this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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Mander
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Chipping in to say I support defederation from exploding-heads. I don't consider myself someone who likes to go knee deep into what's considered "politics" either, but allowing known bad-faith actors to discuss anything is not a good idea, from my experience. Conversations go off the rails quickly. Especially when such actors discriminate against marginalized groups (as unfortunately politicized as they are in recent times).
On that note, I can't seem to block the following communities? Not sure if the buttons are broken, but it only allows me to highlight text.
I wonder if it's the same issue I posted about here: https://slrpnk.net/post/602890
Very helpful, thanks
I don't disagree, what I disagree is with a blocking action before they actually come and act in bad faith in a way that is difficult to contain. I see blocking an instance as an absolute last resort, after other approaches have failed. I do not want to block an instance because it has a potential to do something, a high likelyhood of doing so, or because it has done it to some other instance. I understand that this is an unpopular view, and that many prefer a proactive approach.
I can see that same issue when I clicked the link, I am not sure why. Worth looking into it. But refreshing the page fixed the button for me, does it do it for you?
I can see why you'd think that, and I'm also not one for knee-jerk reactions. I've moderated communities in the past where the rules insisted that heavy discussions and politics were to be taken elsewhere.
However, I think it's quite telling seeing how other instances have blocked them already, and, if you put exploding-heads into the search bar, there's quite a number of anecdotes of the damage they're causing. It's only a matter of time before they get here, and the damage may be subtle and insidious at first. :/
I'll put my opinions aside. Out of curiosity, what makes you think blocking is such an "absolute last resort" that it seems like too drastic an action? I don't really understand what value exploding-heads brings to us, and if it's truly, somehow, the wrong move (personally doubtful), we can always re-federate. I think prioritizing the comfort and safety of users who actually use mander.xyz is more important, since they're the ones contributing content to the instance.
Refreshing doesn't help for me, BTW. Still see the same issue on my end.
There are some practical reasons and some ideological considerations.
First, I want to point out that this is not about exploding-heads. I genuinely do not think that exploding-heads is a significant threat due to its scale. It has about 30 active users. I have had to deal with an orders-of-magnitude larger amount of disturbing material from users being created in the larger instances. If we are objective and serious about addressing the threat of disturbing content brigades, we should defederate with lemmy.ml, sh.itjust.works, lemmugrad.ml, and lemmy.world - because, due to their scale, they are overwhelmingly the worst offenders.
A practical reason for opting for a non-defederation strategy is that the userbase will disagree with what they want to federate or defederate with. I think that exploding-heads is an easy one to point at, because they produce offensive content, they use foul language, and spew racist/homophobic views. We can all agree that their views are harmful, so we defederate. Then, next week, users come in asking to defederate from lemmygrad.ml because the have a Death to NATO community, or from lemmy.ml because of one of the admin/developer's essays about the Uyghur genocide. Once I enact a blocking policy, this gives users the platform to fight for what gets and what doesn't get federated, and I am in the position of having to defend and justify every federating action. I do not want to be the person in charge of filtering what people can and can't see, and I also don't want some of the users to make these choices for other users. It is impossible to make everyone happy. Personally, I am curious to see any content that is out there. Yes, even if I strongly disagree with it, or if it is offensive. And so, why would I be the one to limit the network for myself and others? I prefer to provide a space where the admin does not choose limit what anyone can and can't access outside of the instance.
The ideological reason is that I genuinely believe that most people are good people. Yes, even communists, and the people creating offensive edgy-memes at exploding-heads, and probably many violent criminals as well. I think that most of these are good people, and that they genuinely would like the world to be a better place. More often than not I disagree with their beliefs, and their methods. And tolerance has some hard limits, but they have to be crossed. I don't believe in assuming the worst of people as a defensive action. I think that the hate that we see in online communities is in large part the result of polarization more than it is a function of our disagreements. Today's world is too polarized, and this polarization is the root of a large amount of society's problems. Some of this polarization is natural, but the media and politicians benefit from it, and they have agreed to amplify this polarization - either on purpose or through the structures that naturally arise. The action of defederating is a polarizing action, one in which we outright reject a group of people, and and contributes towards this polarization. That is why I do not think that this an action to be taken lightly. A network that I want to help build should serve as a tool to reduce, not to amplify, polarization.
