Exploding-heads.com is another instance on Lemmy where alt-right MAGA types tend to reside. Some people on this server want us to defederate from them immediately, some people want to save defederation as a last resort. They have 104 active users (more stats below).
It seems that exploding-heads has also experienced a recent botswarm invasion. This is obviously another point in favor of defederating them, assuming you are worried about botswarms, which is currently being discussed here.
My advice to you all is please try to discuss this in a civil manner, we need not allow them to create divisive conflict inside our communities. No matter how the vote turns out, you’re not going to be able to defederate from your fellow sh.itheads so be nice.
I’ve linked many of the previous discussions below so people who are out of the loop can get a general sense of the situation.
https://sh.itjust.works/post/216888 https://sh.itjust.works/post/225714 https://sh.itjust.works/post/281126 https://sh.itjust.works/post/410325
Lemmy.world just recently defederated them.
https://lemmy.world/post/747912
https://lemmy.world/post/577526
Although this could be considered a point in favor of defederation, it actually means even if we vote to remain federated, people have a great alternative in lemmy.world where they can still participate in our communities and simultaneously be protected from exploding-heads.
Ensuring diversity of servers is beneficial to the platform as a whole, but it is also not our responsibility to bear that burden.
TLDR, just wrap up any last points in this thread before we open the vote tomorrow. Please be civil.
EDIT: To clarify, this isn’t the official vote, this is the final discussion. The vote thread will be posted tomorrow and you will only be allowed to make a single comment saying Aye or Nay.
EDIT2: Vote thread is up, this thread is now locked. Very lively discussion thread sh.itheads. Please try to be more respectful next time.
I initially was against defederation. I went over there today and I’ve changed my mind. It’s a trash heap of right wing extremist links. Dailymail, dailycaller, blaze, brietbart. It’s every bit as ideologically motivated in the extreme right wing direction as lemmygrad is in the extreme left wing direction.
They are also calling for people to make alts and vote over here, so be aware. May want to check activity of posters when this vote finally goes down and check for low effort accounts that only voted and commented since today.
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In the longer term, I’d like to see rules that define when we will defederate an instance so that we don’t have to discuss it on an instance by instance basis. Or maybe we will want to have a grey area for discussion, and a red line that results in instant-defederation. Either way it’d be nice to have that info posted publicly.
FWIW it seems like exploding heads has plenty of content that would break rules, is generating more all the time, and their admin has no interest in moderating it
If I were to write such a standing policy for defederation, I think it would read something like this:
Admins of sh.itjust.works shall defederate with another instance immediately when that instance:
Admins or members of sh.itjust.works may call a member vote in the Agora on the matter of defederating when another instance when that instance:
I’m not sure how much value a “me too” has over just upvoting, but I broadly agree with the thrust of this proposal.
I particularly support the “just do it” approach for the blatant transgressors, otherwise we’ll end up in a spiral of constant debate and empower those who will seek to delay it to prevent consquences for unethical activities.
This is way outside the scope of the current discussion, but I really hope you save this for later. With a few very minor tweaks, I would wholeheartedly shout it from the rooftops. In its current form, I would heartily endorse it.
I mean, I sure as hell saved it. This is a very solid base to work from.
I am hoping a discussion on setting federation policy comes up, and I will propose the above policies in that discussion.
For the immediate topic at hand - defederation with exploding_heads - from what I see I would defederate on the basis of my own rule 4. Glancing at the homepage I found multiple examples of bigoted language, and it seems to be welcome there. So, I am in favor of defederation and will be voting aye.
Is it sufficient for calling it “primarily” set up for such a purpose? (that’s devil’s advocate now, because what means “primarily” would need to be specified more closely)
I’m from another instance but interested in the topic.
Appreciate your proposal! Just because it is a proposal. It’s much easier to talk about things with concrete examples.
Now to my question: Why the “primarily for the purpose”? If the acts/crimes layed out in #2 and #3 were ‘just’ secondary purposes, would that make it any better?
Similarly, I wonder about #1 and #2 if “operated for the purpose” really catches your intention. Say the instance is operated for the purpose of sharing cat pics, as layed out in the instance description, but the admin just looks the other way when bot accounts take over and ads are posted to other instances.
I guess my line of reasoning is, the intention or purpose does not matter much. Specifically, the declared intention and purpose does not matter much. If it acts like a bad actor, treat it like a bad actor.
I would hope to debate that kind of phraseology in a discussion thread for adopting a standing policy, as @Barbarian points out, we’re outside the scope of this particular thread.
The main ideas in my head were to avoid constant defederations the second one problematic community pops up as was the case in our own recent the_donald incident. If my understanding of events was right, one or two users joined up and created a community, and by the time our own admin team removed the community (and I believe those member accounts) some other instances were either talking about or had actually defederated us. I don’t know if throwing away a baby every time you notice some bath water like that is healthy for the fediverse; I think that’s what blocking individual users or communities as members is there for.
I was generally trying to empower our admins to unilaterally defederate for the obvious “oh yeah this is an ad spam instance, it’s 13 hours old and they’ve sent out 300,000 comments about “offshore c1alis” so we can just go ahead and defed them.” I see no need for a week of deliberation and a week of voting on that matter. I think #1 in the second section covers the case of “It started out as a cat memes instance but the admin isn’t enforcing their rules about spam bots.”
