Comment by Digital_Eclipse@sh.itjust.works on Hey could we defederate with exploding-heads.com/

The instance seems to be mostly right wing trolls. I know defederating is unpopular but I don’t think much is to be lost in this case and it can save the mods some headaches.

Edit: the response on exploding-heads.com to my reporting of transphobia. Courtesy of the “second in command”

Tolerance is a peace treaty, not a moral precept.

Defederating is a proportional response to a server with a top-level community dedicated to trans hate.

I think people need to remember that nobody owes one’s instance federation

I’d recommend defederating from beehaw if your litmus is “views that end up harmful to trans people are promoted by the instance” as they have a lot of communities like that on there.

of course, people disagree as to what “harm to X” actually means hence the problem.

I’m curious if you have examples given that seems pretty against what I’ve seen of Beehaw so far.

Not saying you’re wrong, it’s just not something I’ve seen yet.

Take a look at this thread. I commented trying to encourage a healthy direction, but giving this guy proper actual scientific/medical info that would help him live a healthy life would almost certainly get you removed/banned from beehaw, and the rest of the comments are encouraging something that will harm this person long term.

This happens a lot in more “progressive” lgbtqia-style spaces, because a lot of their ideology is fundamentally something that can, will, and does harm a lot of people. Look up “detransitioners” as a good example of things going wrong.

To me, and other people who are not aligned with their worldview, it’s obvious that there is harm in the ideology being pushed, and by censoring those who have a difference of view, or who try to stick to proper medical science, you end up funnelling people into paths that end up harming them.

Of course, others will disagree and think there’s no harm in this (that’s why they’re commenting as they do). But I’m someone who’s seen it first hand many times and so I simply can’t get on board with that way of doing things.

It’s not overtly “hateful”, rather the opposite: toxic positivity. But still harmful. But my point here isn’t “you should actually defederate from beehaw”. My point is that what people think is “harmful” differs depending on your views and beliefs.

If I tell this guy, hey you have a medical condition called transvestism, have gyneandromorphophilia, and are at risk of further developing dual role transvestism and gender identity disorder, is that “hateful”? Beehaw probably thinks it is. But IMO that is simply helping and informing.

I was very interested to see examples, as I do not like to judge without knowledge, and I am a very firm believer that toxic positivity is harmful.

That being said, I saw no toxic positivity in that thread or harmfully “positive” comments. Instead, what I saw were many people encouraging OP to explore the ideas thoughtfully while keeping in mind that no one can tell them if they are trans except themselves. I saw encouragement to seek out therapy instead of doing this alone, encouragement to consider the ideas of doing mundane things as a woman (such as doing taxes, grocery shopping, commuting, etc) and see if it still felt right (instead of just the attraction or sexual aspects), reminders that the whole concept is a spectrum and not to get hung up on labels and instead focus on actions that feel right.

I fail to see how any of that is toxic positivity.

The only worrying comment I saw was yours, and even moreso because you indicated that you were biting your tongue because of the community’s rules. You used negative slang terminology to indicate this person merely has a fetish and that this big bad world is too confusing so OP should look to the past when these things were handled more simply “scientifically”, and insinuated they were only going to blindly follow the answer given to them about whether or not they are trans instead of explore their identity given the info from the thread.

It’s the equivalent of encouraging someone with anorexia that they should lose weight and eat less.

I think I have a bead on what you’re saying now.

I can’t really say I agree that gently supporting someone to explore a side of themselves they are coming to grips with is the same as advocating for the eradication of trans people…

I see it like this: the more these far right types are isolated in echochambers, the more extreme they will get, and long term that is harmful. if, instead, we foster polite and civil discussions, we can come to a mutual understanding, change minds, change hearts, and actually do something that benefits all, and help everyone get closer to the actual truth of the matter.

The mod in the post clearly was speaking against overt hate (slurs and the like). And I think that’s the sort of thing that should be stamped out and discouraged. But a disagreement of views? If you don’t wanna see someone’s differing opinion, why should that mean you’re gonna prevent everyone else from talking to them? Just block yeah?

The example that beehaw defederated over makes sense. There were people posting nsfw content in sfw communities, off topic, that was clearly meant to shock, harm, etc. it makes sense.

But have these exploding-head guys posted off topic? did they spam? did they shout slurs everywhere? or did they simply disagree with you? If it’s a matter of disagreement, I don’t see why the strong action of defederation is needed. Surely we can talk things out?

The existence of people who detransition is often brought up in anti-trans circles as a criticism of gender-affirming care. However, the actual number of trans people who even just regret getting medical treatments is like 0.5%. Versus something like 14% for medical surgeries in general. And this is including trans people who regret it for social or economic reasons.

