The instance seems to be mostly right wing trolls. I know defederating is unpopular but I don’t think much is to be lost in this case and it can save the mods some headaches.
Edit: the response on exploding-heads.com to my reporting of transphobia. Courtesy of the “second in command”
Yeah I must confess I recently went over there and agitated them a bit. I just wanted to see what their deal was because I saw a few of them over here.
TLDR they are basically like r/thedonald, libertarian types. Use slurs as a badge of honor. Angry, sad people. Fully in favor of defederation. But I get that it’s early days, and defederation is a sensitive topic. I just don’t see any path to that server becoming something of value that I’d want to interact with.
I dont see why defederation is seen as a sensitive topic.
Its a great feature, designed for specifically this purpose.
Over time people will migrate between instances and land where they fit. Some people want to be abrasive cunts, and they will land with the other abrasive cunts. Thats great, they have an instance they can do what they want on.
For the rest of us though, we dont want to see their bad faith articles and abrasiveness on our feeds. No one is being limited in their speech, but they might be limited in their reach. If they want to expand their reach, they can join a more broadly federated instance and ditch the bad faith arguments and abrasiveness.
Its the kids table at the dinner party. You can join the adults table if you behave in a way that is suitable for the adults, if not go back and play with the kids and everyone is happy.
The example that introduced me to federation was like an instance getting overrun with Nazis, and everyone deciding to just cut that instance loose; let it float alone as “the Nazi instance” that nobody has to interact with.
I thought that stuff like bad actors and assholes was one of the main reasons for the idea of federation, really surprised how many people thought differently
I think people would be surprised at the amount of instances that have already been broadly defederated.
Its just that the beehaw defederation is the first “big” incident since broader adoption, and thats for very understandable reasons with a roadmap to refederation already in place.
The only people who get angry about an instance being defederated are the types who want to act in bad faith. They know if they join the instance they got defederated from they will be banned if they spruik the shit that got the instance defederated in the first place, so they are angry that no one wants to listen to their shit.
It sucks for legitimate users that get caught up, but if youre a good user willing to participate in good faith, just join another instance and carry on.
In Beehaw’s case especially I saw a lot of people who came off more that they took being defederated personally or that they felt entitled to Beehaw’s communities than anything
like I still can’t understand why people found it so abhorrent that Beehaw temporarily defederated; they literally stated why and explicitly stated that it’s probably not permanent
like they made it clear, people just didn’t bother to read for some reason
I respect beehaw’s ability to defederate and their decisions to do with their community as they please. I don’t agree with their actions and I don’t think they did the right thing. But that’s why I did not and will not sign up on beehaw.
But if people start defederating each other over slight disagreements? I think that’s bad for the idea of federation in general.
My perspective isn’t so much that I’d like to act in bad faith, but rather that I do not wish for others to dictate who I may speak to or what beliefs I may hold. It’s one thing to have a standard of civility, respect, and polite discourse and to avoid those who do not act as such. It’s another to ban/censor/close off people over a disagreement of perspective.
Defederation is top-level admins building a wall, forcing people to either have two accounts to interact with both groups, or to move and find somewhere that isn’t defederated. If you don’t want to see certain content or talk to someone, why not just block them? why block for everyone? I don’t get that view. I avoid signing up on instances like beehaw because I know they’re quick to defederate. if you want that sorta thing, why not go join them?
Your “right” to expression doesnt extend to forcing other people to listen to you.
I dont know why that seems to be such a common thought.You have a “want” - in that you want to be able to say whatever you want to whoever you want.
Other people also have a “want” - to not have to see that shit when they are just chilling on the internet.We find ourselves at a point where we are on a platform that allows problematic places to be excluded. People there can still say and do what they want, the majority just doesnt have to see or deal with it anymore.
No one is dictating what you can and cant do or say, you are free to do that.
What defederation does is create a place for people who dont care about that shit to exist without having to see it. By defederating at an instance level, it takes that burden away from the individual user and creates a place that they want to be at. If you dont want to be there thats fine.
Its only a problem with people who think like yourself because you want to push your views onto people who arent interested. You want your views to dictate how another community behaves. You dont get to dictate that though. You’re welcome to join if you want to follow their rules, if not find somewhere with rules that you agree with.
