Hello World,

Today, after careful consideration and evaluation of recent events, we have decided to defederate from Lemmygrad.

Regrettably, we have observed a significant increase in hate speech and calls to violence originating from the Lemmygrad instance. Due to the severity of the posts and comments, we are not waiting for the next Lemmy update that will allow users to block instances.

At Lemmy.world, we have always strived to foster an inclusive and welcoming user environment. However, recent posts and comments from Lemmygrad have clearly violated our server rules and, more importantly, our core values. We firmly believe that hate speech and incitement of violence have no place in our community, regardless of personal beliefs or affiliations.

As always, we encourage all users to report any content they deem inappropriate or harmful. No matter one’s stance in any conflict, Lemmy.world will always take immediate action to remove and ban any posts or comments that incite violence or propagate hatred.

We encourage everyone to continue engaging in discussions within the boundaries of respect and understanding. As we move forward with this decision, we remain committed to providing all community members with a safe and welcoming space. We appreciate your continued support and cooperation in upholding our shared principles.

Thank you,

The Lemmy.World Team

  • takeda@szmer.info
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    9 months ago

    Lemmmygrad supposedly is for people who support communism, but when talking to them, they really are supporting totalitarian countries which have nothing to do with communism.

    • jeffw@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It’s amazing what some state-sponsored troll farms can convince people of. Some people can’t evaluate content they see online critically and gobble up the propaganda

      • zeppo@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        The tactics and attitudes definitely make me think of that. It seems like the same people who showed up and fucked up a bunch of subs on reddit 6-7 years ago, like how conspiracy went from discussing things like UFOs and MK ULTRA to conservative political conspiracy theories and opposing the Democratic Party and politicians.

    • alvvayson@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Whenever communists or socialists gather, the tankies take over.

      It’s been like that since the past 100 years.

      • kescusay@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I’m not even sure they’re really tankies anymore (or the meaning of the word is changing). Actual tankies still ostensibly support communism, but all too often, it’s blatantly apparent that they’re actually right-wing totalitarians cosplaying.

        • Dale@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          They’re tankies in the original sense. The word came from an incident where there was an actual honest to god socialist movement when workers were seizing the means of production, and “communist” Russia sent literal tanks to shut it down. A reporter happened to observe the whole thing in person and tried to write up the story, but his editors would only print the official U.N. statement that the tanks were stopping a fascist movement.

        • Airazz@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Tankies support russian or Chinese versions of communism, which really isn’t communism at all.

        • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Yep, it’s easy to bait them too. You make a post or comment calling out tankies for supporting authoritarianism, and out of the woodwork scurry all the “socialists and communists” to downvote you.

          Thing is, a real socialist or communist hates authoritarianism too.

      • explodicle@local106.com
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        9 months ago

        [Looks around nervously]

        Aren’t we gathering here too? This defederation seems like tankies not taking over.

        Anecdotally I was in a bunch of actual leftist subreddits; I only departed because capitalists enshittified the whole website.

        • qevlarr@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Maybe you just didn’t recognize it. Reddit leftist spaces were famously led by tankie mods.

          • not_that_guy05@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Yup, you would call out their BS and you get banned. The system was perfect and no one is allowed to fully criticize it.

      • Klear@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Notably - this applies to any governing bodies.

        Fuck communism, it will never work you dumbasses.

    • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      The bit that really irked me was that it was purely performative. It seemed like literally the exact same community that populated the_donald with memes and Trump train bots and the photoshopping of Trump’s pic onto Rambo. Their posts have fuck all to do with communism just like the trump posts had nothing to do with conservative politics. It was just edge faux-outrage and basically taking an opposite position for its own sake. They could simultaneously criticize Gov Newsom for not signing a trans rights bill while praising Putin who is doing his level best to make being gay illegal. It’s a mistake to see it as political discourse when it’s really just trolling. Like on the_donald, they egg each other on and have their in jokes and memes (in both the picture sense and in the actual meme sense) about walls the same way the trumpers did with helicopters.

      Defederation is the best response imo.

      • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It is funny to mention Trump around tankies and watch their heads explode. They can’t pretend Trump is a communist, but their propaganda masters don’t want them to turn against the Republicans, so they’re just in this weird space where the only thing they can do is aggressively avoid the topic at all.

