2y ago

Lemmy developer, @SleeplessOne1917, argues for the killing of Israeli civilians and children

In the recent Lemmy developer update, there's a reference to one Lemmy developer, SleeplessOne1917.

I found some horrifying comments from this user.

https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/2649200 - "There is no such thing as an Israeli civilian. All settlers are valid targets."

https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/2649472 - "15 year olds are military age. That makes them valid targets for killing."

https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/2649732 - "... There is no such thing as a zionoid civilian. Everything that moves and isn’t Palestinian is a valid target. ..."

Webarchive: https://web.archive.org/web/20231009171047/https://lemmy.ml/u/CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml

Edit: New comment from the user "Cry more. Israelis need to be eliminated. Death to Israel, and death to Amerikkka!"

https://web.archive.org/web/20231009171510/https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/2592588

https://web.archive.org/web/20231009171739/https://lemmygrad.ml/post/750810

https://web.archive.org/web/20231009171907/https://lemmy.ml/comment/4569805

https://web.archive.org/web/20231009172817/https://lemmy.ml/comment/4413706

https://github.com/SleeplessOne1917

95 comments

Friendly reminder that it’s very easy to sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians without glorifying terrorists.
For a similar example, I support the cause of a United Ireland but that doesn’t mean I support the IRA. Be better than that.

- True, but there are not very many people contributing a lot of code, so this guy has a lot of sway over which items get prioritized out of the massive backlog.
  And as a mod, I’d really like the few people coding to produce some expanded moderation tools… so I can easily spot and address toxic comments like the ones this dev makes.
  IMHO, this guy’s behavior feels like it conflicts with his current influence over Lemmy’s mod toolset.
  Edit: typos
  
  Ive been working on a soft fork of lemmy called Pangora to prioritize development on different areas that the main lemmy codebase has been neglecting (such as mod tools). Gives a different option than the main lemmy codebase for supporting development and as redundancy for if anything goes wrong (although not production ready atm as its still getting mostly set up) !pangora@programming.dev
- Stories like these can make it less likely that other people contribute to the code, making the platform grow slower, which affects all instances.

~~There is no indication whatsoever that @SleeplessOne1917 is the same person as @cannotsleep420~~. Jesus, people, stop pissing yourselves for the literal 30 seconds it took to fact check this bullshit claim.
*edit: I took the liberty of finding the actual dev's account: /u/SleeplessOne1917@lemmy.ml. It took a whole additional minute. You're welcome
*edit 2: /u/NOT_RICK@lemmy.world has some links below that do indeed link /u/SleeplessOne1917@lemmy.ml to /u/CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml. Soooo, while I don't regret my nearly infinite capacity for skepticism, but it looks like this story has some legs. Hat tip to NOT_RICK, who is adamantly not Rick.
- You might want to reinvestigate. @cannotsleep420 is the one that made those comments and they are a dev.
  
  In the recent Lemmy developer update, there’s a reference to one Lemmy developer, SleeplessOne1917.
  I found some horrifying comments from this user.
  The post then lists comments from /u/cannotsleep420@lemmygrad.ml, however the text over the name is SleeplessOne (without the number on the end). This account is also on lemmygrad, the lemmy devs' main accounts are on lemmy.ml. Do you have anything to verify that they're the same person, or that they are another dev? Because I see no "CannotSleep420" mentioned on the github page. The main two are actually /u/dessalines@lemmy.ml and /u/nutomic@lemmy.ml.
  Next you'll be telling me that Hollywood actress Margot Robbie also moderates round these parts.
  Edit: They probably are the same person.
- FYI, you can make an instance agnostic link just by typing /u/SleeplessOne1917@lemmy.ml.
  
  Doesn't work for me. @SleeplessOne1917@lemmy.ml does though
  
  Nice tip, thank you. Still fumbling my way around...

What a creepy asshole. He should probbaly get back to /pol/, seems like he'd fit on there better.

Lemmygrad and hexbear serve as a propaganda wing of for people that make being communist their whole life. You can block certain feds to clear out your feed.
I wouldn't get riled up about it, they literaly say stuff to upset you so you react.
- Lemmy.ml isn't much better.
  
  The Internet is not safe, just got wade through the shit to make it to something good them make a path toward it by getting rid of the noise.
  
