2y ago

Vote

guess I gotta make a post for this over here. Do we defederate with exploding-heads.com

My primary argument is that they post hateful content and covid conspiracies and it is irresponsible to platform this by including it in our federation. Secondly we already got rid of lemmygrad. Thirdly, there's little to be lost in the defederation given the type of stuff being posted over there. Do as thou wilt

Aye and nays pls

Edit: putting the screencaps I posted below here for clarity

I should probably put a content warning so

CW: homophobia, transphobia, and just being a shithead.

Edit 2: let's try not to downvote people just saying nay. Unless they are making bad faith arguments we should respect their opinions even if we disagree.

Edit 3: Imma be real with y'all, this has been a real shitshow. We gotta work out some kinda single voting infrastructure because the ayes and Nays isn't efficient at all.

109 comments

I guess I'll be one of the first.
Nay, for now.
Defederation should be the last option. After we have exhausted all other options. Because it's the exchange of ideas, and exposure to other viewpoints, that helps reduce bigotry and hatred.
I'm well aware that a fascist is gonna fascist, no matter what someone tells them. There is no reasoning with them or trying to have a discourse with them because they only want to frustrate you. Those users should be blocked, or better, banned from our instance if possible. But there will be other users of that instance who are regular folk who simply like the idea of free speech. They should not be cut off and left to be turned by the fascists.

Nay. Just block the instance for your own account if you feel offended. I wholeheartedly agree with you on the examples you've shown us. However, this does not warrant censorship for one. And on the other side, if no one is able to convince them due to deplatforming, things won't ever get better. Thus: Nay.
- Can whole instances be blocked on Lemmy? I thought only users/communities were possible atm.
  
  They cannot
- Things will get better if they can't share their message all over the place though.
  A good example of that is Maxime Bernier (leader of the PPC,a political party in Canada) who has seen his support disappear after media stopped having the "obligation" to cover him because of election rules. His message lost its reach and now he's doing live feeds in front of a couple hundreds instead of thousands.
  Why wait until it becomes an issue instead of taking preventive measures if we've seen it becomes an issue on many platforms?
  
  Oh, you're making this same argument here as well.
  This should be easy, I'll just copy-paste my replies since you are also copy-pasting your replies (which is a little weird and sus).
  Bernier and the PPC is an entire political party running for an election, not an internet community on a niche website that barely gets 20 different users.

Aye. Don't platform dog whistling.
Edit: Actually I had an experience as a result of exploding-heads because I was looking for an Oregon community and came across their oregon one (archive link), which included demonizing homeless and trans people. I ended up blocking it. This isn't just a bandwagon. I don't want others on this instance to be lured into those hateful rabbit holes. I ended up joining the PNW community on lemmy.world

No, if the users are spamming this server then block them. I don’t like the idea of blocking jerks just cause they’re jerks on their own server
- They're not just jerks on their own server and the goal is to prevent the jerkification of our instance over time.

Nay. I don't like what they're doing over there, but I don't think defederating is the right thing to do.
Other people have already said what I was thinking: "Defederation should be the last option", "You have a block list, curate your own filter bubble", "we ourselves have felt what it is like", etc.

No. I've never seen an Exploding-Heads user on any other instance except for one guy who made an account purely to dissent on their instance.

Aye.
I had given my reasons previously, but I prefer not to platform bigotry.
If there was a way to reason against this kind of thing, reason could be used.
It can't.

Aye, and here's why. Exploding heads are not coming into our space and having discussions in good faith. They are acting as a troll farm and being abusive toward our members, and generally not following the rules of the road laid out for our instance. "Beehaw defederated us and I didn't like it" isn't a valid argument as this is a different situation. Beehaw defederated from here because they couldn't deal with the scale of moderating all the traffic coming from here which including abusive troll accounts. Exploding Heads is going by the alt right playbook and is almost exclusively being abusive, even if it's a small number of people.
And it is noticable. I see some people arguing that individuals who don't like that instance should just block it themselves, but that's not an available function of the threadiverse yet. You're saying that our server at large should endure abuse coming from that server because someday the functionality may be implemented for individuals to handle it themselves. I don't think this is a good moderation strategy and will only allow abusive actors to find foothold.

