The instance seems to be mostly right wing trolls. I know defederating is unpopular but I don’t think much is to be lost in this case and it can save the mods some headaches.
Edit: the response on exploding-heads.com to my reporting of transphobia. Courtesy of the “second in command”
Yeah I must confess I recently went over there and agitated them a bit. I just wanted to see what their deal was because I saw a few of them over here.
TLDR they are basically like r/thedonald, libertarian types. Use slurs as a badge of honor. Angry, sad people. Fully in favor of defederation. But I get that it’s early days, and defederation is a sensitive topic. I just don’t see any path to that server becoming something of value that I’d want to interact with.
I dont see why defederation is seen as a sensitive topic.
Its a great feature, designed for specifically this purpose.
Over time people will migrate between instances and land where they fit. Some people want to be abrasive cunts, and they will land with the other abrasive cunts. Thats great, they have an instance they can do what they want on.
For the rest of us though, we dont want to see their bad faith articles and abrasiveness on our feeds. No one is being limited in their speech, but they might be limited in their reach. If they want to expand their reach, they can join a more broadly federated instance and ditch the bad faith arguments and abrasiveness.
Its the kids table at the dinner party. You can join the adults table if you behave in a way that is suitable for the adults, if not go back and play with the kids and everyone is happy.
The example that introduced me to federation was like an instance getting overrun with Nazis, and everyone deciding to just cut that instance loose; let it float alone as “the Nazi instance” that nobody has to interact with.
I thought that stuff like bad actors and assholes was one of the main reasons for the idea of federation, really surprised how many people thought differently
I think people would be surprised at the amount of instances that have already been broadly defederated.
Its just that the beehaw defederation is the first “big” incident since broader adoption, and thats for very understandable reasons with a roadmap to refederation already in place.
The only people who get angry about an instance being defederated are the types who want to act in bad faith. They know if they join the instance they got defederated from they will be banned if they spruik the shit that got the instance defederated in the first place, so they are angry that no one wants to listen to their shit.
It sucks for legitimate users that get caught up, but if youre a good user willing to participate in good faith, just join another instance and carry on.
In Beehaw’s case especially I saw a lot of people who came off more that they took being defederated personally or that they felt entitled to Beehaw’s communities than anything
like I still can’t understand why people found it so abhorrent that Beehaw temporarily defederated; they literally stated why and explicitly stated that it’s probably not permanent
like they made it clear, people just didn’t bother to read for some reason
I respect beehaw’s ability to defederate and their decisions to do with their community as they please. I don’t agree with their actions and I don’t think they did the right thing. But that’s why I did not and will not sign up on beehaw.
But if people start defederating each other over slight disagreements? I think that’s bad for the idea of federation in general.
If you genuinely think libertarians are equivalent to r/thedonald posters, you have no clue what you’re talking about. Which is why defederating based on politics is stupid.
Most people who think they are “libertarians” have no clue what they are talking about.
Proudly planting the libertarian flag on top of a few pet peeves.
Then watch them cry foul whenever libertarianism strikes in any of the soft spots they don’t want touched, or don’t understand through lazy ignorance. An extreme cartoonish (yet sadly real) example being something like “Keep your dirty government hands off my Medicare”.
I never said they were equivalent. One of the most popular posts on the server is about creating an index of libertarian/right-leaning instances.
https://exploding-heads.com/post/92733
One of the most prominent users (4 month acount!) is named maga_force.
What term would you use to describe their users?
I never said they were equivalent.
Comma separation implies a list of traits (users are both r/thedonald users and libertarian) whereas or/and would imply that libertarians and r/thedonald users both exist in the instance
What term would you use to describe their users?
Conservative/MAGA fits the majority of the content a lot better
Comma separation implies a list of traits (users are both r/thedonald users and libertarian) whereas or/and would imply that libertarians and r/thedonald users both exist in the instance
Lol fair enough, thats true.