  It's world's better. But still chick full of Leninist. So still problematic because of that. On the whole though they don't brigade like hexbear or lemmygrad. Hell a large swath of their users are ironically not leninists even. However, when you do find one that is Leninist yeah you're gonna get toxic irrationality. But no worse than your average capitalist or neo-libertarian.
- How do I block an entire instance?
  
  right now you can only block communities. if everything goes according to plan, instance block should arrive with the next update, which is supposedly 1 month away.
  
  IIRC the next Lemmy update will have this feature.
  
  So I use Jebora on my android phone and if I go directly onto communities front page and a 3 dot icon on the top right side of the page it will say in the options 'block community" might have to block individually but there ain't that many large communities that will have such a loud voice.

You know, I came to lemmy because I was disgusted with the reddit admins and devs. And this shit just is not helping.
- For the most part, Lemmy instances are separate from the developers. But the great thing about ActivityPub and the fediverse is that we can move platforms and keep the same content. Kbin can subscribe to the same communities that Lemmy can.
  
  Yeah, this is one of the best parts of the fediverse. It's not just another plattform like Reddit. It's a bunch of Plattforms of various services, even Lemmy is just hundreds of small Reddits that connect to each other. Meaning we are not beholden to one person like on Reddit to participate in the fediverse.
- Understand that the Lemmy devs do not have ultimate power over your instance, and that your instance admins may feel very differently to them
- The difference here is that these people aren't really running the show. They're in charge of the main development branch, but that's just back end code, and it is (or should be) reviewed by every admin when they use it to implement their instance. Development can be adopted or forked by other people, should politics get in the way.
  It's the morals of your own instance and its admin that are most important, these are the ones synonymous with reddit's staff. In fact, it's possible for the instance to put whatever code they want up. It can easily be non-standard to official lemmy, so you really are trusting them rather than the main lemmy devs.
- OP user joined two hours ago, and this subject is literally the only thing OP has posted about, on four different forums.
  Is it too much to ask for minimum requirements for posting in a community?
- IMO believing that someone's work can become tainted by their beliefs is a form of magical thinking.
- Switch to kbin!

I thought we were already aware that the devs are deranged lmao
- *hexbears: that’s why I’m here
- I mean yeah, but I do like knowing who and in what way.

Anyone is able to contribute to the code. Are you saying we need background checks before contributions? Also as pointed out in another comment you didn’t prove any connection between the two usernames either.

What a special piece of shit he is.

Personally, I would accept a PR from a convicted murderer if the code was good. It would be a problem I would have to have meetings with this person but if he just submits code why would I care? There are no political opinions in code. It's not like code written by a rapist somehow pollutes my codebase.
- Yeah the code might be fine. But if I want to support the development of Lemmy, say with a donation, am I financially supporting a piece of shit?
  I'm not saying every contributor has to be thoroughly vetted, or that I have to agree politically with every contributor. It just feels icky, and I get the concern users have.
  
  I donate to Lemmy.world but that doesn't go to this Lemmy dev in question, only Ruud and his team. You can donate to specific instance admins who aren't batshit crazy hateful scumbags and support the growth of healthy instances.
  
  Interesting point. Well, if it's up to me I would even share the donations with this piece of shit. Because what do you mean by "supporting him"? Letting him earn some money by doing work? What's the alternative? Letting him starve to death? Personally I'm against death penalty so I do believe that even the worst piece of shit has the right to work and earn living. And frankly, writing code seams to be perfect way for such a person to do it: they are not around other people so no one is in danger and they are not spreading his sick opinions. And people like this earning their living are better than society maintaining them out of our taxes.
  It absolutely does not make anything 'icky', it's a silly way to look at it, childish really. If a convicted murder bags your groceries is your food icky? If a child rapist cleans your street is the street icky?
  And here we're not talking about murder or rape, just some online posts. Opinions don't taint code. I know people like to cancel everyone now but this is really getting absurd. The only "concern" users have is a concern that this week they didn't get outraged enough and didn't cancel enough people.

The Lemmy devs are tankies, they also deny chinese human rights violations and deny genocides.
- Block lemmy and move on. -6000 points? Holy shit
- It's not something I think, it's a fact.
  I'm already on kbin :)
  
  Did you just ask a Kbin user to delete their Lemmy account? LOL
  
  Why should they tuck their tail instead of calling out the narrow-minded hateful idiots? They're a sad little fringe minority.

