[Discussion] Should we defederate exploding-heads.com? (Closing arguments)

Defederate them. Tolerance has limits and we have the right and, in my opinion, obligation to not tolerate the intolerant. In the words of the crustpunk bartender, "you have to nip it in the bud immediately."

Here's the story taken from a series of tweets.

I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, "no. get out."

And the dude next to me says, "hey i'm not doing anything, i'm a paying customer." and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, "out. now." and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed

Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, "you didn't see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them."

And i was like, ohok and he continues.

"you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it's always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don't want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.

And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it's too late because they're entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.

And i was like, 'oh damn.' and he said "yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people."

And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven't forgotten that at all.

I vote defederate. This isn't a question of putting up with a little fascist rhetoric on an otherwise acceptable instance. Exploding heads is exclusively fascist rhetoric, bad faith users, and spam bots.

We have nothing to gain from listening to them.

I continue to vote for defederation.

Having looked at the instance in question myself and participated in the various conversations regarding defederation for them, I can see no valuable reason to keep federation at this point.

As late as yesterday I came across (and blocked) in my feed an account with a name from exploding-heads of ihate(trans_slur) that made its anti-trans purpose on their server clear. I would be glad to privately provide the screenshot of the account in question on request as I do not want to boost visibility or post hateful content myself.

There will always be ideas I personally do not agree with, that's fine. But it seems that this conversation around this one single instance has caused much trolling, many bad faith arguments, and has been at general odds at what I perceive the server is trying to accomplish.

The new information regarding botswarming is something I was not aware of until this post. I was monitoring the general posts regarding that type of content and supporting removal of bot instances, and that does add another layer to why defederation should be considered for this instance.

For me this is an easy aye. We already defederate from Lemmygrad for tankyism. I don't see an issue with that, as that often comes with denying genocide and generally being apologetic of leaders of the past who have legislated against and killed minorities.

I don't see how a right-wing instance obsessed with Donald "very fine people on both sides" trump is any better. It simply stands to reason that if Lemmygrad is to remain defederated (and I don't see why not) then so should EH.

Defederate them. There’s no room for Nazis and fascists anywhere, ever.

After a read through a few of their communities it's clear to me the instance favors the expression of right wing extremism under the claim of free speech.

So while I'm not usually against defederation as a rule, keeping the fediverse clean unfortunately means that hateful opinions must be shut down. And in that case the admin makes it clear in his recent post they want to keep hateful posts going on.

So defederation it is.

I was also initially against defederation. I believe that to combat bigotry and hate, we need to show that those things aren't tolerated, and also why the those things are wrong. And I still believe this, however I don't believe it's the right response to EH anymore.

They are coming on to other instances and making posts like this, this, this, and this. Each one an innocuous post, but each one containing a link back to their instance.

It appears they are recruiting for their instance in the time tested way of slow exposure to radicalization.

Time to stop their spread and defederate them. And when their users come over because they like our communities, then we can combat their bigotry and hate, and ban those who won't change.

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

I think we should defederate from any alt-right or facist instance, do not give them a plataform.

I vote defedederation. This is a clear instance of "nip it in the bud". Additionally, drafting a clear code of what the terms of defedederation will entail in the future will help both users and mods. We're still new in this whole fediverse learning experience, so it's understandable that there will be challenges like this, but I personally will feel most comfortable in instances which are willing to take strong stances against bigotry and hate speech.

At first I was against defederating from them, since even though I do not agree with their viewpoints, I was of the opinion that we should not be so hasty to defederate with anyone. I thought that it was against the spirit of the Fediverse.

However, I have since changed my mind. There are three types of federation in Lemmy: allow list, block list, and open. We aren't under any obligation federate anyone that feels like spinning up an instance.

The people on that instance, including its mods and admins, are a hate group. They break the sh.itjust.works rules of being respectful and having no bigotry. The exploding-heads content has no business even reaching the sh.itjust.works server, in my opinion.

It would also be a very bad look for us for sh.itjust.works users to create an account here and begin posting on instances which break our rules.

There is also the argument that, since we federate with a Nazi instance, we are also a Nazi instance. We had the "The Donald" and "Conspiracy Theories" communities which also supported that argument. Whether you agree with it or not, this is why we have been defederated from Beehaw, one of the larger Lemmy instances.

