This was originally posted to lemmy.pineapplemachine.com: https://lemmy.pineapplemachine.com/post/5781

It has also been posted to lemmy.ca: https://lemmy.ca/post/591991

Lemmy is federated and decentralized and that means that we can all coexist regardless of our differing political opinions. I think it’s important to preface this by saying that I am not offended by or concerned with anyone’s politics, and I’m certainly not here to argue with anyone about them.

My concern is that users are being banned and content is being removed on lemmy.ml citing a rule that is not publicly stated anywhere that I have seen.

Moderators of lemmy.ml are removing posts and comments which are critical of the Chinese government and are banning their authors.

This came to my attention because of how lemmy user bans are federated just like everything else, and I was confused about why my instance had logged a lemmy.ml user ban citing “orientalism” as the reason for the ban.

Screenshot of my own instance’s modlog, as viewed by an admin

I noticed that the banned user had recently commented on a post in !worldnews@lemmy.ml that had been removed with the reason “Orientalist article”.

Screenshot of banned user’s history on lemmy.ml

Screenshot of lemmy.ml modlog

Here’s the article that was removed, titled “China may face succession crisis”. It was published by axios.com, which mediabiasfactcheck describes as having “a slight to moderate liberal bias” and gives its second-highest ranking for factual reporting. The article writes unfavorably of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

https://www.axios.com/2023/06/06/china-may-face-succession-crisis

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/axios/

I had not remembered seeing anything in lemmy.ml’s rules that would suggest that “orientalism”—meaning, as I understand it, the depiction or discussion of Asian cultures by people in Western ones—was against the rules. So I checked, and I found that there was not. Not on the instance’s front page, and not in !worldnews@lemmy.ml.

Screenshot of instance rules for lemmy.ml

Screenshot of community rules for !worldnews@lemmy.ml

There is a stated rule against xenophobia, but I think that xenophobia is not widely understood to include Westerners writing critically of the actions of an Asian government.

This is where I went from confused to concerned.

Lemmy instances have public moderation logs, which I think is a very positive thing about the platform. So I looked more closely at lemmy.ml’s moderation log.

Please note that moderation logs are also federated. It’s hard to be 100% sure which instance a mod action is actually associated with, looking at these logs. The previously mentioned user ban and post removal were, I think, definitely actions taken by lemmy.ml moderators. My own instance’s mod log identifies the banning moderator as a lemmy.ml admin, and the removed post was submitted to a lemmy.ml community. I’ve done my best to verify that all of the following removals were really done by lemmy.ml moderators, but I can’t be absolutely certain. Please forgive me if any of them were actually made on other instances that do have an explicitly stated rule against orientalism.

Removed Comment Ah yes. Being against China’s racist genocide is racist. China, the imperialist ethno-state, is clearly innocent. by @CrimsonOnoscopy@beehaw.org reason: Orientalism

Screenshot of lemmy.ml modlog

Removed Comment Lol. Thinking some countries have better governments than others is supremacist? Whatever, dude. By the way. If there are any countries with decent governments, I don’t know of them. But like. If there were decent countries, they wouldn’t behave like China. by @balerion@beehaw.org reason: Orientalism

Screenshot of lemmy.ml modlog

These following moderator actions did not specifically cite orientalism, but did not seem to be breaking any of the instance’s or community’s explicitly stated rules.

Banned @0x815@feddit.de reason: Only makes anti russia and anti china, crosspostst from reddit. 2nd temp ban expires: 9d ago

Screenshot of lemmy.ml modlog

Removed Comment Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet are all Colonies of China, which it treats as Colonial Territories, by - Forcibly destroying the local culture. Forcefully extracting to harm of the locals. Genocide, abuse, kidnapping, rape. But there is no point in engaging to you. You are a liar. You know you are. When you deny genocides, you put yourself on the same side as the fascists and reactionaries of the past. by @CrimsonOnoscopy@beehaw.org reason: Rule 1 and 2

Screenshot of lemmy.ml modlog

I have no affection for the Chinese government and I do not call myself a communist. I would not enforce a rule against orientalism on my own instance. But I think that lemmy.ml’s moderators are entitled to enforce whatever rules they please. It’s only that, as the largest single lemmy instance so far, I believe that they have an obligation to disclose these rules, and an obligation to not ban users or remove content for failing to follow unobvious and unstated rules.

I’d like to raise some awareness about this, and I’d like to openly ask the moderators of lemmy.ml to state the rules that they intend to enforce clearly and explicitly.

