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…

    • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      Yeah but making a post about it is stupid, we’re all blocking instances and users we don’t like, it’s like posting “tie your shoes if tripping on your laces feels tirening”. Like what is this? a post for primary schoolers?

      • BillyClark@piefed.social
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        3 days ago

        we’re all blocking instances and users we don’t like

        People commonly think that everybody else sort of thinks and acts the same way that they do. Sometimes it’s that way, but a lot of the time it isn’t. I didn’t block a single instance until I think last week. (It was lemmy.ml, not too coincidentally.) That includes my six months on piefed, as well as the several years before that on lemmy.world. I had considered blocking them in the past, but it was only recently that several accounts from there started behaving super-aggressively to me.

        I’m just reluctant to block entire instances because I feel like I’ll miss out on something. But at this point, I think if you’re still on lemmy.ml, then you’re probably not somebody who I want to interact with. But that’s because it’s just famous for being tankies.

        • jjj@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          3 days ago

          Blocking an instance just hides posts to communities from there. I have ml blocked but still see posts and comments by their users. I don’t know whether this is somehow magically different for everyone else since every discussion I’ve seen on the matter has at least one person claiming otherwise.

          • OpenStars@discuss.online
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            2 days ago

            PieFed allows true instance blocking. Lemmy’s “instance block” function is so misleadingly named that it might just qualify as disinformation. While it does hide communities located on that instance, it still allows: users on that instance to see, reply to, and vote (brigade) on your content, and to send you DMs, which originally did not trigger notifications but then the Lemmy devs reversed that to allow these “blocked” users to spam your DMs even while triggering notifications every single time. Which btw I note can last for WEEKS and WEEKS if you make the mistake of saying something remotely controversial (or not supportive enough of their chosen echo chamber talking points).

            So PieFed users can do it, while basically nobody else on Lemmy can, at least not very easily (there are some antiquated apps that allowed it, but iirc those have not been updated in years, so then to make it happen you basically have to use the web interface exclusively - which most people dislike for some reason, and then implement a custom uBlock Origin filter code… and even that only hides their comments from your view, while they can still e.g. vote on your content in return).

            Actually, now that I think about it, I suppose there is an easy way: simply make a comment that the devs do not like on their instance, and they will quickly ban you from it! That might do the trick, I dunno?

      • Richard@lemmy.worldOP
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        2 days ago

        “Guys, check out this thing i just did that improved my experience on this social media!”

        bluescluetoothpaste:

        • OpenStars@discuss.online
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          2 days ago

          But did you notice how irrelephant pointed out that THEY (tankies) should be entirely free to criticize whomever, wherever, however, and at whatever frequency they like…

          Whereas in turn you should be allowed the freedom to… STFU about the situation?

          It’s almost like there’s one rule applied to one group, while there is an entirely separate rule differently applied to the other “side”?

          Watch Innuendo Studios’ The Alt-Right Playbook series (entirely free on YouTube), and you will be very glad that you did. Once you train yourself how to spot these tactics, you will never find yourself arguing with people who user toddler logic again. Ultimately, some people use logic not to arrive at any kind of Truth but instead only as a means to an end, and more often than not as a club to bash their enemies with, which is basically anyone who is vulnerable to such tactics. You cannot stop trolls from doing such, but you can prevent those tactics from working on you.

          • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works
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            2 days ago

            Omg you’re right! im a secret tanky, how did you figure it out!

            And yes, what i desperately dont want is for you not to complain about tankies because if everyone complains about tankies enough then we’ll actually be defeated! The number one weakness for us tankies is when people complain about us, it leaves us totally powerless!!

                • OpenStars@discuss.online
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                  1 day ago

                  Fwiw I upvoted your earlier comment - I don’t have to agree in order to enjoy it - and you had a cake icon displayed at the time. And I never said that it was an insult, that was entirely a self-pwn purely inside your own mind there.

          • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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            2 days ago

            Watch Innuendo Studios’ The Alt-Right Playbook series (entirely free on YouTube), and you will be very glad that you did.

            i-cant lmaoooooo

            the bluemaga bubble is a crazy fuckin place

            • goferking (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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              16 hours ago

              It gets better, they also claim bush was a progressive… But yeah it’s just those they hate are the ones that deny reality.

              https://lemmy.world/comment/25161572

              OpenStars

              Conservatives can be progressive too though - e.g. George Bush, the Republican President of the USA prior to Obama.

              And speaking of the USA, the party on the “left”, the Democrats, are most definitely liberals, while the party on the “right”, the Republicans, are conservatives. One thing that that means is that for most of modern history, there has been no true “left” party, hence most people inside the USA - and by extension, most people on Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, etc. since they got their start and maintain their strongest base in the USA, prior to opening up to an international audience. So to your average Redditor, “left” =~ Democrat = liberal.

              And ironically, as horribly incomplete as that statement is, it is still more accurate than what tankies, especially Hexbears, believe. e.g. that Russia, China, and North Korea are somehow “communist”, rather than totalitarian dictators under the guise of democracy and capitalism.

              And that is why I am saying: they’re not left at all. They only claim to be, which does not make it true.

    • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I suspect they’re complaining about this thread where OP is griping about it, not the fact that OP blocked the instance.

      :shrug:

      People are people and we all hate drama but we all participate in drama, so y’know… heh