In addition to all of the ideological arguments above, they have opened themselves up to a botswarm invasion, and I think that is itself a reason to defederate them. It's a simple security concern!

Finally, I am in disbelief we are even voting on this a second time. I would have expected the moderator team to honor the previous vote to defederate from them. Any further discussion and vote should have been to re-federate with them.

Defederate nazis!

My vote: defederate.

Exploding-heads.com is full of disgusting, hateful, toxic shit.

Besides, it's not banning, it's defederating. If you have the bad taste to want to see that bigoted dumpster fire, you can always go over there. We don't need it over here.

But we all know that the chuds aren't happy staying in their little shitholes. They want to bring the shit here even though we've plainly said we don't want it.

They want to bully, and they want to recruit new chuds. Don't let them use sh.itjust.works for that.

Deplatforming works, and that's why all the fashies are having a screaming tantrum. Fascism can't spread if the rest of us don't let them use our spaces for that.

There is no way to debate these people who have no concept of reality. They do not argue in good faith, so all they do is spread misinformation about vaccines, covid, and free elections, and hate for minorities. I think we should defederate from them.

I vote for defederation.

I'm in favour of sharing and experiencing diverse opinions but not where those opinions involve hatred and gross personal attacks on certain groups. People like this cannot be educated, cannot be persuaded, and their rhetoric causes a great deal of harm.

I would defederate.

I see no tangible benefit to associating with them. I don't see an esoteric benefit either.

If they want to be awful, but in an amplified and coordinated way, then I want no part of it.

Cancer doesn't need friends or allies.

Yes. Deport them. They're not sending their best people. They're sending their rapists and murderers.

My vote remains to defederate. Their administration are among the worst of the bad actors; to me, that is the primary issue as the admins will determine the shape of the instance. I have already pretty much abandoned this instance though, so take of that what you will. There is, in my opinion, an excessive amount of hand wringing and foot dragging over what should be a pretty easy question. As a consequence we've been flooded with very obvious apologist accounts and their bad faith arguments to protect their friends. I'd like to keep this account active but I'm deeply unimpressed with how this has all been handled and I no longer have much faith that sh.itjust.works is able to prevent itself from becoming a nazi bar.

In general I think instances this large are a mistake.

Note that since Lemmy is new, if I invite someone to this server and they see extremely racist content, they're never going to give this platform another try.

I vote for defederation.

Just looked at them, and to be honest, it is pathetic. Their uhh... interesting interpretations of the Bible, and that they dismiss the arguments of people who have the opposite political viewpoints. This, in my view, is unacceptable. They (the alt-right, which seems to be the primary users of the instance) really only want to humiliate left-of-centre people. And when humilitation is the goal, that is not an opinion, that is hate.

sh.itjust.works should not federate with (show content of) instances that is completely dismissive and hateful of a group of people.

I also think that defederation should only be used against extreme cases of botswarming, which is something that looks to be happening: 6727 total users against 108 active in the last month, and 139 in the past half-year.

Just a heads up to those walking in to this thread now: this is not a vote.

Please read the arguments for and against. Please upvote the arguments you find convincing so that they're pushed to the top. Please write a comment if you see a line of argumentation hasn't been explored or hasn't been expressed well in your opinion. This is not the vote. That will come after.

EDIT: Also, probably should have mentioned: the final vote will be for users of this instance, but the discussion phase is very much open to anybody. Please, if you're from another instance, participate.

I see nothing to be gained from remaining federated. Exploding heads doesn't offer a "diversity of opinion" or engage in good-faith debate any more than lemmygrad, and remaining federated will do nothing but fill our feeds with their low-effort hate trolling and sully our instance's reputation.

I literally just joined, and I'm still wrapping my head around how all of this works, but I'd like to say this:

No matter which way this vote goes, I really appreciate how this is being handled: An open, honest and respectful debate amongst the users is by far the best way I've seen a "social network" try to handle content moderation.

Well done people.

I vote that we should defederate. While users are able to block this content, new users seeing it will not want to stay here. If this instance does not allow hate speech, then we should not be federating with those that do.

