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”
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Tolerance is a peace treaty, not a moral precept.
Defederating is a proportional response to a server with a top-level community dedicated to trans hate.
I think people need to remember that nobody owes one’s instance federation
I’d recommend defederating from beehaw if your litmus is “views that end up harmful to trans people are promoted by the instance” as they have a lot of communities like that on there.
of course, people disagree as to what “harm to X” actually means hence the problem.
I’m curious if you have examples given that seems pretty against what I’ve seen of Beehaw so far.
Not saying you’re wrong, it’s just not something I’ve seen yet.
Take a look at this thread. I commented trying to encourage a healthy direction, but giving this guy proper actual scientific/medical info that would help him live a healthy life would almost certainly get you removed/banned from beehaw, and the rest of the comments are encouraging something that will harm this person long term.
This happens a lot in more “progressive” lgbtqia-style spaces, because a lot of their ideology is fundamentally something that can, will, and does harm a lot of people. Look up “detransitioners” as a good example of things going wrong.
To me, and other people who are not aligned with their worldview, it’s obvious that there is harm in the ideology being pushed, and by censoring those who have a difference of view, or who try to stick to proper medical science, you end up funnelling people into paths that end up harming them.
Of course, others will disagree and think there’s no harm in this (that’s why they’re commenting as they do). But I’m someone who’s seen it first hand many times and so I simply can’t get on board with that way of doing things.
It’s not overtly “hateful”, rather the opposite: toxic positivity. But still harmful. But my point here isn’t “you should actually defederate from beehaw”. My point is that what people think is “harmful” differs depending on your views and beliefs.
If I tell this guy, hey you have a medical condition called transvestism, have gyneandromorphophilia, and are at risk of further developing dual role transvestism and gender identity disorder, is that “hateful”? Beehaw probably thinks it is. But IMO that is simply helping and informing.
I was very interested to see examples, as I do not like to judge without knowledge, and I am a very firm believer that toxic positivity is harmful.
That being said, I saw no toxic positivity in that thread or harmfully “positive” comments. Instead, what I saw were many people encouraging OP to explore the ideas thoughtfully while keeping in mind that no one can tell them if they are trans except themselves. I saw encouragement to seek out therapy instead of doing this alone, encouragement to consider the ideas of doing mundane things as a woman (such as doing taxes, grocery shopping, commuting, etc) and see if it still felt right (instead of just the attraction or sexual aspects), reminders that the whole concept is a spectrum and not to get hung up on labels and instead focus on actions that feel right.
I fail to see how any of that is toxic positivity.
The only worrying comment I saw was yours, and even moreso because you indicated that you were biting your tongue because of the community’s rules. You used negative slang terminology to indicate this person merely has a fetish and that this big bad world is too confusing so OP should look to the past when these things were handled more simply “scientifically”, and insinuated they were only going to blindly follow the answer given to them about whether or not they are trans instead of explore their identity given the info from the thread.
It’s the equivalent of encouraging someone with anorexia that they should lose weight and eat less.
Anorexia is actively harming the individual, exploring gender identity and expression is not. Additionally, the commenters (multiple!) told OP that they should seek out therapy in order to actively explore these ideas.
I think I have a bead on what you’re saying now.
I can’t really say I agree that gently supporting someone to explore a side of themselves they are coming to grips with is the same as advocating for the eradication of trans people…
I see it like this: the more these far right types are isolated in echochambers, the more extreme they will get, and long term that is harmful. if, instead, we foster polite and civil discussions, we can come to a mutual understanding, change minds, change hearts, and actually do something that benefits all, and help everyone get closer to the actual truth of the matter.
The mod in the post clearly was speaking against overt hate (slurs and the like). And I think that’s the sort of thing that should be stamped out and discouraged. But a disagreement of views? If you don’t wanna see someone’s differing opinion, why should that mean you’re gonna prevent everyone else from talking to them? Just block yeah?
The example that beehaw defederated over makes sense. There were people posting nsfw content in sfw communities, off topic, that was clearly meant to shock, harm, etc. it makes sense.
But have these exploding-head guys posted off topic? did they spam? did they shout slurs everywhere? or did they simply disagree with you? If it’s a matter of disagreement, I don’t see why the strong action of defederation is needed. Surely we can talk things out?
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The existence of people who detransition is often brought up in anti-trans circles as a criticism of gender-affirming care. However, the actual number of trans people who even just regret getting medical treatments is like 0.5%. Versus something like 14% for medical surgeries in general. And this is including trans people who regret it for social or economic reasons.
