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Just blocked lemmy.ml from my Lemmy account, and I swear to god it's one of the best things I've ever done on this platform. My homepage feels actually clean now.

For the past few months I'd been seeing a lot of tankie posting and pretty much far-left propaganda on my feed. It got tiring enough that I finally checked my blocked-user list, and realized pretty much everyone I'd blocked was from lemmy.ml. So I just blocked the whole instance instead.

Saying this as someone who considers themselves a leftist: I used to think Lemmy itself was an echo chamber. Turns out lemmy.ml was the problem the entire time. Probably the reason I tolerated it for so long is that I agreed with a lot of what they posted, but like an oversaturated meme, I'd had enough. Browsing the platform was starting to feel way too tiring instead of fun, which defeats the point of being here in the first place.

The breaking point was seeing some dude post a "meme" implying North Korea and China are basically communist utopias and that the West sucks. I mean, the West does suck, but come on - you're saying North Korea is the ideal the West should strive for? What the hell...

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[-] InFerNo@lemmy.ml 29 points 3 days ago

Could someone give some examples of these leftist propaganda posts? I just browse all top day, maybe they get diluted enough for me to overlook these.. i've seen this argument pass by so many times.

[-] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago

Try commenting that maybe, just maybe, Stalin wasn't the greatest benefactor of humanity, ever.

[-] iocase@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 days ago

Trotsky would have been no better than Stalin.

Then watch the fireworks.

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 days ago

I think it's a pretty common take that Trotsky's idea of Permanent Revolution would have been suicidal for the fledgling socialist state, so yea, I think running the Soviet Union directly into a broader, protracted war and losing the entire Soviet Union would have been worse than Stalin.

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[-] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND HE HAD TO MURDER MILLIONS SO THAT 10s OF MILLIONS COULD BE MISERABLE AND LIVE IN A CORRUPT OLIGARCHY REGIME, WHERE THE QUALITY OF LIFE WAS DECADES BEHIND THE WEST.

and don't forget how glorious and prefect and FREE life is in China and North Korea.

[-] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago

When you have no argument, just fall back on lazy strawmen

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[-] calcopiritus@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

If you criticism the Chinese government on a .ml instance, you will quickly get banned for "rule 2: xenophobia".

Go to basically any comment section of a politics-related popular post on a .ml instance. I can almost guarantee that there will be some china/Russia/north Korea brainless take.

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[-] W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 days ago

I got banned from memes in Lemmy.ml over whether genocide in China is real. All the supporting evidence provided to me was from the Chinese government.

Not saying US propaganda is trustworthy either blindly believing propaganda from any government is wild.

I was also told that no one died at Tienanmen Square in that same thread.

[-] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

All the supporting evidence provided to me was from the Chinese government.

Well now you're just factually, unambiguously lying. Which kind of goes you show how bad your position is; that you have to knowingly lie to defend it.

I was also told that no one died at Tienanmen Square in that same thread.

A claim that even Wikipedia agrees with.

[-] Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de -1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

"The massacre wasn't at Tienanmen Square, it was just all around it so it doesn't count!!!!1!"

is a very typical .ml take.

[-] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago

So they were right and you're pissed about it

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[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I checked the thread you were talking about, that's not what happened. The supporting evidence came from a huge number of different sources, including many western sources. You also equated Chinese diaspora with the Chinese government itself, which reeks of chauvanism.

As for the bit on Tian'anmen Square, it's correct, even Wikipedia says so:

Deaths in and around Tian'anmen Square itself

Government officials have long asserted that no one died in the square in the early morning hours of 4 June, during the "hold-out" of students' last batch in the south part of the square. Initially, foreign media reports of a "massacre" on the square were prevalent, though subsequently, journalists have acknowledged that most of the deaths occurred outside of the square in western Beijing. Several people who were situated around the square that night, including former Beijing bureau chief of The Washington Post Jay Mathews[i] and CBS correspondent Richard Roth[j] reported that while they had heard sporadic gunfire, they could not find enough evidence to suggest that a massacre took place on the square.

Student leader Chai Ling claimed in a speech broadcast on Hong Kong television that she witnessed tanks arrive at the square and crush students who were sleeping in their tents, and added that between 200 and 400 students died at the square.[268] Ling was joined by fellow student leader Wu'er Kaixi who said he had witnessed 200 students being cut down by gunfire; however, according to Mathews, it was later proven that he had already left the square several hours before the events he claimed to have happened.[211] Taiwan-born Hou Dejian was present in the square to show solidarity with the students and said that he did not see any massacre occurring in the square. He was quoted by Xiaoping Li, a former China dissident to have stated: "Some people said 200 died in the square, and others claimed that as many as 2,000 died. There were also stories of tanks running over students who were trying to leave. I have to say I did not see any of that. I was in the square until 6:30 in the morning."[269]