I honestly thought libertarian was the more flattering descriptor, but sure we can go with Conservative/MAGA
I honestly thought libertarian was the more flattering descriptor
Yeah, so do they - that’s why they try to co-opt the term lol
Ok word. Yeah libertarians usually have some kind of rationale and principles while MAGA people are just walking memes that regurgitate spam.
Honestly most self-described right-libertarians are really differing levels of feudalists. With the uber-feudalists being the “anarcho-capitalists”. Which is the dumbest term ever but that’s not the point.
So I’m always very very suspicious of someone who says they are a libertarian…
It is as disappointing to see MAGA-types try to co-opt “libertarian” for optics as it is to see the general populace so lacking in critical thinking as to take the bait hook, line, and sinker.
The term had been coopted by feudalists much before that. The term originally referred to anarcho-socialists as opposed to the growing “authoritarian” socialist trend. I put authoritarian in quotes, because that term has also completely lost its meaning.
You were talking to people not even from that instance. You people need to learn how federation works
I’ve already acknowledged that multiple times.
Your comment is the perfect example of why defederation is even being considered. You’re a sad, confused person who is angry at the world and takes it out on other people. One look at your comment history makes that clear.
We’re trying to build an alternative to reddit and it’s going to be really hard to do that if we have to fucking drag people like you along with us. You seem to enjoy making other people miserable.
Or perhaps you just didn’t see those who don’t bother engaging in conflict?
I fully understand why you don’t expect to find content there in the future, but is that a good argument to deny access to those who already have?
Exploding heads have gotten subscribers from here as well. There’s an extensive backlog of topics some people find quite important - even if others don’t.
Radicalisation starts with people “just asking questions” or “just pointing out an issue with X without having anything against them”, that’s enough to hook some people that will go way down the rabbit hole.
In the screenshot you see exactly what I’m talking about, “I’m not racist, but I can point out issues with the BLM movement”. Alright they just opened the door to people that are a bit more radical to try and find out where the tolerance ends and to others to start looking for answers with a biased premise in mind.
I invite you to watch this video (and the whole series really) that covers all of that:
I mean, there are indeed issues with the BLM movement. And this “possibly leading to radicalization” is much better than lack of critique.
Say, cultural appropriation is suddenly fine when it’s black people doing it. (Talking about Cleopatra in that show, the show itself is not important, just that the “politically correct” approach to it differs.)
Or people who think that BLM is more important than actual ethnic cleansing happening in parts of the planet far away from BLM.
Of course, these issues are inherited from general ignorance and indifference to suffering of others combined with trends of virtue signaling. Same happens in many areas not connected to racism.
…
Nope.
I don’t have a problem with you personally. You’ve been fairly reasonable in our interactions. But the people on your server are not great. Maybe you should make an account here.
I don’t care for them myself, but unless they’re causing problems outside for everyone else, why defederate?
If there are communities you don’t want to see, you can block them as they appear.
The argument being that if they aren’t blocked at an instance-level, due to how the federation works, those comments could very easily spill over into these threads. Those that do want to participate in good faith would need to create an account with an instance that is federated.
How do you block them? Not a feature on kbin yet as far as I know.
If you’d like to block them here on kbin, go to to their domain page:
https://kbin.social/d/exploding-heads.com
and then click the “cancel” circle/crossout button over in the sidebar next to “subscribe”. That’ll block the entire domain.
That place is gross. They have a parent community that is just trans hate. I can’t imagine spending so much energy being a hateful idiot.
It’s easy: have nothing else going for you in life and making fun of others becomes a super fun way to pass time.
Basically playground bullies who never matured beyond that mentality.
Fake news
I support this. Keep Nazis out of my feed.
Defederation is de-platforming. These hate communities are able to recruit because let them. We give them free reign to whisper hateful falsehoods in the ears of the vulnerable, all in the name of free speech. They can be as hateful as they want on their own, but we are under no requirement to give them a platform to spread their ideologies. De-platforming works, so let the nazis chirp in their own little echo chamber. Keep their hateful rhetoric contained to their own little garden so our vulnerable youth need not be exposed. It’s easy to say “just block them yourself,” but that doesn’t cut off the steady supply of misguided incel-larva to fill their ranks. Drown 'em out. De-platform them. Defederate now. No quarter for hate.
