exploding-heads are infiltrating our discussions - lemm.ee
lemm.ee
The screenshot shows the recommendations from https://join-lemmy.org/ [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 [https://sh.itjust.works/post/227268]. They create communities only to crosspost exploding-heads content https://lemmy.world/c/pharma [https://lemmy.world/c/pharma] They take over discussions against them https://exploding-heads.com/comment/132189 [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 [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. M̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ t̶h̶i̶s̶ w̶a̶s̶ n̶o̶t̶ d̶o̶n̶e̶ i̶n̶t̶e̶n̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶l̶y̶, b̶u̶t̶ n̶o̶w̶ 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 [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 [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 [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 [https://lemmy.ml/post/1467310]. They where aware of The_Donald and ignored early warnings. (https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/266248 [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/291747], https://sh.itjust.works/post/388922 [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 [http://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 [https://joinmastodon.org/covenant] It would be a first step to implement these rules for join-lemmy.org [http://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 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance] https://www.upworthy.com/bartender-explains-why-he-swiftly-kicks-nazis-out-of-his-punk-bar-even-if-theyre-not-bothering-anyone [https://www.upworthy.com/bartender-explains-why-he-swiftly-kicks-nazis-out-of-his-punk-bar-even-if-theyre-not-bothering-anyone] This is not the first time new platforms face these problems, do we really have to repeat the same mistakes? -Share/crosspost -Contact admins

See longer post (not by me) there, if all is true then they should fall under both the spam and mass lemm.ee rule breaking defederation rules, both bigotry and abusive language, though not always in combination.

Also the covenant thing Mastodon has would probably be a good idea.

  • barsoapOP
    91·
    1 year ago

    I do not want to federate with instances which aim to hurt our communities or users, but I need concrete and specific evidence of this before I take drastic action.

    Acting based on evidence is always good and proper. As to relying on reports for that I’m sceptical, though, or better put things aren’t quite there yet: A toxic community might be raiding some instance somewhere, that instance’s users are reporting like crazy, and you see none of it, consequently they could focus on one instance after the other, then change domains, rinse and repeat. Or at least that’s how I think it works (excuse my ignorance), there’s no global space where admins could see all reports. Would you even see a report from a lemm.ee user made in a community of another instance?

    It might be a good idea to have more options in the report dialog, not just because of this, regarding whom to actually report the post to, as well as a drop-down for reasons – a post on beehaw that I report might violate beehaw “be nice” rules, but it might or might not also violate lemm.ee rules so I may or may not want to report it here, too.

    It might also make sense to be able to report not just to mods/admins but specific communities who can then collate evidence and present it to admins (essentially /r/shitXXXsay but better), collating will be important because the harassment can be in the overall interaction pattern of a community, not just individual posts.

    All in all though, to get my head out of the clouds and back into the here and now: Please don’t be too principled as long as the tools and community to back up those principles aren’t in place. That is, err on the side of the banhammer if you see a preponderance of evidence because if you don’t those people are going to strategise around your principles, rules of evidence etc. to do their thing. We’re already seeing that with the “block users who want us gone so they can’t report us” type of tactic.

    Actually that looks like quite a misfeature: Someone blocking me shouldn’t preclude me from seeing their content. Another thing reddit got wrong.

    • SNEWSLEYPIES
      61·
      1 year ago

      Please don’t be too principled as long as the tools and community to back up those principles aren’t in place.

      I very much agree with this, @sunaurus@lemm.ee - your stance above is, I think, exactly as a stated policy should be, but please do remember that plans and reality must meet somewhere along the way. If you overthink things or cleave too religiously to the rules you’ve set yourself, you risk taking too long to act, and it’s exactly this delay between problem and reaction that bad actors exploit.

      Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face, basically. Lemm.ee is a great instance, and we’d all, I think, love to see it stay that way 🙂