I could say some things about why some people here don’t seem to think that people outright saying full-on alt-right shit is bad enough that we should defederate, but I don’t think they’d actually understand or want to
fuck it; those people are so lucky that they’ve never had to think about the danger of alt-right shit as anything other than a thought experiment, the type that hasn’t ever had to deal with people who fundamentally want them to stop existing
like guys, that’s not “alt-right people are crazy weirdos but ultimately harmless”, that’s “I’m lucky because I just happen to not be a primary target for them, if a target at all, and I have mistaken this for the alt-right being of low influence”
honestly peak “I don’t have to think much about politics, and haven’t realized that this is an incredible privilege to have” behavior
To put another spin on it, lemmygrad and exploding heads have an old beef with each other that predates the reddit migration. Far-left vs far-right, it’s not rocket science. As an example try typing in lemmygrad.com and see which instance it takes you to.
Now ask yourself what it tells people when sh.itjust.works has lemmygrad defederated but not EH. It’s an endorsement, no?
Exploding Heads has never defederated lemmygrad. We invite diverse opinions, discussion, and debate.
Well put.
People rarely know what the paradox of tolerance really is and just use it as a cudgel to shut down any argument they disagree with.
The creator of the idea himself said
"I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.
But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument"
Not that I don’t believe you, but got a source for that quote? would love to read more
Sure, np.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Page 280 if the link breaks: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.59272/page/n279/mode/1up
That’s the thing though, most (all?) alt-right arguments aren’t based on facts and opening the door for them to even try and defend their point of view also opens the door to the radicalisation of people who are potentially swayed by non-rational arguments.
Give them as little visibility as possible so people who might be convinced by them get as little exposition as possible and society will just be better for it.
Most arguments are based on belief rather than facts. We rarely do the research and testing ourselves and instead just trust whomever we already agree with and is considered an expert.
Problem is that’s on all sides of the political spectrum. Everyone thinks their experts are right and everyone else is crazy or deluded.
The way to resolve this and find out what’s actually true isn’t by shutting down what one disagrees with, but by engaging in debates and discussion with each other, and pointing out the holes in each other’s reasoning and tests.
I was banned from r/GamingCircleJerk for ‘transphobia’ because I said they were wrong for harassing streamers for playing Hogwarts Legacy and that the over the top attacks on a video game were causing harm to trans causes.
We run into that problem a lot. People get high on righteousness and any attempt at moderation is seen as being from ‘the enemy’.
I think the opinions expressed by the person in the OP’s screenshot are heinous and people who share their opinions cause real harm in society. However, there is a major difference between having bad opinions and posting an address of a Jewish Synagogue with instructions on how to make firebombs. De-Federation should be used to cut ties with instances who promote calling for violence, sharing abusive content (like CSAM) and spreading hatred.
I’m of the opinion that people who have wrong opinions can be reached and that we have a responsibility to have a dialog with people with whom we strongly disagree. That responsibility ends when the person or group descends into actual violent acts. That’s the line for de-federation, in my opinon.
I definitely agree.
I hope you know that the intolerance paradox also applies to you.
I think your standards for what you call fascism is dangerously misguided, I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t recognise a totalitarian society if it snuck up on you.
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it’s not necessarily too late in the outside world either, tbh; it’s just harder
If you’d care to check my comment history, maybe you can see your own prejudice for yourself.
I checked it. All I see is a person with an account on an instance that allows hateful posts to go on unmoderated. Now, I could surmise that you are a regular Joe that made his account on a bad server on accident. But no. You seem to have no problem sitting at the table with those biggots. Beyond that, you are dead set on defending that horrid instance at every corner. So it’s kinda hard to take what you say in good faith.
The irony of being against fascism and then getting upset when one of these supposed fascists is willing to engage with you – But you’re not willing to engage with them.
Because fascists lie? They don’t engage in good faith, it’s a very long established precedent.
Edit: Holy shit it’s you again, you are a good example actually.
Correct, they do lie, which is why engaging with them is easy. you can point out their lie and mock them, which convinces anyone who is unaware of the lies.
Also really now? you think I’m a fascist?
I got no idea of you’re fash or not, but you are clearly acting in bad faith. Trying to apply the paradox of tolerance to someone using the paradox of tolerance? Not denying the place your defending is awful, but instead trying to say quarantining it is bad for reasons? Trying to suggest that viewpoints completely divorced from reality are completely valid?
Mocking shitheels is a great passtime, but engaging with someone who lies about the basic facts of reality is nearly impossible. A COVID denier, just to bring it all back around in a single comment, will just deny evidence has any merit. Look at the latest trans freak outs, again to keep it to a single reply, it’s ‘people’ objectively lying and claiming kids get surgery when that doesn’t happen.
