(not sure if this is the right community, sorry)
Hi, someone posted this on another server. I’d like to request we defederate with rammy.site and exploding-heads.com as well. I scrolled through some of their posts and comments and it’s full of ridiculous anti-left propaganda, for example a post where some liberal Florida family fleeing the state when some child protection laws got passed, implying liberals abuse children and won’t live in a state that doesn’t allow them to. Just take a look for yourself.
" Admins of Lemmy.ml please consider defederating from rammy.site it has been taken over by right wing malicious actors from exploding-heads.com and the admin is nowhere to be found.
It is imperative that you take action as soon as possible the users on rammy are using the site to spread their messages to a further audience, we must nip this in the bud. If you don’t believe me check the instance for yourself, you’ll see it dominated with bigoted right wing posts and spam communities."
Edit: So many commenters think this is about political opinions or disagreement. It’s not. If I said “Mixing bleach and ammonia is good for you” I bet some of you would call that a political disagreement.
I joined this instance because it doesn’t block/ defederate. Everyone can pick what they want to see cutting it off is stupid.
I too joined this community because it hasn’t blocked nor been blocked by any other community on Lemmy.
I joined this instance because I wanted to learn, collaborate, and share tech- and art-related ideas in an environment not toxic like commercial social media that has been filled with bad actors. An environment more akin to the 1990s BBS systems where tech-misfits are free to be without being subjected to hate from those pushing anti-social philosophies.
Is that a policy of this instance?
It’s a policy of the community. You really should read sdf.org faq. Best regards.
This is the closest thing I could find that was related, can you send me what you found?:
Any illegal activities which includes, but certainly isn’t limited to spamming, portflooding, portscanning, unauthorised connections to remote hosts and any sort of scam can really not be tolerated here. Why? Because there are many here on this system that can suffer from this sort of abuse. If you want to use SDF, you really have to care about this system and the people here. If you don’t want to care, then you really shouldn’t use this resource.
I did read the FAQ before asking this, I did not take it to mean it’s a policy of the server not to defederate.
https://sdf.org/?tutorials/social_network
SDF - The Ethical Social Network What ‘Social Network’ means to us (a history lesson)
…To the users of the SDF Public Access UNIX System, ‘SDF Social’ is based on the concepts and principles of the early Social Networks that we have always been a part of and not the highly commercialized, for-profit and ethically questionable Social Networks of the late 1990s and 2000s.
Simply put, SDF has always been about Collaboration, Non-Commercialism, Choice and Privacy.
Choice is very important here. Anyway best of luck in your endeavour whatever it is.
Also in the IRC section there’s something about “Common sense” it’s a great read. Just saying. Best regards.
I seem to interpret that differently than you. I also read the common sense section, and felt that it supported my position.
If I am reading the situation wrong, I apologize.
The reason that I am not a member at beehaw was because they were overly wrapped up in concerns such as this one. I’m here for enjoyable chats with people, not to take sides in the latest macro-politics or causes or whatever lately is stirring the pot or making the winds blow. These things are fine and some people are interested in them, but I’m turned off by the idea of an instance that is particularly identified one way or another when I am not concerned with any of that.
What I’m looking for are kind souls that share an interest in technology and an instance that was widely federated so that a wide variety of my interest groups (music, weightloss, networking, ancient Stoicism) are available. That’s why I joined here. SDF has been around a long time and many who have enjoyed its offerings have held many different opinions and yet shared this resource peacefully.
I’m particularly turned off by people that want a silo with only the right causes, only the right thinking, only the right speech.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have management and protection of against those that are unkindly trolling or actively trying to do technical damage. Ban those actually doing evil. But if people of good cheer share different views kindky as neighbors and friends, I have no problem with that and don’t want to see that roped off.
Remember the two rules of FidoNet? “Don’t be excessively annoying. Don’t be easily annoyed.” That’s all I’m saying.
You’re reading the situation wrong. Go to those instances and read what’s there, it’s not about free speech, it’s active disinformation campaigns and propaganda. I would feel the same if it was extreme leftist propaganda. It’s not about creating an echo chamber. I respect the right to free speech, but that isn’t the same as allowing people a platform to systematically organize hate using falsified information. This is a situation where silence is complicity. Their instance continues to exist without us, their free speech continues, but by remaining federated we are giving them a platform.
