(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.
" 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.
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.
Now where where the memes again.
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 spambots 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.
I think that users should be able to block instances, but being able to block communities may be good enough, at least at this stage in Lemmy’s development.
Another issue with extremists is they like to orchestrate coordinated harassment campaigns against people they don’t like. If that kind of thing starts to happen (which seems likely), that would be a good reason for defederation.
“I don’t like them, we should make them go away.”
Everybody has the right to freedom of association. Nobody’s making a website “go away”. You’d still be free to go there and read their stuff on your own. I do think defederation should be a last resort, though.
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.
Well… I visited there site… That’s… Ummm… Well… Maybe there servers can cool down by going to hell? That’s… That’s not good man. I may even have seen some sort of terrorist activity on the home page. I’m not saying I would be happy about saying this… But maybe we should defederate. Eats Humble Pie
