Lemmy.world Admin Response to Defederation from Exploding Heads
We're closing this thread. Everything that could be said has been said. Thank you
Original Post:
Today, we want to inform everyone that we have decided to defederate from https://exploding-heads.com/. We understand that defederating should always be a last resort, and individuals can certainly block communities. However, blocking alone does not prevent potential harm to vulnerable communities.
After carefully reviewing the instance, reported posts, and multiple comments from the community, we have concluded that exploding-heads is not adhering to the Lemmy or Citizen Code of Conduct. Therefore, we cannot, in good faith, continue to federate with an instance that consistently promotes hate, racism, and bullying.
Again, deciding to defederate from an instance is not taken lightly. In the future, we will continue to review instances on a case-by-case bases.
As for our community, please refrain from posting or commenting with hateful words as well. Arguing back and calling people names is not the solution. The best course of action is to report the posts or comments violating our server rules.
“We are committed to providing a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for all, regardless of level of experience, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, or other similar characteristic.”
Genuinely curious, whats wrong this post: https://exploding-heads.com/post/90780? Seems like they are making fun of the actress, and even then thats a edited picture. All the other ones make sense in violating the rules, but not sure why this was flagged as inappropriate?
I'm not an instance admin, so I don't speak for them.
From my perspective, I don't want to see that kind of meme in my feed, but I also don't think that alone is enough to defederate. That meme along side all of the rest, though, shows that this particular admin enjoys posting troll content, rage bait, and hateful material.
Now, go take a look at the rest of the content on the instance. It isn't all bad but there is a high ratio of hateful content there relative to other instances.
So, while that one particular post may not have been the worst thing in the world, it could be seen as falling under "harassment" in the Citizen Code of Conduct and shows the general mindset of the instance admins. When taken together with the admin's other posts and the prevalence of hateful material on their instance, it indicates that the instance is unlikely to be a welcoming place and will likely continue to violate the Lemmy Code of Conduct and the Citizen Code of Conduct.
I'm happy that lemmy.world has defederated from exploding heads and might have moved to a different instance if they hadn't.
Yeah, based on her physical appearance.. Lemmy.world does not even allow namecalling, so it shouldn't be hard to understand that "making fun of people" based on their looks (some would call that bullying) is not in the spirit of this community and lemmy overall..
And we also should keep in mind that this post was made by an admin, not by a random troll in their community. This clearly shows that the admin has no interest in creating a community that is compatible with lemmy's values.
Fine, I'll assume good faith and answer this: They are clearly making fun of that actress (in that role) specifically because she's black, and in a way that makes fun of her appearance because to them black means primitive or unsophisticated or something.
They are clearly making fun of that actress (in that role) specifically because she’s black
Even if we assume for a moment that they don't have a racist bone in their bodies and were making fun of a white person in the exact same meme, it would still be making fun of a person based on their physical appearance, which goes against lemmy's, lemmy.world's and officially even against their own spirit..
And you can argue that this is taking it too far or being too sensitive, and if that was the only meme posted here, I would probably agree with you. But all the memes together show a clear trend and show that when it comes to this admin at least, there is no interest in creating a healthy community. When you have rules like:
"Be authentic.
Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here.
No threats or personal insults
No discrimination"
and then have admins who, at the very least, bend those rules and post provocating and controversial content only to then go "oh no, we are not edgelords, we actually care about our community very very much and want everyone to be friendly", it does not signal responsibility at all.
And the most important part with this post is that it wasn't posted by a random immature internet troll, it was posted by one of the site admins.. If they can't even moderate their own admin's actions according to their own stated rules, they are either incredibly incompetent, they are not committed to actually creating a non-toxic community or they aren't really interested in following their rules in the first place..