Over the past months it has become increasingly apparent that the 196 moderation team has a member who does not align with the goals and values of the rest of the team.
196 has a very clear stance on tankies and other authoritarians. No authoritarian apologia of any kind is allowed in our space. It’s not our intent to tell leftists how to be leftist, but we’re not willing to allow somebody we so fundamentally disagree with to moderate our community.
Based on this stance we’ve decided to remove Kittenzrulz from the moderation team.
Why demote Kittenzrulz123?
Kittenzrulz has consistently been opposed to the condemnation of tankies and has made several worrying statements that show that there’s a deep ideological gulf between her and 196.
Furthermore it should be noted that kittenzrulz has not taken part in moderation decisions on lemmy for months, while she is only somewhat active on the matrix (as a mod). This will not be a major change in that sense.
The following is a list of screenshots that should help to showcase what we mean.
spoiler
















This one is from yesterday

Demoting Kittenzrulz123
First to be clear we’re not banning her from the lemmy community or the matrix space and she is free to continue to interact with all of us. We still want her around as we think of her as a friend who we care about and want to see happy and healthy, though we understand this decision might cause kittenz some stress.
As of this moment kittenzrulz is no longer a mod of 196. A vote was held and all mods that voted voted in favor of demoderation, with a few mods abstaining (either due to not having an opinion on this or due to being inactive).
And just to make sure everybody is on the same page, this is not a condemnation of kittenz as a person. People can disagree on things and still get along, we’re just not comfortable letting her make decisions on our behalf and want to prevent any further problems we see as a likely outcome.
please try to remember that nobody should be rude to kittenz, while we disagree with them they dont deserve any harrasment
I appreciate both you and Jorunn for spearheading this. I know it wasn’t an easy thing to do.
I second everything both of you said. I implore everyone to not make this situation worse for her than it already is.
Post text be like “we’re worried kittenz may be a tankie” meanwhile the attached screenshots are all “I’m an unironic tankie I use that word to describe myself I’m not a tankie but I love the USSR I think using tanks to crush dissent is good”
Yeah I think you maybe did the right thing
A mod team sensibly policing their own to uphold their own ideals? Basing their decision on repeated patterns and evidence??
Fuck and color me impressed.
Big W for providing receipts.
Consistently based comm.
Fuck the authie red fash enablers.
You know the classic “I’m not racist but” lie racists tell? A lot of people with bad opinions try to pre-emptively cover their ass with a lie, then go “but” and share their actual opinion. Reading through the examples with this in mind… Yeah, I’m glad she’s no longer a mod. Good call.
Where can I see these examples?
EDIT: Damn, I’m stupid, didn’t see the spoiler-ed part lol
fck, nya finally, mreaow
Hi erin! I’m erin!
two erins
Ouite, and might I add: fuck tankies.
Thanks for the transparency :)
This is good, thanks for being transparent. It sucks when this has to happen.
Seeing how the first thing Kitten did after being demoted was to take over an anti-authorian community, you did the right thing.
Good, tankie bullshit is exhausting.
Based, keep up the good work.
Just woke up, I guess this is how I find out
🫂
Lemming to tankie pipeline is so real. I guess it makes since that’s why the devs made Lemmy in the first place. And now we all contribute to their recruitment strategy by making Lemmy more appealing to leftists who aren’t (yet) authoritarians.
It certainly doesn’t help that so many on Lemmy participate in watering the term down, and making being anti-tankie look like an immature position
Which doesn’t really happen.
Tankies like that Alsaas troll and her tankie promoting leftymeme comm are more of an issue :)
Oh wait, don’t you mod that comm too?
Alsaas is a transmed who thinks being a ML trans woman who simps for Stalin means stalking wouldn’t have had her killed.
She’s hopelessly lost
I’ve been away from Lemmy’s political discourse for awhile now since I was focused on making gaming content real on here. Is it really that bad nowadays? Do you have any recent examples on your mind?
It seems to kinda come in waves, and I don’t actually think I’ve seen it very recently, but I’ll keep this thread in mind and report back when I come across it! It tends to crop up in the comments on c/leftymemes, but doesn’t last long before getting moderated
I hope you’re right!
I’m fairly new to Lemmy. So far, I love the moderation approach of much of Lemmy, “don’t be an assholr and especially dont be a Nazi”.
I think people that come here are attracted to that, they’re also distrustful of social media. It’s a breath of fresh air to come here and be like, “phew, no Nazis” but then you get excited whem you find places like Hexbear, and you’re like, “ooooo openly leftist” and if you’re already distrustful of social media you might believe you’re brainwashed by capitalism and be willing to give the idea of authoritism communism a try because you’ve been lied to about SOME of the left.
Tankie instances make you question reality. Unfortunately, normal instances don’t seem to correct tankies.
Idk, I think of Watership Down a lot. Going from a shitty post capitalistic briar to a Utopia seeming authoritive briar the bunnies kinda find it OK. Until they don’t. Eventually, spoiler alert
spoiler
__the bunnies and a badass bird do make their perfect briar but it doesn’t really maintain without an educated populace. Something about birds are bunnies too
Idk, I should reread that book. But I think its applicable here
some of the included screenshots are kittenz just straight up saying things that are simply correct which kinda undercuts the decision a bit i think…
shocker .ml tankie thinks other tankie is right.
Like what? Please elaborate.














