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.

  • OptimistPrime@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • yobama@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      That’s litterally what he tried to do here. This is the admin trying to seem “decent” and saying that he is being “harassed” by people who want to defederate just because he is “right wing”. Saying that exploding-heads.com only has 2 communities where “actual free speech” is allowed. But the problem is a lot deeper than that.

      There’s a few steps between right wingers, racists and nazis but he is giving a platform to the absolute worst and I call him out on that. And I will continue to do so.

      https://sh.itjust.works/post/571413

      And if you haven’t read it, OP posted the Lemmy World admin response to the defederation with some more examples of what they are like.

    • Difficult_Bit_1339@sh.itjust.worksM
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      1 year ago

      The problem with the Nazi Bar analogy in relation to de-federation is that we’re not running their bar. They’re running their own bar and we’re just another bar on the same planet. Nothing we can do will cause their bar to shut down, nothing we can do will cause users to not be able to enter their bar.

      The de-federation argument is more akin to asking to build a wall outside so that we can’t see the nazi bar from here. They’ll still be there, the wall doesn’t change anything. Any users with accounts here can also create accounts there.

      You’re not required to go to the Nazi bar this idea that we can de-federate our way to a solution doesn’t make any sense. Is the endgame to have everyone build a wall around the Nazis so that they can’t pollute the rest of us with their unclean ideas? To place them in some sort of ideological ghetto because we deem them unfit to interact with society?

      Trapping people in echo chambers and denying them the opportunity to hear any dissenting opinions is how you create more extremism, not less.

      • tobor@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Bad analogy, it’s not one planet, this is like Super Mario Galaxy. We have a planet with little bars (communities), they have a planet with their shitty racist bars. It’s not building a wall, it’s cutting them out of our orbit.

      • starshine@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I think it’s more akin to deciding to tear down the flyers for their bar events posted in our bar bathroom.

        Also you’re kind of undermining your own argument by saying we’re trapping people in echo chambers while simultaneously claiming nothing we do will prevent users from going to their bar.

      • Pelicanen@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        If the people from the nazi instance wants to join other instances, there’s nothing preventing them from that. This isn’t oppression, this is just content moderation, people acting like it’s some sort of crime against the idea of free speech are blowing it way out of proportion.

        To place them in some sort of ideological ghetto because we deem them unfit to interact with society?

        Also, using ghettos as a metaphor when talking about nazis just seems intentionally distasteful. Being pro-nazi and anti-nazi aren’t equivalent positions, one is defending discrimination and genocide and the other is saying that discrimination and genocide are bad things.

      • haxe11@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        We’re under no obligation to federate with anyone that we don’t want to. They’re not just a Nazi bar, which I now believe is a good enough reason to build our wall, as you say, but they’re also a Nazi bar with Nazi robots.

    • foxtrots@sh.itjust.works
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      People use nazi only because it’s an easy label to hate and doesn’t require any further thought.

      Say that bartender said “communist” instead of nazi or some other ideology they don’t agree with.

      Also the bartender assumed the guy was a nazi. I used to work security in a very progressive US town and you would be surprised how many people go “some one just said there’s is a nazi in my store get them out of here” I would walk over to find it’s actually an antifa shirt with a swatica that is crossed out. the customer never took the time to actually read the guy’s shirt and decided they were going to sleep better tonight because they told on them.

      Being an idiot with a knee jerk reaction to someone that is different from you isn’t an antidote to live by. Some people quick to judge would even call it nazi like behavior.

      • OptimistPrime@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I don’t use Nazi lightly. I only use it because self proclaimed Nazis support the extremist right ideologies. They’re full of hate, and they’re anti-education, and want to make it so that the queer community goes back in the closet. This isn’t about some knee jerk reaction to people I disagree with. If the people on the right actually practiced the principles they so loudly preach like liberty and freedom for all, then yes, I’d be open to having legitimate discussions and debate with them. But they don’t. They foamed at the mouth when asked to do the bare minimum and wear a mask to help protect their more vulnerable countrymen during a pandemic. But apparently that was too much. In their minds, that was fascism. However, they can wave their Nazi flags at protests while wearing masks. But but but I thought they couldn’t breathe with them on. 😭 They only pretend to stand for freedom and family values and caring about children. They target gays, minorities, trans people, and obstruct any efforts to provide services that would actually help children and families. One example is all the Republican state legislatures wanting to end free and reduced school lunches. I’m sick and tired of decent people kowtowing to these extremists and I’m done.

