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
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.
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?
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.
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
Thank you for the voice of reason. I have seen so many "but I don't want an echo chamber" and "just block them bro". Like thats not the point of this. It's to deplatform them.
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.
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.
Given that no bigotry is one of the stated rules of this instance and that bigotry is pretty rampant over on that instance I think it would be appropriate to disassociate with them.
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.
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.
Don't de-federate unless they're allowing the planning of violence, CSAM material, or actual abuse.
As a leftist I see it like this:
Blocking someone is: "I don't want to see this"
De-federating is: "I don't want you to see this"
Blocking someone is: Ignoring a person saying bigoted things.
De-federating is: Jailing a person saying bigoted things.
If you can't handle people saying shit you don't like then you need thicker skin. If you can't engage in a conversation with a person who shares an opinion that you fine distasteful then you need to seek maturity.
If you can't disagree with someone without physically attacking them, then you don't deserve to be part of a community. If you can't exist without abusing another person, then you don't deserve to be part of a community.
As a leftist you should be familiar with the paradox of tolerance and the dangers of giving a platform to hateful ideas.
lol, defederating is not anything like jail
Now, in a tolerant society, we should be tolerant of people who are merely annoying. But not people who are normalizing violence and hate. There are people you fundamentally should not sit at a table with.
It's important to understand the difference between a good faith disagreement and bad faith propaganda and harassment campaigns, which is what the right wing troll farms deal in.
Defederation should be the LAST and FINAL option. From what I understand, this is a small instance that isn't causing much trouble outside of their instance. Block them on your own! I'm on lemmy.world, but personally I would like to keep up to date on the shit they post. I don't think we should start goimg around defederating communities that we disagree with, even though their opinions are shit, vile, offensive, and disgusting. Leave it up and block them on your own.
We should absolutely not turn to defederation as a first action. You know how traditional social media bans opinions that are not acceptable according to themselves?
We must be better than that. It creates a ridiculous otherwise where people think everyone agrees with them and they are never challanged in how they think about things.
I think we should be exposed to different opinions as long as it's within the rules, meaning people must be polite, not hateful, not breaking the law etc.
Read up on the Paradox of Tolerance, please. "We must be better than them" is a call for total tolerance, which will inevitably lead to the disappearance of tolerance, and that cannot be allowed to happen. It is simply impossible to have a community where transphobes and trans people coexist happily together, and I'll choose the side that's not trying to hurt others (trans people, in case that wasn't clear) every day.
These guys fucking suck, no doubt, but I really prefer that we put the impetus on users to block communities they don't like rather than pursue total defederation
Being tolerant without limits not a good way to handle right wing trolls. Trusting right wing trolls to moderate themselves is, imo, not a route to success.
I’m as leftist as they come and I do not support this action. If you don’t want to see it, mute the instance rather than creating an echo chamber.
you're leftist but aren't considering the paradox of tolerance?
like, why? What is the reason you're not supporting defederation?
This is silly. Just block the users/instance yourself.
Defederation exists for a reason. Shit heads and extremists should not be welcome here.
Given that one of the rules for the server is no bigotry, I would assume that extends to the ones we federate with from what I read.
Lemmy or Jeroba just ate my comment so let me try again.
I didn't initially want to join here, but the instance I did want to join (which is defederated with Lemmygrad, Burggit, and Exploding Heads and I think that's a fantastic defed list) is having significant growing pains at the moment, while shit just works here. I ran across my first Exploding Heads post in All and it was gross, and it seems like the tools available to me as a user will leave me playing whack a mole to get rid of all of it which I'm not looking forward to. Right now I'm planning on moving to that other instance in a few weeks once they get everything sorted out, but if Burggit and Exploding Heads are defederated here and the issues with Beehaw are sorted out (which I'm optimistic that they will be), I'm open to staying here, it's certainly the easiest option for me given the lack of account migration options, and the perks of being in a larger instance (the community search feature in Jeroba has worked well for me and I think it's due to the large user base here). I'm extremely impressed with how The Dude is handling the scaling issues and his communication with Beehaw right now, also I generally like Canadians and green energy, lol.
Home of the sh.itjust.works instance.
