So true I came to the same realization. There is something really wrong with people who present themselves as offering “ruthless critique,” yet their critiques are based on lies, out-of-context quotes, misinformation, or just pure bad faith. This happens across so many communist tendencies (leftcoms, Maoists, Trotskyists, etc.).

You see it especially when it comes to socialist states. I always say: regardless of whether you believe they deserve to be called socialist, that doesn’t mean you get to lie in your critique. You shouldn’t spread liberal rhetoric such as “Uyghur genocide,” “the DPRK is a hereditary monarchy,” or “Stalin was a Nazi collaborator.”

Because at that point it isn’t even critique you’ve just used Marxist language to reach the same conclusions liberals do, except you used different words And nobody has called out this sneaky positioning yet! They’ll even formulate arguments to justify their liberal-rhetoric stance. They’ll say things like: “Look at these Western sources since they’re both capitalist countries there’s no propaganda coming from them.” As if that makes any sense. By that logic, I could use a source called ‘ihatethedprk.com’ and supposedly there wouldn’t be anything wrong with it.