        • mashbooq@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I’ve seen them actively celebrate that they don’t suffer from “Trump derangement syndrome” like liberals (supposedly) do. The longer you watch them, the more pro-fascism you see slip through

          • RenownedBalloonThief@lemmy.ml
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            9 months ago

            I’ll clear that one up since everyone here seems to be boldly making inaccurate claims. They say that because media outlets and people will spend more time analyzing and critiquing Trump eating McDonalds or typing covfefe than the US, say, drone striking innocent Afghani people or the utter shit show that Libya has become due partially to the efforts of Clinton and Obama.

            • sudneo@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Just be aware that “liberal” has a complete different meaning in the political discourse compared to what it means in the current (low quality) american political discourse. Historically liberals have been allies of fascism, indeed.

            • irmoz@reddthat.com
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              9 months ago

              Liberalism birthed capitalism, the greatest hierarchical economic system this world has ever seen. It supports and feeds capitalism with its cult of individuality, a reverence of wealth and power, and its almost dogmatic need for competition in order to sort the best from the worst.

              Fascism is a logical extension of this. All it does is shrink the in-group and expand the out-group.

            • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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              9 months ago

              Nazism was basically just liberalism taken to its conclusion. Rich people get to live in comfort as poor people die in a mass genocide.

              • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                Uhhhh. No. That’s not how it went at all. Rich Jews did not get to live in comfort, they had their wealth stolen and were killed all the same. Nazism was ethnic cleansing, antisemitism, and purging society of the “unideal”, rich or poor. The only German Jews who I think could get amnesty were those who fought for Germany in WW1 – soldiers do not tend to be rich, and their families were not extended the same amnesty, from what I recall. Otto Frank had military service but it did not save his family.

                It’s rather disgusting to ignore the antisemitism and homophobia that led to genocides and reduce it to only economics.

                • irmoz@reddthat.com
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                  9 months ago

                  The anti-semitism was populism, an attempt to steer the public to support them by repeating their own beliefs back at them. Germany was already heavily anti-semitic. Nazism was a colonial project, literally copying and pasting the US conquest of the West to Europe.

                • mycorrhiza they/them@lemmy.ml
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                  9 months ago

                  The nazis rose to power because they were backed by capitalists and the German establishment, and the reason they were backed was that they helped suppress a resurgent socialist movement in Germany and redirect the frustration of the german middle class toward scapegoated minorities and away from capitalists. Nazis co-opted socialist language and messaging, but were staunch capitalists and class-collaborationists who carried out mass privatization and crushed labor organizing.

                • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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                  9 months ago

                  I don’t think you’re really considering that liberalism does a lot of the same shit, only their targets are different groups which you don’t consider because it makes you feel uncomfortable.

      • Epicurus0319@sopuli.xyz
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        9 months ago

        I’ve actually once seen a tankie scream something about how the “imperial coreTM” (America) allows gay marriage, codifying Obergefell into law last year just in case SCOTUS and some red-state AG decide it needs to go and make a serious attempt at it. Some of them actually do think it’s “capitalistic degeneracy”

    • zeppo@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      That’s my problem with it. For some reason they support countries which have nothing to do with being socialist or communist. It makes their philosophies and claims seem really inconsistent and not based on any real ideology. It seems like at most an anti-US, anti-EU ideology, and for some reason they scorn the same US politicians that conservatives here do, while never mentioning any problems with the people in the US who are even more against workers rights and in favor of unbridled capitalism. Also, the tactics of groups of people mocking people and comments reminds me of the shilled-out shit that showed up on reddit several years ago.

      • AreaSIX @lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        You can’t understand why or how communists and socialists would be anti-US and anti-EU? Really? Seems fairly self evident to me that that’d be the case. Why would you expect anything but hostility towards the ultra capitalist systems in the US or EU from communists and socialists? Seems like an odd complaint, anti-capitalist sentiment is part of the core of the ideology as I see it.

        • zeppo@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          My question is why they’d support Russia and China instead, which are as currently as capitalist as the US and EU. And also, as noted, have scorn for the more socialist politicians in the US while not criticizing the ones that support the even more abusive capitalist policies.

          • AreaSIX @lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            Buddy, if you really believe there are active socialist politicians within the US system, I don’t know what to tell you.

