please defederate from exploding-heads.com and rammy.site
(not sure if this is the right community, sorry)
Hi, someone posted this on another server. I'd like to request we defederate with rammy.site and exploding-heads.com as well. I scrolled through some of their posts and comments and it's full of ridiculous anti-left propaganda, for example a post where some liberal Florida family fleeing the state when some child protection laws got passed, implying liberals abuse children and won't live in a state that doesn't allow them to. Just take a look for yourself.
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Admins of Lemmy.ml please consider defederating from rammy.site it has been taken over by right wing malicious actors from exploding-heads.com and the admin is nowhere to be found.
It is imperative that you take action as soon as possible the users on rammy are using the site to spread their messages to a further audience, we must nip this in the bud. If you don't believe me check the instance for yourself, you'll see it dominated with bigoted right wing posts and spam communities."
Edit: So many commenters think this is about political opinions or disagreement. It's not. If I said "Mixing bleach and ammonia is good for you" I bet some of you would call that a political disagreement.
The reason that I am not a member at beehaw was because they were overly wrapped up in concerns such as this one. I'm here for enjoyable chats with people, not to take sides in the latest macro-politics or causes or whatever lately is stirring the pot or making the winds blow. These things are fine and some people are interested in them, but I'm turned off by the idea of an instance that is particularly identified one way or another when I am not concerned with any of that.
What I'm looking for are kind souls that share an interest in technology and an instance that was widely federated so that a wide variety of my interest groups (music, weightloss, networking, ancient Stoicism) are available. That's why I joined here. SDF has been around a long time and many who have enjoyed its offerings have held many different opinions and yet shared this resource peacefully.
I'm particularly turned off by people that want a silo with only the right causes, only the right thinking, only the right speech.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't have management and protection of against those that are unkindly trolling or actively trying to do technical damage. Ban those actually doing evil. But if people of good cheer share different views kindky as neighbors and friends, I have no problem with that and don't want to see that roped off.
Remember the two rules of FidoNet? "Don't be excessively annoying. Don't be easily annoyed." That's all I'm saying.
There is the English dictionary definition of stoic and stoicism with a small s character. There is also an ancient philosophy of Stoicism both ongoing and with a recent revival currently ongoing.
You're reading the situation wrong. Go to those instances and read what's there, it's not about free speech, it's active disinformation campaigns and propaganda. I would feel the same if it was extreme leftist propaganda. It's not about creating an echo chamber. I respect the right to free speech, but that isn't the same as allowing people a platform to systematically organize hate using falsified information. This is a situation where silence is complicity. Their instance continues to exist without us, their free speech continues, but by remaining federated we are giving them a platform.
As usual, I have typed 500 words when 50 will do, and for that I apologize.
Go to those instances and read what’s there
No, I do not care to and why would you do that? You already have determined it's not right for you. Any alleged content problem that you have to see by going there would, if true, be a problem there. Does that make it a problem here? If I have to take extraordinary steps here to see it here, isn't that on me? Isn't the apparatus doing what it is supposed to be doing if I seek out a thing and find it?
The ultimate measure of freedom is the freedom to abstain. (Nobody is forcibly opting us in to reading their content.)
I'm just a regular user of SDF so these things aren't up to me, but I would think that it would take more than "because it exists." Defederation and Federation shouldn't be used to signal alignment and nonalignment of expression, but for reasons of managing the network itself. A telephone company provides service to everyone and doesn't care what you do with your phone. But, if someone is using it in a way that disrupts the network itself or others' ability to use the network, the telephone company should act to protect the overall integrity of the network. Even then it wouldn't silence the speech because of the speech, but because of the network.
Their instance continues to exist without us, their free speech continues, but by remaining federated we are giving them a platform.
