The Agora

Aye

I guess I'll be one of the first.

Nay, for now.

Defederation should be the last option. After we have exhausted all other options. Because it's the exchange of ideas, and exposure to other viewpoints, that helps reduce bigotry and hatred.

I'm well aware that a fascist is gonna fascist, no matter what someone tells them. There is no reasoning with them or trying to have a discourse with them because they only want to frustrate you. Those users should be blocked, or better, banned from our instance if possible. But there will be other users of that instance who are regular folk who simply like the idea of free speech. They should not be cut off and left to be turned by the fascists.

Aye

Aye

Aye

Nay. I don't like what they're doing over there, but I don't think defederating is the right thing to do.

Other people have already said what I was thinking: "Defederation should be the last option", "You have a block list, curate your own filter bubble", "we ourselves have felt what it is like", etc.

Nay. Not as long as they aren't causing trouble here. By the way, your screenshots show, among others, a user from this very instance pushing back against their narrative, which is exactly what I would ecourage to do. If they start banning people for simply being critical, then we can have the discussion about defederating again.

No, if the users are spamming this server then block them. I don’t like the idea of blocking jerks just cause they’re jerks on their own server

Aye, and here's why. Exploding heads are not coming into our space and having discussions in good faith. They are acting as a troll farm and being abusive toward our members, and generally not following the rules of the road laid out for our instance. "Beehaw defederated us and I didn't like it" isn't a valid argument as this is a different situation. Beehaw defederated from here because they couldn't deal with the scale of moderating all the traffic coming from here which including abusive troll accounts. Exploding Heads is going by the alt right playbook and is almost exclusively being abusive, even if it's a small number of people.

And it is noticable. I see some people arguing that individuals who don't like that instance should just block it themselves, but that's not an available function of the threadiverse yet. You're saying that our server at large should endure abuse coming from that server because someday the functionality may be implemented for individuals to handle it themselves. I don't think this is a good moderation strategy and will only allow abusive actors to find foothold.

Nay.

Having shitty opinions is not an adequate basis to defederate them. I believe defederation should be a last resort.

There is a very clear way to justify defederation. Namely, if another instance is preventing our instance from flourishing. But unless the server is actively causing harm to our users and communities, why is it necessary? Simply block them if you want.

When people ask me why we defederated them, I would like to have a good answer.

No.

You are not 'deplatforming' them by de-federating. They still have a platform, they still have communities and they still can post there. You can't deplatform people in a federated social media, they own their own instance. What you're asking is for the site admins to add every EH user and community to the block list of everyone on this instance. I'm an adult, I don't need a Big Brother deciding what I can and cannot see.

Save de-federation for last resort issues that cannot possibly be resolved in any other way. If an instance is spamming, if an instance is being used for planning violence, if an instance is allowing the sharing of abusive images or illegal material, if an instance is coordinating harassment (doxing, SWATing, etc) then de-federate them.

De-federation should not be used to create filter bubbles. You have a block list, curate your own filter bubble. Don't try to enforce your block list on everyone else.

It's also worth noting that, outside of the the 4th and 5th images, none of the posts in those images would even be considered breaking a rule if posted on this instance. You're, for the most part, just posting right-wing posts which makes this appear like you're trying to push a political position.

Nay

I think Contextual Idiot said it best - 'Defederation should be the last option. After we have exhausted all other options. Because it’s the exchange of ideas, and exposure to other viewpoints, that helps reduce bigotry and hatred.'

Nay. Just block the instance for your own account if you feel offended. I wholeheartedly agree with you on the examples you've shown us. However, this does not warrant censorship for one. And on the other side, if no one is able to convince them due to deplatforming, things won't ever get better. Thus: Nay.

EDITED

I've changed my mind. I vote:

Aye.

I initially voted the other way, as I don't agree with the content there, but I didn't think that defederating should be our first action. I still believe that, but this instance has now proved to me that it is extremely toxic. See this post: https://lemmy.world/post/747912

And additionally, many folks will use the fact that we do not defederate from such a community as justification to defederate from us.

Aye

Aye

Aye

Our federation? Is that like our Internet?

Aye. Cut out the infection before it spreads

Aye, after seeing the pictures this instance could very easily get into trouble for hosting that kind of content. Keep in mind that the site is not hosted in the US, but Canada.

Nay. Bc even though it is bad, it doesn't seem necessary. As long as their users don't break the rules over here anyway

Nay.

Nay

if this becomes a problem we can still deal with it. But at this moment, i never came across gross content from their instance (apart from this discussion), nor did i encounter users from this instance being annoying.

##############

This may be inaccurate as I am not yet familiar with how the Federation works:

They build a village where they can behave however they want, so as long as they don't do it in our village, or do it to an annoying extent in neighbouring villages that we both visit, I don't see any need for action.

Just don't visit them.

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Lastly, we should really work out the details of the voting mechanism before voting on such topics

I think I'm a nay - I'm torn. Basically I don't want to play the only ace card we have... Seems like an escalation, but I'm also qualified n00b and struggling to see how they're leaking across - other than with inflammatory replies

Nay.

All that stuff is basically 0 comment and 0 up vote. It doesn't look like you would end up stumbling in that stuff as trending or whatnot. Unless your subscribed to it or looking to be offended it looks like a non issue. I've yet to see anything from them other then in these complaint threads.

I'm sure there is offensive content everywhere if you really look for it. Even here hence the whole beehaw thing.

I don't think we should defederate to control what other folks expose themselves to. If they were brigading other instances or butting in to be a direct nuisance that would be a different story.

Nay

If you hate free speech, hate your own first and foremost and shut up.

Aye

Nay. You're gonna encounter these people IRL. It's better to prepare yourself in a low stake environment like an internet forum.

Aye. Looks like this instance is not very nice.

No. I've never seen an Exploding-Heads user on any other instance except for one guy who made an account purely to dissent on their instance.

Nay

I am going to say Nay because I haven't seen any of this content organically surfaced to me, and I browse all > new all the time. In fact Im on lemmy a lot right now. That says to me that the fediverse community is doing a good job of downvoting this content.

My fear is that this style of argument will be used to censor any community that has enough motivated haters, thus anything controversial. Going over to a community and finding bad examples of behavior is going to be possible on nearly every federated instance. I bet I could do it with this instance, in fact.

I am open to changing my view if people can point me to a style of browsing lemmy that is organically surfacing this content a lot. I understand that over time we may identify certain instances that are really just troll farms. I just feel its too soon to be doing this and that the response is a sledgehammer against a fly.

nay, down vote and move on. if it really bothers you, unsubscribe/block. defederate only if they start brigading and normal mod controls stop working, if it's just a few bad actors should be easy enough to ban them

Nay

Aye

Aye.

At best it's clickbait trash. At worst it's the garbage OP highlighted.

Aye

Going forward, will be necessary to articulate standards and processes for defederation, to avoid having to relitigate the concepts of free speech, hate speech, etc. every time.