this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2024
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MeanwhileOnGrad

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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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[–] [email protected] 101 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

I don't understand why these people who pretend to be supreme leftists are putting alt-right dogwhistles in the Democratic candidate's name. I guess you can just call everyone you don't like a Nazi when everyone who disagrees in your echo chamber gets banned.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 2 months ago

I mean, they're in there praising nations that are state capitalist and producing hundreds of billionaires, so it clearly isn't the leftist economy part that they like.

They want Donald to win so that China and Russia can gain more global influence. I guess they are bad at propaganda and just forwarding what their MAGA allies invent or something. Makes sense, they all have the same goals this election.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Hexbear is legitimately filled with right wing trolls pretending to be leftists.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm not unconvinced that the whole leftist presence on that federated side of Lemmy is a psyop.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

Lemmy is far too small and unimportant to attract any governments or psyops. Extremism comes in all flavours.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like something the feds would say

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Get out of my walls or I'll turn up the thermostat again

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Or it's the perfect, extremely cost effective training ground for Russian propagandists before they get promoted to Facebook and Reddit.

The main dev instance is literally a safe space for Russian and Chinese propaganda. Why is this so difficult to believe?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Because it's nonsense, think of it logistically.

Why would shills bother with Lemmy when they're already extreme? Why water a floodplain, you know? They're already converted; they don't need any more shilling. Why wouldn't they pull all their resources to mainstream social media like twitter or reddit, which has everyones attention? No international news or big influencers exist on Lemmy. It is a loss of resources.

People are just extreme. Being paranoid and calling everyone you don't like a shill or a bot ignores the fact that some people just have extreme views. They ain't bots, they ain't shills, they're just bigots in safespaces and afraid of discussion. Pretending that extremists naturally don't exist makes you as paranoid as they are. This community has been called psyops, and myself a foreign agent more times than I can count. You're not a shill. I'm not a shill. Don't stoop to their level, basically.

(I'm not saying they aren't affected by shills. The propaganda they willingly consume originates from psyops on different websites, but they aren't the prime target)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Especially in all forms of stupidity

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Are you sure though? I'm just imagining Xi being like "write that down, write that down!" after every crazy take

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Fairly sure. I've seen some Chinese nationalists in Lemmygrad and Hexbear's personal chatrooms, but I don't think they're federal agents.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My bet is on troll factory workers slinging ideas around to see what and who sticks, and then they continue to sling ideas with their growing group. That was what the early days strategy of The_Donald on reddit were.

It doesn't matter that lemmy is relatively unimportant, what matters to them is having a testbed for what is and isn't sticking along with growing a crowd of supporters they might be able to take elsewhere where it matters.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

Why do you think this?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

They tried to pretend Lemmy was just software and call "their platform" Haxbear, in some sad attempt to culture-roll Lemmy itself.

Not a really square plan when 90% of the user base are leftist socialist code-monkies.

They should rename Haxbear to "Rekt Center".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

"The second coming of Stalin"

anyone who complains about reeducation camps will be banned or shot

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

that's satire, right?.... right, guys?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

It's more than just extreme. There are several... really continuously happening examples of them spouting off straight up GOP and Russian information warfare which is very far removed from anything resembling their alleged politics. And this is taking into consideration their silly "imperialism is when USA" framework, and their penchant for accelerationism *and* their particularly outdated view of leftist philosophy.

There are two possibilities here - they are either so out of touch and steeped in anti-liberalism that they've come full circle to becoming a far right safe space, or a significant portion of their user base are trolls.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Whatever the motivation, clearly they're just morally bad people

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

yeah, I don't doubt they repeat the propaganda. I think they're just a part of the pipeline as opposed to being directly fed propaganda.

Tankies like Modern Russia because Russia opposes the US. If anything opposes the US, even if that thing is opposite of their ideals, then they'll still support them.

They don't have complex views, just full-circle.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The political spectrum is a circle. If you go to far left or right, authoritarian ideas start making sense to you, you parrot authoritarian talking points, everyone who doesn't agree with your extreme ideas about how the world ought to be is either weak or evil, and you end up kissing the boots of some authoritarian leader or other.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Horseshoe theory is bunk. The extreme left is full of anarchists, not authoritarians. What appears to be authoritarian left cares more about replacing US worldwide influence with Chinese or Russian influence than actually building a more leftist society.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

In this case kissing the boots of several great world supreme leaders who just happened to be responsible for the deaths of millions.