this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2026
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MeanwhileOnGrad

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"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"

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Meanwhile On Grad

Documenting hate speech, conspiracy theories, apologia/revisionism, and general tankie behaviour across the fediverse. Memes are welcome!

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When they find out that you are one of those filthy liberals, they start downvoting your every single shit en masse (i.postimg.cc)
submitted 22 hours ago by petrescatraian@libranet.de to c/meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works
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Just like Facebook, Friendica also has a sort of activity center where you can see all previous notifications. It was ~2 years ago when I first discovered Lemmy. Back then, .ml was the most active instance, with Beehaw on the rise as well. I remember I started by posting in non-political communities at first, and nothing bad happened. But the moment I started to show them how brainwashed I was by Western Imperialist propaganda (sic), they immediately resorted to downvoting all my posts and comments like crazy - be them political or not. Below there's a screenshot with my beloved Russian Government shill living somewhere in the West, Yogthos gave me a downvote (dislike) to a post I did in a test community. Don't even know why they bothered, since neither Lemmy and especially Friendica do not have imaginary points for activities on posts and comments. But there's that, lol.

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[–] Loco_Mex@sh.itjust.works 6 points 8 hours ago

ML are such losers.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 12 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

I was searching for some nonsense on .ml to post, and I stumbled sort of unintentionally onto a hilarious history of Yogthos's summary of the Ukraine situation.

First, in early 2022, he was insisting that they will not invade and it's all just Western lies. Then, he said it wasn't really an invasion, they just wanted to protect some Russian speakers in the east and maybe a little regime change. Then he said that this invasion was going great, going to achieve all its goals soon, and it was all the totally predictable result of the West's actions as all serious scholars knew. He really emphasized that all of us were going to see what a horrible thing we had had done to Russia (?) when because Russia refused to deal with us anymore, everything became triple the cost here and civil unrest in the streets, since we wouldn't be able to buy from Russia anymore.

Then, after a while, he dropped both of those ideas and just kept repeating that it was all the West's fault that it came to this horrible thing, and he just cares so much about Ukraine that he wants the West to give Russia everything it wants so it can end. After all, he has family in Ukraine.

0% making any of this up. I thought about putting together a little post for MOG showing the progression, but my motivation for these things is waning... I feel like people have got the message at this point as to what he's about lol.

[–] petrescatraian@libranet.de 2 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Yeah, yogthos was one of the original hardcore tankies on this place. Along with Shreddy Scientist and Poland is a state of mind and a bunch of others. He's on Mastodon too, and has a website (where he however posts only technical stuff, but under his real identity). I won't link them all here, as I have no interest in doxxing that guy. But I'm more than sure that he's a Russian and I'm 70% confident he's bluffing about his Ukrainian relatives. And if he did, the thing he is doing is much worse.

The thing he does goes literally in the playbook of manipulation - and this is fox news level of manipulation - never tell a complete lie. Start from a truth, something that cannot be contradicted at all. Then build up your lie based on that. Like, at this point, I don't even know whether he's an actual Russian agent, lol. He spews so much of their propaganda.

If you get bored and want to have a little conversation with him anywhere on the internet just to have some fun, simply ignore the true stuff and counter his lies in the most contondent way possible. At some point, you'll get a reply that "I've had more clever conversations with ChatGPT".

[–] Glide@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

At some point, you'll get a reply that "I've had more clever conversations with ChatGPT".

He literally goes the same route every single time. It is the most pathetic pseudo-intellectualist discourse I've seen in a long time. I had fun with it one night, but eventually he got boring and I moved on.

I almost hope he's a paid shill. The alternative is far sadder. But it's honestly more likely he's some work at home tech guy who has just spent the past X years bathing in the Kool-aid.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 1 points 1 hour ago

The people who are actual expat Russians, I kind of get it. I don't look at them as maliciously intended for the most part. It is a hard thing to grow up in a whole family / society / system / government, and then get out into the wider world and learn your whole people are looked at as big pieces of shit villains to almost everyone. It's not his or his family's fault where they were born. And I assume they're not pieces of shit on a personal level or anything. So 100% I can understand the temptation to start doubling down or "fighting back" to stand up for the honor of your people. Especially when the governments doing the dis-honoring are, themselves, kind of pieces of shit on the world stage also in various provable ways.

Also, I don't think the Russian educational system is real real good as far as history and political science, in some specific ways that just add more additional pieces to the cognitive dissonance puzzle. (I've heard people quote particular nuggets of disinformation to me as sort of "something everyone knows" in a way that makes me think maybe they picked it up from school and just have never re-examined it since.)

I think it's just a lot to overcome and a strong temptation to slot into a mindset where actually you and your family are the good guys, after all.

[–] Loco_Mex@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 hours ago

Can you msg the url?

[–] Glide@lemmy.ca 17 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Yog might be one of the worst of them, too. He's been posting on the Canada community a lot ever since we've started butting heads with China, only to share anti-government propaganda.

There's an irony in how much I dislike the current Federal government only being trumped by how much I dislike shills for authoritarian nations trying to manipulate public discourse. Often he'll post an article with a conclusion I fundamentally agree with, but either get there through extremely cherry-picked arguments, or use the conclusions of the articles to start into his personal argument into batshit-crazy takes.

I've taken to down voting him and moving on. It feels bad, but I am too busy to spend time and energy refuting his absurdity with the necessary nuance of "yes, the government is bad, half of what you said is true, the other half isn't and here's why." I just do not have the amount of time to be the level of terminally online that would be necessary to deal with someone like him properly.

I wish .ca would just defederate with .ml and be done with it.

[–] DarkSirrush@piefed.ca 6 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Admins have mentioned in the past a fear of retaliation/loss of support if they defed from .ml unfortunately :(

[–] Loco_Mex@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

What support? They cant even release a proper update to their software in years despite taking so much money in donations.

Everyone should cancel and boycott all donations to those losers.

[–] DarkSirrush@piefed.ca 2 points 6 hours ago

Theoretical support, say if they wish to do a pull request for a feature, or a bug report - the concern being if they defed .ml that the bug report/pull request might get closed without review because of it.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 6 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

they should consider piefed than.

[–] DarkSirrush@piefed.ca 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I am on their piefed instance, actually. They just dont want to alienate their userbase by shutting down their original instance.

[–] Glide@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 hours ago

Oh, is it the same guys running the Piefed?

I will be moving on from everything Lemmy associated. I don't want to be connected to those wannabe fascists in any capacity. I just don't use social media enough to care right now. I'll browse Lemmy a couple times a day, when I am in the bathroom or waiting in a line or whatever, but it rarely gets much more out of me than a spare minute here and there, so I haven't really cared enough to put time and energy into decided where I am making the jump to.

Maybe I just swap over to the Piefed instance and be done with it.