I understand that they currently have a small amount of users, but as with all MAGA communities I am certain it will grow fast, especially if allowed to federate with larger instances where they can share their views. I fear continuing to federate with them will lead to sh.itjust.works becoming a nazi bar situation.

I do understand if this instance does not want to moderate in this way, but I believe that it will lead to many moving to a community with more strict guidelines on federation. I know I would, as no part of me wants to read hate speech when I browse all.

You can watch my opinion evolve https://sh.itjust.works/comment/468378

It is no longer "like two people or something lol".

The difference between posts and comments is large as others pointed out (way more posts) and to me this indicates they are looking more for "you need MY content in your feed (because I said so)" more than "let's discuss this content". I prefer the latter.

I am now in favor of defederating exploding heads.

If you want that content in your feed, there are plenty of ways to get it. I don't.

For what it's worth. I was looking at the server statistics on https://the-federation.info/platform/73 (linked from join-lemmy) and I noticed something. Almost all of the largest lemmy servers have far more comments than posts. The only two notable exceptions are lemmynsfw and exploding heads. They both have far more posts than comments. I'm not sure what it means, but it might be useful to someone in this discussion.

For example.

• sh.itjust.works has 5966 posts to 32670 comments
• exploding heads has 18406 posts to 5503 comments

Defederate they are not even a free speech instance. I really don't want to see them talking and making memes about children's gentiles when I sort by new.

I'm late to the discussion, but, I'd be a fan of temporary defederation until Lemmy supports users blocking entire instances. I'm not overly big on the idea of defederation in general, I feel like it hurts the fediverse overall. But I don't want to see those asshats either. I keep blocking the communities as they pop up. But it's not really my place to tell everyone else what kind of content they can and can't enjoy.

And I imagine that even on an instance that leans that way, there are probably still "normal" communities too. If the world's biggest and best "cute cat pictures" community somehow manages to spring up on an instance that also has a Nazi community, what then? If my only interaction with that instance and it's users are through cute cat pictures, and I don't ever know that the guy who posted the cat pic also happens to like swastikas and sucking camel dicks, why should I even care?

In the real world, unfortunately, the guys who like swastikas and sucking camel dicks also seem to really like telling everyone about it. So keeping them federated still gives them an ability to try to infect others. Because they definitely won't stay in their little box.

So anyways. It's hard. My preference is to leave it federated for those that want to see it, as long as there's an easy way to block it for those that don't. Since that doesn't exist just yet, I'd be for defederation for exactly as long as it takes for Lemmy to implement instance blocking at a user level. Then open it back up and everyone can make their own choice as they see fit.

+1 on defederation

I'm sick of blocking each sub and user individually as they show up on my feed

I vote to defederate. The bot swarm by itself would be enough, but the inability of individual users to block instances means that those of us who do not want to see their garbage do not have another realistic option. If Lemmy ever gives user instance-blocking, then I would reserve defederation to botting and to illegal content and allow people to choose who to associate with on their own.

I'll preface by saying I'm not a user of this instance. My opinion is that alt-right is synonymous with fascists. Giving fascists any platform will always result in their attempts to silence you and take your platform away. I think the ability to defederate with toxic communities is a blessing we shouldn't fear so much. If their ideas are acceptable, they'll find an audience. Either by being accepted by other instances, or others joining theirs. I just think it's important to be loud about the decision so that if others want to hear their beliefs, they can check them out.

I vote to defederate. Like I said before, I was looking for an Oregon community and the only one that showed up in search results was the exploding heads one, which had a long history of posts denigrating trans and homeless people. In this case, I think no content is better than awful content. I wouldn't want some Lemmy newbie joining this server and misconstruing the Oregon community federated from them as our own.

+1 Defederate. Save us the effort from blocking each of their users and communities.

In a Mastodon instance there is unidirectional communication. I can mute someone. That seems like a function that would be useful here. Is there a way to mute their instance (nothing inbound from them to my server) but they can receive from me? Why would I ask this? The minute I treat someone as though they are irredeemable, there is no reason for them to try to achieve redemption. If what we do here, all of us, is honorable, they’ll be able to see that. To some degree this can cause… Let’s call it dissension in the ranks.