I could say some things about why some people here don’t seem to think that people outright saying full-on alt-right shit is bad enough that we should defederate, but I don’t think they’d actually understand or want to

fuck it; those people are so lucky that they’ve never had to think about the danger of alt-right shit as anything other than a thought experiment, the type that hasn’t ever had to deal with people who fundamentally want them to stop existing

like guys, that’s not “alt-right people are crazy weirdos but ultimately harmless”, that’s “I’m lucky because I just happen to not be a primary target for them, if a target at all, and I have mistaken this for the alt-right being of low influence”

honestly peak “I don’t have to think much about politics, and haven’t realized that this is an incredible privilege to have” behavior

To put another spin on it, lemmygrad and exploding heads have an old beef with each other that predates the reddit migration. Far-left vs far-right, it’s not rocket science. As an example try typing in lemmygrad.com and see which instance it takes you to.

Now ask yourself what it tells people when sh.itjust.works has lemmygrad defederated but not EH. It’s an endorsement, no?

Exploding Heads has never defederated lemmygrad. We invite diverse opinions, discussion, and debate.

People rarely know what the paradox of tolerance really is and just use it as a cudgel to shut down any argument they disagree with.

The creator of the idea himself said

"I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.

But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument"

Not that I don’t believe you, but got a source for that quote? would love to read more

That’s the thing though, most (all?) alt-right arguments aren’t based on facts and opening the door for them to even try and defend their point of view also opens the door to the radicalisation of people who are potentially swayed by non-rational arguments.

Give them as little visibility as possible so people who might be convinced by them get as little exposition as possible and society will just be better for it.

Most arguments are based on belief rather than facts. We rarely do the research and testing ourselves and instead just trust whomever we already agree with and is considered an expert.

Problem is that’s on all sides of the political spectrum. Everyone thinks their experts are right and everyone else is crazy or deluded.

The way to resolve this and find out what’s actually true isn’t by shutting down what one disagrees with, but by engaging in debates and discussion with each other, and pointing out the holes in each other’s reasoning and tests.

I was banned from r/GamingCircleJerk for ‘transphobia’ because I said they were wrong for harassing streamers for playing Hogwarts Legacy and that the over the top attacks on a video game were causing harm to trans causes.

We run into that problem a lot. People get high on righteousness and any attempt at moderation is seen as being from ‘the enemy’.

I think the opinions expressed by the person in the OP’s screenshot are heinous and people who share their opinions cause real harm in society. However, there is a major difference between having bad opinions and posting an address of a Jewish Synagogue with instructions on how to make firebombs. De-Federation should be used to cut ties with instances who promote calling for violence, sharing abusive content (like CSAM) and spreading hatred.

I’m of the opinion that people who have wrong opinions can be reached and that we have a responsibility to have a dialog with people with whom we strongly disagree. That responsibility ends when the person or group descends into actual violent acts. That’s the line for de-federation, in my opinon.

I hope you know that the intolerance paradox also applies to you.

I think your standards for what you call fascism is dangerously misguided, I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t recognise a totalitarian society if it snuck up on you.

it’s not necessarily too late in the outside world either, tbh; it’s just harder

The irony of being against fascism and then getting upset when one of these supposed fascists is willing to engage with you – But you’re not willing to engage with them.

Because fascists lie? They don’t engage in good faith, it’s a very long established precedent.

Edit: Holy shit it’s you again, you are a good example actually.

Correct, they do lie, which is why engaging with them is easy. you can point out their lie and mock them, which convinces anyone who is unaware of the lies.

Also really now? you think I’m a fascist?

I got no idea of you’re fash or not, but you are clearly acting in bad faith. Trying to apply the paradox of tolerance to someone using the paradox of tolerance? Not denying the place your defending is awful, but instead trying to say quarantining it is bad for reasons? Trying to suggest that viewpoints completely divorced from reality are completely valid?

Mocking shitheels is a great passtime, but engaging with someone who lies about the basic facts of reality is nearly impossible. A COVID denier, just to bring it all back around in a single comment, will just deny evidence has any merit. Look at the latest trans freak outs, again to keep it to a single reply, it’s ‘people’ objectively lying and claiming kids get surgery when that doesn’t happen.

That would be the case if they showed some good faith and had their opinion swayed by rational arguments. It’s not the case, so might as well just not let them take part in the debate until they actually understand what a debate is.

There’s no irony in that at all lol

If you’d care to check my comment history, maybe you can see your own prejudice for yourself.

I checked it. All I see is a person with an account on an instance that allows hateful posts to go on unmoderated. Now, I could surmise that you are a regular Joe that made his account on a bad server on accident. But no. You seem to have no problem sitting at the table with those biggots. Beyond that, you are dead set on defending that horrid instance at every corner. So it’s kinda hard to take what you say in good faith.

For some people, they are already living in it.

I envy some people living in developed countries; they can take what they like and ignore what they dislike.

There was a guy calling Ernest (kbin dev) a fascist earlier because his avatar is a screenshot of monty python with a guy holding a gun.

for the downvoters
nazi accusation

While I don’t dispute your broader point that people can have some rather broadly-ranging views on what constitutes fascism, I do wonder if that specific user might be trolling.

to some people, everyone but those they agree with are a fascist. to others, seemingly no one is a fascist. It’s rare to see people actually use the word properly, as it’s kinda just become an insult. The right call the left fascists and the left call the right fascists. Meanwhile actual fascists openly acknowledge such lol.

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