As for myself agreeing with beehaw, I interact with that instance regularly. I dont need an account there because I have accounts elsewhere that are federated with them. If those other accounts became defederated, id weigh up the pros and cons and create a local account if I wanted to continue the interaction.
This is a fundamental, core aspect of the fediverse. If being restricted from places that you arent welcome at is something you dont like, I sincerely think the fediverse is not for you. That said, I cant think of many places that are for people who want to push their views onto unwilling others, because the places that spruik that arent attractive to the people who are sick of that shit.
There are places for the type of content you want to engage with. There are even places that are halfway, where people from both sides of this divide meet and converse. The problem only exists when you want to bring that shit into places where it isnt welcome, and the fediverse has been designed from the ground up to alleviate that problem for the majority of people who arent interested.
Your “right” to expression doesnt extend to forcing other people to listen to you.
Indeed. That’s why the block button exists. If you don’t want to hear someone, you can block them. But if two people wish to speak, why do you feel like you should prevent them from speaking to each other?
You have a “want” - in that you want to be able to say whatever you want to whoever you want.
No. My “want” is to be able to discuss things, understand where people are coming from, and arrive at something that is mutually beneficial. The best way to do that is to avoid censorship nazis.
to not have to see that shit when they are just chilling on the internet.
Yes, I’m fully in favor of people curating their own experience, not the experience of others.
What defederation does is create a place for people who dont care about that shit to exist without having to see it.
Actually it prevents other people who do care from seeing it. Defederation is not a “personal block button” it’s a wall preventing anyone on the instances from communicating.
Its only a problem with people who think like yourself because you want to push your views onto people who arent interested.
The opposite, actually. I’m in favor of people blocking who they want. We are both on kbin. If I wish to see posts by those exploding head guys and you do not, what do we do? If we defederate, you are forcing your desires onto me. If you just block them yourself personally, then you get what you want, and I get what I want. win win, right? So I don’t understand why you would defederate, rather than just block?
You want your views to dictate how another community behaves.
The opposite. I’ve spoken many times that beehaw and sh.itjust.works are entirely free to do what they want. I don’t agree with those communities defederating, but naturally they’re gonna do what they’re gonna do.
As for myself agreeing with beehaw, I interact with that instance regularly. I dont need an account there because I have accounts elsewhere that are federated with them. If those other accounts became defederated, id weigh up the pros and cons and create a local account if I wanted to continue the interaction.
If you like beehaw’s federation policies, and not kbin’s, why not use beehaw instead of kbin? Surely that is the obvious thing to do?
If being restricted from places that you arent welcome at is something you dont like, I sincerely think the fediverse is not for you.
My concern is over my own instance preventing me from speaking to others. If beehaw wishes to block kbin, I’m not gonna cry over it, I can speak to people elsewhere. But if kbin starts defederating, then I have an issue. I believe most places will wish to have open and civil discussions and federate with more or less everyone. This is how kbin currently does things, and I support that. But if everyone is just going to defederate each other, why bother with federation at all?
You were talking to people not even from that instance. You people need to learn how federation works
I’ve already acknowledged that multiple times.
Your comment is the perfect example of why defederation is even being considered. You’re a sad, confused person who is angry at the world and takes it out on other people. One look at your comment history makes that clear.
We’re trying to build an alternative to reddit and it’s going to be really hard to do that if we have to fucking drag people like you along with us. You seem to enjoy making other people miserable.
If you genuinely think libertarians are equivalent to r/thedonald posters, you have no clue what you’re talking about. Which is why defederating based on politics is stupid.
Most people who think they are “libertarians” have no clue what they are talking about.
Proudly planting the libertarian flag on top of a few pet peeves.
Then watch them cry foul whenever libertarianism strikes in any of the soft spots they don’t want touched, or don’t understand through lazy ignorance. An extreme cartoonish (yet sadly real) example being something like “Keep your dirty government hands off my Medicare”.
I never said they were equivalent. One of the most popular posts on the server is about creating an index of libertarian/right-leaning instances.
https://exploding-heads.com/post/92733
One of the most prominent users (4 month acount!) is named maga_force.
What term would you use to describe their users?
I never said they were equivalent.
