this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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Following the announcement by beehaw admins to defederate from lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works, there has been many posts and messages regarding that decisions and what other instances will do.

I personally believe Lemmy/kbin can only thrive if there is a free flow of content between different instances, with instance admins taking a back seat and focusing more on the infrastructure and making sure the technical bugs are smoothened out. Community mods can moderate their communities, and users can block the communities they don't find appealing (there's even a toggle in settings to hide every NSFW post from your feed altogether).

We don't want to create walled gardens, nor do we want to make Lemmy more confusing than it already is for new users. We will not be defederating from any instance if there is even one good community on it that our instance users might find useful. So far we have only blocked lemmygrad.ml, and right now we have no plans to block anyone else.

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[โ€“] Joker@lemmy.fmhy.ml 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I will say that I sometimes like to visit controversial communities due to curiosity, and to be amazed at all the insane and braindead things people say. Furthermore, I don't like living in a bubble, and knowing what people I disagree with say/think is important to forming well-informed opinions. So sometimes I do like to subscribe to communities on even places like lemmygrad just for those reasons. It's annoying when instances block controversial instances, because controversy often interesting and very lurkable. I understand why those places are blocked, and I definitely don't want to see fascist bs on my feed all the time. But I wish I could have the best of both worlds.

I wanna decide what I get to see. It would be cool if the instances could be blocked on a followers-only basis. Like, blocked for the all feeds, blocked in general. But not for me if I follow it.

I actually chose this instance in large part because it only blocks one other one lol

[โ€“] tehmics@lemmy.fmhy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

I'll echo this sentiment. I also lurk communities that I don't agree with, and I want to see dissenting views. I find that heavy moderation often just leads to echo chambers where real issues can be kicked under the rug

[โ€“] Tb0n3@lemmy.fmhy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Are we not capable of hiding things we don't want to see on Lemmy ourselves? Why would I want to be babysat by anyone when I can make adult choices on what I want to see my own damn self? Censorship was what ruined Reddit years ago. Leave it entirely up to the users.

[โ€“] Rottcodd@lemmy.one 26 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I just want to be able to control what I see. I have no desire to control what other people see and I sure as fuck don't want other people to control what I see.

That's it. That's my entire position on the matter.

[โ€“] JasSmith@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I am dismayed with how many people want to control what others can see.

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[โ€“] knife@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

thank you for not being a drama queen and railroading this whole thing by leveraging the small amount of power you have to make some bullshit point about your social views.

[โ€“] Watcher@discuss.tchncs.de 19 points 1 year ago (9 children)

In my point of view it's a kind of censorship. Just let the user himself decide what he wants to see.

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[โ€“] dart@lemmy.fmhy.ml 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Just throwing my opinion in... Since we can block communities on our own, we don't really need someone to decide which to block for us. I mean, it's not my instance, so you can do whatever you want, and I actually might've decided to block lemmygrad.ml myself, but I'd still rather see the posts and make that determination myself.

[โ€“] amcjv12@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Completely agree with this. I can block anything I don't want to see, and I'd rather not have someone else decide that for me

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I think the issue here people posting things in BeeHaw's communities that they don't want. The only way to stop that is to block users on a case by case basis, and since people can create unlimited free accounts this is ineffective given the low numbers of mods they have. The only way to work around this was to ban the two instances that had the most bad actors and easy registration.

I have floated the idea of a whitelist of users for their communities, but have been informed this isn't supported by Lemmy at the moment.

[โ€“] tartarsauce@lemmy.fmhy.ml 15 points 1 year ago

I very much appreciate this philosophy. It looks like this is the right instance for me :)

[โ€“] OldGitPhil@feddit.uk 14 points 1 year ago

The problem at the moment is that the community moderation tools are pretty limited. At some point there will be coordinated attacks on some communities and the moderation tools are not yet sufficient to defend against that sort of thing.

[โ€“] FermatsLastAccount@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So far we have only blocked lemmygrad.ml, and right now we have no plans to block anyone else.

Why is lemmygrad blocked, but not exploding heads?

[โ€“] mambabasa@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because lemmygrad is a tankie hellhole. They support all kinds of authoritarian nonsense.

[โ€“] Mac@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That doesn't answer the question.

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[โ€“] ondoyant@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

I think that structures that permit people and communities to do literally whatever they want is how lemmy can thrive. The people in beehaw (myself included) are on the whole perfectly chill with the defederation, and the specific reasons and conditions for that defederation. The admins have been open about the fact that they want more moderation tools for our community before refederating with those instances, it isn't a permanent state of affairs. I like beehaw. Its chill. Maybe other people wouldn't like that, but then maybe just don't host your account there? There are tons of other places to be. This isn't reddit, if you aren't inside beehaw, its management doesn't affect you.