This is difficult. I don't contribute code yet, but knowing that these kind of people might have a say in the development of Lemmy, I'm not sure I want to contribute. Maybe !pangora@programming.dev will be more welcoming... dunno.
- Pease consider the opposite; if a fork is needed at some point in the future, we need people who are familiar with the codebase. It would be, for example, much better for 3 of 4 contributors to be sane than only 2 of 3.

1st & 2nd of these are inside a post at news@hexbear.net (not lemmygrad.ml)
it has 490 upvotes, is locked & it is radically pro Palestine and anti Israel.
Not defending this user, just looking at the context.

How about we stop both sides from killing people considering it's been going on for hundreds of years and nothing has changed.
- This conflict doesn't exist in isolation. This is part of a larger geo-political struggle with the decline of US influence in the region being taken-up by Iran. Much of this could have been avoided if the US never invaded Iraq. If only I had a time machine...
  
  Much of this could have been avoided if the US never invaded Iraq. If only I had a time machine...
  Ehh. Lots of problems could be fixed by that, but not really this one.

War is dirty, always has been.
And the year/decade long war/geconide in Palestine/Israel? Sponsored by the west and an utter humanitarian shitshow.
Standing on their own, those statements are sure horrible. But you gotta see the grand picture, then you can only despair and perhaps turn your gaze away or you will be plagued by sleepless nights.

There are many people who take sides in this complex conflict and then argue with each other about it like there would be one good and one evil side and then there are inhumane and misanthropic anti-Semites like this one - disgusting!

Welp. This has been an education in how deranged this place is.
- This place we are on right now is lemmy.ca. What does it say about it?

Interested about opinions.
Would it be better if the dev would use separate accounts for professional communication, and private opinion? Like, separate life from work?

Lack of sleep is known to make people irritable, paranoid and experience audio and visual hallucinations. Remember to always catch up on your sleep in order to stay healthy.
That being said, dude, ignorance is bliss.

- switch to kbin?
  Switch to kbin
  
  I'm hoping lotide federates with kbin soon.

Good time to switch to Kbin I guess

Unfortunately this is a very classic far leftist take. Easy to blindly justify a cause you’ve been told to believe in when you simply dehumanize what you’ve been told are the villains
- Seriously? Unlike all the warm supportive right wing dehumanization. That person is sick. They'd be sick on either side of the aisle. Making this a left/right thing is small of you. I don't know you so I didn't expect better, but in a general sense I hoped people were better than what you've demonstrated here.
- If you go far enough you wouldn't be able tell a far leftist from a far right winger. Because they are the same person. There's no "classic left" about it.
  There has been genocides in the past from both sides. One indicator that a faction is going unhinged is that they become authoritarian. They start seeing in black and white and loose their humanity. This can be observed in both left and right. The massacres from the left are brought up all the time, so I'll bring one up by the right to make it balanced. Don't forget that the US dropped 2 nuclear bombs on civilians.

Idc about his political views. I'm still thankful he is talking the time to working on developing lemmy.
Right now there's a million spicy takes on this conflict.
- Good God man.
  Just because there are competing perspectives does not mean that all perspectives are equally appropriate.
  Just because someone does something that benefits you personally does not give them a free pass for being a fuck head
  
  He made the comment on an instance that supports that kind of extreme speech. The comment was appropriate in the place that he made it. I don't care if someone's a fuck head its not a big deal to me.
- I for one would prefer that the dev of the tools I use doesn’t celebrate the deaths of children just because of where they happened to be born. Calling that just a “spicy take” is ridiculous.
  
  That's a fine opinion to have.
  
  Let's read it correctly, instead of distorting it. The quotes above argued that 15yr Olds are valid targets, not celebrating their death and not all all children. I realize the difference doesn't matter much, but in discussion is better to be clear
- Would you feel the same if he supported nazis putting jewish people into gas chambers?
  
  Opinions are like buttholes, everyone has one.
  I imagine you look into someone's life deep enough, there is eventually something you are going to disagree ethically about.
  I think that is why it is important to have the conversation, rather then pretend the issue doesn't exist. Because that is what Israel has been doing for 20 years. It is also why the people of Israel and Palestine have bodies in the streets.
  This is 20 years of inaction boiling over into one single event. We either learn the lesson, or continue in ignorance.
  
  I'm sure some of the Foss software I use has had nazis contribute. It doesn't worry me what a random non political figure says on the internet.
- this is not just some "political views" or a "spicy take" this is someone advocating for the murder of a group of people. you can't just centrist your way out of this

95 comments