Privacy

no you're not missing out on anything

these servers were some of the first which is why they appear to have a lot of communities

all the communities have moved on or been replaced on other servers so these servers are now a tiny fraction (faction? hoho) of the fediverse, exactly for the reason you experienced

In my own experience, it's less that they spew out politics and more that they are just so defensive and argumentative. A lot of good lemmy communities are based on discussion and sharing cool stuff, while the denizens of those instances and the like are more online to debate, nitpick, and criticize. Like there could be a post of a dog picture and their comment would be critisizing the owner or introducing some political argument that is distantly related. Like bro, just enjoy the dog picture

They are fake leftists working for fascists, and they will troll you if you argue with them, following you around on alt accounts with non tankie instances.

Hypocrisy largely. Heavy micro management and over moderation by admins broadly. Thankfully most are self aware enough outside hexbear to not leave their echo chamber. There are a few sub's documenting it.

Should discussion touch on certain trigger topics, and should your view deviate from dogma. You will often find yourself banned, either temporarily or permanently, without much discussion. Do you think imperialism and invasion of another country is wrong? Such as the United States current invasion of Iran or past invasions of Afghanistan? Well, if you happen to feel the same way about the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan or modern day Russia's invasion of Ukraine. You would be classified as a mush-brained, imperialist turbo-lib.

Do you think genocide and cultural erasure such as what the United States and Canada did to First Nations people is wrong? Don't make a mistake of applying that unbiased to the plight of cultural minorities in China. Tibet, Hong Kong, and the Uhygers, all of course are glad to sacrifice their cultural and ethnic heritage. Under the penalty of imprisonment or death for glorious left unity with the party and President Xi. Any discussion of these groups dissatisfaction with it is CIA propaganda. And not well tolerated.

If you skirt around in only the most niche of communities with hyper-focused specific topics. Who have almost no capability ever touching or involving current events. You might avoid it. Otherwise you will run afoul of it at some point as many have.

Pro western propaganda is often not just about promoting western countries. It also includes lying about enemies of the west. Pro western media also has a disproportionate focus on the faults of its enemies. It totality that kind of bias suggests there is an imbalance between the harms caused by the west and other countries leaning in the west’s favor.

I think plenty of westerners can identify the lies western media tells about the west. Thats easy enough to do given westerners have first hand experience living in western countries. Unfortunately, even well intentioned westerners are much worse at identifying those other forms of propaganda. As such, they have a hard time understanding geopolitical conflict between western nationals and other countries.

Personaly, I find the “argument by hypocrisy” isn’t really what critics of the west are doing. Instead, bringing up the harms caused by the west is meant to undermine the credibility of a western source and/or criticize it for its lack of focus on harms caused by the west. If you avoid jumping to accusations of “whataboutism” and engage in good faith, I’m confident many of the people you claim are “tankies” will give you a much more nuanced critique of the countries you think they’re reflexively defending.

Well articulated, great description of how Lemmy discourse ends up getting warped by its developers' politics.