As usual, I have typed 500 words when 50 will do, and for that I apologize.
Go to those instances and read what’s there
No, I do not care to and why would you do that? You already have determined it’s not right for you. Any alleged content problem that you have to see by going there would, if true, be a problem there. Does that make it a problem here? If I have to take extraordinary steps here to see it here, isn’t that on me? Isn’t the apparatus doing what it is supposed to be doing if I seek out a thing and find it?
The ultimate measure of freedom is the freedom to abstain. (Nobody is forcibly opting us in to reading their content.)
I’m just a regular user of SDF so these things aren’t up to me, but I would think that it would take more than “because it exists.” Defederation and Federation shouldn’t be used to signal alignment and nonalignment of expression, but for reasons of managing the network itself. A telephone company provides service to everyone and doesn’t care what you do with your phone. But, if someone is using it in a way that disrupts the network itself or others’ ability to use the network, the telephone company should act to protect the overall integrity of the network. Even then it wouldn’t silence the speech because of the speech, but because of the network.
Their instance continues to exist without us, their free speech continues, but by remaining federated we are giving them a platform.
Look, it’s one thing to be put off by someone going out of their way to affront you. It’s another to feel affronted after going out of your way to find if there is something objectionable anywhere. By that logic, since you have found something then defederation alone should not be enough, as “we are giving them a platform” still, because other people might visit there directly instead of through federation. Therefore, due to that situation, they should not have an DNS entry so you work on their Registrar to “deplatform” them. Then, because someone can connect using an IP address, their ISP should disconnect their service or else they’re providing their ISP as a platform. But as they can get another ISP in this day of mobile connectivity, you could chase down their power company, yes, because their power company is a platform – as is their landlord – as is their employer. And so on.
I remain unconvinced.
You could write 5000 words and I doubt they would change their views. Still I certainly enjoyed reading your words. Best regards.
Edit: I somehow failed to copy and paste
>No, I do not care to and why would I?No, I do not care to and why would you do that?
Let’s not be like Reddit and comment essays without reading the article. That’s why. You don’t even know what you’re arguing for if you don’t look at it.
If I have to take extraordinary steps here to see it here, isn’t that on me? Isn’t the apparatus doing what it is supposed to be doing if I seek out a thing and find it?
It’s been all over my all feed personally, maybe you just don’t pay attention to where content is coming from?
going out of your way to find if there is something objectionable anywhere
See above
because other people might visit there directly instead of through federation
See above
Therefore, due to that situation, they should not have an DNS entry so you work on their Registrar to “deplatform” them.
No, I believe the internet is the utility. Unless actual crimes are being committed, they can have their websites. The key difference here is lemmy.sdf.org is relaying the posts from its own server, and therefore participating in spreading harmful disinformation. It’s not like a telephone company that lets anyone call, it’s like a newspaper that published anyone’s articles, or a bulletin board at the library that doesn’t moderate what’s there.
No, I do not care to and why would I?
If you are going to quote me, quote me. Do not edit my quotes.
Let’s not be like Reddit and comment essays without reading the article. That’s why. You don’t even know what you’re arguing for if you don’t look at it.
Your article is the article. Your story is you read something somewhere about these sites, not from the sites. You passed it along, later checking and finding that some of the first facts were wrong (which is fine, that happens), but that you still think there were problems here. Perhaps, even bigger problems here.
I don’t need to visit any other sites to hold the principle that federation or defederation is about network management, not the views or viewpoints of the content. Not whether the content is right or wrong or factual or not, but whether it impacts the federation itself.
If I was in charge of network or systems management here, my main concern with all of this would be that rammy.site is reportedly without any moderation/administration. But I’m just a user here, and it seems that you are too. You’ve said your bit, I’ve said mine, and we both been cordial about it.
You should keep talking about this if you remain interested in it, but I’m moving on. I just wanted to voice my view that the reason I joined this instance was because it was widely federated and not involved in what was going on at beehaw.
it’s active disinformation campaigns and propaganda.
That’s for me to decide, not for you to decide on my behalf.