The issue with censoring is that as soon as you start censoring people because you think their ideas are harmful, there are those who think your ideas are harmful. yet the group doing the censorship never sees their own views as harmful. it just increases polarization, echochambers, etc. which IMO leads to more harm, not less.
I think the way beehaw goes about things is harmful, so should we defederate from them as well? Or are only the things you think are harmful what should be censored? And if the latter, who made you boss?
sh.itjust.works can decide their federation policies on their own, but defederating over a difference of belief is always odd to me. the mod message that OP shared is clear they don’t allow truly hateful speech, they merely have different views on things. same goes for lemmygrad, they get defederated often but they seem quite civil despite their fringe views?
I wonder if kbin will stay the course and continue federating with everyone or if it’ll eventually defederate. I hope the former, and those who wish for an instance that defederates can go elsewhere.
No one is censoring anyone. They are free to post whatever toxic shit they want. But we, as an instance, have elected NOT to listen. Censorship would be banning their instance from existing, which IIRC is impossible with federated instances. No, this is just de-platforming. We are turning off the loudspeaker connected to their instance. We don’t have to give them a platform. There is no reason to do so. So we defederate.
EDIT: Let me dumb it down further. “We are removing the link to Stormfront from our home page due to their stances.” Would you call that censorship? Is it censorship that I would unfriend someone because they are spewing hateful garbage? Of course not. If you really want to read that hate, there are plenty of ways to find it. We just aren’t going to help you find it anymore.
“we as an instance” you’re on kbin. has kbin defederated? I just woke up so maybe I missed something this morning but… this is the sh.itjust.works community lol.
“I have no argument, so I am going to focus on the person rather than the argument.”
🤓
I agree holy shit I went there today and there was some hateful af stuff
Nazi instances will proliferate and it benefits nobody else to stay in federation with them. It makes the whole fediverse less usable and more dangerous. And whether you like it or not it sends a message to people who are targeted by them that they are not truly welcome here, regardless of whatever moderation rules are espoused.
And in North America, as in many places, these people are acting as a propaganda arm for a literal violent terror movement. Sometimes under a fig leaf of ”irony” but it makes no material difference whether they’re chuckling when they spew shit to me
IDK why people are thinking he’s gonna de-federate for transphobia when he has allowed the matt walsh documentary to sit on his instance for days now
I am thankful I found a non-ban-happy home where I can see opinions I may dislike.
That’s your prerogative. I hopped to a different instance that more closely aligned with what I was looking for and also appears not to be ban-happy.
I don’t see exploding-heads on lemmy.world’s blocklist.
You’re right. I just blocked them directly.
Only thing I’m blocking is loli and annoying hentai spam. My ego is not fragile enough to shield my eyes from opinions I may dislike.
didn’t know “some people shouldn’t have rights or the right to exist” is just an opinion
whatever, clown
Who is saying that?
Sometimes people just don’t wanna see slurs or dehumanizing content. Doesn’t make them soft. Something you see that is “an opinion you dislike” might feel a whole lot worse for someone else depending on their age, race, sexuality, gender, ect.
How do those people function in real life where they don’t have such a pre-filter?
I was also kinda surprised that sh.itjust.works doesn’t block exploding-heads as most instances I’m aware of do. That coupled with the fact that the instance doesn’t block them but blocks lemmygrad made me think at first sh.itjust.works was going to be some far-right instance, but from what I’ve seen it isn’t. Though, I don’t understand why sh.itjust.works would want to federate with them, considering their content often violates the rules of the instance.
There’s no way I’m going to read all of that but I scanned it and caught a “I have many gay friends” and said ayup, there it is.
They are also using a hermaphrodite cousin as a token trans friend.
