Please don’t put any hate comments against the developers of lemmy or against the person who posted this.

I am also unhappy about what the main lemmy instance is doing.

What are your thoughts?

  • jazzfes@lemmy.ml
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    3 years ago

    There is a difference between people advocating for human rights abuses and people saying that some actor does in fact not engage in human rights abuses. The difference is stark and even there, if the actor would in fact in engage in human right abuses.

    An open society must tolerate the later. I.e. we must tolerate that people dispute that human right abuses occur or occurred. This is because you cannot judge someone purely due to getting the facts wrong or not knowing them.

    If we wouldn’t allow this, we would de-facto argue for a totalitarian state, since we wouldn’t allow people disputing facts (which can be proven or disproven). We would have to nominate some entity that judges what is fact and what isn’t, which is the opposite to gathering evidence and engaging in an open, society wide discussion.

    To be clear: Allowing discussions around whether abuses occur is notably different to letting people get away with advocating for abuses. The latter is what needs strong responses. The former is what requires engagement.

    I don’t see anything on lemmy or in the mastodon thread that shows that human rights abuses are advocated for. What I do see is that there are some fractions that show sympathies to China which you would otherwise only see for the USA. I think its useful to compare these sympathies because they seem to express themselves in similar ways.

    With all that said, I think the opinion expressed in the mastodon thread is not particularly useful. It, in many ways, minimises real human rights abuses that occur world wide, day to day, in China, USA, and many other countries in East and West.

    Let’s call out the abuses, let’s discuss and present the evidence for them, let’s not alienate people and create polarity that looks like us-vs-them.

    • nutomic@lemmy.mlM
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      3 years ago

      Very well said. Also, if these people disagree with the rules on lemmy.ml, they could create their own instance, with their own rules. Thats the whole point of federation.

      • AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
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        3 years ago

        Us: “China isn’t committing the atrocities the West accuses them of and here’s evidence.”

        Anti-China people: “OMG you actively advocate for China’s atrocities and want them to keep happening!”

        • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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          3 years ago

          We politely asked this fedi account to take this discussion here, but they obstinately refused. They’ve equated even any discussion questioning the Zenz / Byler / ASPI narrative as genocide denial.

          • AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
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            3 years ago

            Block 'em and move on I say. It’s clear there’s no reasoning with them and there isn’t much we can do to stop them from spewing propaganda at us. In fact, engaging them will probably only exacerbate things.

    • nikifa@lemmy.ml
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      3 years ago

      There is a difference between people advocating for human rights abuses and people saying that some actor does in fact not engage in human rights abuses.

      The main difference is, that one practice gaslighting as a means to justify such acts.
      They will claim “it was just joking”, or explain how in fact the abuse is something good, hence they aren’t for human right violation because they are for something that they just defined as something good.

        • CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml
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          3 years ago

          This has been tried before in different ways; infowars, parler, even giving them r/thedonald (as some believed it kept them off other reddits) … It has only led to fascists finding a platform to start working their poison and spread it outside.

          In fact isolating only worked when moderators finally did something and deplatformed them, I.e. Banned these communities. After Alex Jones was taken off youtube, infowars died. Spencer was punched so much he stopped leaving the house (and so stopped propagandising). Milo was canceled everywhere he went (literally), but especially on Twitter, and last I heard he filed for bankruptcy.

          The best way to isolate them is to fragment their communities so much that any organisation is impossible. And of course prevent them from creating such communities. If you let them have their spaces, they will find them, they will go on there (and they’re very good at using the edgy aspect to lure in new recruits), and then you end up with another terrorist attack. They will organise on there and that’s what you want to prevent.

          • lorabe@lemmy.ml
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            3 years ago

            You know you can apply that to any antifa member who wants disobey laws by resorting to violent means.

    • nikifa@lemmy.ml
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      3 years ago

      huh, why the downvotes? Because I used the term tankies, but you prefer to be called Marxist-Leninist? When contemporary anti-authoritarians use the term tankie, they usually refer to contemporary Marxist-Leninist. Hope that explanation helps. So when I say you are Marxist-Leninst, I mean you are tankie.

        • nikifa@lemmy.ml
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          3 years ago

          you’re aware that dev of lemmy use the term tankie as a self description too?

        • nikifa@lemmy.ml
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          3 years ago

          I wouldn’t understand what dronie is so that term might not well serve the purpose if used to address me. If you address me as anarkiddie, it be enough for a tiny giggle, but then I’ll be remembered how that term is actually discrimination against children. It helps to reproduce adultism over and over again.

          • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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            3 years ago

            Dronie refers to the fact that anarchist positions are always aligned with US foreign policy. It’s exact same rationale as the tankie slur you love so much. Meanwhile, anarkiddie refers to the fact that full grown adults hold infantile views of the world.

            • nikifa@lemmy.ml
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              3 years ago

              Dronie refers to the fact that anarchist positions are always aligned with US foreign policy.

              hmm, ok. This wouldn’t fit me. I’m opposing US foreign policy in most parts, not all I must admit. I’m for: Dismantle the US empire. It’s just a phrase, but I mean it like that.

  • onyx@lemmy.ml
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    3 years ago

    FediTips and the commenters in that thread make some good points. The fact that this Lemmy instance federates with Lemmygrad (which, if you look at the front page, is full of denialism about the Uyghur genocide) is an atrocity.

    And yes, https://lemmy.ml/modlog does indeed have some questionable entries, such as:

    • Removed Community conservatives reason: No conservative communities
    • Removed Community Libertarian, in the pursuit of a free society reason: No conservative communities allowed
    • Removed Community Conservatism reason: No conservative subs allowed

    I created the Conservatism community, not knowing that Lemmy (lemmy.ml) became a leftist instance. (Lemmy was not explicitly leftist when I made my account in July 2020. Look at this archive of the front page from November 2020, which does not include the word leftist in the sidebar.) Fine, whatever. But, removing the Libertarian community with the rationale “No conservative communities allowed”? I don’t understand that. That’s not even politically accurate.

    • CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml
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      3 years ago

      Wikipedia is not a source bruh. In the introductory paragraph on the uyghur genocide article they say that thousands of mosques have been destroyed… But don’t mention they have been rebuilt to accommodate more people or because they weren’t up to code. There are more mosques in Xinjiang alone in 2021 than there are in all of Europe lol.

      Wikipedia has a clear agenda and this is clear from looking at their board of directors and demographics. They are not a source and neither are their sources - - they are carefully curated to offer a specific analysis.

      • nikifa@lemmy.ml
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        3 years ago

        You are aware that this is just about semantics? It’s not about if those crimes against humanity that some call genocide are happening, it is if those crimes against humanity should be called genocide or differently. Stop gaslighing.

        “The U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Advisor concluded earlier this year that China’s mass imprisonment and forced labor of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang amounts to crimes against humanity—but there was insufficient evidence to prove genocide,…”

        Some more quote from the article:

        “Secretary Blinken and I have made clear that genocide has been committed against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang,”

        “I have determined that the People’s Republic of China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, China, targeting Uyghur Muslims and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups,”

        “For example, the torture, rape and sexual violence committed against Uyghurs likely constitute genocide ‘by causing serious bodily and mental harm’—the second type of genocide recognized by the Convention,

        “More than 1 million Uighurs have been detained in reeducation camps, and many have reportedly been subjected to forced labor and sterilization. China has committed numerous crimes listed in the convention as acts of genocide, including the prevention of births and infliction of bodily or mental harm on members of a group and the compulsory separation of children from their communities, according to human rights groups.”