Modlog: https://sh.itjust.works/modlog/25693?page=1&actionType=All&userId=21053985 , banned by @goat@sh.itjust.works
For context, goat started calling dbzer0 users tankies, and got into a few arguments.
More context:
It started (to my knowledge) with this comment, goat pinged db0 after he downvoted a comment
a note on the uyghurs (click to show
For the record, I believe that the Uyghurs are mistreated by the CCP, and are experiencing cultural erasure and Human Rights abuses, but there's a lack of evidence that it's a genocide specifically (especially since it seems to target the religion, rather than the ethnic group).
Goat banned IndustryStandard, leading to this thread: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/52160152/ leading to goat commenting this:
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/52160152/21070262
He mentions this:
We constantly encounter bots, spammers, alt accounts, trolls, and doxxers, so I need to be vigilant by regularly checking who’s interfering and from where.
Which I find ironic, since there was some vote manipulation happening, which goat did nothing about (and could be behind), but I'll get to that later.
After some more arguments, goat started calling dbzer0 users tankies, saying that letting tankie users engage on dbzer0 comms means other users are tankies:
He said that it's different for LW (lemmy.world) and SJW (sh.itjust.works, not the other word). He then poster the "Tank Man" picture to !flippanarchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com, as he expected us to retaliate (being tankies, according to him). We did not, in fact, retaliate: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/21089819
He also posted this in tankiejerk: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/52268655, https://sh.itjust.works/comment/20733015.
He also may have done vote manipulation, and at the very least allowed it.
Take, for example, this comment: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/21091723
Per lemvotes, it was downvoted by the following users:
The relevant ones here are:
- zedbite@lemmy.world,
- Alpacaaca@lemmy.cafe,
- chirichiri@sh.itjust.works.
If you look through other comments, they downvoted me and other users near-systemically, while upvoting comments made by goat.
For example, take a look at their (respective) lemvotes profile pages: https://lemvotes.org/user/zedbite@lemmy.world https://lemvotes.org/user/Alpacaaca@lemmy.cafe https://lemvotes.org/user/chirichiri@sh.itjust.works
They have all downvoted exclusively arguments against goat and others, and were made almost at the same time.
After a bit more arguing (I'm not posting the specific comments because it's tedious, and they're easy to see by scrolling through goat's profile.) goat decided to ban all dbzer0 users from meanwhileongrad, I think this comment marks when he decided to do this, but I may be wrong.
note on the post that comment was in reply to
I think this reply (by unruffled) was taken out of context. Unruffled is absolutely not defending what's happening to the Uyghurs, they're saying that a lot of people have a double standard, where they will not hesitate to condemn the Uyghur genocide, but hesitate on the gaza one, especially when the gaza one is more severe and urgent. To quote them directly:
Yes, that's exactly what I was saying but of course they misrepresented it. You know exactly what Americans are like. They couldn't give a shit about the uyghurs, except as a way to China bash and feel superior. I also explicitly said later in the comments I agreed it was a genocide. They're just doin' the usual bad faith takes.
Feel free to quote me lol
Since this goat had been banned from dbzer0 for being hostile:
https://sh.itjust.works/modlog?page=1&actionType=All&userId=63615
Genocide is defined as:
I don't think China intends to destroy the Uyghurs, but want's to suppress them instead.
At most, we're arguing about using a specific word to describe what's happening.
Suppressing a culture destroys that culture. If people cannot express their culture, it will eventually die out as the people become assimilated into the culture of the empire that is supressing it. That's what makes it genocide. You kill off a culture even without needing to kill actual humans. (Which is to say nothing of the forced sterilisation, which is a far more direct form of genocide.)
Dumb
That's a much narrower definition than the UN uses, which is what matters in terms of international law. In particular, the intent doesn't have to be to totally destroy the group, so suppressing its numbers still counts. It's a semantic argument, but for a word so loaded as genocide, letting people dodge accusations by picking a different word isn't helpful. Obviously, this one isn't the most serious genocide going on right now, as there are Israeli cabinate ministers explicitly saying it's their goal to kill all Palestinians, but that's not a great defence for crimes against humanity.
Obviously, it's crimes against humanity that's happening to the Uyghurs, but even the UN doesn't call it a genocide.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/08/un-human-rights-office-issues-assessment-human-rights-concerns-xinjiang
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/2022-08-31/22-08-31-final-assesment.pdf
Because of how the UN works, a statement from the UN that something isn't a genocide isn't necessarily evidence that it's not a genocide under the definition the UN gives. Obviously, there's the massive elephant in the room of not upsetting member states in a way that might make them less likely to engage (especially when they're as capable of ignoring the UN as China due to their power and having a permanent veto on the Security Council), but there's also the fact that the UN's got lots of subcommittees and working groups that regularly put out statements that contradict each other. A few weeks ago, news was going around that the UN had released a report saying there was no evidence of a genocide against Palestinians, and it was true that they had, but it was from a body whose job was to represent Israel, and it contradicted hundreds of other reports saying there was overwhelming evidence of a genocide.
The Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights is a pretty big deal, though, so if they say whether or not something's a genocide, it's worth paying attention. However, the report you linked doesn't make a statement one way or the other - in fact it doesn't contain the word genocide even once. It does list an awful lot of things that the Genocide Convention includes in its definition, though. A report that presents a lot of evidence of genocide but little against, and says crimes against humanity are happening while stopping short of making a definitive claim of genocide isn't something that says a there's no genocide. The people who've shown you that report and said it says there's no genocide are misrepresenting it to push an agenda. Several countries recognised a genocide based on the evidence the report gave (although obviously they weren't all without an agenda of their own).
Sure, this applies to the UN, but many other ngos have reached the same consensus.
The report you linked didn't reach any consensus on genocide, just one on crimes against humanity.
You're whining about being called a tankie and banned, while repeating tankies talking points.
There is a plausible case that there's genocide happening, but I don't think that's the correct word to describe it.
The UN and Amnesty International both defined it as Human Rights abuse, not genocide.
The tankie talking point is that nothing bad is happening to the Uyghurs, which is blatantly false.
Bad things have absolutely happened to them. They suffered violence from Salafi-Jihad terrorists[1][2] and suffered mass unemployment from the West’s (led by the US, ofc) embargoes on Xinjiang cotton, the region’s main export, which only adds tinder to terrorism potentially re-igniting. Given the last 25 years of the US showing the world that it doesn’t give a rat’s about Muslims, and given that it considers China to be its greatest adversary/enemy, one shouldn’t uncritically accept its professed motive: to protect poor, oppressed Uyghurs.
I'm going to disengage, because I've been in this argument before, and I just got brain fog from it.