Part of it may be that “tankie” comes from UK political discourse (originally used as an insult from members of the UK Communist Party who wanted to distance themselves from their crazier members who defended the Soviet Union using tanks against civilians to squash anti-soviet demonstrations).
Since then the term has evolved to mean any westerner that acts as a mouthpiece or apologist for the likes of Russia/China.
It’s possible that what with Russia’s actions as of late, more of the world is being exposed to the term.
The other factor, and one that impacts here in particular, is that there is a massive tankie presence on Lemmy. In fact the original Lemmy developers were tankies, and lemmy.ml (the “ml” being marxists-lenninist) was their preferred instance. Hexbear is another massive tankie instance.
Yup, tons of shills and Kremlin information on here. I’ve never told a soul I use it because of that, and no doubt many thousands have visited, seen it, and just left instead of helping it grow.
Not shocking, the combined budget for addressing malicious propaganda and disinformation, from all instances in the entire fediverse, is exactly $0.00
Oh look. Another one.
Lemmy has such a big problem with tankies.
I don’t understand why, before I left reddit a few months ago I had never heard of a tankie and now I hear it all the time.
My guess is that there are two main factors.
Part of it may be that “tankie” comes from UK political discourse (originally used as an insult from members of the UK Communist Party who wanted to distance themselves from their crazier members who defended the Soviet Union using tanks against civilians to squash anti-soviet demonstrations).
Since then the term has evolved to mean any westerner that acts as a mouthpiece or apologist for the likes of Russia/China.
It’s possible that what with Russia’s actions as of late, more of the world is being exposed to the term.
The other factor, and one that impacts here in particular, is that there is a massive tankie presence on Lemmy. In fact the original Lemmy developers were tankies, and lemmy.ml (the “ml” being marxists-lenninist) was their preferred instance. Hexbear is another massive tankie instance.
Yup, tons of shills and Kremlin information on here. I’ve never told a soul I use it because of that, and no doubt many thousands have visited, seen it, and just left instead of helping it grow.
Not shocking, the combined budget for addressing malicious propaganda and disinformation, from all instances in the entire fediverse, is exactly $0.00