            Also, it’s kind of wild to call China “as capitalist as the US and EU”. Russia sure, its current system is very predatory capitalist in its makeup, even if they have particularly Russian characteristics to it. I mean, it’s hard to imagine Biden have Musk or Bezos dressed down on live television while stripping them of their assets, the way Putin did with a number of oligarchs early in his rule. But it’s very capitalist all the same. But China as capitalist as the US? That’s just nonsense. State capitalist I could understand, but capitalist like the US is just plain nonsense.

            • zeppo@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              There are politicians who support more socialist policies than others, and the so-called leftists in question reserve their mockery and scorn for them, vs. ones who are openly pro-billionaire, anti-government and anti-union. Perhaps you can explain why.

              “State capitalist” is a competent of fascism, if you’re not aware. And yes, Putin abused various political opponents in the past. Nothing about current Russia or China has much to do with communism.

            • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              You’re avoiding the point though. Why would supposed socialists and communists support Russia and China?

        • jarfil@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          ultra capitalist systems in the US or EU

          Given the number of social programs in the EU, bunching it with the US just denotes ignorance.

      • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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        9 months ago

        For some reason they support countries which have nothing to do with being socialist or communist.

        It’s all they’ve got. There are no real Socialist or Communist nations as those ideologies are fundamentally incompatible with groups of people larger than about 150, at least in a world that isn’t truly post scarcity.

        It’s a shame really but that’s just how people are.

    • Deftdrummer@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Aww, they’re just not doing “the right kind” of communism I guess?

      Show me communism that doesn’t end in genocide and totalitarian state leadership, I’ll wait.

      • takeda@szmer.info
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        9 months ago

        The biggest problem with communism is not the socialism, it is the totalitarism that is required for it to function. And that’s the part that kills people.

        Now that Russia and China aren’t even communist, it clearly shows what they are truly after.

      • WYLD_STALLYNS@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 months ago

        They do it to so many smaller forums too. I saw an old board I used to frequent for game faqs and questions turned into one, under the guise of being mostly transgender positive.

        It’s crazy to watch one user create a wannabe cult, user shame everyone and constantly move goalposts with straw men bs. Meanwhile, they had moderators discussing in Discord chats who to drive insane next and pick on. Not to mention using a serious issue as means to divide people that frequent the site by having over 30+ accounts to pad the numbers that agree with their views in topics.

        It’s scary how far they go these days, especially considering the site was relatively respected around Y2K era, and now it’s full of republicans pretending to be trans and liberal for a psychotic gimmick.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          under the guise of being mostly transgender positive.

          The “trans rights to tankie” pipeline is just as weird as the “hippie to fascist” pipeline. I saw a lot of it on Blahaj.

    • buzziebee@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Yeah glad to see those fucks go. There’s been an awful lot of bad takes filling up content sections on certain topics, every time I checked who had posted it it was almost always a lemmygrad user.

      • DarkWasp@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        There responses and comments have legitimately prevented me from coming here. Maybe I’ll actually visit and comment again with them defederated, I was so sick of their bullshit and posts clogging my feed.

    • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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      9 months ago

      I honestly don’t get the big deal about defederation.

      Free speech doesn’t really seem achievable on social media because bad actors will always manipulate votes to ensure that some opinions are promoted more than others.

      For example, the opinions of lemmygrad should probably consume ~1% of the total informed opinion “pie chart” if you will. They can be adequately represented by some idiot posting their opinion in a thread once in a while - yet here we are. Their bizarre takes are sucking all the oxygen out of the room.

      Surely there’s a better way to ensure that all opinions on a given matter can be considered rather than just saying we must allow our streets to be overrun with zombies lest we forget they exist.

  • Moghul@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Thank fucking god. It’s exhausting being around people for whom any meme, any post, any comment, has to spin into how good communism is, how bad the libs are, how good China is, and how bad The West TM is. It is exhausting.

  • Genrawir@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I just gotta say, the moderation here makes me so happy I joined this instance.

  • ultranaut@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I think this is for the best, there are some seriously disturbed people posting on Lemmygrad. I saw comments cheering on and celebrating the Hamas attack and talking about how they hoped the people who were kidnapped get tortured. Whatever your politics, that is super fucked up and not “legitimate discourse”.

  • kescusay@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Thank goodness.

    I’m reminded of a story I read a while back - not sure where - about how if you let a Nazi into your bar, you eventually end up running a Nazi bar. I think the same applies to online forums. You let Nazis overrun a forum, everyone else leaves, and eventually you might as well just be running Stormfront.

