xinnie the Pooh to further racism but suddenly a tankie circle-jerk where I'm being dogpiled and accused of being a racist because I didn't realize that previously, with a bit of Uighur Genocide denial as a cherry on top. I'd link the thread for the curious who want to read what was actually said, but given your own comments are deleted on Lemmy when a moderator deletes them, I can't find it any more.