Why there is so much communist propaganda on lemmy?

Lemmy, the social network, started off as a leftist hangout spot.

From the perspective of "Open Source developers who are anti-Reddit pro-Fediverse", it makes a lot of sense for Leftist/Communist and anti-corporation leaning people to hang out.

After all, the more extreme the viewpoint, the more driven to action (ie: write tens-of-thousands of lines of code and release for free) people get. In some regards, its the nature of Open Source + volunteer effort to attract a more extreme ideology. IE: Free Software is driven by ideology, not by money. So you get ideological people, especially when the software is small and niche.

The July 2023 Reddit Blackout was a big challenge for Lemmy's old community and the new community, as the new community basically "invaded" a large scale leftist hangout spot. But hopefully we all learn to work together and the nature of our neighbors moving forward.

I think anyone here (likely everyone?) is at least on the anti-corporate anti-Reddit side of the discussion. Which is enough of an alliance to keep us together, for now.

It does mean that we'll have to keep up with the far-left old-timers on this network who wish to push their viewpoints. But they are the legacy and the start of Lemmy in some respects, even as the hypergrowth (starting in July 2023) has moderated the community pretty severely.

Multiple reasons.

1. Lemmy was crested by and is maintained by Marxist-Leninists.

2. Lemmy's structure and rejection of the Profit Motive is in line with Communist ideals, and attracts Communists and other leftists over Reddit, which is Capitalist.

3. FOSS in general is supported by Communists and Anarchists.

Be careful where you tread here. You must be careful to separate "communists" (people who believe in economic reorganization away from the power of capital) and "tankies" (those who support corrupt regimes that project the illusion of communism).

There are indeed quite a few communists and various other alt-camp political spectrum believers on here. They do have quite liberal beliefs but don't typically cause much of a fuss, because rational people can coexist with differing beliefs... and i dont mind them one bit. But the tankes, like lemmygrad, hexbear, etc, do stir up an anti-west "commie propaganda"fuss every chance they get, without being related to actual communism, especially if one mentions a hot button like Israel or Ukraine. And if you get into an argument with a tankie, they will just sling mud on you and call you a Nazi.

The cool part is, you can filter a lot of the chaff by just blocking the ugly instances from your user settings page (since Lemmy supports that now), blocking frequent flyers, and trimming/moving your subscribed community list to other, often smaller instances. A minimal amount of effort VASTLY increases the quality of content you'll see on lemmy.

Leaves platform enshittified by capitalism

Complains about people being communists

Bruh

American says communism and means socialism

I think it’s because my rent is a third of my income and im not allowed to function without not only feeding the parasites but making them morbidly obese.

I've lived all my life under capitalism and I hate it.

I've read Marx, (for real, grab the book and read it!) and I see the dude does have a point.

“I’m 17 and I hate communism”

😂 enough said. Come back when you’re a bit older and a bit wiser.

Because there's nothing wrong with being communist, and yet most of western civilization publicly demonizes communism and anyone who espouses communist views. Given the freedom to share an idea without fearing ad hominem attacks, ideas are judged on their merits alone.

See also: Satanism, Atheism, Socialism.

why not? if you'd like a more capitalist experience you can always go to reddit. don't forget to download their shitty app that no longer has competitors.

Probably has something to do with leaving a platform because it turned into a capitalist shithole?

I'm beginning to see why people call lemmy.world the Reddit of the fediverse

If you want capitalist propaganda you can go back to reddit lol

Because there are a lot of communists on lemmy?

Some can be very annoying. If you haven't blocked hexbear, I highly recommend it. They got exiled from reddit years ago and have been stewing in a tankie echo chamber ever since.

The first instance of Lemmy is lemmy.ml

The ML stands for Marxist-Leninists

"I'm 14 and very edgy."

Well, it was created by "communists."

It is a communist platform, you will find communists

This has to be the greatest troll I've ever seen or else I'm a filthy commie.

Especially people who never lived in a communist state

When you leave reddit, a corporatised and astroturfed bot farm you're gonna get less liberal and right wing stuff that only existed to make money or exert political influence.

If you're really upset by it you can filter lemmy.ml which is gonna be the main source of left wing posting.

Communism is by definition a society without a state, so nobody has ever lived in a communist state and I doubt there has ever been a communist society in recorded history.

Lmao you don't have proper political opinions at 17

We don't have democracy either, we live under plutocracy of Capital, a bourgeoise dictatorship.

