Lemmy.ml is acting as a proxy instance for Hexbear and should be defederated by any instances that defederate from Hexbear

Armok: God of Blood@lemmy.dbzer0.com to Fediverse@lemmy.world – 158 points –

The mods of all the major communities there remove comments criticism Hexbear and usually follow it up with a ban. It's absolutely clear what is happening and it shouldn't be allowed to continue.

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But they are primarily leninists, dedicated ideologically to authoritarians and strongmen above all reality.

Why does that mean they should be banned? Is speech that we agree with the only permitted speech?

Just because you think they're wrong doesn't mean they should be banned. Banning them makes it look like we're afraid of people reading their points, which gives them power and credibility

I have not commented on whether or not I think they should. Frankly I'm ambivalent. Considering many of the others that have been defederated. I think it's kind of hypocritical that Lemmy.ml hasn't. Personally though I don't have need or desire to defederate them. It's pretty easy, if annoying to poke holes in their arguments where important.

However it's important to remember that each server is answerable to it's community and ownership. If world defederated from lemmy.ml you'd be unaffected. And seeing the disdain lemmy.ml has for many types of speech. I'm not overly motivated to make any case to keep them around either. Offering them what they deny others.

Considering many of the others that have been defederated. I think it's kind of hypocritical that Lemmy.ml hasn't.

So what? If it was wrong to defederate from those other instances then this can be wrong as well

However it's important to remember that each server is answerable to it's community and ownership

Or, more accurately, answerable to the appearance of a community and ownership. All of the major instances are heavily astroturfed by various state and corporate entities. Which includes both the United States/West and China/Russia. World is western aligned and ML is not. It's a proxy war in cyberspace, same as occurs on reddit and Twitter and elsewhere. The solution to such a proxy war is not to cede all ground to the West - such action would not promote truth or critical thought

It could be. It's not. But it could have been.

And do you have any proof of that? I've not seen anything of the like. I'm Marxist myself. Just not Leninist. I have no major issues on world. I tend to get downvoted about equally from capitalist to leninist. Up voted too. I've not noticed any anti-left trend. Anti ml? Sure. But they are not left in any meaningful sense beyond nominally. Authoritarians always ape populist political trends. In order to take advantage of society. Hitler did it, Lenin and Stalin did too. Though, unlike Hitler, I believe Lenin actually genuinely wanted a good outcome. Despite his bad ideology.

People should have free speech, governments shouldn't have the ability to degrade our platform with shills and LLMs, especially if they're spreading propaganda for dictatorships.

governments shouldn't have the ability to degrade our platform with shills and LLMs

I agree, but that is exactly what the United States and the West does.

China, Russia, and Iran do it as well, of course.

"The west" has been caught flat-footed in the modern disinformation game, they have nothing comparable.

That may have been true in 2014.

It is no longer true in 2024

Said the anonymous account without citing any source.

Literally everyone on this site is an anonymous account. Why would you possibly think that is a relevant point? Plus your account is less than 30 days old, so if we're going to start questioning users' motives and origins then perhaps we should start with you

And I watch congressional hearings with intelligence agency leaders. They have affirmed that our messaging (propaganda) efforts on the internet have greatly improved since 2016. Which is evident just from comparing Reddit today to reddit in 2015

The most powerful country in the world is just a little guy! It doesn't even know what it's doing, it's just a little guy!!

Are you serious with this shit? If you want to see someone steeped in propaganda, take your head out of the bowl of kool-aid and look in a mirror.

Insulting me because you have no reasonable response?

My response was plenty reasonable given your unreasonable claim that somehow the most powerful country in the word with the most sophisticated media machine got "caught flat-footed" in the modern disinformation game. They were heavily astroturfing reddit as far back as 2013 and have probably been at it for longer: https://web.archive.org/web/20160604042751/http://www.redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day.html

You know, unless you think the eglin air force base were just superfans of reddit. That's just reddit, now imagine more important platforms.

A sophisticated media machine that can't even hide the real location of it's shill accounts? And you're the one mocking me?

Some operations are more careful than others and I'm sure lessons have been learned since 2013. Meanwhile you think somehow China's and Russia's operations are more sophisticated because your media uncovers them?