The screenshot shows the recommendations from https://join-lemmy.org/.
Still being federated with exploding-heads does not mean the instance supports them. But it means that shit-heads are allowed to take part in the discussions on their communities. They do intoxicate the discussions we will have. They will attack minorities. Maybe you will not be harassed by them, more vulnerable people will be. They are allowed to moderate communities on these instances. Exploding-heads members actively guide young and unknowing people to their hateful instance.
They try to start discussions about the holocaust https://sh.itjust.works/post/227268. They create communities only to crosspost exploding-heads content https://lemmy.world/c/pharma They take over discussions against them https://exploding-heads.com/comment/132189 “WHY are vulnerable people joining a decentralized system? Isnt this why you want a closed, not for public eyes community?”
This was a link to exploding-heads, because when someone copies a permalink of a comment from them on another instance, it will be a link to their instance.
Are we building a place where vulnerable people are welcome and safe or are we building a place where nazis are welcome and safe?
They want you to block them, they comment that everywhere. They block people who are in favor of defederating them https://sh.itjust.works/post/225714 When their opponents won’t see them anymore, they can harass and recruit without being noticed.
Blocking will not solve the problem. They will spread even when you close your eyes.
Maybe this was not done intentionally, but now there is a post with a list of ‘health communities on Lemmy’ with the first entry guiding to exploding heads. https://lemmy.world/post/396561
It is still possible that some of the mentioned instances do support them. The owner of sh.itjust.works says that because of “free speech” all other instances would be allowed. It is suspicious to me that his line is drawn only for lemmygrad https://sh.itjust.works/comment/130474
The decision to block the Lemmygrad instance was less a question of censorship, and more an issue of personal conviction. As a volunteer dedicating my personal resources and time to facilitating a space for users to create, discover, and discuss - not just on this instance, but across the Fediverse - I admit that this choice was made alone, selfishly, without the consent or thoroughly considering the collective opinion of the community. With the above said, sh.itjust.works has had the lemmygrad instance blocked from its first day.
I’d like to also point out that the lemmygrad instance has far more blocked instances than what is currently blocked here. Maybe you can create a post on that instance to see what that’s all about and report back?
At the same time they seem to ignore the call and vote to defederate with exploding-heads https://sh.itjust.works/post/433483.
They rejected to delete The_Donald from sh.itjust.works until they feared to get isolated from the other instances: https://lemmy.ml/post/1467310. They where aware of The_Donald and ignored early warnings. (https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/266248). TD was more important to them than keeping the only mod of their 4th biggest community c/patientgamers (https://sh.itjust.works/post/291747, https://sh.itjust.works/post/388922)
Since The_Donald was removed, I did not find more racist content on the mentioned servers. That is part their tactics. They act harmless but recruit to their instance, attract likeminded people and chase others away. Discussions on sh.itjust.works about such topics are very toxic already, soon they might be able to do more harm.
(My research is very limited, as i could not search for all exploding-heads member content on other instances by entering their domain. I know there are nice communities on sh.itjust.works.)
What can be done? On joinmastodon.org there is a Mastodon Server Covenant with very few useful rules, one of them is “Active moderation against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia”. https://joinmastodon.org/covenant It would be a first step to implement these rules for join-lemmy.org. At least instances that want to be recommended on there should have to agree to that rule.
More actions should be taken now. Please make suggestions. Things will only become more complicated. The next reddit wave is incoming.
For those who did not already know:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
This is not the first time new platforms face these problems, do we really have to repeat the same mistakes?
-Share/crosspost
-Contact admins
update: lemmy.word defederated eh
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Exploding-heads.com has been blocked by https://lemmy.world as well.
Full list of our linked and blocked instances can be found here: https://lemmy.world/instances
Good. Are you actively moderating against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia?
As soon as you fix your op.
deleted by creator
They’re playing the traditional Alt-Right playbook, and they’re playing a bunch of instance admins like fiddles. I’ve noticed a consistent pattern of abusive trolls being from that instance. My secondary account is on sh.itjust.works, and I’m looking for another instance to be my secondary instance that I use to look at lemmy.world content I can’t see from this, my primary account. Thus far, there aren’t any instances I can find that have a federation / defederation list that matches my ideal list, so for now, I have my happy account and my “it stresses me out” account.