        • foxtrots@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I don’t use nazi lightly.

          Seems your whole argument mixed Republican and Nazi ideology into one when they are separate things.

          Yes someone one that thinks minority, and Jews should be scrubbed of this earth is a bad person but there are other aspects you are throwing into the mix. For example

          They foamed at the mouth when asked to do the bare minimum and wear a mask to help protect their more vulnerable countrymen during a pandemic

          This seems to leave the definition of a Nazi and fall more under people that took issue with mask. I wouldn’t imagine a Nazi to say “countymen”. If a Nazi lived in an all white town would they wear a mask because they valued the lives of a white person more? Again it’s seems like there’s a bit of a classification problem to me.

          Are all people that don’t were mask Nazis?

          Are all Republicans Nazis?

          Is any right wing belief just a dog whistle for white supremacy?

          Are corporations run by neoconservatives all just Nazis who tow a progressive narrative to hide there actions but they should be banned as well?

          • OptimistPrime@sh.itjust.works
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            My example with the mask was to highlight the inconsistency that folks on the right exhibit. They claimed that wearing masks was a violation of their freedoms, but also seem to be in favor of policies that limit people’s freedoms. They claimed that the masks made it so they couldn’t breathe. But then there were plenty of insurrectionists on Jan. 6 wearing masks. They believe some unsubstantiated misinformation on Facebook about how the vaccines will implant trackers into them, but disbelieve the scientists who tell them they’re safe. They pick and choose their arguments and what they’ll believe without critical thought.

            Of course I don’t think people who refuse to wear masks are Nazis. That’s silly. I just think they’re selfish. And of course I don’t think all Republicans are Nazis. And like I said before, I wouldn’t want to be in place where there couldn’t be honest debate about different politics. But I’m not convinced they have any actual legitimate principles anymore. Nazi ideology, book bans, and violent rhetoric against lgbtq are not topics I’m willing to have an honest discussion about because there’s nothing to discuss. Those things don’t belong in a society. Now if they want to discuss the merits of legitimate conservative policies, those kinds of debates should absolutely be allowed. But I haven’t seen much lately showing that they even has those principles anymore sadly.

          • fuck_u_spez@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Wait Republicans are not Nazis?

            That would be new to me…

            It’s a spectrum, and I honestly put that label Increasingly onto Republicans, but I’m living in europe, everything seems to be a little bit less extreme here (but the trend is unfortunately not that good either). I think to keep a place civil one has to moderate unfortunately, since hate is so much apparent nowadays (likely promoted by the “legacy” social networks). A place of true free speech with civil discussion and without hate is unfortunately just unrealistic utopia…

      • Barbarian@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        For me personally, I don’t care about the label. Is it nazist? Is it not? Don’t care.

        What matters is that attacks against discriminated minorities on that instance, including celebration of violence, are completely normalized and I don’t want to associate with or give a platform to those that propagate this.

  • HaveYouTriedCats@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • tom@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I’m fairly sure I saw the user you’re talking about and I actually blocked them pretty quickly too. Diversity of opinion is one thing, but bad-faith trolling is another. Pretty clear what their intentions are.

      • HaveYouTriedCats@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Most likely.

        I would like to think an account like that would violate our server rules and face a ban.

        But the content is being pushed in my feeds, they are making posts (from what I can see) to our community (including a recent one about options for not defederating, iirc), and we have obvious examples in this thread of bad faith behavior.

        I’ve clocked at least one new sh.itjust.works account with only only activity in this post, which makes it suspect to me.

        This thread is going much like the others the longer it goes on.

  • themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • gmatkins@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • Lols [they/them]@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    it seems ridiculous to defederate from lemmygrad but not these tools

    any ‘personal convictions’ that rule out tankies but not fascists are a serious red flag

    • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Their clear support of trans hate is an absolute nonstarter and should be clear grounds for defederation. Hard stop.

      On the other link, I saw the anti-vax article when it first popped up while sorting by new. It’s a clearly an inflammatory story from an extremely biased and non-credible source, with the sole purpose of deceiving users and spreading dissent.

      My gut instinct was to give the instance the benefit of the doubt that they just hadn’t caught it yet, and just report to let their mods know. Then I saw it was posted by their admin.

      I’m all for debates of differing opinions based on interpretations of objective facts - I think it is in fact a valuable part of a healthy community. That said, debates simply become toxic arguments when one party enters the discussion in bad faith.