Just as an outside observer - a lot of people from reddit are out searching for a new home. Convos like these will set the tone for every new entrant so you have the opportunity now, before it all goes really big like reddit, to shape a community based on mutual aid, love, earnestness instead of one focusing on building capital at any cost.
There are so so many socially conservative sites and spaces fully dedicated to those communities, big enough that even normal media covers them. But how many Gabs or Parlers exist out there for marginalized people, how many communities are willing to do the hard work of ensuring there could be a beloved community where hatred and minimization is curtailed, who don’t act according to the will of private investors demanding incessant growth?
I hope there can be spaces like that which can grow from a watershed moment like this. It would be really cool if it were this one 😌
I’d really like to see a space where people who are more on the conservative side of things can speak freely and be exposed to alternative views, rather than just getting insta blocked and banned and having to go to the more extreme corners of the internet.
I often hear the argument “they’ll just go elsewhere,” “they’ll just start new accounts,” etc, to defend not censoring/defederating/blocking/whatever fascist or proto-fascist people or sites. That’s not an argument, that’s a commitment to rolling over for fascists and intolerance. They’re bringing the fight, and not fighting back and making their lives harder is just helping them move the Overton Window further to the right, and making horrific ideas palatable.
I’d like to decide for myself what I want to see and what not, as an adult.
I agree. I don’t like this whole principle of dictating what members are or are not allowed to see. Defederating should be a last resort. Everyone has a block button.
It’s always funny as, non American, to read about this naive anti- censorship slogans. Hateful political groups never stay in their places and play nice everywhere else. They brigade and harass every fucking time. There’s a reason why every place without moderation turns into a absolute toxic cesspit.
Voat failed quickly because of the “no censorship” implemented which allowed garbage to congregate. Of course people left because it was nothing but shit.
Lemmy needs to take out this trash.
you
you get it
all of this “marketplace of ideas” bullshit predicates on the alt-right and fascists cooperating and playing fair, when they historically have always taken advantage of any chance they’re given and then mocking those who wanted to give them a chance
like it’s 2023, I’d hoped that we’d have realized why giving the alt-right and fascists a seat at the table never fucking works out for anyone other than the alt-right and fascists
Not the prettiest instance, but have they caused any real trouble outside of their own instance? Not much of a fediverse if we just defederate from instances that lean different politically. Especially seems like a weird move to go defederating on other instances this early given y’know, that we just got defederated from beehaw because of one misbehaved asshole.
I’m not saying we should immediately defederate, but the reason I originally went to check them out was partially because of this comment and the reply from dick@exploding-heads.com
https://sh.itjust.works/comment/207742
When he made that reply, it got rapidly upvoted to +7, while my comment was also sitting at about +7. This morning, several hours later, when a bunch of actual sh.itjust.works users woke up and read the thread, the ratio of votes changed in my favor.
I fear that we are going to deal with a significant level of brigading from that instance, and unlike reddit we don’t really have any tools to combat that.
They also had a good laugh about the troll who posted here about getting us defederated by beehaw. They really don’t like beehaw, or gay people in general.
It’s whatever but we are already defederated with lemmygrad.ml and I feel like this stuff is on that same tier.
What can I say about brigading other than Exploding Heads having to turn off downvotes for the first time ever due to silent brigading?
How’s our federation affecting your instance?
We are bigger than you so you can’t really affect us too much. But all I can say is I never downvoted anybody on your instance, I only made comments
If you are bigger than us (by a factor of 100?) and we can’t really affect you much, is the fear of substantial downvote brigading perhaps a bit unnecessary?
Don’t feel like I’m accusing you of brigading, you seem like the type of person who’d rather have a discussion than just anonymously downvote.
If anything, based on your previous statement about seeking out a different community to rile them up, trolling would be more correct.
I had a look through their hot-page and couldn’t find anything on the level of lemmygrad. Do you have any examples?
https://exploding-heads.com/post/100772
Many of the trolls on that thread aren’t actually from that server, but they clearly reside in the same dark corner of the internet. But yeah its not really as bad as I thought in terms of needing to defederate, I thought they had over 1k users acting like that but I guess I just replied to the wrong person because the server is mostly dead.