It seems like there are two camps here in the threadiverse. People who are excited to find an instance admin who moderates the way they like, and people who think an instance admin is only responsible for uptimes and that this entire experiment should be fully unmoderated
I think I am missing something here, can someone explain a few terms for me by chance?
What the hell does Fediverse mean? What the hell does Federated mean? What the hell does Defederated mean?
Let’s start with federation. Federation is a concept where in two socially enabled sites can send eachother updates about hosted content so that users of one site can see content from the other without leaving their preferred site. Defederation is when a site elects to no longer send or receive updates to another site. The fediverse is a vast topology of many sites that use a shared protocol to federate with eachother
So just to clarify, as I migrated from the other website I refuse to mention, I assume that site is not Federated, and Lemmy is? And Exploding***-Heads is another instance?
Reddit is indeed not a federation capable platform. It is purely centralized. Lemmy and Kbin are both part of the Fediverse using the ActivityPub protocol, along with other social media platforms such as (but not limited to) mastodon, pelorma, calckey, misskey, and pixelfed. Exploding-Heads is, indeed, an instance separate from the instance you’re on (lemmy.ml) or the one I’m on (slrpnk.net)
Thanks for the response. I just have more questions now >.<
Am I able to login to any of these instances with the same account? I.e. this skiba account I am on?
If they are not the “same” then why are you able to view Lemmy.ml from the instance of Slrpnk.net?
Sorry for asking for an ELI5 but my curiosity lingers
Sure! So, you cannot log in to any server using the same identity. For better and for worse, your identity is attached to a server (or more accurately, a server is attached to your identity) so your login will only work with one server. As far as how we can both see each other’s stuff, that answer likes within the ActivityPub specification. I haven’t read fully into the spec, but the executive summary is that your server just displays information it has cached, and that other servers send it information to cache.
When you look at any feed, comment section, or thread, you are looking at an aggregated presentation of content from many servers that your server sends and receives messages to. As such, your feed is a reflection of both the content you have expressed an interest in by subscribing to it or clicking into it, but also the moderation style of the admin of the instance attached to your identity. As such, it is important to distinguish that it is factually inaccurate to say that which server you join when you sign up doesn’t matter.
Finding a server that is run the way you would want a server to be run will not be an instant process. The first step is to read the documents that an instance you’ve found has socialized. Do the rules sound good? The second step is to look at the local feed on that instance. Are you interested in the posts? Do any of them raise red flags? The third step is to sign up for the instance and try it out. Does it feel good to be there?
Obviously, since we’re already having this conversation, you’ve signed up for lemmy.ml. No matter how rigorous your vetting process, you still did enough to say you were interested in what was going on there, even if you didn’t fully understand it. Imagine if someone’s first impression of Lemmy was slrpnk.net. It would look like there isn’t that much activity, and all of it is about ecology and climate change. Meanwhile, you went to lemmy.ml and didn’t notice anything off. Done. That was a step.
So now. That final step after you’ve signed up for an instance where you decide if you’re going to stick around. This is where you pay attention to if there are consistent moderation issues with the instance you are on. To describe my personal experience, slrpnk.net is the third instance I’ve signed up for. The first instance I signed up for was on beehaw.org, and that remains my primary account. But about 3 weeks ago, Beehaw decided to defederate from a pair of large instances because they didn’t have the capacity to moderate the onslaught of content coming from those instances. I was subscribed to a few communities on those instances. I had been enjoying content coming from them. Most of the users weren’t problematic. So, I figured I’d set up a secondary account on another instance to view the content I was missing out on. I would just do my own blocking of content I would rather not see, since Lemmy and KBin provide better blocking tools than Reddit ever did.
That secondary account quickly ran into problems as the moderators from that instance let too much slide, by far. This is where the other part of deciding if you want to stay on an instance comes into play. I noticed in my time on that secondary instance a pattern of liking what people from slrpnk.net had to say about things (as well as disliking what people from exploding-heads had to say). I decided I wanted to be on an instance where I wasn’t constantly blocking content from one instance because it was already defederated. When I saw slrpnk.net was in fact defederated from exploding-heads, I knew it was a good landing place since I already felt a spirit of agreement with their userbase, so I joined.
