Ahoy mateys!
A few of our users have recently pointed out that a lot of the pro-Zionist accounts on the fediverse nowadays seem to come from the feddit.org instance.
Feddit.org's explanation for this situation seems to fit into a few common variations:
- They accept both pro- and anti-Zionist members, so it's not proof of a bias.
- They [choose to] comply [in advance] with strict German / Swiss / Austrian laws regarding [overly broad] "antisemitic" language, or they might get in trouble.
- Calling for the destruction of Israel must obviously mean you want to kill every last man, woman and child, rather than simply wanting to overthrow Netanyahu's genocidal fascist regime. Because [bad faith] reasons.
- Lots of Euros (and Germans specifically) are pro-Zionist, so they feel like they have to accommodate this view.
But whatever the excuse happens to be, they need to do better imo. Israel is currently the most violent, fascist and genocidal nation state in the Middle East (if you exclude the US military bases there). And yet feddit.org seems to regard the Palestinians fighting against Israel's ongoing illegal occupation of their land as the real terrorists. As such, I am calling for feddit.org to:
- Explicitly prohibit pro-Zionist accounts from joining.
- Take measures to resolve their claimed legal issues, e.g., moving their server location to a less regulated jurisdiction, and ensuring that admin accounts remain anonymous regarding their location.
- Stop referring to folks who call for "Death to Israel" or similar as though they are the terrorists or violent extremists. The Zionist Israeli settlers, the murderous IDF rapists, and the entirety of the Israeli government are clearly the violent ethnostate extremists we should be worried about, not the Palestinians in Gaza who are fighting for their lives every single day against completely disproportionate levels of Zionist violence.
More context
Our instance already voted to ban pro-Zionist accounts (see https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/60585441 for reference) and the rule that was implemented is here: Golden Rule #8.
As further context, you can find relevant comments and discussion in this post by a banned feddit admin in MoG (that fact they chose to post in MoG is in itself quite telling), and this post about their defederation from quokk.au over anti-semitism allegations has recently become active again.
I've also pulled out some choice morsels from the modlog to illustrate the sort of thing we are talking about:
This one says it all... mrdown@lemmy.world being banned for calling out feddit.org users for being Zionist apologists. It's apparently "xenophobic" to state a few hard truths.
If you have had similar experiences on feddit.org, please feel free to share in the comments.
Voting instructions
I am proposing to ban the following communities from feddit.org, which seem to be the most problematic communities in terms of hosting pro-Zionist posts/comments:
- https://feddit.org/c/YUROP
- https://feddit.org/c/europe
- https://feddit.org/c/buyfromeu
- https://feddit.org/c/europa
- https://feddit.org/c/dach
- https://feddit.org/c/deutschland
- https://feddit.org/c/germany
Upvote this post if you want dbzer0 / anarchist nexus to ban these communities.
Downvote this post if you'd prefer not to ban these communities.
Note 1: Votes from external instances do not count, unless one of our admins has vouched for you.
Note 2: If you think feddit.org deserves a full instance ban instead, or have alternative suggestions, then please leave your comments below. If enough people think that's the better option, then we'll do that instead.
Note 3: Although I don't really expect this to happen, if feddit.org agrees to make policy changes to address these issues then we are willing to reassess the situation.
I don't see why we have to limit the reach of our community to keep it safe. How does the nazibar parable apply? Isn't this just censorship with a mighty dose of virtue signalling?
I'm subbed to c/europe because that's the most happening European sub. I'm more concerned the place is being overrun by guardian posts than any type of fascist apologia.
I don't know if I have a vote, but a big nay from me on this one. ๐
i believe u need to downvote the post and write a comment for ur vote to be recorded. the bot should then reply to ur comment with an image corresponding to ur "voting type/level".
Non-db0 user, so keep that in mind while reading my comment.
I had an alt account that got banned for posting news on europe at feddit that Estonia had just opened its first Isn'treali embassy. Another alt of mine is on hexbear, and it saves my brain a lot of cognitohazard not having to browse feddit fascism. I recommend defedding.
Thank you for your transparency and the explanation.
I have to admit, I don't like seeing hate speech, even if it is warranted and goes against a genocidal regime. I don't want to use this extremely hot-button subject as an example, so I will use reddit and my country's sub.
r/hungary is in a constant state of stress and despair, either posting the daily atrocities of our government or propaganda for the biggest opposition party. And the way many users are trying to promote the Tisza party is bashing the other parties, leaving no room for discussion. So we are left bickering with each other, even though we are all on the same side (against the guv).
I visit forums for news and the community. I like cold takes as posts, and am happy to get hot and heavy in the comments. I don't agree with banning you for your post, especially if it was a cold take - but you using Isn'treali here makes me think it might've been loaded. I, personnaly, don't like loaded titles for my news (for memes, they're all the better). I don't need someone else telling me why I should be angry.
And I don't like alt accounts. I mean for myself. I feel that if people can see a long history of posts (and the quality of them), it lends further credit to my voice.
It seems that the vote will go through, so the majority feels that isolation is a better option than.. I don't even know, intolerance for anti-zionism? The only reason I would defed is if our instance is getting brigaded from another.
Again, thank you for taking the time to clarify the topic and providing nuance. I hope my comment doesn't come through as judgy or assuming too much. I appreciate the dialogue.