Hello R*ddit Refugees, I’d like to inform you all that Lemmy the software is created by communists. The ml stands for Marxist-Leninist. The head dev of lemmy hosts and moderates both lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml. Their user profile has a big banner of Mao. (https://lemmy.ml/u/dessalines), their github has a big repo listing US atrocities (https://github.com/dessalines/essays). They are what you r*dditors would describe as a “tankie”. I’ve seem so many posts by people acting scandalized that the communist moderators of a communist forum moderate in accordance to their communist principles. I’m not here to argue politics, I’m here to suggest that perhaps you should use a different platform entirely if you disagree with the moderation here so much. There are many alternatives to lemmy like kbin.

Of course, some common reactions I’ve seem so far are:

“It doesn’t matter, just use another instance that blocks lemmygrad”.

Software reflects the beliefs of its creators; ex. R*ddit is a cesspit because Steve Huffman is a libertarian CSAM apologist who sent the main mod of r/jailbait an award. Even if you use another instance not hosted by the lemmy devs you’re still using software created by a communist. For example, there is a hard coded slur filter in the lemmy code that removes words such as the n-word and similar racial slurs. Personally I think this is perfectly fine and anyone opposed to such a filter is a child, but Free speech absolutists and libertarians among you probably find such a detail abhorrent. I suggest you simply find other software, or go back to r*ddit.

“Well then we should just fork lemmy and take control from these evil communists”

You could, there’s nothing stopping you, but you could also just use some other software. Many of you redditors seem to find lemmygrad to be vile amd evil supporters of genocide. Personally, if I came across software created by a genocide supporter I would not use it or any derivative simply on principle, but of course you r*dditors might have weaker morals. In technical terms, these sorts of forks based on ideological grounds simply don’t last. Gab tried to do that with Mastodon and look where that went.

In conclusion, I think it would be best for everyone if those of you who disagree with Lemmy’s communist affiliations chose alternative software. Lemmy isn’t anything special, you can go use kbin or mastodon or pleroma if you truly want a federated r*ddit alternative. I’m sure the creators of lemmy would want the software to become popular irregardless of everyone’s political beliefs, but it simply is not a tenable position to have the majority of users on the lemmyverse be diametrically opposed to the developers and the largest instances.