Over the past months it has become increasingly apparent that the 196 moderation team has a member who does not align with the goals and values of the rest of the team.
196 has a very clear stance on tankies and other authoritarians. No authoritarian apologia of any kind is allowed in our space. It’s not our intent to tell leftists how to be leftist, but we’re not willing to allow somebody we so fundamentally disagree with to moderate our community.
Based on this stance we’ve decided to remove Kittenzrulz from the moderation team.
Why demote Kittenzrulz123?
Kittenzrulz has consistently been opposed to the condemnation of tankies and has made several worrying statements that show that there’s a deep ideological gulf between her and 196.
Furthermore it should be noted that kittenzrulz has not taken part in moderation decisions on lemmy for months, while she is only somewhat active on the matrix (as a mod). This will not be a major change in that sense.
The following is a list of screenshots that should help to showcase what we mean.
spoiler
This one is from yesterday
Demoting Kittenzrulz123
First to be clear we’re not banning her from the lemmy community or the matrix space and she is free to continue to interact with all of us. We still want her around as we think of her as a friend who we care about and want to see happy and healthy, though we understand this decision might cause kittenz some stress.
As of this moment kittenzrulz is no longer a mod of 196. A vote was held and all mods that voted voted in favor of demoderation, with a few mods abstaining (either due to not having an opinion on this or due to being inactive).
And just to make sure everybody is on the same page, this is not a condemnation of kittenz as a person. People can disagree on things and still get along, we’re just not comfortable letting her make decisions on our behalf and want to prevent any further problems we see as a likely outcome.
This is a totally hinged reply (to a thought out sincere comment that doesn't even mention China) that doesn't at all have any racial undertones or betray your true feelings about certain peoples /s
ML loves pretending everything is racism towards China, what a weak defence of authority
If that's not what that reply is then what is it? Keeping in mind that China was not mentioned a single time in the comment they were replying to. It is so clearly sinophobic kneejerk vomit. If when discussing capitalism someone replied with the equivalent of fuck black people despite them not being mentioned a single time would that not be racism? Genuinely baffled that anyone could defend this.
China is always relevant when talking about tankies.
If we were discussing capitalism and someone posted
No one would care, and they certainly wouldn't be juvenile enough to argue it's racist to call out a state.
Yeah if you posted that it wouldn't have the same effect of a "meme" who's entire background is how funny it is that the person they're sending it to will "disappear" and laughing about how you imagine you've condemned them to some nebulous terrible fate. Not to mind the massive ignorance required to believe such nonsense not to mind laughing about it. Genuinely bending over backwards to justify a random sinophobic lashout. I understand we are "designated evil (serfs/bugs/brainwashed)™" but it's genuinely disgusting. I wish I could say it's surprising but my time on Reddit and on the wider fediverse unfortunately makes that untrue.
What planet are you living on? The point is that the wall of text will flag censorship and block people from viewing the content - but really it is simply joking and highlighting authoritarian suppression of speech. You are making up shit about people getting 'disappeared'.
Criticism of China is not racist, get that into your head tankie. No one else believes this propaganda line you MLs keep trying to push.
Lashing out against China and Chinese people with a meme who's entire comedic value is condemning Chinese people to nebulous terrible fates (despite how you try whitewash it) is certainly not racist/s (not to mind the clearly racialised implication of being an ML somehow making you some sort of crypto-chinese) I hope you also police others on what is and isn't racism against their people. Big defender of birth of a nation perhaps? You're disgusting as you keep trying to pivot and defend this clear cut racist lashout.
If you think the Chinese state is going to disappear people over a copy pasted meme, that’s telling of your opinion of China.
I don’t think they would do that, I only think China would block it from the firewall and hide people from seeing such content.
You really didn't read what I actually said and it's telling. The idea that they would and the ignorance to laugh about it is part of what makes it racist. I don't believe my government would do this because they don't it's a western racist fantasy folded into memes such as this.
This is not how the firewall or any firewall for that matter works.
You're really bending over backwards to defend this racist knee jerk lash out.
You’re reaching to make this racist.
Criticism of China is not and never will be racist.
It's their version of "Anytime you call out Israel it's antisemitic"
Anytime you call out China, it's sinophobic.
By sending a "meme" with a clear racist history making clear racist implications in response to a comment where China is mentioned exactly 0 times.
You are defending the equivalent of someone sending the "happy merchant" "meme" in response to a comment of an American explaining why they believe what they do. Irregardless of your thoughts on what the person had to say that would be antisemitic for the same reasons this one is sinophobic. Clear racist implications of the person being some crypto-ethincity, and the massive racist history behind the "meme".
Ok
I have reached exactly 0 times. They responded to a comment that mentioned China exactly 0 times with a "meme" that has a clearly racist background, while clearly making a racialised implication of some sort of crypto-chinese nature of the person they were responding to. There was no criticism to be found just a racist lashout and you policing how a Chinese person should react to this clearly racist act.
Tankie say what?
Just like how anything calling out Israel is antisemitic, anything calling out China is sinophobic.
Nice strawman bigot. Going to defend happy merchant posters next as simply calling out Israel?
Yep I'm a bigot for not supporting the racism. Not you using it to feign anything.
Wanna tell me how it's antisemitic to say genocide is bad?
Another fun strawman. Could you please point out where I said anything like that? All I said was that happy merchant posters weren't calling out Israel but instead simply anti-Semites which is true. In the same way the original comment I replied to was not calling out China but simply being a racist both through using a meme built on racism and using it to imply some crypto-chinese nature of the comment they were replying to that mentioned China exactly 0 times.
Stop being so antisemitic bro it's not okay to mention Israel when we're talking about genocide, you're being so racist right now.
I really don't understand why you and the other poster feel the need to bend over backwards to justify what was clearly a racist outburst. It's really disappointing to see the wider fediverse really is no better than Reddit in some regards.
I don't understand why you just can't let Israel be my dude, just let them commit crimes and get away with it. You're antisemitic if you bring up their actions.
It's just so racist to call out Israel. Go back to reddit if you don't want people to call out bombing runs.
At no point have I ever said you can't criticise China (I have many critiques from the hukou issues to mundane shit like the reliance on land use financing) and certainly never said you couldn't criticise Israel (given it's a genocidal settler colonial project) simply that happy merchant posting and it's equivalent are not criticism and are racist. Do you really disagree with this?
That copy-pasta is a meme from 4chan that if a person in china gets sent this, it trips the firewall and they get disconnected.^[https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/what-is-the-tiananmen-square-copypasta-the-censorship-hack-to-silence-gamers-explained]
By sending me this they are assuming that I'm
a) chinese (based on nothing but me talking about marxism-leninism)
b) this will have negative consequences for me
There is no need to send me that copy-pasta except to try to get a cheap dunk because my comment does not even mention China. It has no informational value, it's just a list of phrases idiots online think chinese people are banned from seeing.
I'd further question why you are so eager to whitesplain to a chinese person (not me but 秦始皇帝) why something they consider racist actually isn't. Racism is not a thing that's inherent to an action but how it impacts people and if someone told me "dude that thing you did/said is hurtful" I'd stop simply on the grounds of not wanting to hurt people based on their race.