Why was lemmygrad blocked? - sh.itjust.works
sh.itjust.works
Did the admins poll the community about it? Why was such measure so needed? If the tankie content is so annoying why not let users decide what they want to see or not and what they want to block? I don’t like that the admins want to censor the content I can view or not. You guys are not protecting us nor doing us a favor, you’re imposing your views over everyone else by limiting the information we are able to receive. I don’t support the devs views or the views in lemmygrad, but this is a dangerous precedent. I’ve read several of the “arguments” for blocking the instance and all I can see is a bunch of people talking about politics and arguing about “floods in the frontpage”. Well, let the user block communities if that’s the case, same way I’m already blocking communities I’m not interested. I think the admins want to feel like Facebook moderation. I’d be OK with it if any instance repeatedly generated spam, security, doxxing or any other concern that couldn’t be solved by banning individuals, otherwise it’s just plain censorship. I just don’t want the admins to use their power to decide what I can see or not. If this is going to be like this, I’ll leave for a better instance because I can see where this is going to.

EDIT: It seems that I have may have gotten the wrong impression about the community structure here from the @TheDude comment I listed below. It looks like this should have been posted to The Agora. I appreciate everyone who took the time to respond. Now I must go find fresh air and see if I can find this grass thing that I have heard so much about.

First, let me say thank you for spending your time and money on creating and maintaining this instance.

Second, the name sh.itjust.works is great. It gives me a little half smile every time I type it.

Third, I am hoping this can be my Fediverse home base but I have a single concern.

Now on to the meat:

I have been over on lemmy.world for the last few days and really enjoying the content and experience, but as I was learning more about the Fediverse I realized they have blocked a whole slew of other instances. Most of the reason I have grown to dislike and distrust reddit over the years was because of their random subreddit bans that didn’t follow their own rules and processes, so it was a pretty big turn-off for me looking at the lemmy.world Instances List.

When I heard this instance only had two blocked instances, I immediately came here to check it out. I quickly saw like-minded individuals genuinely engaging in reasonable discussion about what should and should not be defederated, so I decided to go ahead and make an account. It didn’t take long though before I decided to look into why each of the instances were banned.

It seems like burggit allows simulated CP which is a pretty decent reason for blocking them in my mind. On the other hand, the only thing I could find about lemmygrad.ml was this (https://sh.itjust.works/comment/130474) post that says you blocked it because of your personal convictions.

Given that this instance is your own personal project, I certainly don’t fault you for choosing what is acceptable and what is not, but I am concerned about making sh.itjust.works my home base if it is just the start. Based on the previous post it doesn’t seem like something you are going to change your mind about, nor do I have an interest in trying to convince you to do so. What I would like to know is if this is going to be a regular thing.

Are you intending to block any instances with political opinions that you are staunchly against? Further, are you planning to create any sort of standard for what kind of instance you are likely or unlikely to ban in the future?

Bonus question for my curiosity: What makes lemmygrad so against your personal convictions? While I have a basic understanding of Marxism/Communism and am aware that current communist countries have a pretty questionable history of violence and suppressing personal and political freedoms, I think an objective viewer might say the same thing about the representative republic that I live in.

tl;dr: Are you going to block other instances for personal reasons? Also, are you going to create any standards to indicate which instances may be blocked in the future?

  • TheDude@sh.itjust.worksMEnglish
    75·
    1 year ago

    Hi Nahvi.

    Thanks for posting this well put together post. I can tell that you put some time and thought into this and I want you to know that I recognize that.

    Regarding your concern, this is a topic that has been brought up numerous times over the past month. I’ve since moved towards being more community driven, letting users discuss and debate on topics that are important to them. These discussion move forward towards a vote over a 7 day period. This process will change over time as we come across flaws and look for ways solve them together.

    One more thing I want to make clear regarding your tl;dr question Will I be blocking other instances for personal reasons? Short answer is no, I believe the community should determine what should or should not be blocked.

    That being said I want to make myself clear that there are limitations, I will continue to defederate instances that openly promote or spreads hate speech, terrorism, CP, loli, trolling and instances that become bot instances. These shouldn’t be things that need to be justified, I think they fall under the “be a good human” category.

    I hope this clarifies your concerns and you continue to make sh.itjust.works your home.

    • Barbarian@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      23·
      1 year ago

      Hey dude, thanks for dropping by.

      Just wanted to say that I appreciate the direction you’re trying to herd cats towards.

    • Nahvi@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      20·
      1 year ago

      @TheDude

      Hello and thank you for taking the time to respond to my post.

      I appreciate you clarifying your stance on future blocking for both personal reasons and along the human decency lines. While I may lean fairly deeply into free speech territory, I also recognize the need for certain limits. The balance you’ve struck seems to be very reasonable, though I admit to being a hair surprised by the community driven approach.

      I look forward to seeing which direction the community takes the instance.

    • Tsinc@feddit.deEnglish
      10·
      1 year ago

      Are you planning to actively moderate against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia?

    • lol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      9·
      1 year ago

      will continue to defederate instances that openly promote or spreads hate speech

      That’s great but please define hate speech and give us some examples.

    • MomoTimeToDie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      Short answer is no, I believe the community should determine what should or should not be blocked

      Then how about not lock every discussion post as soon as you see people agreeing with you on who to defederate and actually allow discussion?

    • Quacksalber@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      I hope Lemmy will one day support defederating from content and users separately. As I wrote in other threads already, and I will just take your word for it that lemmygrad really is promoting hate speech, I can understand and support defederation from instances pr9moting hate speech, but at the same rime, it robs me of the opportunity to engage with tgeir users even on other platforms. As such, if the option to separately defederate from content and users ever becomes available, I hope the lemmygrad users will be federated again.