this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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Lemmy
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Everything about Lemmy; bugs, gripes, praises, and advocacy.
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See, it's all this stuff that really makes the
statement feel very Steve Huffman to me. It very clearly does deserve a response because the problem doesn't end with just saying "nope lol that's not us" and people like me have to go digging through all this bullshit just to figure out the facts: they believe anti-China news and similar is U.S./media propaganda and will moderate opposing viewpoints with "Orientalism" bans and similar. That's not a hard statement to type, and if this viewpoint is in good faith then I struggle to see why they refuse to just say that and consistently resort to "if you don't like our moderation policy feel free to join/start a different instance!" without ever actually clarifying the moderation policy. Even lemmygrad pretty much says outright "if you like capitalism, fuck off."
Then you didn't read it, they link a page that clears up their position on it right below that sentence: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/users/07-history-of-lemmy.html
I mean, dude's not CEO, he doesn't control the instances. He does own a very large instance, but I don't think it's even the most dominant instance post-redditting.
I disagree with his views, though I will admit to some sympathy on some aspects (not the genocide stuff), but ultimately, he's just a dude who makes this software. He doesn't own it, he doesn't have a monopoly on its control, and really, the entirety of the Fediverse could, if he went full Huff, say "fuck you" and defederate his instance. That's the power of a distributed service. Heck, your own instance, kbin.social, could lemmy.ml at any time and it'd have little impact overall.
Even were I to concede to him being "Huffman-like" (which I do not agree with), I don't think he's actually relevant enough in the real-world usage of the software to care about as far as that goes.
Having gotten involved a bit over the last week, I think he's generally a good guy. I disagree with his politics, but none of that has anything to do with software development. He writes good code, and when he's not overwhelmed with nonsense, he's quite helpful.
There's another major dev, but I don't know anything about him. I think they just want to build a cool tool that they can use to provide a safe space for discussion, and they want to make that available to others as well. That's pretty cool, and that's something I can support.
Ya, I don't have any personal interactions with him and am withholding real judgement without. Even his politics, it's hard for me to really condemn him when I don't even know the lens he's viewing things through. End of the day, I'm taking a best guess based on a few (3?) instances where he's ever been recorded saying something that's shit.
But also, even the worst tankie's better than the best right winger, any day.
Eh, I consider myself to be the opposite of both politically, but I have no problem contributing to FOSS projects lead by either. But I agree in general, I've had better luck with socialists than fascists when it comes to FOSS.
Slightly contra- the other user that responded to you, I need to ask: You've spoken with rightwingers before, right? Most westerners have had the "privilege" at least a few times to allow such people to speak for themselves. Have you ever had an even slightly comparable interaction with a "tankie" where they also got to speak for themselves, rather than be told about what they believe third-hand?
I am a marxist Lenninist, and I can and do speak for myself.
I'm an ML too, they aren't rare here, but extended dialogue between liberals and MLs is rare from what I've seen (though not totally unheard of). Usually the liberals are either very avoidant or combative (and sometimes the MLs get pretty combative too, tbf), which prevents there being any kind of understanding. between speakers.
Oh I am so sorry, I miss understood what you where saying, in that case 100% agree with you, liberals are both more likely to talk to a right winger and to hear them out.
I am not offensive when I say this, but I think you will treat socialists as a lot more friendly when you stop being bombarded with and/or consuming media that propagates Cold War McCarthyist crap. We live in very turbulent and toxic times, and I think if you can see some light now, you could make it to the end of this tunnel.
I mean, no one is supporting a genocide or speaking in favor of one, and the US has a documented history of using atrocity propaganda that is completely without basis. Probably the most powerful thing about that particular genre of slander is that it is taboo to denounce it for fear of looking like a "denialist" in the manner of a Holocaust denier, allowing the west to cynically exploit the generational trauma of a genocide it subsidized in order to degrade the reputations of its opponents on the imperial periphery.