Except for the fact that defederating is bidirectional at the moment. It would be nice if the platform's defederation and the user's defederation were less tied together, but as far as I can tell, the beehaw admins only defederated because there wasn't a compromise between "do nothing" and "ban everything" available to them.

[โ€“] Otome-chan@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

as a kbinaut, may I ask why everyone feels it's important to block lemmygrad? here on kbin we're still federated with them and things seem fine?

[โ€“] 0x4E4F@lemmy.fmhy.ml 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (25 children)

Because basically, everyone got scared from them being communists/socialists and just decided to defederate from them.

It's nothing more than fear based on years of propaganda pushed by western countries, nothing more. They don't defederate from anyone, yet everyone feels the need to defederate from them. Yes, they do have leftist views, they do think the world of many current and ex communist leaders, but if you don't like that, you can just block their communities ๐Ÿคท.

Other than that, their communites are mostly like everyone else's, politics, memes, piracy, comics, etc. They even have a few LGBTQ+ dedicated communities and about 20% of them are LGBTQ+ acording to a recent demographic survey they had (you can find it in their main community), so... basically, they're human, just like the rest of us.

Many of them are well informed, not to mention highly educated, so I can see why there is fear amongst other instances - a debate starts, most people will flop regarding info, facts, whatever, they'll have the upper hand in the debate, so why actually try and listen to what they've got to say, they're just tankies anyway - defederate ๐Ÿคท.

If you don't like their communities, just block them, no need to defederate from them... at least I can't see a reason.

[โ€“] areyouevenreal@lemmy.fmhy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (8 children)

They support North Korea for goodness sake. Being communists isn't the problem, it's that they support fascist dictatorships pretending to be communist.

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[โ€“] coolin@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lemmygrad is specifically problematic for being predominantly Marxist Leninist (as the .ml suggests). I think you're probably right that people just reject them outright because of AH THE COMMUNISTS WANT TO END CAPITALISM red scare type stuff present in Western countries, but where I specifically find Lemmygrad (and other tankies) being way too negative to interact with is when they get into defending Communist regimes.

If you asked the average Lemmygrad user, they too would be enveloped in propaganda, though this time coming from communist regimes and praxis they've read. They have been deluded into believing Stalin and Mao were good leaders, that authoritarianism is okay if it advances their favorite political agenda (though for some reason also claim that these countries aren't authoritarian), and that these regimes should be implemented everywhere.

The worst of it all is their constant genocide denial. Yes, the USA and other Western countries have done a similar amount (maybe even more?) of really bad stuff in this area (e.g. natives, apartheids, roma, etc. ๐Ÿ’€), but I think broadly a well educated Western citizen, especially a leftist one, should be able to understand and admit that what their country did was wrong and should never be done again. A Lemmygrad user instead defends things like the Uighur genocide and Holodomor, saying both that they don't exist and are "western propaganda" while at the same time entertaining the counterfactual and saying if they did happen it was justified because the West did it too and they were being very mean to communism ๐Ÿ˜ก.

When you get to that level of malevolent stupidity, you start to look more and more like a fascist that supports genocide and absolute power of the state and that uses strategic ambiguity to express your toxic beliefs, than you do a leftist. I don't think anyone suggests we stay federated with a fascist instance because fascists are misunderstood after "years of propaganda pushed by western countries" to discredit Hitler and Mussolini, but here you are doing the moral equivalent.

[โ€“] 0x4E4F@lemmy.fmhy.ml 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If you asked the average Lemmygrad user, they too would be enveloped in propaganda, though this time coming from communist regimes and praxis they've read.

Of course, that is how you spread ideas, through propaganda. That is how western countries did it as well. That is how we got here, to Lemmy, lol.

They have been deluded into believing Stalin and Mao were good leaders, that authoritarianism is okay if it advances their favorite political agenda (though for some reason also claim that these countries aren't authoritarian), and that these regimes should be implemented everywhere.

I have seen people judge, but have never experienced what it would be like living under the ruling of a benevolent dictator. I'm not saying Stalin or Mao were like that, I'm saying that I live in a country that used to be socialist and had a dictator like that... trust me when I say this, we were better of with what we had previously.

So, please first experiece first had what it is to live in both types of societies before you judge. Every story has 2 sides, so does this one.

The worst of it all is their constant genocide denial. Yes, the USA and other Western countries have done a similar amount (maybe even more?) of really bad stuff in this area (e.g. natives, apartheids, roma, etc. ๐Ÿ’€), but I think broadly a well educated Western citizen, especially a leftist one, should be able to understand and admit that what their country did was wrong and should never be done again.

