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Your bias is showing, lol.

Tankies are generally anti-west authies that root for self-proclaimed "communist" systems like China (which is state capitalist) or Russia (which is an oligopoly, the exact thing late stage capitalism devolves into). They generally spew the exact authoritarian and bigoted bullshit as the alt-right but do it under a different flag that historically opposed nazis, which is why they constantly claim that they're somehow completely different and even more, "opposite" to nazis. Lemmy unfortunately has an infestation of them because the developers are tankies, which often shows on lemmy.ml (the instance said devs run).

Like most reactionaries, tankies have no principles either, just a group they hate and they will twist their ideology as much as it takes to get you that end result. For tankies, that group is "the west". They will coat their bullshit in opposition of the ultra-rich (which most of us can agree on) but make no mistake, as long as you live in a western nation they want you gone, or at best subjugated. This is currently the most apparent in their support of Russia's genocidal war against Ukraine, because it props up a power that they perceive as "friendly" to them, but you might also catch them supporting the Uighur genocide and respond with extreme amounts of whataboutism every time such a take is brought up, essentially detracting from any problem in world powers they align with with counter-accusations of "the west".

Origin of the term didn't originate with China and the Tiananmen square massacre...

From wiki:

The term "tankie" was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defense of the Soviet use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring uprising, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.

it started with the Tiananmen Square riots

It actually started with British Marxist-Leninists who criticized the USSR's use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and the communists who defended the USSR's imperialism were called tankies.

It started as a way to call out people who call themselves communists but nonetheless engage in or defend imperialism, and to this day that remains the meaning of the word. There are some liberals out there who use the word against all leftists, as a way to imply that leftism is inherently authoritarian. But that is not largely how it is used online, and it's definitely not how OP was using it.

Found a tankie.