      This instance needs to clearly outline policies on defederation of instances that violate some set of norms (and refederation if instances are able to regulate their content). I for one think it should be pretty straightforward to put a policy in place to defederate hate speech, CSAM, and scientific disinformation.

  • 🌊 🍸 🎹@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • l3mming@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      1 year ago

      “keeping the fediverse clean unfortunately means that hateful opinions must be shut down”

      If you replace ‘hateful’ with ‘opposing’ then your statement is quite alarming.

      Is not the difference between ‘hateful’ and ‘opposing’, just a matter of perspective? I’m sure MAGA supporters don’t see themselves as hateful any more than we see ourselves as hateful. Yet, we’re more than happy to hate MAGA supporters.

      Blocking ‘hate’ (aka: opposition) in the name of ‘keeping the fediverse clean’ is a sure fire way to turn this society into another Reddit.

      I say, leave it up to the individual users. If a user really doesn’t want to see any posts from an instance, let them block it on an individual basis.

      • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        No.

        Hate in this context is an attitude that presents an active risk of harm to a group of humans. It typically results in rejecting their basic humanity, leading to mass repression and violence. This isn’t exactly a novel concept.

        You can oppose something without acting in hatred, or creating an environment that supports or bolsters hatred. You do this by respecting the basic humanity of the group your concern involves and their attendant right to exist. You want to debate, for example, the age appropriateness of certain topics of sexuality and gender in schools, that’s fine. It is something that requires discussion and reasoning. But any discussion about that needs to be couched in the fact that gay and trans people exist, are fellow humans, and that needs to be addressed.

        Unfortunately, for every well intentioned and humanistic MAGA-esque person who does not act with hate, there are many more who do. They stymie productive discourse with a baseline of shared humanity, to the detriment of their fellow humans. As such, it is not only justified, but necessary to exclude them from the table.

        • l3mming@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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          1 year ago

          “Hate in this context is an attitude that presents an active risk of harm to a group of humans”

          No. You’re talking about harm now, not hate. You’ve moved the goalposts and are painting with a very broad brush. Remember, nearly 50% of the US population voted for the orange buffoon.

          • Gone Quill@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            And it bothers me every single day that someone who entered office with a 44% approval rating and a 42% disapproval rating won 49.9% of the vote. He was over 50% disapproval within 1 month of his term, and under 40% approval by his second month. This was someone that even his political allies called a racist and dangerous demagogue before continuing on to endorse him.

            • CodeInvasion@sh.itjust.works
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              49.9% of the electoral college, which is not the popular vote. The US electoral system is flawed, especially when someone can technically win with less than 23%(!) of the popular vote.

              But the flawed system should not be misconstrued to mean near popular support for an extremist candidate.

              It is frightening though that 40% continue to support a civilly convicted rapist and someone federally indicted under the Espionage act!

          • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works
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            My position is that harm is a consequence of hate, as I’ve already stated. While it is not the only antecedent to harm (harm can occur without hate being involved), it raises the probability of harm occurring to the group who is the target of hate. Hate leads to harm - again, not a novel concept, and something which has been demonstrated ad nauseum over the course of history.

            I do not see how this is moving goalposts. As this is a Canadian instance, it might be instructive to read the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as some of the court cases which fleshed out how hate speech is treated in Canadian law. This is one element of the position I’m coming from here.

            In terms of my painting with a broad brush, there’s some merit to that, given I was referring to members of a specific American political movement. This is probably still overbroad, but let me restate it: “For every well-intentioned, humanistic person voicing a legitimate concern related to a given group of people who share a minority characteristic, there are many more who use those concerns as a front to promote hate.” I stand by the rest of my statement in the prior post, acknowledging that this does create a problem for those well-intentioned people too - when hateful ass-clowns repeat your talking points to serve their purposes, it tarnishes the legitimacy of your concern.

            I’ll close with an example getting a lot of press in my neck of the woods - Drag Storytime. A children’s event where someone in drag reads a storybook to kids. A well-intentioned person may ask if it’s appropriate to introduce young children to the concept of drag so early. They may ask what protections are in place for screening volunteers working with children. They may decide that they do not want their children to participate. This is all well and good. But barring children whose parents have decided they are OK with this event, or creating a threatening environment for those participating - these are actions typically couched in hate, and are not good. And they take away from the guy saying “Yeah, people dress in drag sometimes, but I don’t know that I want my 5 year old introduced to the concept quite yet.”

