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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 18th, 2023

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  • There was significant pushback against Lemmy when I first joined based on the prominent role authoritarian apologists for the Soviet Union played in its infrastructure and federation network. I saw the underlying structure of federation between servers and the collaborative nature of the threaded discussion system as unambiguously anarchist. I joined Lemmy to contribute my own thoughts and share the stories that catch my attention to the decentralized discussion, in spite of those valid concerns. I think I made the right choice. Lemmy is not pure, but it is good enough to build upon.

    In February 2025 (Pushing Back Against Big Tech), all of our admins in our capacity as moderators and posters agreed to stop sharing stories from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and Google in response to the leadership of those platforms overt support for fascism. We encouraged our moderators to follow suit, which they’ve done with overwhelming support. This is part of a coordinated movement to de-center these platforms from the web.

    Many famous people who used Twitter as their main social media have joined the movement also, and moved to alternative platforms to stop bringing traffic to the enemy. This represents a sacrifice on their part, as many do their own social media, and have to learn a new set of media tools. We support those creators who are making that sacrifice.

    Substack is one of those platforms many creators have made their new home. It has shown extreme growth since the collapse of Twitter. As an admin, I’m disappointed to hear that fascist voices are also finding a home on Substack. While Substack has declined to censor them, it has not overtly endorsed those voices, and is not boosting them over their non-fascist content. As a corporation hosted in America where censoring fascists is likely to draw attention from the new regime, their stance has an uncomfortable context. I hope they eventually do better.

    Assuming the shared goal of de-centering Twitter and dis-empowering its fascist CEO, blacklisting Substack is counter-productive. Substack is the home of several anarchist, left, and progressive voices. Linking to them should be encouraged. While it would be better if everyone joined the Fediverse or self-hosted instead of choosing another form of corporate social media, this is the home that many people fighting fascism have found. If they are producing anti-fascist content, it is counter-productive to our goals not to link to it.

    While many remain on Substack in spite of its poor decision, many authors have shown great moral fortitude by leaving the platform in protest. Authors like Jonathan M. Katz, Molly White, Ryan Broderick, and Casey Newton have left Substack and now publish content directly from their own websites. This is widely considered professional suicide, but you can support their ethical antifascist stance by reading their content and sharing it across the Fediverse. If they can survive and thrive without a corporate sponsor, it will encourage other writers to follow their example.

    We are living at a time when writing is dangerous. Rewarding authors with positive attention who take bold anti-fascist actions I think will be much more effective than trying to cut off another source of revenue for struggling writers. It is difficult enough to find content when the corporate behemoths are no longer an option. I think removing Substack in its entirety as a source at this point would make the Fediverse worse.







  • The primary thing you’re demonstrating through these updates is that you deeply misunderstand my politics, but are happy to assign me reductionist beliefs and motivations that I don’t hold.

    All of this because you’re desperate to have a debate where you appear the victor. In lieu of me admitting defeat, you’ll accept that I stop responding as a sort of victory. Unlike you, I am not afraid of an ideological defeat, because it means I come away with a more nuanced view of the world. Winning or losing an argument is not an act of emotional endurance, but of careful listening and consideration.

    But I can’t win or lose an argument against you. You only understand anarchism well enough to convince people with no concept of it that you do. You haven’t done any independent research despite the ease of finding anarchist writing on the internet, and you expect your intellectual adversaries to explain it to you. But even doing the work of explaining it to you is a waste of time, as you’ve demonstrated that you’ll twist their words just as you’ve added non-textual interpretations of this article, or turn it into a straw-man, like what you’ve done in your mind to me.

    I’m not an anarchist out of ignorance of liberalism. I’ll all too aware of your beliefs and arguments, I held most of them at some point in my life, and I see little value in engaging with people who demonstrate bad faith who still hold those beliefs. The way you act toward people with socialist and anarchist politics online is toxic, and if you really do value healthy dialogue or debate, you should reconsider Lemmy as an appropriate space for you to participate in while you haven’t done the prerequisite work on yourself.


  • My reply is to your first paragraph, where you imply the journalists were irresponsible for reporting an imminent ceasefire due to demands from Trump. Despite your expectations, the ceasefire appears to be going forward. You can quibble with the tone or narrative, but this was good journalism from a respected source. Your outrage is misdirected.

    Your second paragraph is entirely in bad faith, as are your replies to me. There is no credible reading of the article that implies Trump is a seasoned statesman who will solve the Israel Palestine conflict. Netanyahu has given indirect support to Hamas as a wedge against Fatah before Oct 7th. The redirection of the conflict into the Fatah-controlled West Bank is consistent with his history of rewarding the most violent actors on both the Israel and Palestinian side. Agreement from Hamas to not substantially interfere in these West Bank incursions to the US and Israel may have been the secret sauce that led Netanyahu to accept the terms.

    You are now shifting the goalposts to Trump solving the conflict entirely. No one thinks that will happen. I’m not impressed.