The very existence of that community boils down to people screaming the word "Tankie" at one another while trying to reproduce the most cringe corners of old Reddit.

Beehaw mods are just another group of power tripping nerds common to the social media space. These technical issues are all outgrowths of their desperate need to control discourse.

[–] WFH@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I swear I've never heard "tankie" before a week ago and now I'm on Lemmy I read it 50 times a day.

[–] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I still don't understand what it means. From the context, I assume it's bad to be one, but I have no idea why.

[–] Arthritis_god_of_the_hunt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tankie is a term invented by anti Stalinist Marxists in Britain used against the people who followed the marxist-leninist line and supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary where the USSR send in tanks to violently crush reformist uprisings. It has since been used as a pejorative for Stalinists and soviet-apologists, mainly by other leftists.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Let's be real, it's mostly used as a pejorative for "leftist I don't like" these days.

[–] required@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

now, why is this phrase so common on lemmy all of a sudden?

[–] Skullfurious@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Because the main developers of Lemmy are concerningly biased. Luckily the project is open source but unfortunately it does appear that the lead developers are into defending the crimes of the CCP mainly through moderation on their own platform (which of course is their right). They strongly dislike discussion of CCP crimes on their platform and ban users.

I unfortunately don't have the links but there are 3 threads you can pull on to kind of paint a picture of what the lead devs opinions are.

His moderation tendencies on lemmy.ml.
His GitHub compendium on communism and Marxism and how they didn't necessarily fail.
A breakdown of everything on Mastodon by what appears to be a slighted user. This is the personal vendetta they are talking about in the most recent blog posting.

Ironically enough I kind of dismissed the twitter drama as drama until I read the most recent article the dev team posted and their denial caught my eye. Especially how they said it wasn't worth addressing. Didn't sit right with me and I saw some others feeling the same way posting about it.

People are also pointing out that prior to the influx of users from Reddit the Lemmy ecosystem was 'red' in a sense but it's largely been suppressed by the sudden popularity.

Do I think any of this matters? Honestly, yes I do.

Only because, of course, the lead developers opinions matter and will influence the features the project will incorporate as time goes on. A recent example that comes to mind is the PolyMC controversy where the lead dev went rogue and denounced LGBT or something. The team all quit and ported it over to Prism Launcher.

Instances like that can happen and come up. You never know what might happen. Anyways it's not affecting anything right this moment so it might be a sit and watch scenario.

Grab some popcorn I guess.

Oh and for anyone curious I think socialism is awesome and I live in Canada so I'm not some kind of capitalist romanticizer. I think a mix works best but ultimately capitalism will collapse under its own weight. Especially if left unregulated.

[–] admin@exploding-heads.com 5 points 1 year ago

I want to speak up in defense of the Lemmy developers.

I run an instance that is probably the polar opposite of Lemmy.ml.

Yes Lemmy.ml blocked us from federating, but when it comes to getting a Lemmy instance up and running successfully, 99.99% of the time the developers have been both helpful and generous with their time.

Give them a break. They have created some great open source software that can serve as a foundation of an exciting future.

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I’m all for socializing a lot of things. Infrastructure, healthcare, education, etc. But even my lefty ass raised some eyebrows when I saw that one of the developers has a massive Git repo of communist essays and commentary on hundreds / thousands of communists articles on the web. Seemed like a bit much.

[–] CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Tankies are usually characterised by their willingness to defend the use of tanks to crush civilians who speak out against authoritarian communist governments.

[–] WFH@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

I feel this should have been part of my beloved "Trotskyist insults" stamp set I was gifted many years ago.

[–] vimdiesel@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

I mean that's literally what they say in their sign up form, but a bit more self congratulatory, so it's not really a surprise is it? They don't want to deal with randos and reserve the right to kick anybody out for what they consider "asshole" behavior.

[–] Aurix@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

I see little proof for that yet. They behave like a small forum which reached its capacity.

[–] AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

You know you really nailed it when you hit that equal up/down ratio!