      • socialjusticewizard@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Yeah and if you replace “opinions” with “babies” then “shut down” with “murder” then suddenly you’re talking about murdering babies!! Oh man. This is a real slippery slope.

        • l3mming@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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          Way to totally miss the point. ‘Hateful’ is an emotionally charged term one can apply to any group one strongly dislikes to evoke support.

          Just like “murdering babies” is an emotionally charged term one can apply to any comment one strongly dislikes to evoke support.

      • Spzi@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Is not the difference between ‘hateful’ and ‘opposing’, just a matter of perspective?

        Haha, no. There are many views different from mine. I enjoy discussing opposing views. Luckily, only a very slim minority could be labelled as hateful.

        Maybe the two seem indistinguishable if a political identity is built on hate.

      • Lols [they/them]@lemm.ee
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        if you replace ‘opinions’ with ‘minorities’ it becomes quite alarming too

        or if you replace ‘so defederation it is’ with ‘so terrorism it is’

        i mean, it doesnt say those things at all, but it would be very alarming if it did

  • Contextual Idiot@sh.itjust.works
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    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.

  • 🐱TheCat@sh.itjust.works
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    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.

    __

    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

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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      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:

      1. is operated for the purpose of hosting bot accounts for the purposes of spam, scams, denial-of-service attacks, or other traffic generally unwelcome or disruptive to the Fediverse.
      2. is operated for the purpose of posting commercial advertisements to other instances.
      3. is operated primarily for the purpose of illegal or harmful acts, such as sharing child pornography, human trafficking, inciting/facilitating acts of violence or terrorism, etc.
      4. is operated primarily for the purpose of political extremism/radicalization to include rampant bigotry, racism, sexism, calls to violence.
      5. is generally operated in good faith but some temporary issue such as a credential theft has deprived the genuine admins of control of the instance and problematic posts/communities/members are being created. The admins may defederate or refederate as needed to meet this condition.

      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:

      1. was historically operated in good faith but has more recently entered a state of low moderation; illegal/immoral/spam traffic is posted against the intsance’s own rules with no attempt to moderate.
      2. is a very small instance operated by one or a few individuals to circumvent a ban if ban-worthy behavior continues.
      3. A non-emergency technical issue arises, for example an instance starts sending garbled posts which fill feeds with nonsense, members may request temporary defederation until the glitch is resolved.
      • abrasiveteapot@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        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.

      • Barbarian@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • carbon_based@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            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)

      • Spzi@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • Spzi@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            we’re outside the scope of this particular thread.

            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.

            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.

            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.

            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.”

            You’re right, sorry I forgot about that when writing my comment.

            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.

            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).

            • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              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.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        for the purpose of political extremism/radicalization

        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.

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          How do you define that?

          They literally included it in the second part of the sentence you left out

          to include rampant bigotry, racism, sexism, calls to violence.

          Or, what about the protests / riots in France over pensions? Or the convoy protests in Ottawa, Canada?

          You’re literally “whatabouting” this, no need put strawmen in here

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
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            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?

        • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          “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.

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
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            The bar was set at “rampant bigotry”, not “let’s go kill some of our political opponents”.

            Does rampant bigotry against billionaires count?

            • Takatakatakatakatak@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              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.

              • carbon_based@sh.itjust.works
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                Angy upvote. But the violent uprisings were rarely successful, mostly because the new leaders would just be violent again. Realising better ideas is successful.

    • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.worksOPM
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      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.

      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.

    • ruckblack@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

    • Barbarian@sh.itjust.works
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      a red line that results in instant-defederation

      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.

      • Gone Quill@sh.itjust.works
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        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

        • Takatakatakatakatak@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          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.

          • Contextual Idiot@sh.itjust.works
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            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.

            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.

            Just accept that there are going to be people in any shared space that you do not like.

            Take your own advice.

            • Takatakatakatakatak@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              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.

            • foxtrots@sh.itjust.works
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              they aren’t living how we say they should, we should drive them out.

              Nice try at making an argument but your terrible at this

              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.

              • Contextual Idiot@sh.itjust.works
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                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.

          • Spzi@lemm.ee
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            You seem to believe you can control other people’s thoughts. You can’t.

            This isn’t about thoughts, but actions.

            Just accept that there are going to be people in any shared space that you do not like.

            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.

  • Knaryo@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

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

  • tobor@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • haxe11@sh.itjust.works
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    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.