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.
Hey icy,
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?
Thanks for your answer.
I understand, I assume it was during all that backlash against Lemmy and the devs, when even r/LemmyMigration mods created r/KbinMigration and closed that one due to the devs political affiliation and moderation policy.
Lemmygrad doesn’t seem to be a very friendly instance unless you have those specific political loyalties, and it seems self-isolating as well to an extent, I just want to foster a culture of not letting anyone control what you see or what you can say, and also a culture of accountability and feedback. I just think thats what makes communities alive and good.
I understand (and it’s something kind of ingrained in the Lemmy logic itself) this idea that you have to just join an instance taking into account things like politics. But I like the idea of having more neutral spaces, for example if you see why some users like your instance, they perceive it as an “apolitical”, “chill” place with a good technical leadership.
As you say it’s a personal conviction, maybe you thought your own instance should reflect your values and not federate with those that you don’t like. But right now, don’t you think that essentially mean limiting the access to the information? It’s not “big deal”, yes, they can create another account, but why? Why is it so needed?
I think you could perfectly run the instance and let everybody block what they don’t want to see, and moderate on individual basis until circumstances require otherwise.
I agree with the first part of your text. Not the last. Neutrality is a political position. Choosing to ignore genocide denial and to federate with an instance filled with known trolls that use bad faith arguments to try and affect discussions, and not only that but a disproportionately big community at that such as lemmygrad.ml since they were among the first ones here… I feel that neutrality in this case is support for them as they will not be fair in their attack, and unfair fights are uphill fights. I see no need to introduce this kind of trouble here.
“Lemmygrad doesn’t seem to be a very friendly instance unless you have those specific political loyalties, and it seems self-isolating as well to an extent, I just want to foster a culture of not letting anyone control what you see or what you can say, and also a culture of accountability and feedback. I just think thats what makes communities alive and good.”
So do that. Create your own instance. Here you’re just complaining that the people in this instance don’t have the same opinion towards fostering open lines with asshats.
It’s not like you could have polled users that hadn’t joined yet anyways. Maybe the blocked list could be made more visible so people could be informed early on before they get too invested in their account?
“Maybe you can create a post on that instance to see what that’s all about and report back?”
For anyone up to the task in terms of moderation, this is an interesting community idea. c/dispatchesfromafar or something, like a best of from defederated instances so long as they don’t violate the rules of c/DFA’s hosting instance . Don’t know about desktop, but on jerboa at least any links to other instances seem to open up the instance in my browser. The fact that it’s defederated isn’t a huge barrier to sharing specific posts (just having them in your feed and replying as a sh.it.head*)
Not a community that should be taken lightly re: moderation though, there’s a line that needs to be skated for sure.
*I’m going to keep using this term until it sticks, god damn it.
Honestly, owning up to it being a selfish decision deserves some respect. I’m a big proponent of free expression and avoiding censorship, but I took a gander at the kinda stuff they got over there and…
It’s not even the views they hold that’s my main problem. It’s really that they’re just so needlessly rude and aggressive, and as you pointed out, they seem to be a lot more censorship happy than here anyway. I would be more sympathetic to them if they were less censorship happy themselves, and if they were less mean.
I do want to stress that I hope you keep the number of blocked instances to a minimum, since I feel that it would be better if the Lemmy software had better tools for users to control what they block for themselves better, and also maybe just having “default” blocklists that users can disable, to keep the new-user experience nice, but yeah for that particular instance, I can’t be too mad about it.
Look at the discussion in other instances, for example
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/99601
Yet most the answers this thread has been receiving essentially consist of “stfu & gtfo”, if I end up leaving it’s not going to be just because of the admin decisions but much more because of the poor userbase that does not care about holding admins accountable and retaining control. I don’t even blame the admins at this point.
Mods are afraid these other instances might influence your views. Just switch to another uncensored instance.
When I first got to Lemmy I was deep in a thread with these guys spouting incredibly hyperbolic whataboutism in support of Russia against Ukraine, death to liberals and worse. It wasn’t any “different viewpoints” being discussed rationally, it was straight up shocking vitriolic nonsense and dangerous stuff. You want it? You can definitely go get it, most instances probably didn’t block them.
About transparency, these instances are home run by hobbyists, not corporates who start out with a week dedicated to policy and procedures establishment.
Truly, you can start your own instance and do it your own way, I and many others have.
So, a political thing? And why I’m not allowed to see denialist content? Am I a baby? You feel like a baby that needs parental control from admins?
Sorry for the hostility but that’s what this boils down to. Admin decisions over users. And I don’t care about whatever political/worldview controversy they use to base their abuse of power.
Thanks for pointing the obvious but this is about having a conversation. Users should not let admins impose their views and accept it as normal. That’s why subreddit mods where acting like tyrants.
Even if I create an acc in another instance and forget about this one, I raised questions. You guys are free to draw your conclusions.
The stuff they post gets put into the servers in your instance, if its illegal the instance owner might be liable, and lemmygrad stuff is straight up illegal in many places genocide denial for example, also their brigading is very annoying and hard to moderate.
That seems reasonable if that’s the case. In the future I’d like to be part of a community where if admins take such decisions bordering censorship, they have a public log explaining why they do it. Legal, hosting issues, spam, are all valid reasons to me. I guess at this size it’s also reasonable to lack such protocols, but it’s important to have them.
What’s the line, though? No content should ever be moderated/removed? I’m sure there is a topic or viewpoint you have no interest in being inundated with that is fine for someone else. If there isn’t, that’s abnormal based on my personal experience.
Yes, I regularly block communities from my feed. It is my decision. I am not delegating this decision to the admins. What’s the line? I already mentioned: overall security, spam, legal issues, totally fine to me.
All I’m doing is to ask questions and express discomfort about the server owner restricting my access and you guys get all defensive
I also know how to create an account in several instances. It’s not about technical issues, it is about the culture.