We block their noise inbound to our servers, yes. But let them see the difference between what their pundits tell them, and what actually is.

Or, I may be completely wrong. I’ve been labeled an edgelord for having this position.

I'm for defederation as well. If I could block an entire instance easily I would, but that isn't an option yet.

If anyone wants to view the content on that instance, make an account. It's easy and free. There is no limit to how many instances you can join if you want to.

I think conversations about defederating instances being the top conversation day after day is going to be a major hindrance to growth.

While many love the fedeverse and the idea, a significant amount of people just want easy to find communities they can engage with, and this non stop internal politics will drive people off them.

Make a set of rules, stick to them. It shouldn't be a community vote or discussion every day.

This may be an incredibly stupid question, but don’t we, as individual users, have the option to block/mute instances we don’t want to see content from?

If so, I think that it should be left to the individual, rather than the instance.

I don’t like what I’ve seen from them, or from lemmygrad, so I tend to just ignore it.

Edit: With Memmy (iOS app), you apparently can block communities now.

So... Every bit of content I've seen from there is awful, the people seem pretty shitty and for what it's worth, I'm subscribed through lemmy.world so my opinion really shouldn't matter.

... But I don't think you should deferate them. Lemmy is new, the fediverse is new, and setting the precedent that lots of instances are willing to deferate instances basically because of political and ideological difference isn't healthy.

It sets the expectation that if you want a forum where you can speak reasonably freely, you'd better sign up somewhere where the mods and all the users share your opinions. I came to Lemmy hoping to have more personal control over how much of an echo chamber I live in, not less.

I think I will start a larger thread in the main community about what free speech means in the context of a somewhat anonymous internet. My current view is that while I want to promote openness and free speech that can really only work in a context where the person exercising their speech feels some necessity to use it responsibly and in an honest way. On the internet that takes a lot of self control because the social norms of every day life don't always apply because a) no one knows who you are b) there is not a human being right in front of you that you might feel empathy for c) there are no consequences to anything you say d) not all posts are even by humans. With all these taken together there is a compelling argument that speech may need to be more highly regulated on the internet than in face to face interactions. With the present instance we are discussing they may fit the mold as they have bots ( which don't have any right to free speech ) and posts which seem to be more focused on attacking people in bad faith rather than having honest discussion. I think the point I do want to make though is it's not the speech itself that I find that is the problem it's the methods of the speech : bots, and trollish attack posts; that I take issue with. I think that speech where the person is just mistaken, wrong, or I disagree with them should be allowed. I might change my mind on that in the future but that is my current stance.

Yeah maybe another vote, people seem very passionate about this now maybe the result will be different. I'm not pro defederating instances but I don't feel that much positive feelings over the dogswill that gets posted in exploding heads. They literally just recreated /pol/ which happens to be the dumbest board on 4chan that most people outside /pol/ hate.

I hate fascists like any sane person, but won't defederating will not only make them creating their own space? Just a thought.

Anyway, if they do, we can bomb them later. It's a "Aye" from me.

I don't know, it was pretty fun on Reddit to go to subs like globalskepticism (a sincere flat earth sub) and argue with crazies for a bit. I had a mildly interesting argument with someone anti trans on that instance. If we stay federated, we can continue to downvote hate things into oblivion so it doesn't turn into a complete echo chamber.

@imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works Question for you tangentially related to this: our prior vote on Agora voting being sh.it.heads* only - do we have an official stance on this right now? Seemed like that was the case but it was a pre-mod vote that is not listed in the results record.

Does have some bearing on how tomorrow will go down.

*("Sh.itheads" - pfft, splitters. Can't wait until we get this and the defederation policy out of the way so we can vote on the important stuff, like the term sh.it.heads being obviously superior :p)

I disagree with defederation. It shouldn't be used simply for blocking disputable instances like exploding-heads or lemmygrad. All this does is give them more arguments about censorship and remove possibility of discussions where you could argue about some information, making those people there believe what they see just on their tiny community more and more, because that's all they'll see.
I do support defederation in 2 cases:

1. The instance is filled with spammers/bots invading other instances.
2. The instance includes illegal and unethical content. (With no intention of its removal)

I vote not to defederate.