But I have to say, I’ve never encountered people with such a burning hatred of redditors. Again, it’s whatever but I wouldn’t be bothered if we did defederate.
Your continuous misrepresentation of Exploding Heads is depressing. Burning hatred for redditors? Where do most of the anti-reddit posts on Exploding Heads originate from? Mostly from the new instances. You say dark corners of the internet, but we’re digital neighbors.
If you check the timestamps on that thread you linked you’ll see the non-EH people attached themselves to my comment from god knows where. It was unwanted, unsolicited, I’ve never seen them before and they used it as an example to show how a lemmy thread works. I blocked most of them, that’s why you see my engagement disappear.
That’s the example you use.
I was here years before you guys. I’ve seen the lemmyverse struggle. I have advocated so hard for openness, inclusiveness and communication through interconnectivity - all the while saying that people should block what they don’t like or find offensive.
I find this whole thread symbolic of the culture you all on average have brought with you. Prejudice, misrepresentation, moral reprisals… I had it enough conflict, I know Exploding Heads won’t block you and I know I can’t be bothered to individually block thousands and thousands of users accusing me of the most horrible things, like being a Nazi.
At least you guys won’t have to block two known prolific shitposters maybe having opinions other than yourselves, mostly in a space you’d have to seek out.
By being on the sh.itjust.works you are personally as responsible for this as the average exploding-head user is responsible for a few of our idiots posting on the internet. I’m leaving lemmy until full instance block is available for individual users so I won’t ever have to interact with the type of average user I’ve seen on sh.itjust.works. Or at least in this thread.
You all drove me away from this platform. At least I have the decency not to seriously argue that you all should be disconnected from other instances.
I think we should stay federated with them. They haven’t said anything wrong or bad yet.
Being openly bigoted isn’t a “political leaning” though, and it’s against lemmy.world’s code of conduct as stated on the sidebar link: https://mastodon.world/about
Provide a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for everyone regardless of gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, political affiliation, or other similar characteristic.
No one is saying let’s ban conservatives. This discussion is about defederating an instance that seems to be crawling with alt-right trolls. I don’t understand why that would be a problem.
Like I’d hope that we wouldn’t follow in Reddit’s footsteps of tolerating alt-right bigotry
Defederating isn’t like being fucking censored or whatever; it’s people deciding that they don’t want to be around you
Basically near-every instance did this for Lemmygrad with zero complaint, so it’s fucking weird that there are so many people complaining now when it comes to an instance teeming with alt-right bigotry
Reddit didn’t tolerate alt-right bigotry. What are you on about?
And yes, defederating is censorship. I had a burggit account because I liked the name, but then once they got defederated from everything, I needed to make a new account. That’s censorship.
Lemmygrad, Exploding-Head and Beehaw are all safe-spaces and echo-chambers. They won’t wander outside their zone, which they haven’t. Find it hilarious you’re so huffy about the alt-right, but silent about multiple mods enabling pro-communist content.
Do not mistake inconvenience for oppression.
That is NOT censorship. Everyone on that instance still has every opportunity to say whatever they’d like. Don’t cry over the fact that it’s not reaching as many people as you want it to.
Obligatory XKCD about this topic.
So you’re pro echo-chamber? You also completely disregarded my point about having to make a new account.
No, needing to make a new account is not censorship, get over yourself.
How is having to make a new account in an entirely separate instance not censorship?
how about that whole span of time that r/the_donald was a subreddit lmao
edit: it’s not censorship if you can easily move to another instance with little difficulty and just continue from there, with most of the same communities even
people like you just think someone telling them that they don’t want to hear you is the same as being suppressed
I can tell you the exact same thing. Keep the attacks to yourself.
Hey kbin users if you want to block this domain just go to https://kbin.social/d/exploding-heads.com and block that domain there.
This. Kbinauts should encourage using the block button, rather than demanding defederation. Curate your own experience, don’t try to curate others’ experience. Please and thank you :)