this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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MeanwhileOnGrad
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3 users here now
"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"
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Meanwhile On Grad
Documenting hate speech, conspiracy theories, apologia/revisionism, and general tankie behaviour across the fediverse. Memes are welcome!
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... While I very much have strong issues with the tankie/horse shoe theory propaganda...
y'all are really suggesting boycotting lemmy.ml because the head admin there is an a-hole... while using lemmy... that said admin is the head dev of.
To paraphrase, NWA said “fuck the police” when they meant “I’m profoundly disappointed in the police for their barbarism and abject bigotry.” Do I think the police are a net positive to society? Yes. Do I wish they’d stop being power tripping pricks with clear sociopolitical biases that serve as a detriment to everyone in contact with them? also yes.
fucking bootlicker, do better
Do what better? Verbalize why I don’t trust the police or complain about web devs?
Code is code, open source is open source.
Lemmy is coded to be a link aggregator type social media, there's nothing inherently political about it.
It's the fact that they use their supposed "test instance" and their influence as the Lemmy developers to spread their "message" because they know that it's going to be difficult for other instance admins to defederate from the "Dev instance" that's the problem.
And indeed that's pretty much what's playing out, most instances defederate from the first 2 of the triad fairly easily, but when it comes to the .ml instance admins are hesitant. Even though .ml allows much of the same crap, just "tempered" under the surface.
Not all of us. But yes. And?
Being the developer of a software is one thing. Software is basically a tool. Good or bad is in the use of it. In application his use is bad. But plenty of us see the likely writing in the wall and are making moves accordingly as well.
Come to piefed. Then you won't have the moral conundrum.
They're are dozens of us!
I don’t intend to use an app, so I was wondering whether piefed had multiple browser layouts or themes? The absence of separation between posts makes it feel like a vertically oriented newspaper archive and that frustrates me in an utterly unique and anxiety-inducing way.
I don't really want to use any software when the administrators/developers of this software do not recognize the genocide of my people (or other peoples) and speak similar tankie nonsense. Lemmy is not very popular as it is, and I don't think it will become more popular if the administrators/developers are... like this. The good thing is that it's open source, and there are alternatives.
Honestly though, 99% of users have no clue who the devs of their platforms are, and could not care less about them. Same with admins.
Normally, yes. However, the Lemmy devs thrust themselves into the spotlight with their words and actions (dessalines themselves has posted Tankie content, just recently a meme about the DPRK dictatorship being "western propaganda") through their instance
If they just had alts on grad or hex that no one knew was them, or hell ran grad or hex with said, we wouldn't be here on this comm today.
Instances would just defederate them and move on, but they don't want that because it reduces their audience.
Agreed. But sh.itjust.works appears to be lemmy and not any of the (probably not the right word but) forks.
And, to be clear; No ethical consumption under capitalism, yada yada yada.
But calling for a boycott of a dipshit's instance using the thing that gives his instance its power is just... I would use a simile involving McDonald's but lemmy is still reddit enough that NOBODY will ever look at a metaphor in good faith.
I think you're missing the point of what a boycott is accomplishing in this case. I don't think it has anything to do with their financial situation, the boycott is presumably (from my perspective) to lower interaction and engagement and make it a less attractive instance for new people to get sucked into.
That's entirely the point. The less traffic .ml has, the less influence it has over the overall Fediverse and the less their harmful authoritarian views can be spread. New users that sign up on Lemmy are constantly exposed to their curated extremist views and get banned for dissenting, which puts a bad taste in their mouths and they tell everyone else what a tankie shithole Lemmy is. Dessalines and Davel are actively harmful to the entire platform with their behaviour.
I ditched lemmy and went to piefed exactly for this asshole (dessalines).
Also I don't get why some people defend said asshole while there have been tons of threads roasting in unison software like Brave or Hyprland or IDK what else for their dev being transphobic or racist or whatever. I'm not a fan of either of those, but it just doesn't make sense to me.
The software is open source and free. As long as it remains so, whoever is developing it is of little consequence.