Comma separation implies a list of traits (users are both r/thedonald users and libertarian) whereas or/and would imply that libertarians and r/thedonald users both exist in the instance
What term would you use to describe their users?
Conservative/MAGA fits the majority of the content a lot better
Comma separation implies a list of traits (users are both r/thedonald users and libertarian) whereas or/and would imply that libertarians and r/thedonald users both exist in the instance
Lol fair enough, thats true.
I honestly thought libertarian was the more flattering descriptor, but sure we can go with Conservative/MAGA
I honestly thought libertarian was the more flattering descriptor
Yeah, so do they - that’s why they try to co-opt the term lol
Ok word. Yeah libertarians usually have some kind of rationale and principles while MAGA people are just walking memes that regurgitate spam.
Honestly most self-described right-libertarians are really differing levels of feudalists. With the uber-feudalists being the “anarcho-capitalists”. Which is the dumbest term ever but that’s not the point.
So I’m always very very suspicious of someone who says they are a libertarian…
It is as disappointing to see MAGA-types try to co-opt “libertarian” for optics as it is to see the general populace so lacking in critical thinking as to take the bait hook, line, and sinker.
The term had been coopted by feudalists much before that. The term originally referred to anarcho-socialists as opposed to the growing “authoritarian” socialist trend. I put authoritarian in quotes, because that term has also completely lost its meaning.
Nazi instances will proliferate and it benefits nobody else to stay in federation with them. It makes the whole fediverse less usable and more dangerous. And whether you like it or not it sends a message to people who are targeted by them that they are not truly welcome here, regardless of whatever moderation rules are espoused.
And in North America, as in many places, these people are acting as a propaganda arm for a literal violent terror movement. Sometimes under a fig leaf of ”irony” but it makes no material difference whether they’re chuckling when they spew shit to me
It’s always funny as, non American, to read about this naive anti- censorship slogans. Hateful political groups never stay in their places and play nice everywhere else. They brigade and harass every fucking time. There’s a reason why every place without moderation turns into a absolute toxic cesspit.
Voat failed quickly because of the “no censorship” implemented which allowed garbage to congregate. Of course people left because it was nothing but shit.
Lemmy needs to take out this trash.
you
you get it
all of this “marketplace of ideas” bullshit predicates on the alt-right and fascists cooperating and playing fair, when they historically have always taken advantage of any chance they’re given and then mocking those who wanted to give them a chance
like it’s 2023, I’d hoped that we’d have realized why giving the alt-right and fascists a seat at the table never fucking works out for anyone other than the alt-right and fascists
“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.” -Karl Popper
That place is gross. They have a parent community that is just trans hate. I can’t imagine spending so much energy being a hateful idiot.
It’s easy: have nothing else going for you in life and making fun of others becomes a super fun way to pass time.
Basically playground bullies who never matured beyond that mentality.
Fake news
I often hear the argument “they’ll just go elsewhere,” “they’ll just start new accounts,” etc, to defend not censoring/defederating/blocking/whatever fascist or proto-fascist people or sites. That’s not an argument, that’s a commitment to rolling over for fascists and intolerance. They’re bringing the fight, and not fighting back and making their lives harder is just helping them move the Overton Window further to the right, and making horrific ideas palatable.
If we just left it at that, I’d agree. Reddit had a handful of right-wing media watch subs that would track and report when someone said someting egregious, legally gray or in light with the fascist movement identity (e.g. mythical history to justify legitimacy.) That can not only be used to expose their mask-off faces to the public, but in instances where incitement or threats turn into action, it can be reported to investigators to help track down key players.
So, much the way backpage was helping law enforcement track human traffickers (who did business on backpage) we have the option of leaving them be, but to exploit their intra-sect candor.
I support this. Keep Nazis out of my feed.
Defederation is de-platforming. These hate communities are able to recruit because let them. We give them free reign to whisper hateful falsehoods in the ears of the vulnerable, all in the name of free speech. They can be as hateful as they want on their own, but we are under no requirement to give them a platform to spread their ideologies. De-platforming works, so let the nazis chirp in their own little echo chamber. Keep their hateful rhetoric contained to their own little garden so our vulnerable youth need not be exposed. It’s easy to say “just block them yourself,” but that doesn’t cut off the steady supply of misguided incel-larva to fill their ranks. Drown 'em out. De-platform them. Defederate now. No quarter for hate.