I hope that clears things up. As much as possible, I want to reduce how intimidating all of this can seem. I’ve been interested in the fediverse for a long time. It’s only recently really gotten a way to interact with it that both has enough people on it to seem worthwhile AND matches the ways I like interacting with the internet (on forums). I realize it can look a little odd for someone with young accounts (@Cube6392@beehaw.org, @Quill7513@slrpnk.net , and @Quill7513@sh.itjust.works are all me) to speak at length about these topics. I first signed up for a mastodon instance in 2016, and I had many of the same questions and confusion you did. I want to give people a more comfortable on ramp than I had.
Does all of that help?
Uhhhhhhh, absolutely! This is a massive reply and I am appreciative of that. I am sure that many other people reading are also sort of in the same mindset or (where the hell am I really?). I still am a tad confused as to why this account will not work on other instances, but I guess you do explain why here in this response.
Appreciate the time and effort :)
Federation is broken, if you’re not on lemmy.world you’re not in the real Lemmy
So stop doing a mastodon Lemmy. Shit’s getting too complicated. If it matters which instance you join, that means you have to choose which one, that means you have to read each instance manifesto for the right fit. That means 99% of new users already realized this isn’t going to work out and returned to Reddit
Federation is broken, if you’re not on lemmy.world you’re not in the real Lemmy
So stop doing a mastodon Lemmy. Shit’s getting too complicated. If it matters which instance you join, that means you have to choose which one, that means you have to read each instance manifesto for the right fit. That means 99% of new users already realized this isn’t going to work out and returned to Reddit
Shit, to what server should I move that doesn’t federate with nazis? Idc how they call themselves these days, you know what I mean with nazis
Also I see the name lemmygrad thrown around, what’s the story with them?
The questions aren’t specifically for OP
Lemmygrad is a pro-authoritarian socialist instance
As far as instances that don’t federate with exploding heads, there’s sopuli.xyz, beehaw.org, slrpnk.net, and Lemmy.dbzer0.com
The first two are general purpose instances. Sopuli is kinda the most traditionally run instance. Its actively moderated, but its unlikely to defederate from an instance just because its big and moderating traffic from it is more than they can handle. Beehaw DOES defederate from instances that generate more traffic than they can manage. This is where my primary account is because the moderation style of “make the community a pleasant place to be regardless of the popularity of other instances’ popularity” is definitively my speed.
Slrpnk and dbzer0 are focused instances. Slrpnk is focused on ecological friendliness, sustainability, and making the physical world a more survivable space. They describe themselves as not trying to create a Utopian (impossibly idealistic) society, but rather a eutopian (acheivably idealistic) society. Dbzer0 is focused on digital anarchism. The slogan on their instance admin’s website alludes to the 90s slogan “You wouldn’t download a car” by effectively saying “yes I would, and I intend to.” I would say their mission is also eutopian in nature, but less focused on making our physical world more sustainable, but instead on the idea that the world would be more diverse and interesting if we put everything, and I mean EVERYTHING into the public domain. I’m not 100% sure I agree, but I definitively respect the ethos and the dedication to it. I guess what I’m saying is check it out, here them out, they’re not harmful or abusive. They’re filled with convictions, and I’d probably enjoy hanging out with them
Thanks, that was really informative. Beehaw sounds more like my kind of thing, as my Mastodon instances (the ones I’m in, not that I own them) are also small, chill places that prioritise user wellbeing over popularity. I’ll need to look into migration, or just directly opening a new account, as this one isn’t that long lived. Thanks again
Also it looks like lemmy.world (your home instance) has elected to defederate from exploding heads. They’re becoming an interesting sociological study as I noticed a pattern early on of them having a lot of chud-y types, but it seems like the admin staff at lemmy.world is not interested in being an instance that tolerates that kind of behavior (which I realize now, looking at the code of conduct on mastodon.world, should have been expected eventually to become the norm). This gives me high hopes for Beehaw and lemmy.world being refederated with eachother sooner rather than later. Lemmy.world is probably still fighting an uphill battle with how rudimentary moderation tools are on this platform, but it warms my soul to see
Also I see the name lemmygrad thrown around, what’s the story with them?
