I agree with almost all of this and am myself personally very open about it on my main accounts and platforms too, I just also use various alts for certain places/accounts/purposes too because even my IRL self is technically an alt I constructed to participate in society to a certain extent, with carefully managed public appearance and perceptions, and I think that’s true of a lot of people.

Not always in a way that is unhealthy like I made it sound above either, but for instance some people might not be citizens and might be on visas that require them not having public opinions about certain things, like communism, or might be part of an already marginalized and vulnerable group, etc.

That’s not to say that any of what you said is bad or wrong, and I applaud you for that level of determination and honestly agree with it, just that there’s degrees in which certain strategies will work for certain people and at the end of the day you will always encounter some tradeoff between safety, privacy, etc. and honest, free, and openness both online and IRL. I guess my point is the online nerds who delight in death threats etc might be too scared to ever follow through, and we’re unlikely to have any kind of large government threats paying attention, but certain people are also likely to end up having their information sent to government reporting hotlines etc by those same cowards that make death threats and dox and so on.

Remember that simply being a communist in America that advocates for anti-capitalism is now technically a qualifier for domestic terrorism. There are also many countries in which there’s a much more real and present danger from people who aren’t scared to do things IRL. As well as plenty where it’s much safer and easier to openly be communist. It’s just a reminder for everyone to simply manage their own safety and situation as they know it and realize they just rely on mods or admins or privacy addons or whatever countless examples we could give to do that job for them.

Being a communist is also a full time active commitment, not just a passive fact about who you are.

It’s definitely ok to assume the good in people too. I just mean that before you let yourself get upset at the mods we should assume the good in them too, and investigate what actually happened or form no hard opinions on it. The user in question was just spamming drama bait both on here and on reddit, and offering little else. Always remember to check the users profile, check the modlog (bottom of the page) and just in general if you don’t know all the facts try not to worry too much about it, or develop a healthy personal opinion that isn’t a public one. Publicly contributing to the drama just reignites it and if it turns out that was in fact their purpose then it keeps working whether they’re banned or not.

It’s entirely possible there was more to the story, that’s always the case, I just generally don’t think it’s worth getting too in our own/each others heads about it without taking a step back for a bit, having a look at the information we CAN look at, and at the end of the day deciding on if it’s worth fanning the flames that will one day burn us too, or realizing that the people who want to see us fail delight in bad faith as a modus operandi.

In this case, however, I think it was nothing more than someone having a severely online moment and being dismissed for it, and I think that’s a good thing. Whether they were some kind of troll or just needed a break, the mods made the right choice. The important takeaway is just try and not let the spooky fear and witch-hunting of either mods or each other become normalized.

I couldn’t agree any more with this entire comment if I tried comrade. I’ve been on lemmy just lurking since around the time chapo was first banned, but I mostly wandered over to hexbear first and here as a backup, and GZD sub was my only real reddit presence because of exactly what you described. I do want to stress that I did not mean to practice any fostering of suspicion about other posters in a public sense, but just practice personal suspicion of everything in an active sense, in a defensive manner. Be critical of things, assume we’re the kind of people that are ostracized from western society for our beliefs and stances on things, because that’s exactly what we are.

Just practice personal privacy and security, use the internet defensively, and don’t participate in spreading fear and division and drama unless you’re absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt sure and you’ve got incredibly overwhelming proof to do so. Otherwise you’re probably being weaponized yourself. That’s my entire advice. I no longer use hexbear because of issues I had with certain people but I don’t think there’s any reason to spread any fear or distrust or hatred of the platform, because ultimately it’s self destructive. Lemmys advantages in terms of everything you describe above are also quite true, and a great defense against any fear that GZD mods, etc are infiltrated, or even lemmys admins, or blah blah. It’s the point of open and federated communities, is that we can be resilient to that by design.

Last of all you are absolutely right about the thankless, countless hours of labor mods and admins perform, and I appreciate our GZD mods and the admins at lemmygrad etc for putting in the extra work as people stream over and extra drama doubtlessly happens in the process. o7

At the end of the day my main summary is: “Assume right wing assholes will lie on the internet. It happens. Everything you form hard opinions on should require proof and not just fear. Fear is how American society is run and controlled. Do not participate in it. Being personally afraid of something should be resolved with personal suspicion and defensively paying attention to the thing. Spreading that fear into the community doesn’t come before proof/facts/legwork. Implication is not proof. On top of that protect your own privacy and focus on shitting on the empire and not each other.”

I will read and respond more wholly to your post in a bit because I’m programming, but FUD is a term much older than those communities and much more aligned with propaganda and cult activities etc, it’s a perfectly fine term to use. In fact, by the sounds of it, it’s perfect for Crypto communities, just likely not the way they’re used :P

I’m not saying to ban people based on it, and engage in whatever crackdowns it seems you might be inferring. I am instead implying we as users make the mods lives easy and don’t buy into and participate in petty and silly drama,and especially not in propagating drama and keep an eye out for patterns of ridiculous claims and so forth.

I do not think government agents are watching us, or at least not to the extent it would seem you think I mean, I do however know for a fact that fash are, because I spend a good deal of my time on fash sites and boards poisoning their wells of “information gathering” and keeping an eye on what they’re keeping an eye on with various alt accounts and connection methods.

Not as clandestine as it sounds reading it back, I just like knowing what the nazis are thinking when the communities I hang out in’s name pops up. It helps me avoid the unexpected like someone collating my weird ADHD fueled rants to comb for doxxing info. They do this actively. They have boards specifically for raiding, collecting data on, and reporting groups they hate or harassing/threatening them IRL. Neolibs also engage in this behavior because they’re essentially fash with better PR, but places like KiwiFarms are much more openly and actively about looking for opportunities to raid and fuck with and possible harm Commies.

Just practice mindful opinion forming is all I’m saying. Know that if it looks like someone has an axe to grind with other people on here, or the same patterns of arguments pop up, or drama pops up around certain events especially at “convenient timing” etc that there’s likely more going on than “Why is this site weird compared to reddit”.

We have less rules, but they also have free reign to raid and harass us too. Be sensible.