Edit:
Their instance continues to exist without us, their free speech continues, but by remaining federated we are giving them a platform.
This entire ideology is bullshit and I am not interested in being on instances run by people who believe it.
Then if SDF defederates from them, leave
deleted by creator
I seriously doubt sdf.org will defederate due to political, religious or other kind of views unless some kind of danger to its users is involved, and even then I’m pretty sure we would go to ARPA votes over it. While the instance might be recent the community behind sdf.org is ancient (I say this with my utmost respect for them ) so yea, not their first rodeo or last one. If you don’t like the views of those instances feel free to block them yourself. Best regards.
Why does everyone keep thinking this is about political views?
Because most of the time people who cry about being forced to see things they don’t like are crying about a political topic. You can control what you block yourself. Don’t drag the rest of us into your own echo chamber.
Maybe because of the literal content of your post?
I scrolled through some of their posts and comments and it’s full of ridiculous anti-left propaganda, for example a post where some liberal Florida family fleeing the state when some child protection laws got passed, implying liberals abuse children and won’t live in a state that doesn’t allow them to.
I’ve got news for you: the entire planet has not taken up American political idiocy. Nobody outside of the USA (and many of the people in it) gives a fuck about American political slapfights.
If you want a safe space instance for one or another American “team,” find it somewhere else or start one yourself.
It’s not about politics. It’s about hate.
I have to wonder if the people staunchly against defederation at any cost ever dealt with redditors from hate subs following them around reddit from sub to sub everywhere they posted to keep screaming at them about trans women not being women, while also repeatedly reporting them to Reddits suicide bot to try to make them think about suicide. It’s not exactly the nicest online experience and I had it more than once in my time on reddit.
To me the benefit of federation includes defederation. If it was easy to just say “get rid of all the users from r/hatesub” on reddit it would have been a lot nicer. I don’t know why people are clamoring to keep hateful shit around. Go join the hateful shit instance if you want to read it so bad but I’d rather the users of an instance like that not be able to see me at all since queer people like me are who they hate so bad, and I can’t exactly block all of them.
while also repeatedly reporting them to Reddits suicide bot to try to make them think about suicide.
Whoa. That’s a lot more messed up than I realized. I had thought it more in line with the FB “poke and block” but that makes a lot more sense. That’s just…wow… I shouldn’t expect much from bad actors but that’s something that makes me that much more glad that I left Reddit.
I have only ever gotten suicide reports when I’ve defended trans people on reddit, meanwhile I get them almost every single time I’ve done that. It’s 100% transphobes hoping to make trans people think about suicide. I’m not trans or suicidal, so they’re wasting their time with me, but that’s the motivation behind it, hoping they might get someone in a dark place.
So I have to say I’m pretty on board with defederating from an instance that is full of posts that very much also want trans people eradicated.
Please don’t! The whole reason I made an account here is because they don’t defederate. I want to control what I read. If you have a problem with a certain instance or user, block them yourself! It’s very easy.
I don’t want to have to spin up a whole instance just for myself.
You said it better than I was going to. Keeping truthaboutjews.ru out of grandma’s feed is one thing, but I feel like I’m savvy enough to read garbage responsibly. Maybe I’m being overconfident but there it is.
Do you have the same level of confidence in children and people who are deeply mentally ill?
If you want to read far-right trash, you can set up an account on a far-right trash server, rather than insisting that everybody else on the instance tolerates them for your convenience.
Their posts might be a harmless novelty for you but for others, they’re threats of violence and celebrations of abuse.
I decided to see for myself so I could voice an informed opinion. One of the first posts I saw on their (EH) Local channel, titled Based Pride Month, is an image of a headline reading, Saudi Arabia Celebrate Pride Month by Hanging Gays with Rainbow Noose. This is hateful content. My ability to discern such has nothing to do with savvy. I don’t want to see these opinions because they are grotesque.
However, I haven’t seen ExHeads leaking out into the greater Lemmiverse. That said, I want nothing to do with anyone who considers this ok. Even if they are currently fairly contained, they have made it clear who they are and I choose not to surround myself with bigots.
I vote to defederate. We don’t need to wait for them to become a huge pain in the ass. They are showing us who they are.
So, why don’t you block it yourself? Why are you making that decision for others?
