• rckclmbr@lemm.ee
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      Can we keep Russian memes out of politics please? it's such a load of bullshit, it contributes nothing to the discussion and memes have been pushing propaganda since the first trump election. I really wish we (lemm.ee, but really everyone) would defederate from hexbear, it's such a cesspool

      • MoreAmphibians [none/use name]
        ·
        11 months ago

        That's Ron Desantis's face imposed the famous painting "Saturn Devouring his Son". The son has been replaced with pudding to reference the time Ron ate a cup of pudding with his fingers.

        • rckclmbr@lemm.ee
          ·
          edit-2
          11 months ago

          Appreciate the description. Whats your take on why only hexbear users are replying to me?

          • silent_water [she/her]
            ·
            edit-2
            11 months ago

            we don't have downvotes and we have an anti-lurker culture. so if we see a bad take, we reply. in this case you've thoroughly confused us with this "Saturn Devours his Son" is Russian take.

            • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
              ·
              11 months ago

              Can you not keep your culture inside your instance and stop disrupting people's conversations elsewhere?

              • AcidSmiley [she/her]
                ·
                edit-2
                11 months ago

                We can if people stop this "everything i don't like is a Russian botnet" bs, i mean come the fuck on, do you seriously believe Russia is the only actor out there doing online propaganda? What do you think the CIA is for? Or the psyops branch of the USAF that was posting so hard an Airforce Base got an award for being the town most active on reddit? Or all these reactionary foundations like the Alliance Defending Freedom or the Heritage Foundation? The state-sponsored ones like the National Endowment for Democracy? The PR departments of oil companies spreading climate change denial? And that's just a small part of who's engineering public opinion in the US, wait till you see the shit the multitudes of European governments, parties, corporations and churches get up to, or the Gulf states with their vested interest in keeping fossil capitalism going. Yes, the Russian government obviously does that as well, as do private actors in Russia like Vladimir Yakunin and Konstantin Malofeyev who both sponsor queerphobic and mysogynist groups all over the EU, but if you think that Russian disinfo campaigns are the only game in town, or even make up a plurality of disinfo funding, or that propaganda extends only to things you personally disapprove of, you need to wake the fuck up and realize that your view of the world is a dumbass James Bond movie from the 1980s.

                • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  Yes, because you're federated to Lemmy.ml, it doesn't make this community your instances community.

                  • Infamousblt [any]
                    ·
                    11 months ago

                    If you don't want to federate with Hexbear go make an account on an instance that isn't federated with Hexbear. You have the tools to solve this yourself and you aren't using them

                    • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
                      ·
                      11 months ago

                      It's not about posting, it's about the standard of posting, lots of it isn't engaging with conversation, but just posting silly emoticons.

                      • silent_water [she/her]
                        ·
                        11 months ago

                        some people express themselves with emotes. others express themselves with paragraphs of texts. a picture is worth a thousand words.

                        but yeah, no, none of us can control how people choose to express themselves.

                        • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
                          ·
                          11 months ago

                          Well, yeah, we can, that's why these sites have mods and rules about submissions and comments and why people are asking for something to be done about your users.

                          • silent_water [she/her]
                            ·
                            11 months ago

                            mods aren't going to remove things that don't break the rules. if you want to add a rule to your instance banning picture embeds, go for it.

                      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
                        ·
                        11 months ago

                        Oh yeah you kind of need to spend some time on hexbear to understand our emoji culture. It must be completely incomprehensible to outsiders, but for us it might as well be hieroglyphics.

              • booty [he/him]
                ·
                11 months ago

                party-sicko look at this nerd who doesnt know how federation works

              • robot
                ·
                edit-2
                11 months ago

                deleted by creator

          • Farman [any]
            ·
            11 months ago

            Because we cant tell if your post is satire or not and it confuses us.

          • Frank [he/him, he/him]
            ·
            11 months ago

            We're terminally online in ways you people wouldn't believe.