Lemmygrad.ml is an instance for Marxist-Leninists and other Socialists who are broadly pro-AES (Actually Existing Socialism, i.e. the USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, East Germany, etc.) and anti-West. Criticism of AES is fine; but the assumption is that you’re there because you think AES is better than Actually Existing Capitalism. If you’ve ever heard of podcasts like TrueAnon or The Deprogram (or even Chapo Traphouse, to some extent, though they’re more “ML-sympathetic” than “Outright Marxist-Leninists”), it’ll give you a general idea of what sort of politics they’re about.
Lemmygrad is where Leftist Redditors go when their favorite subs (/r/ChapoTrapHouse, /r/MoreTankieChapo, /r/FULLCOMMUNISM, /r/GenZedong) get banned or quarantined.
I’m not a big Lemmy-head, but I saw this post on lemmygrad so I assume that means your instance is federated with lemmygrad.
Let’s say I’m technically affiliated to the biggest ML party of the country where I come from, am I going to find marxists, or is it more of an American leftist thing?
You’re gonna have a preponderance of users from the imperial core (hard to avoid that on the internet), but a significant number of users are from the imperial periphery.
you know you can just block them yourself right? you don’t have to force your opinion on everyone. if most people block them they will become just as isolated as if they were defederated anyways.
Why give them a platform and an audience to begin with? They’re the scum of the earth. Fuck them.
Specifically, any fascist group is a conspiracy to commit murder. As such, there is no “free speech” reason to tolerate fascist organizing.
Edited to add: Discussion of fascist views is a different matter. I specifically mean people using your stuff to organize fascist groups or activities. If they’re trying to rally people into a group that wants to murder Jews or LGBT+ or socialists or liberals, then they’re not just discussing views — they’re conspiring crimes, and you don’t have any good reason to support them under “free speech” principles. Even the libertarians object to “force and fraud”.
So, can we extend that to any communist group as well then?
no, conspiracy to commit murder is not an inherent aspect of communist ideology in the same way that it is integral to fascism
How’s that? Every time I’ve pressed a communist about how they will deal with non conformity should their revolution succeed, they eventually agree that the plan is to kill them.
because regardless or anecdotes, a communist ideal does not by definition necessitate a conspiracy to commit murder
even if not a single pacifist communist existed, and they do, itd still be totally possible to be both a pacifist and a communist
in contrast, violence is a fundamental part of what makes fascism fascism. a fascist party will never be pacifistic, because it would no longer be fascist
Come back down to the real world. People don’t want communism unless you force them into it under the barrel of a gun. Communism means my individual wants, needs, and property is decided by the will of the people, which in reality translates to the will of a few dozen elite Party members at the top of the scheme. I’m not an ant in a colony.
As someone whose family has been massacred by Stalin’s repressions while every single possession was stolen, I’m going to go ahead and not join your cult. Thanks. I bet if it happened again, you’d be cheering in support.
because the power is in your hands? by ignoring them you are removing their influence. you don’t pick up your baby every time it starts crying because then they will just start crying to get your attention.
Yeah, but I gotta wonder why I should be a part of a community that federates with a hive of block fodder.
The only instance I’d ever recommend my friends to join is beehaw.org and that’s why I love it. Otherwise it’s the wild Wild West.
Maybe this was not done intentionally, but now there is a post with a list of ‘health communities on Lemmy’ with the first entry guiding to exploding heads. https://lemmy.world/post/396561
I’m building that list and no, it wasn’t intentional. It being first is completely accidental. As you can see, “general health” communities are at the top, and well the one from xheads is the most general purpose (another one is on Midwest US and the other is Mander so more scientific).
I didn’t know or even care where the communities come from. In the post I clearly state I don’t vouch for any of them, and people can let me know if they think some don’t belong.
I called for help or advice on multiple occasions, guess how many people offered any? Zero.
Honestly until this post I didn’t even know there’s any controversy with that instance. I never visited it, it’s just been under my radar. I know some instances don’t like other instances and it just becomes noise to me, honestly.
I don’t know what would you have me do here? Remove the link? What other links should I remove because some instances have some oddball users? Should I remove Lemmygrad links too?
