this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2024
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Looking at the modlog, it's a temp ban from memes. I wouldn't sweat it.
The point isn't that they received some wild type of "punishment" they can't come back from. The point is that having what you're allowed to say policed in this fashion is offensive to the vast majority of people, whatever mechanism "gentle" or not is being used to enforce the policing.
Moderation started out as a way to remove racism, spam and similar blatant abuse. Somehow, it's grown to the point that people feel they have to hover over the shoulders of the commenters dictating what are the allowed and disallowed types of statements. Most people feel that if they think China has an oppressive government, they should be allowed to say it. And that if they think the US has an oppressive government, they should be allowed to say it. Lemmy.ml is a silly place because one of those statements is "allowed" and the other is not, which is absurd behavior that belongs better on a Fox News comment section or a US State Department web site than it does on the flagship instance of a supposedly FOSS-and-freedom friendly software project.
Both of those statements are allowed in .ml, you just can't repeat us state department propaganda without extreme amounts of proof to back it up. There is a difference between: "I think China is authoritarian" and "oog boog look remember that genocide that the UN investigated and found wasn't a genocide where all the 'victims' that were touted are now millionaires in other countries after selling a story the UN specifically found didn't happen... It happened!!!!1!1!!1"
I have gotten banned from .ml twice for merely stating that Russia shot down a civilian airliner in Ukraine.
What century are you from? The last time Russia had anti air assets in Ukraine it was still called the Ukraine and it was half it's current size.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
And here we reach the crux of the matter.
If I think there's been a genocide in Xinjiang, I should be able to say so. Someone else might think that's objectively not true, and we can talk about it. That's actually a really healthy thing, it is an exchange of ideas. Almost no one has a monopoly on understanding the world completely, and so it's necessary to be able to talk it back and forth. Deciding that we're going to delete one side of that conversation is good for no one.
I think the model that's crept into the modern internet where discordant ideas are "enemy" ideas that everyone needs to be protected against, and there's no point in talking with anyone you disagree with because all the two of you will do is attack each other, is poison.
I'm happy to hear what you have to say, maybe I am wrong about this instance. When did the UN say there wasn't a genocide and all the victims are millionaires? If you link me to the report, I would like to read it.
Uncritically spreading xenophobic propaganda will of course get you a tut-tut of some kind. As it should.
Can you link me to the UN report where they found there was no genocide, and the so-called victims were millionaires?
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/2022-08-31/22-08-31-final-assesment.pdf
They don't even mention the word genocide because that is an accusation exclusive to US propaganda think tanks and those who cite them, i.e. their funders (the US State Department and other imperialist countries' similar state organs) and friendly media. It is baseless bullshit that can only be entertained by the ignorant.
If you keep searching, you will find another "UN" "report" that attacks China, but this is not the OHCR, it is the usual propaganda thing where countries invite propagandists to a meeting and have them read out accusations. It is not any kind of investigation.
How does this report find there was no genocide, if they didn't mention the word genocide?
I also searched for "million" to try to find the story about all the victims being millionaires now, and I didn't find that either. Can you or the other person who talked about that tell me more about where I can find it?
I did skim some of the report.
Leaving aside the question of whether to draw the conclusion that there is a genocide, do you think that information like the stuff I just quoted from the report you just sent me is accurate?
Because it is an investigation into alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang for the exact period in question in response to the people making these allegations.
The escalation of claims went: human rights abuses -> cultural genocide -> genocide. Both escalations were unjustified and they literally had nothing for the escalation to genocide. It was a claim by a shady organization funded by a CIA cutout.
I haven't followed the incomes of the grifters pushing this narrative in the West but if you research World Uyghur Congress you will probably find information about this. I do know that they received a lot of funding and have very little to show for it. That money went somewhere.
I would need to refresh my memory and look into specific cases because some people have recanted accounts like this or otherwise given very inconsistent stories. I don't doubt that there were abuses, though. The devil is really in the details. Often it is people from these NED-funded propaganda orgs that are used as sources for these stories and they have a vested interest in how they tell them in order to support their ideological cause and continue receiving funding. For example one of the accounts often touted, and I don't know whether it is one of those specific examples you mention, is by a business owner whose story constantly changed who fled the country and whose family more or less says is lying. Without her business assets, she received income from these NED funded orgs. It's a fairly standard playbook at this point.