            Before Spez shut us down we were I think the third most active site on Reddit by posting velocity, after an NBA sub with 2.3 million people. We post in a completely different way that most online communities.

        • rckclmbr@lemm.ee
          ·
          edit-2
          11 months ago

          I know you won't care, but to anyone else curious what I mean when I specified "Russian"

          https://www.wired.com/story/russia-ira-propaganda-senate-report/

          • autismdragon [he/him, comrade/them]
            ·
            11 months ago

            I'm aware of the existence of Russian "meme warfare" though I think its effect on politics in America is severely overstated.

            But uh, how is this meme that you're complaining about a "Russian meme". Or are you just under the delusion that all political memes are Russian or something? How is making fun of Desantis for the pudding thing something Russians would do?

            • rckclmbr@lemm.ee
              ·
              edit-2
              11 months ago

              I dont know for fact, but I treat any political meme like it might. This combined with it not being relevant to the discussion would make me prefer to just not have them at all

              I appreciate your comment though, it challenged assumptions without being egregious

              • autismdragon [he/him, comrade/them]
                ·
                11 months ago

                I dont know for fact, but I treat any political meme like it might.

                I don't really think this is a rational or particularly healthy stance to take on political memes. I can maybe understand if your stance was just "keep the worldnews posts serious", though I'd disagree with that too. But saying that you're trying to avoid Russian influence by avoiding memes is... idk. Doesn't really make sense to me. Political memes aren't inherently Russian.

                You also have to consider Russia's like, motives here. I don't really see a reason for them to want to make pudding jokes about DeSantis.

                  • AOCapitulator [they/them]
                    ·
                    11 months ago

                    I appreciate your concern, but can assure you I'm mentally healthy

                    you totally might be, but the bare fact that you had to say this to someone today should probably prompt you to reflect a bit about all this friend

                    • GaveUp [she/her]
                      ·
                      11 months ago

                      They're mentally healthy for a westerner

                      Which is so rabidly racist and xenophobic that they're calling out random memes for being Russian as an insult

                    • nohaybanda [he/him]
                      ·
                      11 months ago

                      I’m gonna push back on this fam. It’s peak reddit-logo libshittery to internet diagnose someone with mental health problems as a way to "critique" their positions. We’re not about that shit.

                      • AOCapitulator [they/them]
                        ·
                        11 months ago

                        I specifically didn't diagnose them or say that, their behavior and assumptions seem deranged to others and I wanted to get that across, not imply they are mentally ill

              • ToxicDivinity [comrade/them]
                ·
                11 months ago

                So you refuse to use or enjoy ANY meme that is political? Because supposedly your countrymen are so stupid that they got swayed by foreign memes into voting for trump?

                That is a line of reasoning I guess.

                • autismdragon [he/him, comrade/them]
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  The weirder thing is is that I checked their post history and they said they're conservative, though based on their fear of Russian memes I'm guessing a Never Trumper? Weird.

                  • rckclmbr@lemm.ee
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    11 months ago

                    How about the part the only hexbear user I looked into history for was tied to Russia?

                      • Comp4 [she/her]
                        ·
                        11 months ago

                        reading posters history like tarot cards

                    • autismdragon [he/him, comrade/them]
                      ·
                      11 months ago

                      I'm sure you think you found evidence of a Hexbear user's "ties to Russia" but I promise that Hexbear is just a bunch of leftist shitposters. Your fear of Russian influence is not healthy nor tied to reality. I'm not even concern trolling here, I'm genuinely concerned for your mental health. This paranoia is not healthy.

                      • rckclmbr@lemm.ee
                        ·
                        edit-2
                        11 months ago

                        I've worked for major social media companies for a majority of my career and understand the impacts they can have, I can assure you my concerns are healthy

                          • rckclmbr@lemm.ee
                            ·
                            11 months ago

                            I'm not a huge fan of leading questiond, maybe just say the point you're trying to make?