Look, it's one thing to be put off by someone going out of their way to affront you. It's another to feel affronted after going out of your way to find if there is something objectionable anywhere. By that logic, since you have found something then defederation alone should not be enough, as "we are giving them a platform" still, because other people might visit there directly instead of through federation. Therefore, due to that situation, they should not have an DNS entry so you work on their Registrar to "deplatform" them. Then, because someone can connect using an IP address, their ISP should disconnect their service or else they're providing their ISP as a platform. But as they can get another ISP in this day of mobile connectivity, you could chase down their power company, yes, because their power company is a platform -- as is their landlord -- as is their employer. And so on.
funchords, ha, we don't know each other but we've bumped into each other before on reddit long ago and I remember your name and that you were in a barbershop quartet. looks like you picked a good instance as home, be well man :)
I joined this instance because I wanted to learn, collaborate, and share tech- and art-related ideas in an environment not toxic like commercial social media that has been filled with bad actors. An environment more akin to the 1990s BBS systems where tech-misfits are free to be without being subjected to hate from those pushing anti-social philosophies.
I seriously doubt sdf.org will defederate due to political, religious or other kind of views unless some kind of danger to its users is involved, and even then I'm pretty sure we would go to ARPA votes over it.
While the instance might be recent the community behind sdf.org is ancient (I say this with my utmost respect for them ) so yea, not their first rodeo or last one. If you don't like the views of those instances feel free to block them yourself.
Best regards.
Maybe because of the literal content of your post?
I scrolled through some of their posts and comments and it’s full of ridiculous anti-left propaganda, for example a post where some liberal Florida family fleeing the state when some child protection laws got passed, implying liberals abuse children and won’t live in a state that doesn’t allow them to.
I've got news for you: the entire planet has not taken up American political idiocy. Nobody outside of the USA (and many of the people in it) gives a fuck about American political slapfights.
If you want a safe space instance for one or another American "team," find it somewhere else or start one yourself.
Because most of the time people who cry about being forced to see things they don't like are crying about a political topic. You can control what you block yourself. Don't drag the rest of us into your own echo chamber.
Imo deferderating should be a last resort. And so far I haven't seen any excessive cases of people coming over and breaking the rules of this instance.
Please don't! The whole reason I made an account here is because they don't defederate. I want to control what I read. If you have a problem with a certain instance or user, block them yourself! It's very easy.
I don't want to have to spin up a whole instance just for myself.
The Android app Connect has it. I've blocked a few instances, so I don't see communities on them. I do see posts from users from those instances, but they're collapsed by default, though I do see responses.
Example:
I decided to see for myself so I could voice an informed opinion. One of the first posts I saw on their (EH) Local channel, titled Based Pride Month, is an image of a headline reading, Saudi Arabia Celebrate Pride Month by Hanging Gays with Rainbow Noose. This is hateful content. My ability to discern such has nothing to do with savvy. I don't want to see these opinions because they are grotesque.
However, I haven't seen ExHeads leaking out into the greater Lemmiverse. That said, I want nothing to do with anyone who considers this ok. Even if they are currently fairly contained, they have made it clear who they are and I choose not to surround myself with bigots.
I vote to defederate. We don't need to wait for them to become a huge pain in the ass. They are showing us who they are.
You said it better than I was going to. Keeping truthaboutjews.ru out of grandma's feed is one thing, but I feel like I'm savvy enough to read garbage responsibly. Maybe I'm being overconfident but there it is.
Do you have the same level of confidence in children and people who are deeply mentally ill?
If you want to read far-right trash, you can set up an account on a far-right trash server, rather than insisting that everybody else on the instance tolerates them for your convenience.
Their posts might be a harmless novelty for you but for others, they're threats of violence and celebrations of abuse.
I'm not in favor of defederating over political preference at all. I don't come to this instance expecting an echo chamber, and an echo chamber is precisely what I do not want.
It's not political difference, it's disinformation and propaganda. Just look, even if you're conservative you should be able to see how messed up it is unless you lack critical thinking skills
Whether people have a right to exist or have basic human rights is not political preference. And disinformation is in direct conflict with free and open knowledge and learning.
Maybe I should have removed the word "conservative" in my post. Oh wait, I didn't use the word conservative. This isn't political, but if you took it to be political, that would imply to me that you consider spreading false information to be part of the conservative platform.
I have to wonder if the people staunchly against defederation at any cost ever dealt with redditors from hate subs following them around reddit from sub to sub everywhere they posted to keep screaming at them about trans women not being women, while also repeatedly reporting them to Reddits suicide bot to try to make them think about suicide. It's not exactly the nicest online experience and I had it more than once in my time on reddit.