Incidentally, one of the orgs funded in this way, ETIM, was on the US and others' terrorism lists until it became convenient to use them to poke China. ETIM are reactionary separatists trying to import Arab salafist positions and wrongly conflate them with Uyghur (Turkic) customs. They are also behind some of the knife attacks and they are related to the al Qaeda-adjascent groups in Syria vowing to bring separatist violence to China right now.
I was responding, originally, to this statement:
I asked because I didn't know of anything that backs up either of those claims. I still haven't seen anything that does.
In non-authoritarian contexts, it's actually pretty normal to ask "Why are you saying this, what is the evidence," instead of just accepting a browbeating message as, in itself, proof of what's being claimed. And usually, if someone's asked for proof and then their proof doesn't match the thing claimed when you examine it, or they're hostile to the idea of needing to provide proof in the first place because that's "sealioning" or whatever, that's a huge red flag. Likewise it is a red flag if someone makes a claim, and then when asked for evidence they pivot instead into a whole bunch of new claims.
It doesn't look like you or the other speaker are interested in backing up this stuff. I don't want to play the Gish Gallop game of indefinitely checking out all these new claims. I really did read the report. I don't know all that much about Xinjiang, so it was informative for me to see it, so thank you. I didn't see a strong indication, one way or another, that what's happening either is or isn't a genocide. It's definitely not on the same scale as Gaza or Nazi Germany, but it still does sound to me like they're aiming to eradicate the culture of these people and replace it Chinese culture, alongside a lot of other human rights abuses. The forced sterilization and wide-scale destruction of mosques, in particular, sounds exactly like eradication.
Okay, so you're not sure whether the report you sent me was accurate. You're just interested in using it to back up something that it doesn't actually back up, but at the same time throwing shade at any part of it that says something you don't want to hear.
That fact that it doesn't use the word "genocide" is not, to me, a specific finding that there is not a genocide. They seem like they're just focused on what the facts of the matter are, instead of the question of whether it fits into some specific value judgement or not.
I'm done here. I was just curious, that's all. Have a good day.
The UN report you asked for and that I kindly, without thanks, provided, does so, as I have explained.
What on earth are you talking about
Cool well I am not the person who originally said anything about this and you have been provided with evidence that you are now more or less ignoring and dismissing out of hand.
It does match the claim, you are just not engaging in good faith with what was presented. You have literally not responded at all to my contextualization and are now grandstanding instead. Is that a red flag? And again, I am not the original person you were talking to. Not only have I not been hostile to "providing proof", I went out of my way to provide what was being referenced.
At no point have I pivoted. I have provided you with context you help you understand something that is clearly new to you, however.
I provided the document, explained its relevance, and provided context you help you understand where the genocide narrative is coming from and how unserious it is. I also offered some possible context for what OP was referring to by people getting rich.
You are now avoiding responding to what I said. If you cannot critically engage with this topic, you do not need to take it out on me with these silly accusations.
There is no Gish Gallop, this is just a topic you don't know anything about and I have provided you with several facts. This is not a debate.
It is not the destruction of a people in whole or in part as described by the UN definition, which is obvious by simply comparing it to the report. There are not mass graves, there is no forced migration, children are not stolen, there is no substantial diaspora. There is nothing to the narrative. The onus of proof is actually on those making these claims. I have described, in general terms, where they come from, who makes them. Can you tell me the names od the organization(s)? What were they doing before 2018 or so? Do you know why you are even entertaining this possibility in the first place? Where is your evidence? The UN OHCHR didn't claim genocide.
Xinjiang is Chinese. China is a multi-ethnic state. Uyghurs in China are not more or less Chinese than any other citizen in China and it would actually be racist to say otherwise.
The OHCHR report also does not claim that China is trying to eradicate their culture. Where do you get that idea from?
It is important to critically interrogate this claim. What did the OHCHR report provide as evidence? What are they specifically referring to as sterilization?
This did not happen and the OHCHR repory does not make this claim. Take note of the limited examples provided and follow the rabbit hole of sourcing. It will be revealing.
That is why the accusers use language like "forced sterilization" to describe the insertion of IUDs and play with implications based on tortured per capita statistics that are far less scary than presented. If you don't investigate, all you walk away with is the bad words and no sense of scale or impact.
You are confused. I have merely supplied you with what you asked for. Don't ascribe things to me that I haven't said.
You can of course use your brain to compare what is claimed to what genocide is. I have already explained this.
On the contrary, this report was created at the behest of those accusing China of genocide and this is what they were then provided with.
Your responses are combative, not curious. They are about doubting and fighting, often against things I have not said, and you are not asking questions and then accepting or building on the answers. This is despite you admittingly knowing little about this topic, whereas I clearly feel comfortable speaking about it purely rrom memory because I have actually done the work, done the curious thing.