No.
You are not 'deplatforming' them by de-federating. They still have a platform, they still have communities and they still can post there. You can't deplatform people in a federated social media, they own their own instance. What you're asking is for the site admins to add every EH user and community to the block list of everyone on this instance. I'm an adult, I don't need a Big Brother deciding what I can and cannot see.
Save de-federation for last resort issues that cannot possibly be resolved in any other way. If an instance is spamming, if an instance is being used for planning violence, if an instance is allowing the sharing of abusive images or illegal material, if an instance is coordinating harassment (doxing, SWATing, etc) then de-federate them.
De-federation should not be used to create filter bubbles. You have a block list, curate your own filter bubble. Don't try to enforce your block list on everyone else.
It's also worth noting that, outside of the the 4th and 5th images, none of the posts in those images would even be considered breaking a rule if posted on this instance. You're, for the most part, just posting right-wing posts which makes this appear like you're trying to push a political position.
- They're not right wing posts they're alt-right posts, there's a difference there and it's a major one and the best way to keep that movement from spreading is to not let people be in contact with it.
  
  Please don't try to protect people from opinions. Eventually they find out and feel lied to.

Nay
I think Contextual Idiot said it best - 'Defederation should be the last option. After we have exhausted all other options. Because it’s the exchange of ideas, and exposure to other viewpoints, that helps reduce bigotry and hatred.'
- That only works if the other party is open to the exchange of ideas and doesn't just double down instead.
  Do we really need to wait until it becomes a major issue or can we just learn from all other platforms that lost control and take measures before that happens?
  
  Ironic hearing that from you.
  I know from experience that you personally are not at all open to exchanging ideas.

Nay.
Having shitty opinions is not an adequate basis to defederate them. I believe defederation should be a last resort.
There is a very clear way to justify defederation. Namely, if another instance is preventing our instance from flourishing. But unless the server is actively causing harm to our users and communities, why is it necessary? Simply block them if you want.
When people ask me why we defederated them, I would like to have a good answer.

Aye, after seeing the pictures this instance could very easily get into trouble for hosting that kind of content. Keep in mind that the site is not hosted in the US, but Canada.

Nay. Not as long as they aren't causing trouble here. By the way, your screenshots show, among others, a user from this very instance pushing back against their narrative, which is exactly what I would ecourage to do. If they start banning people for simply being critical, then we can have the discussion about defederating again.

I think I'm a nay - I'm torn. Basically I don't want to play the only ace card we have... Seems like an escalation, but I'm also qualified n00b and struggling to see how they're leaking across - other than with inflammatory replies

Nay. Let's keep censorship to a minimum. No bubbles.

nay, down vote and move on. if it really bothers you, unsubscribe/block. defederate only if they start brigading and normal mod controls stop working, if it's just a few bad actors should be easy enough to ban them

Aye, nothing lost from defederating them

Nay.

Aye. Cut out the infection before it spreads

Aye.
After reviewing the instance myself, their federation creates risks for this server falling afoul of the Criminal Code of Canada and the Canadian Human Rights Act.
I understand defederation is a nuclear option, and wait anxiously for improved tools for users to block posts from entire instances if so desired, but I see no benefit in our being federated with this specific instance.

EDITED
I've changed my mind. I vote:
Aye.
I initially voted the other way, as I don't agree with the content there, but I didn't think that defederating should be our first action. I still believe that, but this instance has now proved to me that it is extremely toxic. See this post: https://lemmy.world/post/747912
And additionally, many folks will use the fact that we do not defederate from such a community as justification to defederate from us.

Our federation? Is that like our Internet?

I'm going to agree with contextual idiot
Nay
Mainly because we ourselves have felt what it is like to be defederation because of others on our instance. There could very well be normal upstairs people hosted on that instance that never interacts with their instances community itself.
If we defederate we risk them getting stuck in an eco chamber and potentially become exactly like the rest of them. And then that also brings up the same issue. The ones that are already bigots, if put into an echo chamber are going to think they are correct and are going to become bigger bigots. We won't ever see it but the people in their day to day life will.
- And you think letting them take part in discussions here won't make users outside their instance convert? The more they can spread their message the more people join their cause and more join then leave. Sure some are already over there and don't believe their bs, there's a lot less of them than potential converts on Lemmy at large.
  
