cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/72685299
I discovered this after upgrading our instance yesterday, which also upgraded all frontends to their latest versions as well. After I did, our Tesseract frontend stopped working and I noticed immediately as it’s been my primary for a while. Initially I thought it was an API version mismatch, but no, it was much worse.
Someone pointed out that the developer of the frontend added an explicit hidden and unmodifiably blacklist which includes any and all instances to the left of Kissinger. There’s a commit which also explains their specious reasoning about our instance specifically, as it seems we’ve been on their shit list for a bit longer than that.
This instance and its admin staff encourages identity politics, groupthink, mob mentality, and extremist solutions to societal problems. Users who advocate violence are not moderated so long as the admins agree with the target. Caution and critical thinking are advised when interacting with this instance or its users.
When you use tesseract to connect to one blacklisted such instance , you just get a message informing you that Tesseract is “incompatible with that instance” which leads one to think of a technical issue, like an API mismatch, rather than the dev being an opinionated coward.
Isn’t it funny how all the software developed by turbolibs, like Piefed and Tesseract, end up with hidden control mechanisms from developers who think they know better than everyone else? That they don’t just think they deserve to tell you what you should think, but they should manipulate you to think it? Isn’t it funny how libs go on about how bad it is to support lemmy due to the ideology of the devs behind it, and yet lemmy has 0 opinions as a software? It does make one think…
Anyway, I forked - it as one does - and disabled the blacklist, but since this is a massively ideologically compromised software, I’ll doubt I’ll keep this frontend up after Lemmy 1.0. I think we’ll bring up mlmym again now that someone’s maintaining it again.
If I were to give my own definition of what constitutes a tankie, I’d say it’s anyone who defends existing socialist states, past or present. Those socialist states are generally understood to be the USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, DPRK, GDR, etc. The defense tankies give is not in accepting both bourgeois historiography as accurate but justified, but instead in directly combatting bourgeois historiography. Tankie is also a pejorative for these people, used to convey the strawman of the person that believes the lies of the Red Scare but believes them to be justified.
In that case, I am definitely a tankie. I spend a good deal of time talking about socialism both past and present, and arguing for how we can expand that movement and carry it to the future. I am definitely a defender of socialist states, I just don’t believe the common allegations such as “100 million were killed by communism” are at all accurate. I don’t think you’ll find someone who believes the 100 million number but also thinks it’s good and justified.
It’s also useful to understand it in this manner because it explains why even anarchists and liberals are called “tankie.” The throughline about defending existing socialism is the central identifier of a tankie, and the use of tankie to dismiss those who defend socialism as it exists in the real world is also covered by this understanding.
Try a relevant reply next time dude
I already did.
Me: don’t equate tankies and all leftists.
You: rants for paragraphs about your own (incorrect) definition of tankie.
Yeah, no, you didn’t. More tankie bullshit, shocker
I never equated tankies with all leftists, I gave a fully valid interpretation of the word that should satisfy both of us. You haven’t actually engaged with that, just doubled down on insult for no apparent reason. I can’t imagine this attitude is useful for the organizing work I assume you do.
You repeatedly said “leftists” in replies to people using “tankie”
What’s with you tankies and lying about easily checked reality?
No, you gave your wrong definition of it.
“why won’t you engage with this irrelevant bullshit I brought up?!?!”
It’s incredibly useful for keeping morons like you out, actually
It’s impressive how you can say so much while saying nothing at all. How is what I said wrong? Is that a difficult question to answer? Are you aware that acting like this is a common reason cited for why many leftists tend to not take those who hurl “tankie” around seriously?
Even more impressive how you can write all that and still be illiterate.
I gave you the correct definition. Yours doesn’t match that. Very simple.
Are YOU aware that pretending to be an illiterate idiot is why tankies aren’t respected by anyone of value?
The definition you gave is an attempt to understand a colloquially used term that has expanded from it’s original conception, as a term used against British communists that supported the suppression of the Hungarian counter-revolution. Saying tankies are “authleft” is an utterly meaningless term, considering “authoritarian left” is a horrendously ill-defined term in and of itself.
The definition I gave is objective, if someone supports the PRC, Vietnam, Laos, DPRK, Cuba, former USSR, they are almost certainly going to be called a tankie at some point. It’s a clear, objective measure of whether or not someone will be considered a tankie by those who take the term seriously.
I don’t think your crashout accusing me of being illiterate is going to help your point at all, anyone can clearly tell that I’m not illiterate nor stupid.