You can do that, too, but it looks like you will need to stop treating this like some kind of debate to the death first.
I asked, "Can you link me to the UN report where they found there was no genocide, and the so-called victims were millionaires?" You sent me a report. It doesn't say there was no genocide, and it doesn't say the so-called victims were millionaires. I realize you're saying that a reasonable person can read the report and conclude that obviously there is no genocide at all, but I don't completely agree with that. I'm allowed to not agree with you. That's not "fighting."
I'm really not trying to be hard to talk to or get you riled up. What you describe as "fighting" or refusing to absorb the information you are providing, I view as just healthy skepticism. If you run way, way ahead of your sources by painting a huge picture, you are completely correct that I'm going to refuse to become passive and let you educate me and believe everything you say. I'm going to take a step back and say, "Well, okay, I get what you're saying, but what is your backing?" I can do that even if I'm not that familiar with the topic. The fact that you're so upset that I'm not just believing everything you say is weird to me.
A few detail points:
This is not accurate. Forced sterilizations, forced insertion of IUDs, and forced abortions are measured as separate things, although they're sometimes talked about as the related issues that they are. It's in section 108 which I already quoted.
Why are you so skeptical, now, of the source that you provided? It's either trustworthy, when it says that women are being sterilized against their will, or it isn't. I generally trust the UN, and it seems well-sourced, and you were the one that provided it in the first place, so I see no reason to assume that "sterilization" means something other than sterilization.
Yes it does. It's in sections 85 and 86. I picked one of the rabbit-holes of sourcing, and found https://uhrp.org/report/demolishing-faith-the-destruction-and-desecration-of-uyghur-mosques-and-shrines/, which said "The Chinese government’s current crackdown in the Uyghur region is aimed at eliminating Uyghur ethnocultural identity and assimilating them into an undifferentiated “Chinese” identity. As one of the cornerstones of their identity, Uyghurs’ Islamic faith has been a major target of this campaign, resulting in many Uyghurs being sent to the network of concentration camps. This campaign has also taken the form of eradicating tangible signs of the region’s Islamic identity from the physical landscape. This has involved the whole or partial demolition of an unprecedented number of mosques, including several historically significant buildings."
The UN definition of genocide is "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:"
I already said this: I'm not convinced either way. I read parts of the report, and took it seriously. It talks about forced sterilization and family separation, deaths in custody and executions, and other things that very clearly meet the numbered criteria. But is that being committed with intent to destroy the group as such? I don't really know. But I don't think that the UN putting together a report which describes it, but stops short of calling it genocide, means that it's conclusively proven that it is not genocide.
I'm losing my patience with this conversation, to be honest. It seems like your model is that you say things and I accept them, and I'm "fighting" if I don't. My model is going to be that I'm going to compare the things you say with things I can source, and see if the claims change or if the backing is solid, and then if after a couple rounds of that it seems like you're well in accordance with things outside of you that I can find, then okay, I become more trusting. If you're going to get offended by that, I think you're going to keep being offended by the conversation, and I think maybe this isn't going to be productive.
You're really demonstrating why it's easier to just remove comments like yours rather than try to disprove them when you're just going play Calvin Ball and argue in bad faith
“Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I haven’t ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and then rejected it. There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can’t be perfect of course; you may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged.”
—Carl Sagan, The Burden of Skepticism
Case in point
When I said:
And explained in some detail how I interpreted the report, I got in response:
In the world I inhabit, people are allowed to make up their own minds about things. I explained how I took the report, and this person told me I took it wrong, and “explained” how was the correct way to take it, and demanded that I prove that there was a genocide going on, when I’d already said that after read the report I wasn’t really sure whether there was or not.
I’ve spent some time talking about this at this point, but ultimately, I am not interested in that type of interaction. I think enough words have been spent on this at this point. Have a good one.
You were, and are, being deliberately disingenuous.
Nice comment
https://feddit.nl/post/16246531
Yes that is specifically what I'm talking about, there wasn't criticism of China, there was "oog think China bad because ( insert thing the UN found no evidence of that literally only the US ever said there was evidence of and they didn't present that evidence )."
And how is this related to mechanical keyboards, Linux and open source communities?
Banning someone from an instance also bans them from communities they participate in. Or at least, it used to.
That's probably the core of the issue. People probably don't mind being banned from [email protected] or [email protected] for such statements, it's not like it's a surprise based on the political stance of the instance.