No. I’m clearly not a fascist. I’m quite the opposite, in fact, I’m staunchly democratic.
I’m acting in bad faith? No, I’m not. I’m actively engaging with you, I’m not shutting you down or refusing your points or values.
So many misuse what the Paradox is, I blame American politics. The paradox of intolerance clearly states;
I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies ; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force ; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument ; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law
My entire point is that if users come here from outside their safe-spaces, we are free to engage and challenge their bigoted views. Will it change their opinion? Perhaps, Daryl Davis believes so and from experience, so do I. Regardless, at least it will show to others how outdated and stupid these views are. Do you agree with me on that?
When their claim is easy to disprove, then disprove it. If they say that it’s fake-news, then it only makes them look like an idiot.
That would be the case if they showed some good faith and had their opinion swayed by rational arguments. It’s not the case, so might as well just not let them take part in the debate until they actually understand what a debate is.
If they don’t know what they’re doing, it should be easy to prove them wrong and make them look silly. You can also try to argue via emotions.
There’s no irony in that at all lol
For some people, they are already living in it.
I envy some people living in developed countries; they can take what they like and ignore what they dislike.
There was a guy calling Ernest (kbin dev) a fascist earlier because his avatar is a screenshot of monty python with a guy holding a gun.
for the downvoters
nazi accusationWhile I don’t dispute your broader point that people can have some rather broadly-ranging views on what constitutes fascism, I do wonder if that specific user might be trolling.
to some people, everyone but those they agree with are a fascist. to others, seemingly no one is a fascist. It’s rare to see people actually use the word properly, as it’s kinda just become an insult. The right call the left fascists and the left call the right fascists. Meanwhile actual fascists openly acknowledge such lol.
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?
Or perhaps you just didn’t see those who don’t bother engaging in conflict?
I fully understand why you don’t expect to find content there in the future, but is that a good argument to deny access to those who already have?
Exploding heads have gotten subscribers from here as well. There’s an extensive backlog of topics some people find quite important - even if others don’t.
I don’t have a problem with you personally. You’ve been fairly reasonable in our interactions. But the people on your server are not great. Maybe you should make an account here.
I don’t care for them myself, but unless they’re causing problems outside for everyone else, why defederate?
If there are communities you don’t want to see, you can block them as they appear.
The argument being that if they aren’t blocked at an instance-level, due to how the federation works, those comments could very easily spill over into these threads. Those that do want to participate in good faith would need to create an account with an instance that is federated.
How do you block them? Not a feature on kbin yet as far as I know.
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If you’d like to block them here on kbin, go to to their domain page:
https://kbin.social/d/exploding-heads.com
and then click the “cancel” circle/crossout button over in the sidebar next to “subscribe”. That’ll block the entire domain.
Radicalisation starts with people “just asking questions” or “just pointing out an issue with X without having anything against them”, that’s enough to hook some people that will go way down the rabbit hole.
In the screenshot you see exactly what I’m talking about, “I’m not racist, but I can point out issues with the BLM movement”. Alright they just opened the door to people that are a bit more radical to try and find out where the tolerance ends and to others to start looking for answers with a biased premise in mind.
I invite you to watch this video (and the whole series really) that covers all of that:
I mean, there are indeed issues with the BLM movement. And this “possibly leading to radicalization” is much better than lack of critique.
Say, cultural appropriation is suddenly fine when it’s black people doing it. (Talking about Cleopatra in that show, the show itself is not important, just that the “politically correct” approach to it differs.)
Or people who think that BLM is more important than actual ethnic cleansing happening in parts of the planet far away from BLM.
Of course, these issues are inherited from general ignorance and indifference to suffering of others combined with trends of virtue signaling. Same happens in many areas not connected to racism.
…
Nope.
I don’t think this is a satisfactory answer.
Anyway, what I said can be shortened to “everybody who is looking sees you as a hypocrite when you are doing this kind of activism which costs nothing”.
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.
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?
@imaqtpie “What term would you use to describe their users?”
Nazis, probably.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…
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”.
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.
Anarcho-communists represent.
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
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
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.
Given that no bigotry is one of the stated rules of this instance and that bigotry is pretty rampant over on that instance I think it would be appropriate to disassociate with them.
Seems like something you should block individual users over rather than a whole instance
If the instance lets bigots participate then the problem is with the instance itself.
Nice whataboutism you got there, care to come up with an actual argument instead of trying to deviate the discussion?
So only certain bigots count, got it.
Now you’re putting words in my mouth as well?
You’re totally unable to stay on topic, aren’t you?
Bigotry is a matter of personal taste. I found some posts from trans subs talking about cis white men killing people, but I didn’t try to censor them because I’m an adult and possess the ability to ignore them.
