In the past week I’ve been absolutely roasted for criticising two different countries. Normally I’d be okay with that, I can handle a mild toasting and after all debate is a good thing.
On both occasions though I was flamed for mentioning human rights issues that are established facts and have been known for many, many years. I was critical of the actions/laws of their governments and not the people, their race, religion, general political ideology or nationality.
On both occasions I was bombarded by long posts that parroted propaganda, and in the case of one country I was told (on multiple occasions) that I was ignorant, racist and even fascist for mentioning the issues I did. I’m not complaining about how I was treated, but as a reminder, I was discussing internationally-recognised human rights concerns that can be verified and based in fact.
I could just be paranoid but I’m fairly convinced the responses weren’t from patriotic citizens. I think they were paid trolls or bots, and I think their purpose was to quiet negative talking points about the countries that were mentioned.
Has anyone else had a similar experience?
Thats .ml for you where they decided to be so left leaning that they did a u-turn to totaliarism.
I see you’ve met hexbear and lemmy.ml. They’re not trolls or bots. They’re just plain ol’ idiots.
You weren’t flamed for mentioning established facts, but for dogmatically repeating easily disproven claims. People brought receipts and explained how your views were not actually based on evidence but instead propaganda, and now you’ve deleted those comments, making it hard for others to verify that they were indeed wrong. You weren’t using internationally-recognized consensus, but purely western consensus, portraying that western consensus as the totality of international thought.
Either way, no, no paid trolls nor bots, just a bunch of communists. Lemmy was made and developed by communists, so there are lots of communists here.
Block and move on. I think I’ve blocked most of ml at this point, but there are a few normal users. At least 2.
Blocking bad-faith-arguers and general shitheads has definitely improved my experience on the internet.
That’s way more than on Reddit by at least 2!
c/unexpectedfactorial
Oh… Nevermind.
PSA: in the settings you can block whole instances, and if you want to eliminate this annoying problem, just block *.lemmy.ml and any instance that contains the string “hexbear”.
Problem solved.
I’ve experienced this, but only for Russia and China specifically. Most of it your typical tankie behavior, but not all of it comes from ml users.
The world has a propaganda problem. Governments and regimes worldwide have been spending millions and millions in propaganda for a century, the society we live in is rotten to the core, the average person is brainwashed to pick a side and thinking in left and right. Mass media have been a tool of the propaganda and have been used as a distraction weapon since their creation.
Lemmy borrowed it’s layout from reddit which is shaped and tailored around censure and propaganda. Just look at the all frontpage, the most popular subs are the same as reddit and you can’t really post anything useful in these, your observation about propaganda had to be turned into a question to fit in the ask lemmy sub.
100% but I wouldn’t call it a problem. I find it’s often refreshing to see the stupidity around you and not have it hidden behind a veil. I think you also get more genuine information here it just requires more from you to not get got.
This place has a very communist leaning userbase and with that comes a with a lot of tankies and chiaboos.
In the end USA and Europe have a lot of similar issues and that’s growing so it’s not like they are morally superior, but ya know tankies and co are very good at ignoring issues just as much as any red blood American.
“communist”
I was bombarded by long posts that parroted propaganda
Turns out that when you define “propaganda” as “anything that I disagree with”, and then go to spaces where a lot of people disagree with you, you’re going to see a lot of “propaganda”.
Why does it matter if the responses are from patriotic citizens or not?
“Bad faith” is lunacy, who cares? Arguments matter all on their own, regardless of the motivation for making them.
Of course you “think” they are paid trolls or bots, we all see that constantly. My first post on Reddit years ago was followed immediately by charges of being a Russian spy. Maybe they were a Russian spy and I was diversion?
Anyway, troll, bot, human, paid or not, irrelevant. The discussion is seen by others and judged on the merit of the argument itself. Stop worrying about the source, as you can never know, so it doesn’t matter. It’s not as if you get better results by talking to an unpaid patriotic person. Same shit.
Propaganda problem? Not at all. Every form of social media is rife with propaganda, as is every paper, website, news channel, and so on. How could Lemmy be any different?
The mentality that everything is an opinion and all opinions are valid is an sign of acute internet brainrot.
The truth actually exists. You’ve spent too much time on the internet if you think in terms of “choose your own reality”.
I think the point there is that the random opinions are valid because they are just opinions. Either they’re based on wrong or incomplete information or they aren’t. If you can get past that hurdle the discourse can offer corrections or fill in the blanks.
The arguments being made either have merit or they don’t. The ones with merit would approach that truth you mentioned, and the ones that don’t obscure it. If that makes any sense.
One of the things I see a lot on Lemmy is people saying it reminds them of the old internet, and it does for me too, but alongside that comes a hefty dose of communism or anarchism, depending on the echo chamber.
Lemmy is a bit communist overall, but not the Marx and Trotsky kind. It’s very authoritarian friendly. I am not sure why, but it is a little annoying.
The Holodomor is real, and it wasn’t an accident.
I believe it’s because the original software it’s built on is created by a group with those views. That’s what I’ve picked up on at least.
It is real, but it was an accident.
Ah, you must have encountered some tankies. I finally got tired of it and just blocked hexbear and .ml stuff. My lemmy experience is much better without it.
Lemmy does have a propaganda problem, and it is not from the instances you’re referring to.
Didnt refer to any instances mate
They’re from .ml, don’t mind them.
This year i was sort of flamed 3 times and the 4th had me banned from some lemmy.ml community. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What I did (in my opinion. Can’t say what the users interpreted)?
Advocate for equal gender rights
Say that China is bad (and the US)
Some other stuff about China or something which I forgot already
Call out unneccessary racism in a headline instead of just mentioning minorities or just residents that were being harmed by the musk-rat.Was I right in those discussions? Mostly not or at least not from most angles
Was I 100% in the wrong? I wouldnt say so.I’ve been banned from many communities on lemmy.ml.
Their ideas simply don’t stand up to scrutiny, so they remove any scrutiny. They want to live in an alternate world where communism is good, and everyone else is stupid. They’re not significantly different from flat earthers, qanon, maga, or any other delusional online group.
Bro just one more political purge bro, come on. Just oooone more political purge and communism is set.
What I did (in my opinion. Can’t say what the users interpreted)?
Based on the actual modlog, you got banned for saying:
Jesus christ are you all zealots for china. Please get your dick inside back in your trousers If you like the country so much, I hope you are on the way to move there…
Which does indeed seem like trolling
