8mo ago

Tankies: A Data-driven Understanding of Left-Wing Extremists on Reddit

gnet-research.org

Tankies: A Data-driven Understanding of Left-Wing Extremists on Social Media - GNET

don’t know if this is the best community to post in but interesting.

MeanwhileOnGrad @sh.itjust.works

Machinist @lemmy.world

4w ago

Tankies: A Data-driven Understanding of Left-Wing Extremists on Social Media - GNET

gnet-research.org /2023/10/02/tankies-a-data-driven-understanding-of-left-wing-extremists-on-social-media/

the_dunk_tank @hexbear.net

Kestrel [comrade/them] @hexbear.net

1y ago

Tankies: A Data-driven Understanding of Left-Wing Extremists on Social Media - GNET

gnet-research.org /2023/10/02/tankies-a-data-driven-understanding-of-left-wing-extremists-on-social-media/

30 comments

Describing tankies as further left than other leftists speaks to a poor definition or understanding of the left-right spectrum. There’s no way that apologia for brutal authoritarian dictatorships should be considered a left-wing idea.
- That’s not what the article does if you read it though, although I understand why the title would make you think that.
  The article defines tankies as a subgroup of extreme leftists, others which include anarchists (like me) and non-pro Stalin/Xi communists
  
  But I did read it lol
  In Fig. 2, we present a layout of ideological subreddits, capturing the distinct positioning of tankies within the broader ideological spectrum. Their positioning, further to the left than subreddits like r/communism, r/socialism, and r/Anarchism, underscores their unique placement on the periphery of the far-left cluster, emphasising their extreme nature.
- It's a perfect understanding of the bullshit meaningless names.
  
  What do you mean?
- There’s no way that apologia for brutal authoritarian dictatorships should be considered a left-wing idea.
  Robespierre has entered the chat.
Facing restrictions on Reddit, tankie subreddits, r/GenZedong and r/GenZhou, transitioned to Lemmygrad.ml, a Marxist/Leninist online platform. Tankies’ move not only made them dominant voices on Lemmygrad.ml but also seemed to amplify the overall toxic tone on the platform.
Yeah, this right here is why Lemmy will never take off, this place is toxic as hell thanks to the tankies.
- if only there was a way for admins of an instance to block federation with certain instances, we could call it "unconnecting"
  
  Like it or not, the average person still sees Lemmy as a mostly homogenous platform. If they see “lemmy is full of tankies”, it’s not a good look. They don’t know how defederation works.
- Yeah, its not just the Tankies that make Lemmy so toxic. Unfortunately.
- It's problematic for Lemmy that the .ml instance gives the impression of a flagship instance since it's run by the devs. It gives the fediverse as a whole a bad look to outsiders. I speak from experience because it was one of the three recommended to me before I left Reddit.
- Posted from .world...
  Have the posts grad is full of bothered you recently? You know, there's a reason why not.
  
  ML definitely has some tankies, not all, but some of the people there are lemmygradesque
  
  Yes, they have, they just moved to lemmy.ml.
Great, now we have research on “tankies”. A word I didn’t even know until somewhat recently and have personally come to despise, as I have often seen it abused on Lemmy, along with “Russian shill”, “russobot”, “sinobot” and what have you, in attempts to discredit anyone who might say anything that is not constant political condemnation of China or Russia and respectively support for US/EU/NATO expansion. Its abuse in many ways resembles the abuse of the “antisemite” label to silence criticism of Israel, or indeed the overuse of the “fascist” label in (ultimately failed) attempts to silence the (new) right, and many other labels that unfortunately liberals among others are keen to throw around generously. It matters little what side of a debate you stand on, if you have to resort to so much name-calling to make your case. Other than that, research is fine. With the caveat that political research is, well, often political and thus not particularly immune to political bias.
- man you took this article really personally...
"downplaying or justifying human rights abuses." Is this because "tankies" are the ones who are most vocal about being against genocide? Since libs seem to love what's happening in Palestine
- No, they give examples of people denying or downplaying the Uyighur genocide, calling Ukrainian people US funded Nazis, etc.

30 comments