Being banned from Linux and keyboard communities seems unrelated. Which is why people are recreating those communities elsewhere.
If instances are like separate Reddits then it is just like getting a siteban.
Also something being "politics" does not mean it should entitle you to other spaces. This is how reactionaries self-victimize to excuse, say, transphobia.
Indeed, and like Reddit, people are leaving for other sites, or in this case instances
Sounds like a good thing given the reasons they are "leaving".
Read the rules, if you disagree with the rules in a community, don't participate, make your own. It's hardly power tripping if you actively seek to violate rules clearly laid out.
That's what most people are doing
As a mod, we don't really "hover", we do have a queue of reported posts and reported comments and deal with them as they pop up.
Most likely some other .ml user saw the "tankie" comment, reported it, and the .ml mod did the .ml mod thing.
I fail to see a useful distinction between me posting what I think, and a mod seeing it and deleting it, versus me posting what I think, someone reporting it, and then the mod deleting it. In both cases someone's standing over me policing what viewpoints I'm allowed to express, which is bad.
I actually do get why someone would want to delete "tankie," since it could be taken as a gratuitous insult. And I do get mod fatigue and running out of care to give as an underlying issue for a lot of this. I think a big part of the underlying issue is depending on volunteer moderators to keep the whole system together and making basically unlimited demands on them. I was just talking about the general censorship problem on lemmy.ml, not trying to say that every case is always power tripping mods.
As I wrote, this is not the first time I encountered such behavior. And while you might not care, I was curious to know if there were better solutions than just accepting these kind of things passively.
To me it is wrong for such prominent instances to always be the ones getting away with this type of behavior
Getting away with the behavior of tempbans from a single comm pointlessly insulting?
You'll find that on basically every instance, they'll just have a different standard on what is an unhelpful insult and who it is okay to attack. For example, other instances will tolerate the typical American acceptance of xenophobia and .ml will not. And if you simply describe someone on .world as excusing support for genocide because they're trying to justify advocating for someone enabling it, they'll ban you for "misinformation" and "trolling" because their liberal partisan tendencies have been shaken.
Yeah, you can take it to the .ml admins, but speaking from my own interactions with my own admins, I really doubt they'll interfere in your favor over a 5 day ban.
I wasn't going to mention it, but as it's not your first time, [email protected] is more specific than [email protected]
Instances known for power tripping are getting less and less popular over time
Genuine question, why do you try to posture yourself as uninvolved in drama but regularly plug the anticommunist drama community specializing in out of context screen grabs run by a gamergate right-winger seemingly whenever relevant? It seems more like you're trying to sow seeds of anticommunism without taking the blame for it.
I link to [email protected] any time a mod power trips, the most recent examples being the Lemmy.world decisions to remove comments about jury nullification.
If [email protected] screens are taken out of context, people who want to add the context can come in and explain it.
If that mod bans them, then it's power tripping, it's going to be reported to [email protected] and then many people (including me) will probably stop using that community
You understand that by posting the links that that's tacit approval of them and an endorsement, correct? If you agree that MWoG is as I describe, then that implies endorsement of that behavior. Moreover, leftists are banned from that comm if they contextualize, it's explicitly a right wing left-punching comm. You do not post right-punching left wing comms, at least not in my experience, and as such shows a clear pattern.
Again, I ask, why? It's fairly obvious to me based on your actions that you are trying to stir up anticommunist drama, and I am giving you the platform to explain yourself, your reasoning, and explain the bias you show.
Alright, to be honest that whole right-wing issue with MWoG was kind of on my backlog.
I remember seeing a few problematic threads from the main mod in the past, especially advocating to keep federation with exploding-heads:
@[email protected], do you still stand by those comments?
I just had a look at the modlog (https://sh.itjust.works/modlog/25693), there seems to be indeed a few strange cases for "apologia". Unfortutanely, we can't see the comments in this cases.
I'll edit my comment in the meantime to remove the mention to MWoG.
While we are discussing, what is your stance on [email protected] ?
Appreciate the clarity.
As for yeptb, I don't have the same familiarity with it. From what I know, it rightly targets LW moderators so it's less dedicated to an anti-Left drama circle, but it's still a drama comm so I don't personally care about it either way. Dbzer0 is something I critically support, they aren't nearly as bad as other instances can be but frustratingly attract the "techie western anarchist" archetype that seems to never be able to engage honestly with Marxist theory. That said, it's a mixed bag overall, a lot are good comrades as well.
That's my 2 major cents there.
Thank you for your insight, have a good one!