What do you think a federation is? If you don’t like the decisions of an instance you go to another one. If this instance defederates from rammy.site I’m staying, if not I’m leaving. You’re free to leave if they defederate too, and if you felt the need to leave because of it I’d be happy to have you gone.
I simply don’t understand what you gain by asking someone else to block content for you when you could simply do it yourself. You get all the benefits of not seeing the content you don’t like without imposing your will onto others.
It’s not about blocking content from my feed, it’s about the instance not relaying that content. Maybe you would feel differently if it was child porn?
Yes. I would feel different if it was child porn. However, that is completely irrelevant because that crosses a legal line. So far your only argument is that there’s content there you don’t like. Not that there’s something there that is equivalent to child pornography. Be genuine with your arguments.
I never argued there is content I don’t like (although I guess that’s implied, I don’t like it. But I also don’t like child porn?). Some of it actually is illegal, free speech has exceptions in the jurisdiction of SDF, but regardless of whether or not you believe that, I don’t understand why anyone would want to remain federated with an unmoderated instance.
How do you block an instance?
I just block whole communities. I’ve blocked most of the shitpost communities and now my feed is clean. Plus, I just stich to “subscribed” feed most of the time. It’s really easy to not see things you don’t like.
The exploding-heads troll communities are tongue in cheek, and intended to rustle your jimmies. You’re taking the bait.
Yeah, and defederating them makes it to where they can’t get the attention they want anymore.
They really aren’t already. Even the “tankies” are telling them how gay it is, that all they can think about is other people’s genitals. And the blatant troll posts rarely get above 3-5 likes and zero comments. I also notice the more sane instance members are defecting to other instances, because they want actual discussion. I’ve seen a few on here already, behaving like reasonable humans.
If there was a mass defederation, it could be argued they wouldn’t have abandoned ship for calmer water.
Then…great. If the posters who aren’t horrible are leaving then what’s the problem defederating the trolls left over?
My understanding is that if we defederated with them, they wouldn’t see our communities in their feeds. Thus, they wouldn’t know that people that just want to discuss common interests and not impotent hatred, are here at SDF, waiting for them to come be friends.
They can see it logged out, and presumably would have to already know SDF exists to get registered anyway.
Eh, I don’t think so. Browsing All, you can pretty clearly see what instance a post was made on. Consider me a missionary, because I fairly prolifically clique jump between instance posts. And what kind of psychopath would browse logged out?
Is the SDF instance not primarily SDF users? Why would random people need to join because they saw it from another instance?
There’s a lot of general purpose instances out there that aren’t full of pages of slurs, I’m pretty skeptical that people on the instance full of slurs don’t want to see those but if they don’t there’s other places they can find. Or they can find a new instance the same way any new user does, it’s weird to argue you need an unblocked account to find out where other people are talking, new users figure this out every day without leaving users here wide open to trolls who are already spewing garbage in this very thread.
And as 4chan taught us, ironic tongue-in-cheek bigotry leads to an environment where people engage in rational conversations about equitable and inclusive society.
Wait no, it leads to a cesspool of racists encouraging each other to livestream their mass shooting of “inferior” races.
You’re taking the bait of the “free marketplace of ideas”.
Seems pretty free to me. For example assuming your take, it will continue to exist even if you avert your eyes.
I don’t think you understand my take, but yes, it will continue to exist if i simply avert my eyes, however their content will reach and radicalize fewer people if they are defederated, and that means fewer people in favor of suppressing and killing minorities.
however their content will reach and radicalize fewer people if they are defederated
The bullshit part of this purity ideology is where “people” are presumed to be innocent rubes who can’t think for themselves and who will be forever tainted if they are contaminated by even a drop of Wrongthink.
I’m not interested in having my information environment manipulated by technocrats for “my own good.”
And then there’s the other not-small issue: if “their” “content” is so good at “radicalizing” “people,” maybe you should be addressing the substance of the content instead of engaging in definitionally futile campaigns to conceal its existence.
It’s only bullshit if you’re naive about human nature and ignore the entire concept of memetics.
As an example, Flat Earthers exist, and are continually indoctrinated via a whole ecosystem of blogs, videos, and online communities.