    • paris@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 months ago

      Original Twitter post

      I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, “no. get out.”

      And the dude next to me says, “hey i’m not doing anything, i’m a paying customer.” and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, “out. now.” and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed

      Anyway, asked what that was about and the bartender was like, “you didn’t see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them.”

      And i was like, ohok and he continues.

      "you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.

      And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it’s too late because they’re entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.

      And i was like, ‘oh damn.’ and he said “yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people.”

      And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven’t forgotten that at all.

  • Grayox@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    Lost all respect for lemmygrad when they deleted a comment i made about voting for the lesser of 2 evils being the correct course of action to advance the interests of the Prolitariat in the United States. They care more about larping as revolutionaries than enacting change that actually helps the Working Class.

  • gcheliotis@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I understand that they are staunchly pro-communist and also take a pro-Palestine, including some of them (many of them?) a more clearly pro-Hamas stance. And that all of this could annoy many of the centrist liberals that seem to dominate here. But from perusing the lemmygrad link I do not see clear signs of hate speech, certainly not a clear hate speech agenda as you would see with some hate groups. And judging by the comments on here many seem to be happy to be “rid of them” because they are “annoying”, or “immature”, or “tankies”, or whatever. It really reads largely like “their opinions annoy me” so I’m glad they’re gone.

    There may be more to it, I don’t know, but personally I wouldn’t like lemmy.world, an otherwise fine instance by all means, to become a centrist liberal silo where no other opinion outside (mostly US-centric) liberal orthodoxy is heard. So yeah, not convinced that this was the right decision, basically because of a lack of evidence.

    • lwadmin@lemmy.worldOPM
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      9 months ago

      Most of their communities were blocked since months, that’s why you didn’t see much of them.

    • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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      The phrasing of “an increase in hate speech and calls to violence” suggests that there is a tolerable level of those.

      • lwadmin@lemmy.worldOPM
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        9 months ago

        A tolerable level we can handle by moderation. And when even the admins join in it becomes clear there is a big incompatibility and cultural difference.

        But you probably meant something else, right?

      • gazby@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Not it doesn’t, it suggests there’s a finite amount of volunteer moderator time. Don’t be a troll.

      • vettnerk@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        I’m pro voilence against people who block grocery store entrances because they figured that was the best place to chat with someone they ran into… so yes.

      • Navy@slrpnk.net
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        9 months ago

        I took it to mean “it has increased to the point we can’t deal with it all”

      • ttmrichter@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I’m wondering if you’re trolling or just ignorant. I’ll do you the respect of assuming ignorance.

        There will always be hate speech in any forum. Period. This cannot be stopped short of closing the forum down entirely. If, however, the hate speech is low volume, it can be dealt with individually with post deletion, user bans, community deletions, etc. Standard “tactical” moderation techniques.

        But…

        Shitholes like lemmygrad.ml release a veritable flood of hate speech, as do their right-wing “Freeze Peach!” equivalents. Individual, tactical moderation does not scale to that level without a whole lot more money than a hobbyist-run instance can bring to bear. Thus if hate speech and calls for violence reach the point where tactical moderation can no longer keep up, you start with the strategic moderation. In older-style forums that might be an IP ban. In the Fediverse it’s defederation.

        See how that works?

        Now please, prove to me you’re not trolling and simply didn’t understand how things work.

  • Roflmasterbigpimp@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Good Job! You make my experience of Lemmy continuously better! You cleaned that CSAM up with the speed of light (I’ve never even noticed it), you managed the Piracy Community Troubles very well and now you made an well thought through decision about Lemmygrad. Well done Mods! And thank you all very much!

  • TheLurker@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Lemmygrad is a cesspool of pseudo intellectual unemployed neckbeards complaining about how oppressed they are under the yoke of capitalism, from their mother’s basement in Wisconsin.

    Good riddance to it.

  • talos_the_true_god@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Free speech is important. Every opinion should be heard and considered. However, your freedom ends when it crosses over someone else’s. Good riddance, i had blocked most of lemmygrad’s communities anyways, since all they did was spread propaganda and hate.

    Love the mod team (being ex-reddit, never thought I’d say that), the transparency and clarity of their communication with the community is great!