I will be very clear and state it again: I am not asking for anyone to change their opinions or to not enforce a rule that they believe in. That is the great thing about lemmy, that we can coexist in this federated community even when we don’t share the same opinions. What I am asking is for lemmy.ml’s rules to be clearly stated, because I think it does not reflect well on the broader community if the predominant instance moderates its users and content according to rules that are not being explicitly disclosed.

  • gnuhaut@lemmy.mlEnglish
    177·
    2 years ago

    I read about protests in China all the time.

    So I just skimmed English Wikipedia (hardly a neutral source), and they say:

    The number of annual protests has grown steadily since the early 1990s, from approximately 8,700 “mass group incidents” in 1993[1] to over 87,000 in 2005.[2] In 2006, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimated the number of annual mass incidents to exceed 90,000, and Chinese sociology professor Sun Liping estimated 180,000 incidents in 2010.[3][4] Mass incidents are defined broadly as “planned or impromptu gathering that forms because of internal contradictions”, and can include public speeches or demonstrations, physical clashes, public airings of grievances, and other group behaviors that are seen as disrupting social stability.[5]

    This does not at all sound like there are no protests.

    • abraxas@lemmy.mlEnglish
      169·
      2 years ago

      Your response is fair, but I want to clarify my point. It was not to say that China is a terrible country or that my personal experience covers every inch of the largest country in the world.

      It was to reject the idea that there is some “media heavy filter”. The media represents what its viewers would experience with zero media intervention by visiting Beijing, or Shamien. Or (from expats’ experience) hundreds of other parts of China.

      And as to that, I feel I was able to hit a bullseye with that point, that is not really influenced by your response regarding protests against or in China.

      Whatever filter the media is portraying is an accurate shapshot of the country, if not a complete one. I knew a single re-pat to China, and she was happy there. She could not, however, tell me that any of my concerns or experiences were invalid.

      EDIT: And with all due respect, I would like to point out to readers that your post history involves accusing the West of trying to use propaganda to make everyone hate China so we can go to war with them. We can all have the opinions we have, but I feel that is a bit tinfoil extreme and not merely a “voice of reason” response like you present here.

      If anything “this is what I saw when I was there” is a voice of “foreign reason” that can be taken or left.

      EDIT2: (Can’t stop editing). I’d like to reference you to a very wise person who said:

      “Do you expect people to waste their time debunking your shit when you’re not willing to form an argument other than “I read this somewhere trust me”?” His name? @gnuhaut

      • SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.mlEnglish
        52·
        2 years ago

        Just wanted to point out, China is the fourth largest country in the world, behind Russia(1) Canada(2) and the USA(3)

        • abraxas@lemmy.mlEnglish
          51·
          2 years ago

          Largest country by population :) But importantly, I think one could argue that China is culturally the largest country as well.

          That said, where do you find USA(3)? China comes in third for landmass here.

      • gnuhaut@lemmy.mlEnglish
        65·
        2 years ago

        So you cite me when I respond to a guy who just said he knows shit because he reads a lot and that’s it, when I responded to your comment with an actual source? Do you think that’s some great own?

        • abraxas@lemmy.mlEnglish
          93·
          2 years ago

          I cited that you implied reading shit was not knowledge. Maybe it was a bit flippant of me, but you did quite literally try to invdalite my entire experience by quoting a random block of wikipedia about protests.

          But I’m not here to argue. I gave my own experience. I am ready to move on.

          • gnuhaut@lemmy.mlEnglish
            62·
            2 years ago

            I implied just saying “I read a lot” is no way to bolster an argument.

            I also did not “invalidate your entire experience”. I just pointed out that your experience of not seeing protests might not be representative. I didn’t say anything about your other points.

    • ATGM 🚀@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1114·
      2 years ago

      There absolutely are protests in China, they happen, and this is a true fact. Until recently, it was broadly observed that such anger was directed generally at local officials and not at the CCP regime itself.

      Recently, though, protests asking the CCP regime to resign have been seen. Which previously was unprecedented.

      The fact that protests do happen and occasionally are tolerated in China does absolutely nothing to take away from the point that China is an authoritarian Police State. The Chinese Constitution is not respected within China.

      • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.mlEnglish
        21·
        2 years ago

        The fact that protests do happen and occasionally are tolerated in China

        Literally just inventing statistics about protests being suppressed.

        During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.

        . . .What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.”

        – Some guy, emphasis mine