To me the benefit of federation includes defederation. If it was easy to just say "get rid of all the users from r/hatesub" on reddit it would have been a lot nicer. I don't know why people are clamoring to keep hateful shit around. Go join the hateful shit instance if you want to read it so bad but I'd rather the users of an instance like that not be able to see me at all since queer people like me are who they hate so bad, and I can't exactly block all of them.
while also repeatedly reporting them to Reddits suicide bot to try to make them think about suicide.
Whoa. That's a lot more messed up than I realized. I had thought it more in line with the FB "poke and block" but that makes a lot more sense. That's just...wow... I shouldn't expect much from bad actors but that's something that makes me that much more glad that I left Reddit.
I have only ever gotten suicide reports when I've defended trans people on reddit, meanwhile I get them almost every single time I've done that. It's 100% transphobes hoping to make trans people think about suicide. I'm not trans or suicidal, so they're wasting their time with me, but that's the motivation behind it, hoping they might get someone in a dark place.
So I have to say I'm pretty on board with defederating from an instance that is full of posts that very much also want trans people eradicated.
If they have anything interesting or non-hateful to say they'll say it on another instance. The hate they spew is only on these instances because the admins are hateful.
If there is a vote I will vote to defederate and I'll sleep perfectly well because the slippery slope fallacy is just that. If I want to see their hateful garbage I'll sign up for an account there.
I don't like right wingers either but I do not believe that suppressing speech helps anyone (unless people start doxxing, swatting, dogpiling, etc) but I just went to check out exploding-heads and the first I saw was this clip of a Pfizer representative admitting that their employees got a different COVID vaccine in a senate hearing. I mean, can someone debunk that? Is it just taken out of context? Is the video doctored? Is this "fake news"? If so, provide data and sources. If you suppress something like this you're not doing anyone a favor.
And now that almost 80% of the population are vaccinated anyways, the "vaccination hesitancy" argument doesn't really hold value.
Just went through some other posts there and I don't agree with a lot of their takes. Reading their rules I see no reason to defederate.
Thank you for actually reading some posts instead of blindly assuming things. I think the situation is a little different than I thought. Lemmy.ml defederated from rammy.site but not exploding-heads. rammy.site has no mods currently and a disinformation campaign was launched on it from exploding-heads. I went to look at exploding-heads again today and it seems much more mild than yesterday, but rammy.site is still filled with trash posted from exploding-heads. Maybe take a look there?
I didn't see the vaccine post you mentioned, but I would imagine it's out of context. I can't even seem to find it when searching.
Context matters though. If employees got a different vaccine because the company didn't trust their own, that's very different than employees got a different vaccine because it was cheaper. I don't know what the truth is there, but disinformation often involves using true facts out of context to steer towards false conclusions. It's very easy to manipulate people that way.
Since you asked me to provide some examples myself:
https://rammy.site/post/327922
Out of context, this implies children get transition operations from the NHS.
In context, "For the first time, it has set a minimum age of seven for referral to the gender identity clinics. These children will be offered psychological support and therapy that will focus on issues that may have led to their feelings about their gender."
https://rammy.site/post/326298
This one is a list of cherry picked climate change predictions that didn't come true. The vast majority of the scientific community did not come to those conclusions. In fact, I started to get the feeling they were made up, so I started checking the sources. They are actually, literally made up. They didn't even go through the effort of finding real predictions that went wrong, they just grabbed random quotes and paired them with institutions and dates. When you search the quotes on Google, you get different names, or just the same article copied and pasted.
Even if Pfizer employees got a different vaccine---so what? Is the implication that their employees got the good version while everybody else got the Bill-Gates-microchip-zombie version?
I think it's more likely that the employees got first crack at it. So, they got version 1.0 before the release date, some mods were made, and the general public got version 1.5. Big deal. It only looks nefarious if you believe that Pfizer is conspiring to poison people or something.
