This is an opportunity for any users, server admins, or interested third parties to ask anything they’d like to @nutomic@lemmy.ml and I about Lemmy. This includes its development and future, as well as wider issues relevant to the social media landscape today.

Note: This will be the thread tmrw, so you can use this thread to ask and vote on questions beforehand.

Original Announcement thread

  • Menu@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    Right now, instances with transphobic and racist content like exploding-heads are still listed on join-lemmy.org. Are you planning to implement a Server Convenant like on joinmastodon.org? To be listed on joinmastodon.org, an instance needs “Active moderation against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia”.

    • nutomic@lemmy.mlM
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      1 year ago

      The instance list is fine as is. Think about it like this: do you want racists to join a single instance so they are all in one place? Or do you want them to spread across all different instances, causing moderation problems everywhere?

      • Menu@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        Yes, I think it would be best if they would all gather on one instance that can get defederated. Right now they attract users on join-lemmy with “Use humor and facts to hold the ruling class accountable”, no other info.

        • possibly a cat@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Hey Menu, I don’t know if you were one of the ones that downvoted me or not, but I was wondering if you might be able to help me understand why people think the option to shadowban is such a bad idea?

          Edit: What is going on here?! Someone please have mercy and explain…

          • BuddyTheBeefalo@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            I think you got downvoted because people were not looking for a way to make it ok for the racist instances to stay on join-lemmy.

            I am not really familiar with shadowbannig, but users could just check their posts from another instance and find out about the ban.

            • possibly a cat@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Thank you for replying!

              users could just check their posts from another instance and find out about the ban.

              That wouldn’t be the point, but I don’t believe anyone cares to hear the details. No problem, I understand that.

              people were not looking for a way to make it ok for the racist instances to stay on join-lemmy.

              Neither was I, of course. Thank you for this peek into the mentality.

        • possibly a cat@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Can you shadowban an instance’s users without defederating? That might be a helpful tool for some admins + mods.

          I’m not sure that I’ve seen any solution that seems to me that it would actually prevent toxicity and brigading without micromanagement. I don’t want to argue against any solution, I’m here mostly to listen. But I believe shadowbanning was created for situations like this, so I wonder if it might be a helpful tool here.

      • Gaywallet (they/it)@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        And if the racist is here to cause problems rather than commiserate with fellow racists, they now know exactly which community to avoid, thus restoring moderation problems everywhere. I don’t think anyone is asking you to moderate every instance to ensure they are sticking to your TOS or your viewpoints, but it’s a very minor ask to not showcase off the racists and transphobes and bigots on the ‘join this platform’ page.

        • nutomic@lemmy.mlM
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          1 year ago

          There are plenty of other instance lists across the internet. So its not even a real solution for your theoretical problem.

          • Gaywallet (they/it)@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            I don’t think the people raising this as a concern are trying to solve the problem of bigots on the internet; they are just asking for you to change the advertising you provide to remove the bigots from a place of visibility.

            • nutomic@lemmy.mlM
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              1 year ago

              And then we should block lemmygrad, lemmy.world, hexbear and hundreds of other instances? Thats not gonna happen. If you want to block instances, do that on the beehaw side.

              • Gaywallet (they/it)@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                I’m not here to proselytize about what we decide to block or not. I’m explaining what the person above is requesting - not a block, but a conscious decision about what shows up on the join-lemmy list.

              • heavyboots@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                This brings up an interesting point. On Mastodon, besides Block User, there is also a Block Instance option. Will we ever see that on Lemmy? Seems like an easy way to resolve what has been a big issue for me (and obviously other people too).

                Aka, you don’t really want to start over on another instance (hey, not migration tools yet!) but you also don’t really want to see posts from a specific server any more. Rather than people having to lobby the server admins about whether or not to defederate, wouldn’t it just be easier to allow user-level instance blocking? (I know I say “just” while knowing zip about how hard that as in the back end, but yes, from a logistics perspective, seems like you could make a lot of spam-level requests leave the admin’s plates by implementing this.)

        • nutomic@lemmy.mlM
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          1 year ago

          Thats fine, they can provide their own list of instances where users can choose from.

          • Menu@slrpnk.net
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            1 year ago

            They are on your list (which is seen as the official one by many and has most visits) to guide transphobes and fascists to their fitting community?? Exploding-heads is not labeled as transphobe and fascist on join-lemmy. So that does’t make sense.

        • nutomic@lemmy.mlM
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          1 year ago

          It doesnt really matter what you want. The software is open source so anyone can use the software freely. No way to prevent it.

    • hruzgar@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Wasnt free speech all about being able to express your opinion without getting banned?

      • Dandroid@dandroid.app
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        1 year ago

        No. It’s about being able to voice your opinion without going to jail for it. No one is going to jail for making transphobic memes or comments. But that doesn’t protect them from me blocking them or banning them from my instance.

        • hruzgar@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          Ok fair enough. But (outside of the context) defederating/banning certain communities because they don’t have the same beliefs as you can lead to a fully opinionated/based fediverse and should be prevented imo. Everybody should be able to express their opinions no matter what. I don’t want lemmy to change into some kind off mass media like everything else rn. If a post isn’t showing a good/kind, people respecting vibe, it will be downvoted and thus not shown to anybody. And later if lemmy creates an algorithm of some kind, these posts can be ghosted for certain individuals. But i don’t think they should be completely removed and banned from the connected fediverse as this platform is one of the only ways to express ourselves online at this point. I hope i could get my point across

          • The dogspaw @midwest.social
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            1 year ago

            Defederation doesn’t prevent them from being able to access the fediverse nobody has a right to harassing people thats like saying you are being discriminated against because you aren’t allowed in the public park because you throw garbage everywhere and spray paint the children’s play equipment but it’s a public park my rights

      • figaro@lemdro.id
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        1 year ago

        They are allowed to exist, but they don’t need to advertise for them.

        Especially in the place where casual people go to sign up. Can you imagine someone picking a random server and then suddenly seeing that shit? They would stop using lemmy completely.

      • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        please give me your home address, I would like to deliver a monologue about the work of artist Giorgio DiChirico at 3am every night in your bedroom

        as a free speech absolutist you must have no objection, right?

        edit: looks like the guy I was replying to got deleted and it now looks like I’m replying to the top level comment. Commenter was suggesting there should be no limits on any speech, hence me giving an example of absolute free speech being an obvious thing no-one wants — so that we can agree there must be some limit on speech.