I do think you have a point about divorcing intent from behavior though; if for no other reason than to deny ammunition to the incessant whatabouters that seem to swarm around topics like this.
I’m not sure if others mind, I understood the OP as an invitation to thoroughly discuss the topic. But I think we’re pretty much in consensus anyways.
Agreed, this would be too early for defederation, a too low threshold. I think we generally agree about what should be done. At this point, it revolves around what the right wording is to express the idea. Or at which scale of the spectrum from ‘hardly noticable’ to ‘it’s everywhere’ a defederation would be appropriate.
You’re right, sorry I forgot about that when writing my comment.
Thanks. Yes, that’s also something to keep in mind. Maybe it isn’t too wise to lay out the rules too strict and explicit. They will game it. So again it is about striking a balance between ‘we simply do what we find reasonable without any reasons given’ and ‘here are the exact rules by which we defederate’ (aka a detailed guide how to avoid it while still doing your thing).
And while I have a tendency to structure such things like the FARs, I don’t know how “Part 61 §52(A)(1)© clearly states that…” we need to get.
Sounds understandable…
Hear, hear!
How do you define that?
Many people consider their opponents to be political extremists. Many on the right wing would argue that BLM protesters were political extremists. They had confrontations with police, there was some destruction of property at BLM protests. Or, what about the protests / riots in France over pensions? Or the convoy protests in Ottawa, Canada?
In my mind there’s a definite difference between BLM protests and say the Jan 6 insurrection, but it would be really hard to find an objective definition that included the “good” radical protests and excluded the “bad” ones.
They literally included it in the second part of the sentence you left out
You’re literally “whatabouting” this, no need put strawmen in here
You don’t seem to know what “whatabouting” means.
Yes, I’m asking whether riots in France or BLM protests count as political extremism. Does rampant bigotry against pro-life protesters count?
“good is a point of view” --Darth Sidious.
For the purposes of this discussion I’m deliberately not picking sides; “Let’s go kill some of our political opponents” has no place on this platform.
The bar was set at “rampant bigotry”, not “let’s go kill some of our political opponents”.
Does rampant bigotry against billionaires count?
If you can’t advocate for killing billionaires on this platform I’m really not interested in it. How are we supposed to solve any of our problems without violent uprising? That advocates that we keep living in this shitty status quo forever.
Angy upvote. But the violent uprisings were rarely successful, mostly because the new leaders would just be violent again. Realising better ideas is successful.
I am keeping an eye on that. I banned @safeword because it was a clear example of that. Please notify us if you see any others.
I felt the same way. Generally I’m quite against defederation, but took a look as well. At best they aren’t contributing anything of value, at worst they’re just incredibly toxic.
For me personally, that would be repeated calls to violence or general hatred of a group of people without moderator or admin action within a reasonable period of time.
Outside of the scope of this discussion of course, but that’s where I stand.
I’ve reported multiple users multiple times from exploding-heads for such behavior (against trans people). The admin of exploding heads has been documented as saying that’s fine (though I’d have to go find that thread again). That instance is not moderated to a standard of decency, and its active users have developed a reputation for raiding
Completely agree, which is why I’ve been pro-defederation in this thread.
In your circle maybe the current trans narrative is an accepted norm. On a global scale, there are far more places it would be completely and utterly unacceptable in any way than those that embrace it.
When you start trying to shape the online world in your own image, according to your own beliefs by excluding people from the discourse, you are being just as exclusionary as the anti-trans brigade.
Who died and made you the arbitrator of acceptable speech? Why are you so sensitive to coexisting with those that hold different beliefs? Is this a uniquely American experience, and why your Dems and Republicans can’t manage to be civil to each other any longer?
You seem to believe you can control other people’s thoughts. You can’t. Banning people just results in 2 seperate echo chambers and an amplification of both perspectives to the extreme. It’s dumb. Just accept that there are going to be people in any shared space that you do not like.
Yes, the total opposites of “Let them lead their lives how they choose” and “They aren’t living how we say they should, we should drive them out or kill them.”
Nice try at making an argument, but you’re terrible at this.
Take your own advice.
I live my truth. I already don’t like you at all, and I’d wager I’d hate almost everything that you stand for if we ever met.
The difference is I would never advocate to ban or block your uncanny ability to jump straight to personal attacks when you don’t like what’s been said.
Haha oh and your a sell proclaimed master of political reddit babbling, slap that on your resume. As well, you were just putting words in his mouth and simplifying a complex argument to the boogy man narrative in your head so I wouldnt quit your day job just yet.
Hahahahaha, you really misquoted me and changed you’re to your. When my comment is right there, for anyone to see. 😉 👍
Copy and paste is your friend. Proofreading, too.
This isn’t about thoughts, but actions.
Sure, like there are social rules in any shared space that you just have to accept if you want to share that space.
It’s one thing to express a different opinion, it’s a whole other beast to call for violence or express hatred.
Perhaps a special place like a garden community where ambassadors can visit and discuss stuff would work…