You can take some of these flat earthers, once indoctrinated, show them clear experimental evidence to the contrary, and fail at convincing them the earth is round. With enough googling you can find videos of this on youtube, it’s quite amazing to watch the denial in action in the face of clear evidence.
As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I’d rather just delete the flat earth videos than spend 20k and a weekend to launch a gopro into space to convince someone the earth is round, and still fail at convincing them because the gopro uses microchips from the globe-heads that manipulate the real flat-earth imagery into being round.
The futility is in trying to get the cat back in the bag.
And then there’s the other not-small issue: if “their” “content” is so good at “radicalizing” “people,” maybe you should be addressing the substance of the content instead of engaging in definitionally futile campaigns to conceal its existence.
This is something that has been proven beyond impractical. Hate and disinformation campaigns have been practicing a digital gish-gallop for years, which is only increasing in pace with the wide availability of LLMs and other generative AI. The bar that you propose is rather absurd and would only be remotely achievable with those acting in good faith, which hate and disinformation campaigns do not.
If you’re saying the members of exploding-heads are in favor of and encouraging killing minorities, then no, I don’t understand. And so far you’re the only one who has suggested killing minorities, so I’d argue you seem a bit extremist.
Can you provide evidence that people on these instances want to kill minorities?
Very well said. This is why I am also in favor of “defederating over political preference”.
Tolerating intolerance leads to violence but deplatforming actually does work to reduce harm.
We should defederate from hateful and abusive instances
Being intolerant to intolerance also leads to violence. More often then you think.
Would you have examples of this? Thanks!
Censoring for differences in political opinion is an obvious violation of freedom of speech. If you don’t like them, censor them for yourself. Why are you advocating what others should or shouldn’t hear?
Censoring for differences in political opinion is an obvious violation of freedom of speech
Oh no yet another freeze peach fan complaining about how somehow SDF is part of the government.
Triggered by advocacy for free speech? I have seen lots of braindead clowns like you
No, simply pointing out that people who complain that private platforms censor “”“free speech”“” as if they were somehow owed it, don’t even realize who are they complaining to.
Thanks for demonstrating!
I have repeated this argument elsewhere but I can say it again. When you are running a mainstream instance, you should be obliged to uphold every dissenting voices. Otherwise you will end up effectively censoring free speech. Your argument is extremely narrow minded
I’m sorry… well, actually I’m not; I’m rather amused. Are you being serious?
Are you saying that a major provider of an open service — like, say, a hospital, or a funerary house, for the fact of being major and open, is somehow beholden to you shouting anything you want? Such as “COVID is a hoax” or “women should not have body autonomy” kind of crap?
I could believe if it SDF, or Lemmy in general, was a service of the Press. But it’s not. Heck, even if somehow Reddit closed tomorrow and SDF became the mainline Lemmy instance, it’d still not qualify as a “public plaza”, which are the only places where you are offered freeze peach protections specifically against the government (and those protections only apply to the speech, not to its consequences).
If you go to a funerary house while they are performing a service (for their consumers, mind!) and start interrupting the rites with chants about 5G Wifi toiler-flinging COIVD bats from the CCP Intelligentsia’s Social Credits dispenser, you are not being censored when you are made to stop. You’re just being shown that you’re a jackass, and being shown the door.
How about grow the fuck up, snowflake? You can curate your own feed and create a precious, little echo chamber.
Hahaha turns out your far left campaign does not bear fruit eh, OP?
My far left campaign to defederate from an unmoderated compromised instance? Huh. I didn’t know that had anything to do with political preferences. Are you trying to tell me that the right wing advocates for unmoderated instances and disinformation?
I am adept enough to decide, at a personal usage level, which content I want to filter out. I refuse to be a part of a community that feels a need to make those decisions for me. SDF is one place where I know I shouldn’t have to worry about that. If you want to play content moderator, spin up your own instance and play god.
If they have anything interesting or non-hateful to say they’ll say it on another instance. The hate they spew is only on these instances because the admins are hateful.
If there is a vote I will vote to defederate and I’ll sleep perfectly well because the slippery slope fallacy is just that. If I want to see their hateful garbage I’ll sign up for an account there.