Why do you hate communism?

Nobody has ever actually done real communism on a national scale. The closest is probably the USSR, but that was a disaster because it was an authoritarian dictatorship that funneled money and power to the top. People only got token representation, the people were not actually in charge of anything, they got no real say in their leadership. Doesn’t matter that it was structured like communism says it should be, the reality of it was anything but communism.

Real communism would probably be pretty decent. There wouldn’t be too much to hate about it other than what you’d dislike in any government.

The problem is the humans running it. It’s a constant battle against power-hungry and self-serving people being in charge, just like any government, and no nation espousing communism has ever managed to prevent authoritarianism and basic kleptocratic people from settling in and running the show.

• I am not for communism or here to espouse any virtues it might have. The concept of communism certainly has appeal and presents many benefits, however the reality of implementation and human nature virtually guarantee it will never achieve its intended form.

Dunno about communist unless you count the tankies which I don't see on the main instances.

Lots of socialist stuff though.

Just block the hexbear.net and lemmy.ml instance subs that show up in ALL, and it makes a much more pleasant experience

I haven't seen any communist propaganda at all but I've read many comments and posts like this... Are they just referring to leftwing content?

If you've never lived in a communist state you're much more likely to favour communism. People who have (lived in communism) don't.

'Mercans believe that social healthcare is communism - until they get seriously ill whereupon they opt for moving to a 'communist' country: UK or Canada or go for the US healthcare provider called gofundme.

You're blaming communism for what is, like everything else, a people problem. It doesn't matter what system you're talking about, there's always bad actors and horrible people that you can point to and say "see? That's why it's bad!"

Also, you are 17 and only really have the knowledge that you have been taught, and minimal experience living in the larger world. Most everything far you have learned has been what others have wanted you to learn. Once you get into the real world for a decade or two and start experiencing a full life, your views will change.

Or you can resign yourself to a life in front of cable news and stay firmly locked into an opinion that others have given you.

If you intend to get informed or do any sort of political discussion on lemmy I'm afraid that's not possible. They're as radicalized as can be

I just resorted to blocking every political sub, including the ones masquerading as non political. Like every news sub

Probably because communism > capitalism and on capitalist channels like corporate social media or MSM, this type of ideology is muted by default for obvious reasons

im 17

me too

i hate communism

I don't care about this type of stuff on Lemmy. I love Cat, Linux, FOSS and Game. Lemmy have all of them.

Not that I've noticed. Plenty of "why this pro-consumer thing is bad for consumers, we should leave power to big corps" blog and news posts tho

Do you even know what communism actually is? I mean do you know where it came from, and why?

If you're 17 and in America, there isn't a lot of hope that you have been told about this in a non-biased manner. Young people especially are susceptible to the ideology that they can make it in life through hard work and equal opportunities. You might even already have felt some success in this regard, was able to achieve a goal because you worked for it. And it all makes sense to you.

And you think, In some way or another, that communist are perverting this, maybe by giving away shit for nothing or worse want to take shit from you.

But that's not true.

Socialism wants you to fully get your complete value of your labour for you, instead of most of it going to a boss who didn't work. And communist want to make sure that the system doesn't allow for bosses to make decisions about the conditions workers live in.

Guys please check the list of the communist countries and come back to me to tell if you want to live in there, ok?

If under communism everything is shared, that would have to include political power.

So that would make communism a direct democracy. Which communist country was a direct democracy?

Clowns think they can beat Mao and Stalin on genociding dissidents and undesirables.

Nazi, get out of our community

I don't think its possible to be on social media of any kind without encountering propaganda of some kind. what frustrating about news nowadays is more the stuff that is not an outright lie. just leaves out things and lines things up for a particular narrative. So you can't be like. This right here is an outright lie (I mean oftentimes you can but not always) and instead have to be like. this ignores this or does not take this into account. etc.

That’s just a distraction. The real question is why are there so many articles about heat pumps?

I dislike communism but most communists actually obsess over things that matter due to having terminally Kantian thought processes. I'd rather post in an environment like that than one filled with barely sentient slop consumers who just believe things

"commies, lol, try being jewish" ~ jews

You apparently don't like getting up votes either.

Would you mind telling me what communism is? Like, you don't have to quote Marx, or go into deep detail; I'm just curious about what you think it is.

I'm a capitalist (but not a laissez-faire capitalist), so I'm not trying to trap you with pedantry.