The issue with censoring is that as soon as you start censoring people because you think their ideas are harmful, there are those who think your ideas are harmful. yet the group doing the censorship never sees their own views as harmful. it just increases polarization, echochambers, etc. which IMO leads to more harm, not less.
I think the way beehaw goes about things is harmful, so should we defederate from them as well? Or are only the things you think are harmful what should be censored? And if the latter, who made you boss?
sh.itjust.works can decide their federation policies on their own, but defederating over a difference of belief is always odd to me. the mod message that OP shared is clear they don’t allow truly hateful speech, they merely have different views on things. same goes for lemmygrad, they get defederated often but they seem quite civil despite their fringe views?
I wonder if kbin will stay the course and continue federating with everyone or if it’ll eventually defederate. I hope the former, and those who wish for an instance that defederates can go elsewhere.
No one is censoring anyone. They are free to post whatever toxic shit they want. But we, as an instance, have elected NOT to listen. Censorship would be banning their instance from existing, which IIRC is impossible with federated instances. No, this is just de-platforming. We are turning off the loudspeaker connected to their instance. We don’t have to give them a platform. There is no reason to do so. So we defederate.
EDIT: Let me dumb it down further. “We are removing the link to Stormfront from our home page due to their stances.” Would you call that censorship? Is it censorship that I would unfriend someone because they are spewing hateful garbage? Of course not. If you really want to read that hate, there are plenty of ways to find it. We just aren’t going to help you find it anymore.
“we as an instance” you’re on kbin. has kbin defederated? I just woke up so maybe I missed something this morning but… this is the sh.itjust.works community lol.
“I have no argument, so I am going to focus on the person rather than the argument.”
🤓
I was also kinda surprised that sh.itjust.works doesn’t block exploding-heads as most instances I’m aware of do. That coupled with the fact that the instance doesn’t block them but blocks lemmygrad made me think at first sh.itjust.works was going to be some far-right instance, but from what I’ve seen it isn’t. Though, I don’t understand why sh.itjust.works would want to federate with them, considering their content often violates the rules of the instance.
To be fair, I’m a pretty radical leftist and Lemmygrad is a giant cesspool for me.
There’s no way I’m going to read all of that but I scanned it and caught a “I have many gay friends” and said ayup, there it is.
They are also using a hermaphrodite cousin as a token trans friend.
The fuck did I just read.
IDK why people are thinking he’s gonna de-federate for transphobia when he has allowed the matt walsh documentary to sit on his instance for days now
I am thankful I found a non-ban-happy home where I can see opinions I may dislike.
That’s your prerogative. I hopped to a different instance that more closely aligned with what I was looking for and also appears not to be ban-happy.
I don’t see exploding-heads on lemmy.world’s blocklist.
You’re right. I just blocked them directly.
Only thing I’m blocking is loli and annoying hentai spam. My ego is not fragile enough to shield my eyes from opinions I may dislike.
Sometimes people just don’t wanna see slurs or dehumanizing content. Doesn’t make them soft. Something you see that is “an opinion you dislike” might feel a whole lot worse for someone else depending on their age, race, sexuality, gender, ect.
How do those people function in real life where they don’t have such a pre-filter?
didn’t know “some people shouldn’t have rights or the right to exist” is just an opinion
whatever, clown
Who is saying that?
Just as an outside observer - a lot of people from reddit are out searching for a new home. Convos like these will set the tone for every new entrant so you have the opportunity now, before it all goes really big like reddit, to shape a community based on mutual aid, love, earnestness instead of one focusing on building capital at any cost.
There are so so many socially conservative sites and spaces fully dedicated to those communities, big enough that even normal media covers them. But how many Gabs or Parlers exist out there for marginalized people, how many communities are willing to do the hard work of ensuring there could be a beloved community where hatred and minimization is curtailed, who don’t act according to the will of private investors demanding incessant growth?
I hope there can be spaces like that which can grow from a watershed moment like this. It would be really cool if it were this one 😌
I’d really like to see a space where people who are more on the conservative side of things can speak freely and be exposed to alternative views, rather than just getting insta blocked and banned and having to go to the more extreme corners of the internet.