I don't think any of them actually deny that. They usually just compare those acts with what western countries have done. Go on and have a talk with them, none of them deny that. They know that they did terrible things, but try and debunk the western theories "russia bad, usa good"... thay all have sceletons in their closets, there is no denying that. You can't keep an empire as large as the US or USSR afloat and not have done any bad deed to anyone, that's just nuts. There will always be collateral damage.

George Washington was pro slavery, yet he's still praised and printed on bills, right? So that's normal, but this isn't, lol.

A Lemmygrad user instead defends things like the Uighur genocide and Holodomor, saying both that they don't exist and are "western propaganda" while at the same time entertaining the counterfactual and saying if they did happen it was justified because the West did it too and they were being very mean to communism ๐Ÿ˜ก.

Denying it is not OK. But, I get their stand point - the US denies doing soooo many things, why should we be any different ๐Ÿคท. They're cutting slack, why not us.

I still haven't seen anyone deny those tjings, but if I do, even though I am a socialist by beliefs, I will most definitely confront them. Their beliefs are not mine and I would rather have the truth out than hide it under the carpet. BUT, the whole truth, not just one side of it. Let's take everyone's dirty laundry out, not just the USSRs or USes, both of them. Because people usually think that bodies are piled up on only side of the lawn, which is a lie of course.

When you get to that level of malevolent stupidity, you start to look more and more like a fascist that supports genocide and absolute power of the state and that uses strategic ambiguity to express your toxic beliefs, than you do a leftist.

Expressing absolute power in a state can sometimes be a good thing. Depends on a lot of things, but in certain countries/federations, it just works. I could state examples here, my own country being one of them, but it'll just be too long of a post.

And you percieve them as toxic, I don't. Why? IDK, I just don't ๐Ÿคท. Maybe it's because my own beliefs allign in 90% of theirs.

Defederating is the issue here, not the content of that instance. You don't like something, fine, block it. Lemmy has that option. I block communies I don't like all the time, I have about 20 blocked ao far, why is that so hard, I really have bo idea.

I don't think anyone suggests we stay federated with a fascist instance because fascists are misunderstood after "years of propaganda pushed by western countries" to discredit Hitler and Mussolini, but here you are doing the moral equivalent.

I couldn't care less if anyone stays federated with a faschist instance or not. It doesn't make 1 single bit of difference. I don't like it? I block it. It really is THAT simple ๐Ÿคฆ.

In fact, I would even like to be federated with a faschist instance. Why? Meeh, might unblock it from time to time, just to troll them and get on their nerves.

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Thx admin chief ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ‘

[โ€“] HonorableScythe@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I sort of agree, but I also know that as Lemmy becomes more popular, defederating will become necessary as trolls and hate groups open instances. It's a problem on Mastodon. A trans friend there posted about her experience bra shopping and a bunch of transphobes from other Mastodon servers came in to attack her, including an admin of one server who called her a slur and told her to stop reporting because they'd never remove anything hateful towards trans people.

On a centralized service like Reddit, hate subs can just be quarantined by the admins or removed wholesale. With a decentralized service, every instance will need to defederate those groups to keep them out. There's no way to bar them from making a new server.

[โ€“] dreadgoat@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's important to choose your home wisely.

I have an account here on kbin.social, but I also wanted a dedicated lemmy account. I chose fmhy because it aligns with what I want: hearing every voice, for better or for worse. I considered beehaw due to their large gaming community, but I read about their philosophy and saw that they were trying to create more of a safe space for their users (suspicion recently confirmed). If someone wants a more positive experience without having to worry about trolling and harassment, beehaw would be the better choice. I am personally fine with treading through sludge to find hidden gems, so I made my own choice.

Bear in mind that defederation ~~isn't bidirectional. If beehaw decides to defederate fmhy, I don't care, I can still see gaming@beehaw and interact with users that live on instances still federated with my own. But the beehaw users are safe from from troll-friendly hosts, so everybody wins.~~ This isn't true, as pointed out by zinklog. It can still be worked around by having accounts in multiple places, but even with the eventual account migration feature, this makes it impossible for anyone to see everything in any one place. Maybe this can be fixed in the future, as the fediverse continues to develop?

To directly map it to the example of your friend, if she chose to live on an instance more like beehaw, she would still be able to interact with the federated community at large, but be better shielded. If someone tried to throw slurs at her from an instance with a lower standard, she wouldn't see it at all, and the person delivering the slurs likely wouldn't even realize it.

[โ€“] zinklog@lemmy.fmhy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Correct me if I'm wrong but it's my understanding that defederation is in fact bidirectional. lemmy.world can't see new posts from beehaw after the announcement.

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[โ€“] inventa@lemmy.fmhy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks for this. It's recomforting and makes me thing I chose the right instance to sign up

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