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.
this is an interesting post-reddit effect, we have people of all different types and motives seeking new places.
A lot of people seem to think this is an all out battle between a new community and reddit. Like we have to beat them or something. The situation with reddit is not a win-lose, reddit would never go dark overnight. A lot of users are just over reddit and moving on. I personally don’t care about lemmy becoming the next reddit nor do I really care what happens to them.
A big difference to me with this migration is the instances seem to attract like minds. This is going to be a very interesting event to watch how the fediverse grows and changes.
I personally do see this as a war against reddit and the corporate internet. But we are just marshaling the troops, we aren’t about to march into battle.
I think this migration is different for two reasons.
Firstly, because the main users who were alienated were the mods, app devs, and long time redditors. The composition of the exodus is infinitely superior to the voat migration for example.
Secondly, because the platform of Lemmy and the fediverse provides actual value due to the ability to federate. You can’t get the combination of access and protection that this platform might eventually provide on regular social media.
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.
Your continuous misrepresentation of Exploding Heads is depressing. Burning hatred for redditors? Where do most of the anti-reddit posts on Exploding Heads originate from? Mostly from the new instances. You say dark corners of the internet, but we’re digital neighbors.
If you check the timestamps on that thread you linked you’ll see the non-EH people attached themselves to my comment from god knows where. It was unwanted, unsolicited, I’ve never seen them before and they used it as an example to show how a lemmy thread works. I blocked most of them, that’s why you see my engagement disappear.
That’s the example you use.
I was here years before you guys. I’ve seen the lemmyverse struggle. I have advocated so hard for openness, inclusiveness and communication through interconnectivity - all the while saying that people should block what they don’t like or find offensive.
I find this whole thread symbolic of the culture you all on average have brought with you. Prejudice, misrepresentation, moral reprisals… I had it enough conflict, I know Exploding Heads won’t block you and I know I can’t be bothered to individually block thousands and thousands of users accusing me of the most horrible things, like being a Nazi.
At least you guys won’t have to block two known prolific shitposters maybe having opinions other than yourselves, mostly in a space you’d have to seek out.
By being on the sh.itjust.works you are personally as responsible for this as the average exploding-head user is responsible for a few of our idiots posting on the internet. I’m leaving lemmy until full instance block is available for individual users so I won’t ever have to interact with the type of average user I’ve seen on sh.itjust.works. Or at least in this thread.
You all drove me away from this platform. At least I have the decency not to seriously argue that you all should be disconnected from other instances.
I’m sorry.
I now recognize that the thread I commented on was full of people that were trolling you just as much as they were trolling me.
But it’s not my fault either, I commented on your server once and got fucking dogpiled by a bunch of creeps. I didn’t even make this post about defederation, I just responded and gave my honest experience and opinions.
I acknowledge I was mistaken in some of the things I said about your server. But you never came out and explained who you guys are and why you’re here. I still have no idea why you have 1.2k users who are mostly inactive, or when or why the server was created.
I feel bad and I hope you reconsider, but I haven’t treated you poorly at all, so don’t go around saying I drove you off the platform. You’re welcome to create an account here and promote openness and inclusiveness through interconnectivity.
That is the only post with those people on it. You specifically found where other’s are trolling exploding-heads and then trying to get exploding-heads defederated. You are being manipulated.
other’s
Nice
I think we should stay federated with them. They haven’t said anything wrong or bad yet.
What can I say about brigading other than Exploding Heads having to turn off downvotes for the first time ever due to silent brigading?
How’s our federation affecting your instance?
We are bigger than you so you can’t really affect us too much. But all I can say is I never downvoted anybody on your instance, I only made comments
If you are bigger than us (by a factor of 100?) and we can’t really affect you much, is the fear of substantial downvote brigading perhaps a bit unnecessary?
Don’t feel like I’m accusing you of brigading, you seem like the type of person who’d rather have a discussion than just anonymously downvote.
If anything, based on your previous statement about seeking out a different community to rile them up, trolling would be more correct.
I didn’t seek them out to rile them up, that’s just what ended up happening.
Yeah it’s probably a bit unnecessary, but even if the brigading doesn’t overly affect the community, it’s annoying when people come in to post divisive shit and it gets upvoted to +7 before anyone here notices.
And then when I go over there I get people coming out of the woodwork to hurl slurs at me. I know those aren’t necessarily people from your server, but they are part of that whole scene, so I can’t just ignore that kind of stuff.
Also by my count you’ve got 1.2k users and we are closing in on 5k. So not bigger by a factor of 100
1.2k registered users on one of the oldest Lemmy instances.