Could we tone down the rhetoric? Why does everything have to be Bill Gates/Microchip/killshot-whatever maximum? They had to produce a shitload of vials in a short time under extreme pressure. This leads to mistakes, bad handling, good and bad batches, supply chain issues, etc. Having batches that get extra testing for "people more critical to operations" wouldn't be unthinkable. If it's that innocent, so be it. But I want transparency and debate. We're still living under capitalism so even if they just had 1st and 2nd class batches, I'd want to know.
I'm confused... We're talking about trying to make two fediverses here... That's kinda weird. I hear your "don't mix bleach with ammonia"... But if I see someone say that on Lemmy... Am I going to do it? How does it actually hurt me? I understand it's hateful and offensive, but this is a free and open internet, and that is one big reason I choose Lemmy/Mastodon over twitter/reddit. It's like the library... Have you ever seen something at the library you don't like. An opposing viewpoint? Do we defund the library and close it because there's a "gay comic book" in it? That happened in my area, very stupid. I come here for all my ideas, and expect to be offended by some. It's the internet. Plan to be offended... By 9am. When you wake up at 8:55a. And it takes you 4 minutes to pick up your phone.
But then again I could be a crazy conservative or liberal or something... Don't trust me.
Lemmy was designed for both federation and defederation. It doesn't make sense to blindly federate with every instance in existence, if for no other reason than some of them will be full of spam and/or illegal content.
Illegal and spambots are one thing... I just don't want thought police on sdf. If your reason for defederation is "I don't like them, we should make them go away." Then maybe we are no better then the people who say those things about us.
This is my daily reminder that there are many people on the internet who don't understand history. And also seemingly a lack of understanding of the word federation.
Additional thought... If the people in the defederate camp just go and post things they don't like... Maybe they defederate with us... Then we don't stoop, and you get your wish? (I assume it goes both ways) 😜
History doesn't show it going that way. The bad actors often take an approach similar to EEE, seeking out potential vulnerable populations of misfits to exploit. Rammy has been effectively taken over by EH users due to absent admins and maintaining federation just helps the bad actors continue to find victims.
Let's take a look at some (US) historical examples:
The "Gamergate" saga was coopted by bad actors to radicalize isolated young men in the online gaming community, enabled by unchecked vitriol. This led directly to communities like 4chan, which were home to shitposting internet misfits, being coopted by the far-right and repurposed as platforms for spewing hatred and sharing plans for terrorism.
Neo-nazis coopted the fashions and musical style of hardcore punk rocker "skins" (making "skinhead" synonymous with neo-nazi and making SHARP necessary). During the 80s and 90s, said neo-nazis invaded venues, assaulting and battering attendees, while spewing forth hate. This led to not just the writing of "Nazi Punks, Fuck Off" but formation of explicitly anti-nazi bands like Reagan Youth and escalations in violence against the invaders who were trying to take over.
Going back to the early-20th century, extremely wealthy bad actors, in what became known as The Business Plot, attempted to use neglected veterans to remove FDR from office in a coup, in order to undo The New Deal and ally the US with Axis powers. They did so by a combination of bribery and getting bad actors into their target audiences' venues under false pretenses so that they could deliver their messages in a manner intended to elicit sympathy for their cause.
How about current events? Commercial and non-commercial entities alike are pulling away from the microblogging platform formerly-known as Twitter due to unchecked vitriol, hate, and disinformation.
I am adept enough to decide, at a personal usage level, which content I want to filter out. I refuse to be a part of a community that feels a need to make those decisions for me. SDF is one place where I know I shouldn’t have to worry about that. If you want to play content moderator, spin up your own instance and play god.
And as 4chan taught us, ironic tongue-in-cheek bigotry leads to an environment where people engage in rational conversations about equitable and inclusive society.
Wait no, it leads to a cesspool of racists encouraging each other to livestream their mass shooting of “inferior” races.
You’re taking the bait of the “free marketplace of ideas”.
They really aren't already. Even the "tankies" are telling them how gay it is, that all they can think about is other people's genitals. And the blatant troll posts rarely get above 3-5 likes and zero comments. I also notice the more sane instance members are defecting to other instances, because they want actual discussion. I've seen a few on here already, behaving like reasonable humans.
If there was a mass defederation, it could be argued they wouldn't have abandoned ship for calmer water.