Just blocked lemmy.ml from my Lemmy account, and I swear to god it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done on this platform. My homepage feels actually clean now.
For the past few months I’d been seeing a lot of tankie posting and pretty much far-left propaganda on my feed. It got tiring enough that I finally checked my blocked-user list, and realized pretty much everyone I’d blocked was from lemmy.ml. So I just blocked the whole instance instead.
Saying this as someone who considers themselves a leftist: I used to think Lemmy itself was an echo chamber. Turns out lemmy.ml was the problem the entire time. Probably the reason I tolerated it for so long is that I agreed with a lot of what they posted, but like an oversaturated meme, I’d had enough. Browsing the platform was starting to feel way too tiring instead of fun, which defeats the point of being here in the first place.
The breaking point was seeing some dude post a “meme” implying North Korea and China are basically communist utopias and that the West sucks. I mean, the West does suck, but come on - you’re saying North Korea is the ideal the West should strive for? What the hell…
When I joined Lemmy, Lemmy.ml didn’t really feel different than Lemmy.world to me.
Maybe I’m taking crazy pills but it’s like they got more propagandist on purpose. As if they decided to up the anthem because .grad got defederated by all sane instances… And what’s propaganda good for if it doesn’t reach the right people?
Same with tankies having lemmy.world accounts. It’s not ironic, it makes sense.
Now Lemmy.ml became their “outreach” instance, where they ban everyone who criticizes them (even on another instance) or even for downvoting (Dessalines did that because his favorite poster ‘cowbee’ got downvoted by “bots” too much. Then they opted out on lemvotes, so no more checking yourself).
For an outsider it looks like everyone agrees with them because they upvote each other and every critic got either banned or they blocked them themselves and I’m starting to think this might be by design. I wonder how many users are banned from .ml, while still retaining general visibility through federation.
Isn’t it basically how Russia and China operate? Keep your own people isolated in a bubble where only your narrative is accepted and at the same time invade other spaces to manipulate their opinions?
I mean why would a leftist like ANYTHING about current day Russia? China? OK, there are apologisms that can fit into a leftist umbrella. But RUSSIA? It’s a fucking kleptocracy. Anyone “leftist” saying otherwise is a crock of shit. They haven’t been red in decades.
Because they unironically believe that Russia = the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. That Putin literally is the Premier of the USSR and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Maybe even that what Putin is trying to do in the Ukraine is reconquer his own territory from CIA-driven Western insurgents.
Basically, just because Putin is a Russian, he automatically is a ☭★✊ СФММꙠИЇꙄТ СФМЯДDЭ ✊★☭, therefore he must be anti-Capitalist, therefore he has to be a good guy.
These people completely distrust any and all Western media because it’s capitalist, imperialist propaganda, but they take everything from Russia Today and Sputnik News at face value because the good guys wouldn’t ever lie, right?
They say they’re against wars. But if Putin started a full-on invasion in Germany (while the country is in a state in which it’ll be defenceless within three days), I can guarantee you that they’ll cheer for the Red Army finally coming and purging capitalism and imperialism.
Seriously, we have a political party in Germany whose very principles appear to be based on this belief, and that tried to get a new Chancellor of their own into office.
What the actual fuck!