In 2009, human rights activist Robin Munro, stated that he was present during the clearance of Tiananmen Square and that, according to his account, there were ten Western reporters near the Monument to the People's Heroes at the time. He also reported a Spanish television crew that recorded footage of the event. Munro disputed Wu'er Kaixi's claims of mass killings inside the square, stating that he did not witness fighting there and instead observed students peacefully complying with the soldiers' demands to leave the square in an orderly manner. He further noted that the Spanish TV crew reported not seeing killings within the square during the final clearance.[270][271]

In 2011, three secret cables from the United States embassy in Beijing from the time of the events were leaked and published by WikiLeaks, all of which stated that there was no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square itself.[194] Instead, they said Chinese soldiers opened fire on protesters in Beijing outside the square, around Muxidi station, as they fought their way from the west towards the centre.[194] A Chilean diplomat who had been positioned next to a Red Cross station inside the square told his US counterparts that he did not observe any mass firing of weapons into the crowds in the square itself, although sporadic gunfire was heard. He said that most of the troops who entered the square were armed only with anti-riot gear.[194][216]

The square was evacuated bloodlessly, all of the deaths that day occurred in areas scattered around Beijing during riot suppression. A few hundred people died, which is a tragedy, but not 10,000 people being executed on the square like the west initially reported. Substantial evidence to the contrary since then has come out, and Wikipedia has accordingly responded and added this context.

I don't think Wikipedia is a CPC front group.

[-] Zarobi@aussie.zone 0 points 2 days ago

Also from that Wikipedia article:

Tap for quotes

Official government announcements shortly after the event put the number who died at about 300.

The Swiss Ambassador had estimated 2,700, following a visit to Beijing's hospitals.

Records from Beijing's main eleven hospitals, compiled shortly after the events, recorded at least 478 dead and 920 wounded, though Timothy Brook notes that these figures are an undercount due to lack of information from other hospitals.

Jonathan Fenby puts the death toll at over 700 in his book

British Ambassador Alan Donald initially claimed, based on information from a "good friend" in the State Council of China, that a minimum of 10,000 civilians died [...] Donald later revised his estimate to 2,700–3,400 deaths

While public discussions about the events have become socially taboo, private discussions about them continue to occur despite frequent interference and harassment by the authorities. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo remained in China in order to speak out about Tiananmen in the 1990s despite the fact that he received offers of asylum; he faced constant surveillance. Zhang Xianling and Ding Zilin, the mothers of victims who died in 1989, founded the Tiananmen Mothers organisation and were particularly outspoken about the humanitarian aspects of the protests. The authorities mobilize security forces, including members of the People's Armed Police, every year on 4 June in order to prevent public displays of remembrance, with an especially heavy security presence on the anniversaries of major events such as the 20th anniversary of the protests in 2009 and the 25th anniversary of the protests in 2014. On the 30th anniversary of the protests in 2019, the well-known Chinese artist Ai Weiwei wrote that "autocratic and totalitarian regimes fear facts because they have built their power on unjust foundations" and he also wrote that memory is important: "without it there is no such thing as a civilised society or nation" because "our past is all we have."

Journalists have frequently been denied entry to the square on the anniversaries of the massacre. Also, the authorities are known to have detained foreign journalists and increase surveillance of prominent human rights activists during this time of year. Internet searches on "4 June Tiananmen Square" made within China return censored results or result in temporarily severed server connections. Specific web pages with select keywords are censored while other websites, such as those which support the overseas Chinese democracy movement, are blocked wholesale.

The actual numbers of deaths seems to be heavily disputed. In a country where the government heavily censors even discussion of the event and redacts all mention of it online, I'm hesitant to take the "official" numbers at face value. The truth is we'll never know the true death count, we only have unreliable information; but I wouldn't be surprised if the event was as bad, or worse, than what we know.

[-] Nouvellalia@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

Peak party truth is arguing akshully against a massacre occurring because it 'really happened a few meters outside of the square'.

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago

The killings weren't "a few meters outside the square." Riots happened in disparate places all over Beijing, with PLA members lynched. The PLA responded with force, and in the end a few hundred rioters and a few dozen PLA members were killed. The west reported on an entirely fabricated story of the PLA running their tanks over 10,000 students on Tian'anmen Square itself, which has remained in pop culture as the understanding of the events. It isn't about trying to play semantics, but to highlight that the west quite literally invented an entirely different history and reported on it as fact against a geopolitical enemy, one of many such examples.

[-] DudleyMason@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 days ago

That's not remotely what was said.

Why would you lie about something anyone can see just above the lie?

[-] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

As opposed to the peak truth of just outright saying false things and getting mad that people point out they aren't true?

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[-] richardisaguy@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

Keep your your eyes open for new posts on !memes@lemmy.ml

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[-] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago

My post history.

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this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
224 points (72.5% liked)

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