I agree holy shit I went there today and there was some hateful af stuff
Not the prettiest instance, but have they caused any real trouble outside of their own instance? Not much of a fediverse if we just defederate from instances that lean different politically. Especially seems like a weird move to go defederating on other instances this early given y’know, that we just got defederated from beehaw because of one misbehaved asshole.
I’m not saying we should immediately defederate, but the reason I originally went to check them out was partially because of this comment and the reply from dick@exploding-heads.com
https://sh.itjust.works/comment/207742
When he made that reply, it got rapidly upvoted to +7, while my comment was also sitting at about +7. This morning, several hours later, when a bunch of actual sh.itjust.works users woke up and read the thread, the ratio of votes changed in my favor.
I fear that we are going to deal with a significant level of brigading from that instance, and unlike reddit we don’t really have any tools to combat that.
They also had a good laugh about the troll who posted here about getting us defederated by beehaw. They really don’t like beehaw, or gay people in general.
It’s whatever but we are already defederated with lemmygrad.ml and I feel like this stuff is on that same tier.
I had a look through their hot-page and couldn’t find anything on the level of lemmygrad. Do you have any examples?
https://exploding-heads.com/post/100772
Many of the trolls on that thread aren’t actually from that server, but they clearly reside in the same dark corner of the internet. But yeah its not really as bad as I thought in terms of needing to defederate, I thought they had over 1k users acting like that but I guess I just replied to the wrong person because the server is mostly dead.
But I have to say, I’ve never encountered people with such a burning hatred of redditors. Again, it’s whatever but I wouldn’t be bothered if we did defederate.
I think we should stay federated with them. They haven’t said anything wrong or bad yet.
Being openly bigoted isn’t a “political leaning” though, and it’s against lemmy.world’s code of conduct as stated on the sidebar link: https://mastodon.world/about
Provide a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for everyone regardless of gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, political affiliation, or other similar characteristic.
No one is saying let’s ban conservatives. This discussion is about defederating an instance that seems to be crawling with alt-right trolls. I don’t understand why that would be a problem.
Like I’d hope that we wouldn’t follow in Reddit’s footsteps of tolerating alt-right bigotry
Defederating isn’t like being fucking censored or whatever; it’s people deciding that they don’t want to be around you
Basically near-every instance did this for Lemmygrad with zero complaint, so it’s fucking weird that there are so many people complaining now when it comes to an instance teeming with alt-right bigotry
Reddit didn’t tolerate alt-right bigotry. What are you on about?
And yes, defederating is censorship. I had a burggit account because I liked the name, but then once they got defederated from everything, I needed to make a new account. That’s censorship.
Lemmygrad, Exploding-Head and Beehaw are all safe-spaces and echo-chambers. They won’t wander outside their zone, which they haven’t. Find it hilarious you’re so huffy about the alt-right, but silent about multiple mods enabling pro-communist content.
Do not mistake inconvenience for oppression.
That is NOT censorship. Everyone on that instance still has every opportunity to say whatever they’d like. Don’t cry over the fact that it’s not reaching as many people as you want it to.
Obligatory XKCD about this topic.
So you’re pro echo-chamber? You also completely disregarded my point about having to make a new account.
No, needing to make a new account is not censorship, get over yourself.
How is having to make a new account in an entirely separate instance not censorship?
Yes it did, until media brought attention to it, then they banned The Donald and Metacanada and these users just joined other subs where they spewed their poison with the admin’s blessing in the cases where mods from subs that got banned were also modding other subs that didn’t (metacanada mods also modding Canada).
And all of the tankie subreddits were never touched despite having the same content.
how about that whole span of time that r/the_donald was a subreddit lmao
edit: it’s not censorship if you can easily move to another instance with little difficulty and just continue from there, with most of the same communities even
people like you just think someone telling them that they don’t want to hear you is the same as being suppressed
I can tell you the exact same thing. Keep the attacks to yourself.
No. Nazis need to be blocked by the instance admin. Otherwise, it’s time to look for a new instance.
Yeah okay I get we’re all upset but he has read the patriot act, so…