                            • autismdragon [he/him, comrade/them]
                              ·
                              edit-2
                              11 months ago

                              Fair enough.

                              All the major social media companies I'm aware of are based in Silcon Valley, IE the United States. I'm not saying that foreign governments don't try to astroturf them, but surely companies based IN america are more likely to be heavily influenced BY American influences (corporate and government)? And surely you should be more afraid of having your opinion influenced by propaganda from the people who actually hold the power over the platform, than from foreign governments trying to infiltrate the platform? Surely you should be more afraid of the powers that be that are actually close to home for you?

                              This is my thing with people that are afraid of Russia or CPC influence. I'm not a Christian, but I do think that Jesus had a really good damn point when he said "take the beam out of your own eye". Focus on whats going on in your own neck of the woods.

                              Its like the "TikTok harvesting data for the Chinese government" controversy, why are we worried about that when American social media companies are harvesting our data right here at home. What rational reason do I have to be more afraid of a foreign government than the one I actually live under the power of?

                              ETA: Porkroll Posadist (the one with the arthur clenching fist PFP) made a really good post about this here: https://hexbear.net/comment/3714293

                              • rckclmbr@lemm.ee
                                ·
                                edit-2
                                11 months ago

                                A company based in the country of operation is incentivized for that country to be financially successful. A foreign government isn't, unless it's to their advantage. I'm not afraid of foreign interference, but I think there's aligned goals in supporting a company in your own country. I agree influence could happen both in and out of the countries, and all sides of the political spectrum

                                • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]
                                  ·
                                  11 months ago

                                  A company based in the country of operation is incentivized for that country to be financially successful.

                                  Seems like you should be able to test this theory in the real world by observing how corporations approach paying taxes

                                    • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]
                                      ·
                                      11 months ago

                                      What part of my reply to you gave you the impression I wasn't able to read your comment?

                                      You're fundamentally wrong about the nature of one of the things you're comparing. Now that I've explained the subtext of my comment do you have anything to say to that point?

                  • Redcat [he/him]
                    ·
                    11 months ago

                    is there anything else that you refuse to do because russians potentially do them as well?

                    • edge [he/him]
                      ·
                      edit-2
                      11 months ago

                      I've heard those evil RuZZians breath oxygen!

                      • Redcat [he/him]
                        ·
                        edit-2
                        11 months ago

                        Sure, we can joke about this but consider, that if I or anybody I know thought like that we simply wouldn't discuss politics at all. As that's something that liberals and fascists also do.

                        So you've watched enough american media to believe that political memes are something that Russians do, and that they totally destroyed american democracy with those memes? Well, I've seen more than my fair share of NAFO and americans online making memes about how non westerners should all be genocided. That won't keep me from making fun of a fascist like Ron DeSantis with a meme.

              • SoloboiNanook [comrade/them]
                ·
                11 months ago

                I dont know for fact, but I treat any political meme like it might. This combined with it not being relevant to the discussion would make me prefer to just not have them at all

                Bro first of all it dont really matter what you want. Second of all it dont think its really healthy to assume any political meme you see is of russian origin lol thats bizarre and incredibly weird

          • Bobby_DROP_TABLES [he/him]
            ·
            11 months ago

            I'm really genuinely curious as to what the "Russian meme" you're referring to is. The pudding finger thing?

          • Farman [any]
            ·
            11 months ago

            The 4chaner pretending their meme magic was invoking ancient gods seem like they have a closer conrction to reality than whoever wrote that. Unless im an idiot and its satire in wich case great bit.

          • Flyberius [comrade/them]
            ·
            11 months ago

            US institutes could get their point across a lot better if they didn't hide all their propaganda behind paywalls.

            All I can read is the first paragraph.

      • GaveUp [she/her]
        ·
        11 months ago

        What's wrong with Russian memes lmao

        Are you scared of their memes?