  Don't be afraid of their "arguments".
  
  But are they coming to this instance in any significant capacity? If they keep their discussions/trolling off of this instance then I don't see any benefit. Individuals can already block the instance on their own accounts.

Withdrawn.
There's some content I find deplorable here but I'm no longer convinced that defederation is a healthy tactic to wield like a cudgel in this way. I'm comfortable deciding for myself what content I will and will not see. I think others should be extended the same freedom.

Nay. You're gonna encounter these people IRL. It's better to prepare yourself in a low stake environment like an internet forum.

Nya. Just block them as I'm blocking stuff that I don't want to see. This function is there for something. Defederating is as extrem as the posts they are making

OP, as this seems to be almost exclusively discussion, and there's currently a discussion about how we should split things between discussion & votes, maybe you could retitle this as a Discussion and hold a proper vote after a day or two of convincing people here? If you want to ofc, those formats haven't been voted on yet.
I do agree with your cause, but with how much of a touchy subject defederation is, it's an excellent test-bed for doing things in as transparent and as rigorous a method as possible.

Aye. Looks like this instance is not very nice.

Aye.
At best it's clickbait trash. At worst it's the garbage OP highlighted.

Aye
Going forward, will be necessary to articulate standards and processes for defederation, to avoid having to relitigate the concepts of free speech, hate speech, etc. every time.
- Created a separate [Discussion] post for general defederation standards.
  It will be important to articulate what standards are intended to be applied to instances generally; it's not just about the particularly awful vibes of this particular one. There will be dozens or hundreds more like it, not to mention the spammers and whatnot.

Nay. Bc even though it is bad, it doesn't seem necessary. As long as their users don't break the rules over here anyway

Nay
I am going to say Nay because I haven't seen any of this content organically surfaced to me, and I browse all > new all the time. In fact Im on lemmy a lot right now. That says to me that the fediverse community is doing a good job of downvoting this content.
My fear is that this style of argument will be used to censor any community that has enough motivated haters, thus anything controversial. Going over to a community and finding bad examples of behavior is going to be possible on nearly every federated instance. I bet I could do it with this instance, in fact.
I am open to changing my view if people can point me to a style of browsing lemmy that is organically surfacing this content a lot. I understand that over time we may identify certain instances that are really just troll farms. I just feel its too soon to be doing this and that the response is a sledgehammer against a fly.

Nay.
All that stuff is basically 0 comment and 0 up vote. It doesn't look like you would end up stumbling in that stuff as trending or whatnot. Unless your subscribed to it or looking to be offended it looks like a non issue. I've yet to see anything from them other then in these complaint threads.
I'm sure there is offensive content everywhere if you really look for it. Even here hence the whole beehaw thing.
I don't think we should defederate to control what other folks expose themselves to. If they were brigading other instances or butting in to be a direct nuisance that would be a different story.

Nay
if this becomes a problem we can still deal with it. But at this moment, i never came across gross content from their instance (apart from this discussion), nor did i encounter users from this instance being annoying.
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This may be inaccurate as I am not yet familiar with how the Federation works:
They build a village where they can behave however they want, so as long as they don't do it in our village, or do it to an annoying extent in neighbouring villages that we both visit, I don't see any need for action.
Just don't visit them.
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Lastly, we should really work out the details of the voting mechanism before voting on such topics

~~Overall~~ Aye, but I'd like to see some incriminating evidence of what we'd be blocking as an explanation and a warning before we do it. Pics, text posts can be banned and deleted.
Edit: Aye

Nay.

Could we have some links to examples so everyone can get an informed view of the kind of content you're talking about? I don't browse that instance normally.
- https://exploding-heads.com/comment/95292
  https://lemmy.world/post/279473
  The links are from other instances but are replies on our instance, the second one if from a lemmy.world user that is then shown to be a exploding-heads user.

Nay! This is arbitrary censorship of an entire instance because they host content that disagrees with you. The support for such a measure here is more disturbing than the content itself.

109 comments