Why do I feel like so many people here support the USSR and the CCP? - Lemmy
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Maybe it’s because of federation with lemmygrad, but I always feel like there’s quite a heavy anti-western or pro-communism bias. There are people arguing that NATO is expanding eastward (which, I don’t think it is, instead you just have more eastern countries are joining it) and “invading” (which, I mean it’s a defensive alliance that countries voluntarily join: “don’t attack us or we will all have to attack you” should only be worrying if you actually plan an invasion.) There’s also people talking about how the collapse of the soviet union was a disaster, and using the Mercator projection to argue how Russia is bigger than Ukraine. This isn’t really a problem on its own, but I find it surprising how many upvotes this stuff gets. Soviet Gulag killed just as many people as Nazi concentration camps, and the Soviet Union would only fall after everyone was so sick of it (eastern block declaring independence, for example) that it died. Surely, surely nobody looks at an authoritarian dictator and thinks “yeah i trust that person (with insane influence and little opposition) to not abuse their power and have my (a peasant) best interests (which are contradictory to theirs) at heart”. Don’t even get me started on China, which still insists that Taiwan (which has been its own country since the CCP took power of the mainland) shouldn’t have any independence (imperialism…); and the country is clearly so sensitive about it they threw a hissy-fit and started doing military exercises outside Taiwan after they committed the horrible crime of… having a diplomat visit. Oh also China trying to exclude Wikimedia for acknowledging that Taiwan exists, claiming “disinformation”. Oh did I mention harassing and banning VTubers who say it is a country, even outside of a political setting? Say what you will about China and an anti-china bias in the west, but any country that implements or supports a splinternet, or needlessy engages in border disputes with neighbouring countries meanwhile oppressing people within Chinese borders who have been living there for ages for not being chinese enough. Again, don’t get me wrong I don’t think the west is immune from any of this (and in fact I think there is a lack of criticism of the west), but anyone who claims the west is evil while simultaneously glorifying countries that implement concentration camps comes off as fascistic and ignorant. Sorry if this comes off as more of a rant than a question, but surely I can’t be the only one who feels this way?
  • Troy@lemmy.ca
    3·
    1 year ago

    Just unsub from lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml communities. You might still see them in All if your instance federated with them.

    There’s some overlap between open source enthusiasts and anarchists/communists. It comes with the territory. Most of them are not tankies, but rather are anti-patent or anti-IP or similar, but there’s definitely a few on the fringe. And open source folks are among the earliest adopters of federated networks so a left slant is expected, to a limited extent.

    So far I like it here. I’m a centrist (by Canadian standards). Ive seen a few extremists leaning tankie if alt-right in various threads, but that’s okay. The centre seems to be holding and voting them down.

  • Joe_Moose@lemmy.world
    3·
    1 year ago

    I think part of it is because lemmy has historically been welcoming to people with different ideas. If your views aren’t welcome elsewhere, you can just host your own instance and say whatever you want.

    But I also think we’re witnessing coordinated propaganda. It reminds me so much of the pro-russian trolling and memes that took over 4chan in 00s and early 10s.

    • asteriskeverything@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 year ago

      But I also think we’re witnessing coordinated propaganda. It reminds me so much of the pro-russian trolling and memes that took over 4chan in 00s and early 10s.

      Yes, it definitely reminds me of that!!! I have been noticing it a lot here as well and this is also the conclusion I’m leaning toward. I’ve seen a few comments that felt like they are trying to appeal to every side of American politics. I’ve decided to always speak up about it because this feels dangerous. Like they are trying to manipulate western opinions for something.

  • RagingHungryPanda@lemmy.world
    3·
    1 year ago

    I’ve mainly just seen in on the lemmygrad instance when I go to all. I find the content over there to be a bit silly (even as a socialist). I think you can block instances? I’ve blocked some of the more trolling/low effort communities.

    But I also see it in the other direction. I’ve seen people ask open ended questions about the USSR and CCP for something they may have done well and people will downvote and “what-about-ism” for other stuff that isn’t/wasn’t so good, but is also off topic for what was asked.

    There’s not a lot of effective discourse around the topic, I think. The conversation seems to be either entirely positive or negative for everything about them, even when the post is about one thing in particular. We can’t really say, “This thing was done well” without the what-about-isms, nor can we say “This other thing was not done well” without it applying to everything.

    But to come back to your question, as you worded it “support for…”, that seems to be in line with the conversations here. It’s either “support” or “against” and not a whole lot of analysis. As in, if you say something positive then you support everything. Obviously, that shouldn’t be the case, but that does seem to be the narrative here.

  • Tedesche@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    I think Lemmy has a lot of Far Left people on the site. In this instance, I’m referring to people who are staunchly against capitalism and often in favor of communism, even if they don’t support CCP or Russia. I’ve also noted a higher-than-normal instances of anarchists here.

    As for specifically pro-China shills, I’ve only seen one, but they were very active in c/worldnews.

    If Lemmy grows in popularity, I expect we’ll see the community shift more towards center, for better and/or worse.

    • OwlPaste@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 year ago

      Thats really the right way to go about it, support the ideas not the absolute piece of trash implementations that only served to enrich the few. Both ccp and ussr were clear examples of that.

    • insomniac@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I think because there’s not a ton of people here and posts don’t usually get hundreds of comments, a few very active users can really stand out. There’s one person in particular all over the Ukraine war communities that is obviously a Russian troll. It’s easy to just think Lemmy is overrun with pro Russians but if you pay attention, it’s mostly just one idiot that posts a lot.

  • smorks@lemmy.ca
    2·
    2 years ago

    that post has the most comment’s i’ve ever seen so far. at least that i can remember. or maybe i just live a sheltered lemmy life, haha.