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

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.

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384 comments

I think federation should be used as a tool for combatting spam (brigading included) and dealing with instances that allow illegal content or that promote actual violence.
De-federating is not the tool to use because you don't like seeing the content in your feed, you can block the communities. De-federating isn't the tool to enforce this instances moderation rules on other instance's communities.
Brigading is certainly a concern and if their users were doing that we would need to reach out to their admin to attempt to resolve the issue. As a last resort we could de-federate to mitigate the problem.
I'm not at all defending the ideas on EH or the user's posts or comments. There are some truly disgusting opinions being represented there. I just haven't seen them cross the line into allowing violence to be planned, or allowing CSAM or spamming.
It is very important to understand that de-federation is just a global block list that is enforced on every user on this instance. It is convenient for the users to have spam instances automatically blocked and for the users to not have to worry about CSAM in their feed. Beyond that, if a user wants to read alt-right content then it isn't up to me to tell them that they cannot.
If you want to block content that is 100% up to you, nobody can tell you who you can block. In exactly the same way you should not attempt to exercise any control over another user's block list.
De-federation is just a block list. Curate your own block list otherwise let the admins remove spam and obviously illegal stuff. De-federation isn't a super downvote button an we should not use it as such.
- Promote violent content
  Does posting a meme saying "Half of trans parents commit suicide. We're halfway there!" count, for example? How violent does it need to be for your barometer?
  
  It's the difference between
  "I'm glad that person died" and;
  "I'm going to kill that person"
  Both are hideous ideas but only one is actively dangerous and illegal.
  
  Honest question, please don't misconstrue this as condescending: have you ever read about stochastic terrorism?
  
  Yes, generally in the context of a powerful person or media organization who can reach a massive group of people. The idea is that, if they can reach a large enough group of people then even incredibly rare events, like someone acting on their words, are possible.
  The common historical example given is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_turbulent_priest%3F
  
  Exactly. So my point is, are we not increasing the likelihood of discrimination and potential violence by platforming hate speech, which gives it a wider audience? Does that not count as violence for you?
  
  You make a good point.
  Perhaps what we need is a yellow card for casual acceptance of violence.
  I'm sure that many of us have had such thoughts cross our minds, or even quietly muttered it to ourselves when alone, but it's important to recognise that once we're in public or discussing issues as a group, we have a responsibility to remain level headed and consider how such thoughts could possibly prevent a more constructive solution from coming about
- A counter-aegument to your point is that EH users are using other instances to recruit and radicalize for alt-right by linking back to their instance. By not defederating, we are complicit and condone this recruitment and radicalization. These groups do advocate for violence on the regular even if not every single post does. They use dog whistles and hide behind plausible deniability and "edgy" memes to do it.
  The only to help stop their growth is to block their content.
  They are analogous to pedophiles in that an isolated pedophile who is constantly reminded how wrong their desires are is much less likely to act on them. But given the opportunity to find others like them, they will group up and conspire to commit horrible atrocities.
  The only way for a tolerant society to remain tolerant is to be intolerant of intolerance.
  
  I sort.. of see your point, but I can also say if you put me in a room of pedophiles, no amount of time spent in that room will turn me into a pedophile. I think the idea some people here are trying to express is that (and I'm going to change the analogy from pedo to antihomo) if you're in a room of people who are against homosexuality, at the very least the ones who are such for superficial reasons outside of their own resolve can be snapped out of it. The ones who truly believe that their reasoning is sound will continue to be alone in that thought.
  The very notion of having a popular platform be censored from bigotry is laughable. It will become corrupted, always. Maintaining free speech with productive conversation is no easy task, it actually requires a lot of hard work and a lot of maturity within the userbase, and because it's so difficult to have some of these conversations, people want to completely chop it off. It's understandable, but I just don't like seeing people pretending to take the high ground here. Also, the fact that we cannot leave it to users to self-defederate is concerning and disrespectful to the userbase. Where does a community get the idea that it should choose what to redact from individual users, as though the users are too stupid to make that choice for themselves?
  
  They are analogous to pedophiles in that an isolated pedophile who is constantly reminded how wrong their desires are is much less likely to act on them. But given the opportunity to find others like them, they will group up and conspire to commit horrible atrocities.
  That doesn't really work in this instance.
  De-federation doesn't remove them from their instance, it doesn't remove their instance from the Fediverse, they are free to sit and talk to other people who share their ideas and, since they're de-federated, they're cut off from anybody who could possibly tell them that they have the wrong ideas.
  There is nothing that you can do to make, for example, the EH instance not exist. De-federation doesn't make them go away, it doesn't prevent people from joining their instance, it simply blocks everyone on this instance from interacting with them. They're still posting every day, still having bad ideas, still sharing bad content.
  De-federation is just a block list that is enforced on everyone on the same instance. By asking for de-federation you're not asking for your ability to block them (you already have that ability), you're asking for the ability to force other people to block them.
  You curate your own block list, and I'll curate my own block list. De-federation doesn't exist for you to apply your idea of a good filter to everybody else that shares an instance with you.
- I don't know, you don't want your instance to slowly "degrade" to a nazi-instance (to put it harshly) while repulsing potential users that would provide constructive content. It's a balance one has to moderate, as the Internet is unfortunately not a happy place...
  You also have to view it from the point of admins (as it could be quite some work blocking individually)
  For all the users that were on this instances that provide actual constructive content, no one keeps them bound to these instances, they can just sign up on a different one...
- Please don't be naive. We've already seen where this goes. January 6 has already happened. The Club Q shooting has already happened. These are not isolated incidents. This brand of hatred is not nonviolent anymore. We should not remain passive in this case. If someone from our instance wants to read and post alt-right stuff, let them create a new account on their instance.

384 comments