I’m confused… We’re talking about trying to make two fediverses here… That’s kinda weird. I hear your “don’t mix bleach with ammonia”… But if I see someone say that on Lemmy… Am I going to do it? How does it actually hurt me? I understand it’s hateful and offensive, but this is a free and open internet, and that is one big reason I choose Lemmy/Mastodon over twitter/reddit. It’s like the library… Have you ever seen something at the library you don’t like. An opposing viewpoint? Do we defund the library and close it because there’s a “gay comic book” in it? That happened in my area, very stupid. I come here for all my ideas, and expect to be offended by some. It’s the internet. Plan to be offended… By 9am. When you wake up at 8:55a. And it takes you 4 minutes to pick up your phone.
But then again I could be a crazy conservative or liberal or something… Don’t trust me.
Now where where the memes again.
This is my daily reminder that there are many people on the internet who don’t understand history. And also seemingly a lack of understanding of the word federation.
And also seemingly a lack of understanding of the word federation.
All this can be solved easily if you just go somewhere else.
Lemmy was designed for both federation and defederation. It doesn’t make sense to blindly federate with every instance in existence, if for no other reason than some of them will be full of spambots and/or illegal content.
Illegal and spambots are one thing… I just don’t want thought police on sdf. If your reason for defederation is “I don’t like them, we should make them go away.” Then maybe we are no better then the people who say those things about us.
I think that users should be able to block instances, but being able to block communities may be good enough, at least at this stage in Lemmy’s development.
Another issue with extremists is they like to orchestrate coordinated harassment campaigns against people they don’t like. If that kind of thing starts to happen (which seems likely), that would be a good reason for defederation.
“I don’t like them, we should make them go away.”
Everybody has the right to freedom of association. Nobody’s making a website “go away”. You’d still be free to go there and read their stuff on your own. I do think defederation should be a last resort, though.
Additional thought… If the people in the defederate camp just go and post things they don’t like… Maybe they defederate with us… Then we don’t stoop, and you get your wish? (I assume it goes both ways) 😜
History doesn’t show it going that way. The bad actors often take an approach similar to EEE, seeking out potential vulnerable populations of misfits to exploit. Rammy has been effectively taken over by EH users due to absent admins and maintaining federation just helps the bad actors continue to find victims.
Let’s take a look at some (US) historical examples:
- The “Gamergate” saga was coopted by bad actors to radicalize isolated young men in the online gaming community, enabled by unchecked vitriol. This led directly to communities like 4chan, which were home to shitposting internet misfits, being coopted by the far-right and repurposed as platforms for spewing hatred and sharing plans for terrorism.
- Neo-nazis coopted the fashions and musical style of hardcore punk rocker “skins” (making “skinhead” synonymous with neo-nazi and making SHARP necessary). During the 80s and 90s, said neo-nazis invaded venues, assaulting and battering attendees, while spewing forth hate. This led to not just the writing of “Nazi Punks, Fuck Off” but formation of explicitly anti-nazi bands like Reagan Youth and escalations in violence against the invaders who were trying to take over.
- Going back to the early-20th century, extremely wealthy bad actors, in what became known as The Business Plot, attempted to use neglected veterans to remove FDR from office in a coup, in order to undo The New Deal and ally the US with Axis powers. They did so by a combination of bribery and getting bad actors into their target audiences’ venues under false pretenses so that they could deliver their messages in a manner intended to elicit sympathy for their cause.
How about current events? Commercial and non-commercial entities alike are pulling away from the microblogging platform formerly-known as Twitter due to unchecked vitriol, hate, and disinformation.
Well… I visited there site… That’s… Ummm… Well… Maybe there servers can cool down by going to hell? That’s… That’s not good man. I may even have seen some sort of terrorist activity on the home page. I’m not saying I would be happy about saying this… But maybe we should defederate. Eats Humble Pie
Thank you for taking the time to look at the evidence and reevaluate. I really don’t like it myself and it’s exhausting but, due to the existence of bad actors, we have to be vigilant in order to protect our free and open venues from being subverted or complicit with their behavior.
Someone on the internet was wrong. Today it was me.
I would suggest just not subscribing to any communities on that site. Let’s not turn everything into a defederate
wardebate.
