There’s been plenty of discussion on defederation.
- https://sh.itjust.works/post/103490
- https://sh.itjust.works/post/216888
- https://sh.itjust.works/post/229169
- https://sh.itjust.works/post/151703
I propose we defederate no instance other than those with egregiously illegal content such as CP. Note that I know of no such instances.
As of the moment of this post, the only defederated instance is lemmygrad.ml, so voting Yea would refederate them. It’s a genocide-denying Marxist instance.
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Nay.
“Everything that is legal” sounds good in theory, but isn’t great in practice. Holding instances to some reasonable minimum threshold is important to foster a community. We shouldn’t set that bar too low (or too high).
“Everything that is legal” sounds good in theory, but isn’t great in practice
I have yet to see any reason to agree with this
Setting up an instance that is nothing but a bot farm that spams communities is “legal”.
So ban spam accounts and don’t fucking make it difficult for everyone else to rose other instances, especially those that aren’t even spam.
If I own the instance I can create thousands of bot accounts faster than you can block them.
Nay
While I do believe that defederation should be reserved for very serious cases, I don’t think it needs to go as far as “egregiously illegal” before we consider it.
And to Lemmygrad specifically, they’re the perfect example of why. They may not be the worst filth on the internet, but their reputation as a hive of tankies is casting a bad light on the entirety of Lemmy. Anybody connected to them is going to appear guilty by association, so defederation is a symbolic gesture as much as anything else.
Nay for now. While there’s a few communities on lemmygrad that I want to see like Late Stage Capitalism, lemmygrad has been defederated since day one, and all of us (should) have known this when we joined, so there’s no hurry to refederate with them.
The real solution is for Lemmy to let users block instances from their own view, then all the defederation discussions will be moot. When that happens, we should do as you proposed - federate as much as permitted by law.
I still think this is naive in the face of real information warfare. This feels like saying “Nazis are welcome here but they aren’t allowed on the second floor so if you don’t want to see them stick to that.”
Eventually the Nazis will just drive everyone else away and take over the second floor as well. Because the Nazis have no such holdups about acting in good faith.
I believe that communities must take measures to actively protect themselves, particularly from those who would abuse a community’s values in order to remake them. I don’t think the abstract threat of slippery slopes rises to the real threat posed by those who continually demonstrate a proclivity for subterfuge and sabotage.
I should clarify. When the skinheads from the Nazi house down the street come over to visit, they must follow our instance-wide and community rules. This should be a basic fediquette for everyone. If they repeatedly fail to do that then we will have to defederate them. But if they check the swastika at the door and keep the Nazism to themselves while they’re here, I don’t see why not. Most of the calls for defederation so far have been about people not wanting to see activities happening on remote communities on certain instances.
Ok but how many times will we make the mistake of letting the Nazis in the front door before we learn this lesson?
It all depends on how the other instance responds.
- If their admin don’t want to do anything about users causing problems in other instances then I’d say defederate temporarily (1 month or more) each time their users break our rules.
- If their admin actively encourages this kind of behaviour then defederate permanently.
- If they have rules against bad behaviour on other instances and non-negligible consequences for violations then try to work with them, but still defederate temporarily (~1 week) when our/their moderation team can’t keep up.
Solid take.
Nay - there are plenty of good reasons to defederated with an instance other than illegal content and not all are political/social in nature. An instance entirely made of spam bots for example, may require defederation just to keep this place from dying a spammy death. I see where your coming from but even if we generally want to go that route, its a bad rule.
When exploding heads is federated but lemmygrad not something is wrong.
Agreed, hence this (apparently super mega unpopular) vote.
Nay, instances overly interfering here should be defederated (spamming, ban evasion, brigading, etc). If someone made an instance just to make spam accounts then that instance should be defederated.
Abstain. For one: Let everyone for themselves decide what they want to see or what they don’t want to see. We’re grown-up and don’t need to tell other people what they should not or are not supposed to see.
(Just today there is a the_donald community sprouting on our instance. Should we allow that but defederate others?)
But the actual reason: let’s first agree on guidelines when to defederate and then measure them against these.
Nay from me also
Nay
Nay.
Is this two different proposals in one, though?
No. Right now the only defederated instance is lemmygrad. I’ll edit to make it clearer.
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It’s the perfect test of the will of the community not to end up as an echochamber.
For the record, I will personally block lemmygrad users spouting tankie rhetoric should I encounter them.
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Mentioned.
Got it. Thanks for the clarification!
To explain my vote, which remains the same after gaining clarification.
While I don’t think we should be too quick to defederate instances, I believe Lemmygrad is an important and symbolic one. Many folks including myself have concerns about even using Lemmy due to the political viewpoints involved in its creation. Defederating that particular instance says something, to those who join and to those who are a part of the community.
Nay
aye
Yay. Miss my late stage capitalism.
nay
Nay.