I’m not claiming to be the Red Cross or anything, but I was hoping to have a neutral list that’s as complete as possible.
This may seem like a problem specific to this list of mine, but see how easy to suddenly be indirectly accused of supporting nazis or something. Let’s not be so hasty alright?
Btw, I was just about to try to figure out how or if to include lgbtq+ matters in the health community, and wanted to go ask some actual lgbtq+ people because I want their input rather than just guess myself. Now I’m wondering if I’d also be accused of being a provocateur or something else for trying to be open to everyone.
Removed by mod
I know. My point was that everyone has some political disagreement with someone else, and I can’t care about those feuds or I’d have no list.
Removed by mod
They are going to cause issues sooner rather than later in communities that don’t defederate from them. It’s quite literally just a given. I’m shocked some of those instances haven’t defederated from them already.
A mix of naïveté and bad faith actors taking advantage of the naïveté are leading to the current environment, it seems like to me
I think the whole attitude of “oh just block the community and ignore it” really comes from a privilege of not having to deal with the way those communities tend to intersect negatively with vulnerable communities when they were ignored on reddit and the mess that caused. Blocking their biggest communities from your own account does not stop them from giving them the potential to join discussions in bad faith, DMing threats, open up potential doxxings, community brigading, harassment, etc. There comes a point where simply ignoring them does not work as they always try to force their bullshit into communities outside of them and stir trouble if they aren’t cut off preemptively. You aren’t deplatforming them by defederating them, you are taking away their megaphone and potential to cause real harm those exact communities have shown to do time and time again in the past.
The question I always find myself asking is, why is it that people only expect the targets of abuse to do the filtering of that abuse, and why, other than you yourself would like to enact abuse, would you want to leave people engaging in abusive behavior in position to continue being abusive? Beehaw has lamented there not being more flexible moderation tools allowing us to perform more powerful moderation actions, enabling the filtration of abuse on otherwise good servers, but until those tools exist, what good reason is there to ignore and enable abuse?
It’s this (mostly) American delusion of unlimited free speech on the internet and it never works out 🤷♂️.
I agree, it seems the owner of shit just works is one of those “free speech absolutist” types. It’s a plague here, and the worst part is that they NEVER actually believe in 100% absolute free speech. They almost universally want some leftists speech censored, but never nazis.
Yep. And (obviously) America is going to one day be forced to come to that same understanding that Germany was painfully forced to. I’m just hopeful it doesn’t take a genocide or some sort of dictatorship for a similar reckoning to occur. Germany might not be perfect, but there are many things American society could learn from that exist within modern day German culture especially in regards to cultural reconciliation with historical wrongs. It’s hard to really describe how happy it makes me feel that as a Jewish person I can say I would feel very safe and welcome living in and visiting most places in Germany, but it also makes me sad to an immense degree that I can truthfully say I’d probably feel safer most places there than in the most places in the states right now… :(
Given that at no time in human history has shit ever “just worked” without looking from an extremely narrow viewpoint, I think it’s fairly easy to discern this Instance’s goals: to be a bridge from the extreme right to the rest of the community.
Certainly fits the pattern.
I’ve gone there and they don’t seem like nazis??? They seem to just recommend that people who get offended easily block the places they don’t like
There’s no feasible way to stop people of a specific ideology from using an open source piece of software. You say blocking isn’t the answer but I’m not sure what more you can expect. Even if you invent some kind of automated Nazi detector, what action can it enforce beyond banning or blocking?
The most realistic solution I can think of is letting instances or users subscribe to curated blacklists. Something akin to Adblock or email server spam blacklists.
Even if you invent some kind of automated Nazi detector
As interesting a problem as this might be (my final year undergrad project was similar in nature), the nuance of written word can be significant and difficult to detect. Making a good product and then ensuring multiple communities would adopt it is not realistic in 2023.
What is realistic, however, is a zero tolerance policy against such individuals. What we should be doing is ostracizing them. You take away their platform, you take away their power. They can only do so much damage if they’re all gathered up in a single community with no ties or influence to the rest of the world.
what action can it enforce beyond banning or blocking?
Defederation, that’s one of the key concepts of the fediverse
Blocking an entire instance is still blocking.
