My primary argument is that they post hateful content and covid conspiracies and it is irresponsible to platform this by including it in our federation. Secondly we already got rid of lemmygrad. Thirdly, there’s little to be lost in the defederation given the type of stuff being posted over there. Do as thou wilt
Aye and nays pls
Edit: putting the screencaps I posted below here for clarity
I should probably put a content warning so
CW: homophobia, transphobia, and just being a shithead.
Edit 2: let’s try not to downvote people just saying nay. Unless they are making bad faith arguments we should respect their opinions even if we disagree.
Edit 3: Imma be real with y’all, this has been a real shitshow. We gotta work out some kinda single voting infrastructure because the ayes and Nays isn’t efficient at all.
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.
I ultimately disagree but I appreciate that you are making an argument from a place of good faith. It’s extremely refreshing, Thanks.
I don’t have a lot of hope that the instance will change, but disconnecting them from everyone else lets them control the narrative of “us vs them.”
We should be acting as a counter to their made up facts. And calling out the fallacies, as frustrating and tiring as it’ll be. Not on their instance, obviously, but anywhere they try to spread their hate. Fascism has festered in our society for decades, and now we need to shine a light on it for everyone to see it for what it is. Not hide it away.
The problem being that they don’t want to be convinced, they just double down. Experts refuse to debate them for this reason and you want laymen to do it instead?
The little you’ll manage to bring back to reality is insignificant compared to the number they’ll convert by being allowed to take part in discussions.
I agree with you that the worst of the worst in that instance will do exactly as you say. I have no interest in arguing with them, and if I see them here I’ll block them.
But I am interested in acting as a counter to their hate, by having our posts show up in their feeds. If we can show their regular users how to have civil discourse, and expose them to new topics, we can get some to question the narrative.
They can come to our instance, sure. They can take part in our communities. But then they have to play by our rules, or get banned. Remember, a community lives on one instance and is propagated throughout the fediverse. Once they’re outside of their walled garden, they won’t be seeing that constant drip of hate.
And if any of that instance’s users are questioning what they’ve read there, they can come to us for an opposing view.
Defederation doesn’t prevent them from subscribing to communities here and seeing what we’re saying, it prevents local users from seeing what they post on their instance and on our instance. People who question what they see here can just subscribe here or on an instance we’re still federated with and come ask questions in good faith, it will be way easier to manage than letting all of them take part.
But again, experts don’t debate them, we can’t expect people who have no special training to be the social workers these people need when they’ve reached the deeper end.
Again, I don’t want to debate or discuss with any of the repeat offenders in the posts that @chalkman showed us. You are right, we won’t be able to save them, only they can do that.
I don’t believe that every user on that instance is as bad as those folks, and the only way to make sure they don’t end up like that is to show them another way.
And would you take part in a community that you couldn’t interact with? In my case, I haven’t gone to interact with any communities in Beehaw because what’s the point?
If you don’t want to interact with anyone from that instance, then don’t. We have the tools, and likely more are coming with future updates to Lemmy. But one thing we can’t forget is that these are people. I just want them to see that we are too.
I think another point of view is we are not “convincing” the creators of this reprehensible content of anything.
We are, instead, posting opposing views which may expose persons who wind up down that rabbithole - on purpose or by misadventure - to a different way of viewing the world.
That Utopian concept said, “AYE.”
People that won’t fall down the rabbit hole in the first place if they’re not exposed to these beliefs in the first place. They’ll still see people with the opposing point of view though.
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I understand what you’re saying, and to some extent I agree. The worst of the worst in that instance know exactly what they’re doing. I’m not saying we should argue directly with them.
I’m saying that by remaining federated with them, we act as a counter to their hate, and allow their users to experience posts that the instance can’t control. We aren’t going to change the minds of the worst of the worst. But we can change the minds of the average person.
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I’m going to quote myself from another discussion in this thread, because I’m getting sleepy now.
I don’t believe that every user on that instance is as bad as those folks, and the only way to make sure they don’t end up like that is to show them another way.
And I wanted to reply to this:
I’d rather have them wallow in a barren land of their own creation than run the risk of seeing them convert another impressionable person.
We know they won’t though. Like when the_donald was quarantined and banned, they’ll simply spread out to other instances. And instead of one hydra head, you’ll have many to deal with.
Ultimately, we may end up needing to defederate with them. But I want to try showing the regular people on that instance that their way of thinking isn’t the only way. And that it’s not a good way of thinking.
Thanks for the discussion. My body yearns for my bed, and my mind too sleepy to argue. If you want to continue, I’ll reply tonight.
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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.
Things will get better if they can’t share their message all over the place though.
A good example of that is Maxime Bernier (leader of the PPC,a political party in Canada) who has seen his support disappear after media stopped having the “obligation” to cover him because of election rules. His message lost its reach and now he’s doing live feeds in front of a couple hundreds instead of thousands.
Why wait until it becomes an issue instead of taking preventive measures if we’ve seen it becomes an issue on many platforms?
Oh, you’re making this same argument here as well.
This should be easy, I’ll just copy-paste my replies since you are also copy-pasting your replies (which is a little weird and sus).
Bernier and the PPC is an entire political party running for an election, not an internet community on a niche website that barely gets 20 different users.
🤔
Can whole instances be blocked on Lemmy? I thought only users/communities were possible atm.
They cannot
Aye, nothing lost from defederating them
Aye. Don’t platform dog whistling.
Edit: Actually I had an experience as a result of exploding-heads because I was looking for an Oregon community and came across their oregon one (archive link), which included demonizing homeless and trans people. I ended up blocking it. This isn’t just a bandwagon. I don’t want others on this instance to be lured into those hateful rabbit holes. I ended up joining the PNW community on lemmy.world
Aye
Aye
Aye.
I had given my reasons previously, but I prefer not to platform bigotry.
If there was a way to reason against this kind of thing, reason could be used.
It can’t.
Aye
Aye.
After reviewing the instance myself, their federation creates risks for this server falling afoul of the Criminal Code of Canada and the Canadian Human Rights Act.
I understand defederation is a nuclear option, and wait anxiously for improved tools for users to block posts from entire instances if so desired, but I see no benefit in our being federated with this specific instance.
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.’
That only works if the other party is open to the exchange of ideas and doesn’t just double down instead.
Do we really need to wait until it becomes a major issue or can we just learn from all other platforms that lost control and take measures before that happens?
Ironic hearing that from you.
I know from experience that you personally are not at all open to exchanging ideas.
🤔
Case in point.
The same group that spam downvotes anybody they disagree with accusing others of not being open to the exchange of ideas… 👍
pret much
🤔
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.
I would have figured the hate speech would be a good answer to why we defed them.
Not good enough for me unless they are specifically directing it at us. Defederating them doesn’t make them stop existing. It simply plays into their narrative that we are too sensitive and we can’t handle the truth.
It’s not about them, it’s about our community and what kind of example we want to set. I would prefer to engage with any instance until they transgress against us specifically and significantly. I think that is the best way for a federation to operate.
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.
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
They’re not just jerks on their own server and the goal is to prevent the jerkification of our instance over time.
Aye
Aye