Interesting points. I think you managed to articulate a POV I hadn't considered.
I think you make a good point regarding polarization. However, from my prior experience with extremists in particular, I cannot bring myself to give them the time of day. It is true that this amplifies polarization, but there is only so much time and energy I can spend dealing with such folks. Believe me, I have an ex-friend who was (probably still is) a neo-nazi, and the years I've kept them around felt like a waste of my time, and a drain on my spirit, despite attempts to be understanding.
I don't believe that it'll be a slippery slope in users calling for increasing amounts of instances to be defederated, either. It's not difficult to draw a line against extremists, and I think users can understand that.
At the end of the day I respect your viewpoint, but I may have to leave this instance if no action is taken because I simply do not have the mental energy to deal with extremist content, even if it's not an immediate problem. Thanks for engaging with my questions anyway, though!
I understand that. In my case, I grew up in a small city in Yucatan in a boys-only catholic school. I went to a boarding school in the US when I was 15 for a year, and I was a catholic extremist teen at that point. I had been indoctrinated with "catholic family values" and taught to reject multiple lifestyles and behaviors as sinful and unnatural. And what brought me out of my bubble was meeting people and making friends that were very different from me in the US, who espoused very different values, and reading about those values online (at that point the internet was still kind of being developed). It wasn't a fast transformation, it took a lot of self-reflection. I came back home to pretty much fight with everyone in my community next 3 years and used every opportunity to preach acceptance. I was the "extremist" once again in my community, but now fighting for the side of 'satan', 'sin' and the 'unnatural'. So I think that my experiences are what make me feel like it is important to allow people to connect, rather than forcing each other into their own bubble. But yes, maybe it is not what is optimal. And we will find out, as the network evolves. This strategy may be unsuccessful and through a process of natural selection this strategy will be weeded out. I do not intend to let the instance become a platform for hate.
I understand 100%!! I will do my best not to let it to come to this. It is true that not being so proactive increases the risk of this state being transiently visited. The way I see it is "Ok, let's first try to deal with this by taking atomic steps, instead of creating a community where the easy nuclear action is the default". But I fully understand the skepticism.
I have no issues when it comes to purging specific posts, comments, users, and communities that focus on hate. I visited the exploding-heads site and have seen some communities that I would purge if someone fetched them from this instance, but no one has fetched them, and no one has reported them. They don't exist in Mander. I am writing an actual policy now so that I can at least have a better framework to work with... Once I have that I might pull them myself and purge them. But I want to set the rules first. I do listen to everyone and try to make something fair, but it is.... actually a lot of work 😅 It would be much easier to block them and be done with it.
There are many comments on this issue. It is a bit fun and interesting, but it also takes a lot of time to think and write so much... I will focus on trying to write an actual policy instead of addressing individual comments.
If not here, I hope you do find a nice place to park in the fediverse! Thank you for giving it a chance.
Thank you for this. After a good, long think, this makes me feel better. I realise am noisy, but it's because I am passionate about good science spaces. :)
Thanks for this. Please don't cave in to those wanting to create another walled garden. Small groups of asshats aren't enough to notice.
Myself, I hope that general instances like lemmy.world eventually shrink and die as people migrate to instances with a theme or interest. That will keep the fediverse open and avoid one instance becoming too large.
This is really well said. I know you're in a difficult position here, but I do want to say that I really respect the approach you are taking.
Sometimes you have to interact with the community for those options to show up.
Egh, that just defeats the purpose of blocking, doesn't it? I don't want to get near those communities with a ten, thirty foot pole. Thanks for the input, though.