There a whole article about Russian disinformation on this topic here. They certainly did have a pact with the Nazis. Your argument is basically “it didn’t happen, but if it did then it the West forced us into it” which is a 100% classic disinformation line. It’s like when Putin says there is no war with Ukraine, but if there is it’s because the West forced us to do it.

A bit of self-promotion here, but check out !fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com if you want to stay up to date on recent disinformation campaigns. It’s obviously not going to solve the problem, but it’s one more tool to help identify and fight the disinfo peddlers.

I’m not suggesting study bias, but I am suggesting that Chinese citizens’ social media and internet use is now so closely monitored by the CPP that it has a chilling effect on free speech, and this may have influenced the results even if they were told the study was anonymous.

Secondly, since Xi took power, according to that same report, he has “effectively sidelined functional and professional institutions of party and state”, in addition to removing term limits. These are all classic authoritarian strongman moves. The study goes on to point out that having an effective authoritarian as leader - one who has helped improve the lives of many Chinese citizens - is of course going to be popular. The old saying goes that a benevolent dictatorship is the best form of government, and that may be true in some regards, right up until the point it isn’t benevolent anymore. Which is more or less inevitable imo.

It couldn’t possibly be that people are too scared to criticize the CCP, right? … right?

I recently set up !fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com for this exact reason. I’ll be happy to cross post in this community if the mods think it’s a good fit

It’s already been requested as a feature request, see https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/4572

Thanks for the link!

!fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com

Oh yes, of course it’s American aggression that’s the problem here, not Chinese aggression.

Those eyes are definitely saying, “How could you do this to me?”

This dude is getting legitimately downvoted for JAQing off. Also, his home instance is explicitly anti-corporate and anarchist, so defending right wing billionaires is against our rules. You are correct that Lemmy is generally left of centre, depending on the instance, so JAQing in defense of billionaire assholes is never gonna go down well.

I guess the thought was it’d be much harder for low paid workers to live for 4 weeks on savings, before their first paycheck came in. But yeah, I get your point.

It also varies by profession and/or position in some countries. Managers and “professionals” on higher salaries will often be paid monthly, whereas “ordinary” employees would usually get paid weekly or bi-weekly. Personally, I think it’s a tacit acknowledgement that it’s much harder to budget for a whole month on lower rates of pay.

I don’t know what to tell ya, I don’t find the word that rhymes with “hanky” offensive at all, especially when it’s applied to someone who seems to fit the bill. I think the main difference between MLs and liberals is that liberals are well aware their governments are flawed and are willing and able to criticize them and protest against bad policies, whereas the MLs are dedicated to the idea that it’s wrong to criticize non-Western governments, because “left unity”, “critical support” etc. This, despite the fact (or maybe because of it) that most of the governments they defend are totalitarian states where government criticism lands you in jail, in a re-education camp, or falling out of a window. This quote sums it up nicely:

Authoritarians, having argued so doggedly for the domination of a paternalistic state and having therefore turned themselves into ideological infants, then develop a hyper-reductive view of geopolitics; precisely the one, in fact, that a state would like for them to have. “Socialism” becomes pathologically confused with “opposing capitalist nations” or more appropriately, “opposing all states aligned with the United States.” They attempt to simplify the struggles of the entire planet down into two camps, the “bad guy imperialist states” and the “good guy anti-imperialist states.” In doing so, worker emancipation is simplified into a single question: “do you support the imperialists or the anti-imperialists?” Woe be to those who do not submit to their reductive understanding. The statists who advocate this position are completely incapable of even understanding what an “anti-imperialist” entity might look like. They, in fact, simply support one imperialist bloc over the other in a battle of two power-hoarders.

Daniel Baryon

@PugJesus@lemmy.world #GoldenRetreiverJesus = false idolidog?? :p

Bearskin bug? Happy pride month!

Their mod actions usually do federate out, but their outgoing federation is a bit borked right now with some instances, perhaps due to the recent upgrade to Lemmy 0.19.4-rc.6. I believe they are at least aware of it now, though they have been basically non-responsive to the issue so far.

Nice false dichotomy.

Thank you for the clarification.

Hey @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world, I haven’t reported any misinformation myself, but just pointing out that your community rule 3 says, “Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.”

TBH I’ve noticed a lot of accommodation for the feelings of tankies in mod decisions here recently. I get that you probably want to be “balanced”, but could we maybe just agree that it’s a FACT that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was not justified or legal, even if it hurts the feeling of those who like to defend the actions of the war criminal Vladimir Putin?

If you agree that this is indeed a fact, then perhaps you might also consider clamping down on all the tankie posts that amount to nothing more than apologia for authoritarian dictators? If not, I’d love to know your reasoning for allowing them to post their toxic propaganda here.