We had 20 active users today, you had 640. I retract my guesstimate, my argument is that you’re only bigger by a factor of 32.
And is it impossible that some of the users from your instance upvoted something they subscribe to, so it must be brigading?
But let’s not discuss like we disagree. You all have convinced me to support defederation.
Yeah I suspected that was the case, but you didn’t make it super clear that most of your users were afk. You should have put that in the headline.
What was the reason that instance was created and how long ago? I really don’t know anything about Lemmy history before I joined.
Well for starters, your instance users are pretty much the only ones popping in and complaining that we’re defederated from lemmygrad, despite it not affecting you at all.
Y’know, since you’re on a different instance and all.
Attempting to exert influence on a different instance seems kinda like the federation attempting to affect this instance, no?
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.
The whole reason lemmygrad.ml (and hexbear) got big is literally because their subreddits got banned
Really? What subs?
Almost like tankie subreddits weren’t gaming the Reddit vote system to push literal propaganda to the front page for years or something
Propaganda is the front page, my dude. Won’t deny T_D was shitty, fuck em, they deserved the ban-hammer for having an echo-chamber.
Whataboutism, try again in a discussion about tankies.
Whataboutism is perfectly valid.
Get your American politics out of your head when talking about global issues. Just makes you look ignorant.
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.
Agree. I think blocking should be done on an individual basis unless it truly becomes a problem for most users and a turn-off for new users
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.
Defederation should be the LAST and FINAL option. From what I understand, this is a small instance that isn’t causing much trouble outside of their instance. Block them on your own! I’m on lemmy.world, but personally I would like to keep up to date on the shit they post. I don’t think we should start going around defederating communities that we disagree with, even though their opinions are shit, vile, offensive, and disgusting. Leave it up and block them on your own.
Edit: 10 years ago I used to be one of those intolerable fucks. Yes - exactly like them. Until I talked to other people on Reddit, real life, and listened to other ideas. I had a change of heart and hope even a couple of them could too. It happens.
deleted by creator
Agreed, defederation exists for a reason. Maybe if exploding heads admins get their shit together and clean up the instance they can get regenerated but as is nothing us to be gained from this federation.
These guys fucking suck, no doubt, but I really prefer that we put the impetus on users to block communities they don’t like rather than pursue total defederation
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.”
🤓
kbin is still federated with everyone lol. and afaik sh.itjust.works hasn’t defederated exploding-heads.
hun you’re a kbinaut, not a sh.itjust.works user. You’d be unaffected by their defederating if it happens.
Hey kbin users if you want to block this domain just go to https://kbin.social/d/exploding-heads.com and block that domain there.
Perfect!
Now my preferences are in place while others squabble over federation.
Thanks!This. Kbinauts should encourage using the block button, rather than demanding defederation. Curate your own experience, don’t try to curate others’ experience. Please and thank you :)
That’s super helpful, thanks. Still learning the platform and wrapping my head around things.
Exploding Heads have between 40-60 active users, you probably noticed two posters you find disagreeable.
Have you considered blocking the users or communities you find offensive?
I second this.
If nothing else, this should count as a wakeup call to the exploding-heads admins, that if these are just outlier users they should probably be reigned in. If there is pressure to defed now, it will only increase if nothing changes. If the instance won’t manage its users, that’s precisely why they will get defederated.
yeah, like if anything else support it because actual talk of defederation might get the admins to get their house in order
and if not, then nobody’s gonna miss an alt-right haven anyway
If the platform itself allows these users to participate then the platform is also an issue.
If you hang out with racists and don’t argue against them then you’re racist too.
We should absolutely not turn to defederation as a first action. You know how traditional social media bans opinions that are not acceptable according to themselves?
We must be better than that. It creates a ridiculous otherwise where people think everyone agrees with them and they are never challanged in how they think about things.
I think we should be exposed to different opinions as long as it’s within the rules, meaning people must be polite, not hateful, not breaking the law etc.
Let’s wait for per-user instance filters to be implemented, then everyone can block instances to taste. As long as their users don’t cause trouble in our communities, there’s no need for our instance to act as a moral guardians and decide what our users can and cannot see. Defederation is a nuclear option that should only be done if their instance is disrupting our instance’s operation (spamming and breaking rules while in our communities).
I like that sh.itjust.works currently federates with almost everyone, and I can see a big part of the fediverse from here. It would suck having to visit multiple instance to see the whole fediverse.
If per-user instance filters are implemented, perhaps instances could have “default blacklists” for new users for stuff like exploding-heads or lemmygrad that most people don’t want to see, with the option to manually un-block them if someone does want to see that.
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.
