If enough of the community makes it sufficiently clear that we're not going to let them peddle their Nazi bullshit unopposed, including by taking whatever moderator actions are possible to get rid of them, most of the Nazis will go somewhere else and we'll only have to deal with the typical number of Nazis for an internet platform rather than become inundated with them. Making them unwelcome by any means necessary is the name of the game.
If enough of the community makes it sufficiently clear that we're not going to let them peddle their Nazi bullshit unopposed, including by taking whatever moderator actions are possible to get rid of them, most of the Nazis will go somewhere else and we'll only have to deal with the typical number of Nazis for an internet platform rather than become inundated with them. Making them unwelcome by any means necessary is the name of the game.
My criteria for what makes "a Nazi" are something like this.
A belief that race is an immutable genetic concept, that reproducing outside one's race is inherently wrong, and that some races are inherently superior to others; most often the superior groups are "white", while the "inferior" groups include Africans, Jews and travelling people
Reverence for cultural "tradition", real or imagined, with any departure from these traditions classified as "degenerate" and dangerous to society. For example, a belief that avant-garde art is immoral and without value because it doesn't root itself in what are popularly perceived to be the artistic traditions of "the west", a neat line from Greek marble statues to Wagner.
Hatred of diversity, seeing it as a plague that rots a society. For example, the belief that women are unfit to hold a social position outside of motherhood, that non-heterosexual sexualities are "degenerate", that allowing people from another race to exist in your race's society inevitably leads to that society's destruction, that gender as a concept is a "mental illness" because only two biological sexes exist and each biological sex has a set-in-stone role demanding a certain presentation and certain values, that societies which follow one religion must not allow followers of another religion to exist within it.
Heavy use of absolutism. Everything is either wholly good or wholly bad. Nothing can be a mix of good and bad, or neutral. And everything is a matter of utmost urgency. Anything that is "bad" is an existential threat to all that is "good" and must be immediately and utterly annihilated.
An authoritarian outlook. Anything opposed by a Nazi must be forbidden by the full force of the law. There is no space for differences of opinion, or a nuanced debate, or reviewing the facts. If they oppose something, whether it's big or small - the use of marijuana, reformative justice programs, abortion, media with female protagonists - it must be banned under pain of death.
Violence. To a Nazi, the use of violence isn't an escalation, but the norm. They have no qualms about beating people to death simply for espousing an opposing view, or even just for existing if some aspect of their existence offends their beliefs. Likewise, their rhetoric often alludes to the indiscriminate or nonchalant, even gleeful use of deadly force - "physical removal", "showers", etc.
Shameless hypocrisy. The people who say "facts not feelings" as a rebuttal are often the same people whose beliefs are motivated almost entirely by feelings, and will happily mock others for trying to use evidence in their arguments instead of simply saying "it's common sense". They will shame someone for being rude and aggressive while also calling them the N word and telling them that on "the day of the rope", they'll be among the dead.
Veneration of strong leaders and mocking of "weakness". Consensus-builders are seen as spineless "cucks", while people who enforce their every arbitrary whim with total force are held up as "based" exemplars of good leadership and models to be emulated. People who are comfortably being themselves in ways that aren't conventionally masculine are addressed with slurs and told to kill themselves while ignorant, bullying asshats are applauded for "rustling jimmies".
You can meet all of these criteria without being a member of a National-Socialist party, or even identifying as a Nazi, but if you do meet most or all of them, your ideology can be pretty confidently described as Nazi-like.
My criteria for what makes "a Nazi" are something like this.
A belief that race is an immutable genetic concept, that reproducing outside one's race is inherently wrong, and that some races are inherently superior to others; most often the superior groups are "white", while the "inferior" groups include Africans, Jews and travelling people
Reverence for cultural "tradition", real or imagined, with any departure from these traditions classified as "degenerate" and dangerous to society. For example, a belief that avant-garde art is immoral and without value because it doesn't root itself in what are popularly perceived to be the artistic traditions of "the west", a neat line from Greek marble statues to Wagner.
Hatred of diversity, seeing it as a plague that rots a society. For example, the belief that women are unfit to hold a social position outside of motherhood, that non-heterosexual sexualities are "degenerate", that allowing people from another race to exist in your race's society inevitably leads to that society's destruction, that gender as a concept is a "mental illness" because only two biological sexes exist and each biological sex has a set-in-stone role demanding a certain presentation and certain values, that societies which follow one religion must not allow followers of another religion to exist within it.
Heavy use of absolutism. Everything is either wholly good or wholly bad. Nothing can be a mix of good and bad, or neutral. And everything is a matter of utmost urgency. Anything that is "bad" is an existential threat to all that is "good" and must be immediately and utterly annihilated.
An authoritarian outlook. Anything opposed by a Nazi must be forbidden by the full force of the law. There is no space for differences of opinion, or a nuanced debate, or reviewing the facts. If they oppose something, whether it's big or small - the use of marijuana, reformative justice programs, abortion, media with female protagonists - it must be banned under pain of death.
Violence. To a Nazi, the use of violence isn't an escalation, but the norm. They have no qualms about beating people to death simply for espousing an opposing view, or even just for existing if some aspect of their existence offends their beliefs. Likewise, their rhetoric often alludes to the indiscriminate or nonchalant, even gleeful use of deadly force - "physical removal", "showers", etc.
Shameless hypocrisy. The people who say "facts not feelings" as a rebuttal are often the same people whose beliefs are motivated almost entirely by feelings, and will happily mock others for trying to use evidence in their arguments instead of simply saying "it's common sense". They will shame someone for being rude and aggressive while also calling them the N word and telling them that on "the day of the rope", they'll be among the dead.
Veneration of strong leaders and mocking of "weakness". Consensus-builders are seen as spineless "cucks", while people who enforce their every arbitrary whim with total force are held up as "based" exemplars of good leadership and models to be emulated. People who are comfortably being themselves in ways that aren't conventionally masculine are addressed with slurs and told to kill themselves while ignorant, bullying asshats are applauded for "rustling jimmies".
You can all of these criteria without being a member of a National-Socialist party, or even identifying as a Nazi, but if you do meet most or all of them, your ideology can be pretty confidently described as Nazi-like.
No. Trump isn’t really an ideologue. He’s just a grifter.
But trump publicly during a debate told a Christian nationalist terrorist organization convicted of insurrection to “stand by and stand back” as if he commands them, and as if they work on his behalf.
Not necessarily, but he and people who like him are dumbasses that (at the very least) enable Nazis. To be fair, it doesn’t matter what you call them. Instead of Nazis you could say Troglodytes and everyone would know who you talk about, them included.
After a while of thinking and reviewing, I have come to the conclusion to defederate as requested. If they correct course, I'll happily re-review them.
Bigotry should be banned, and removed from this instance. That means not allowing bigotry on our instance. That means defederating from less clever wannabe 4chans, and less moderated The_D replacements.
I am trying to examen the instance, it would have been helpful to have some pointers to speed up the process although it somehow sounds like a familiar domain. It sounds like such content at least was against their rules. but that of course does not have to mean much.
Looking at the comments from their team is no good impression to say the least hmm
Update: found some more potential evidence that they are not welcoming nazis, but i think there are quite a few misinformation and "the usual" shitpost things on there that are not very ... enjoyable (and of course as the op implies, transphobic trash and such as to expect from a shitpost instance).
casually scrolling through their local top posts tells me they pass the duck test on being toxic pieces of shit, so I say let them fester in it by themselves
I will be ok with whatever you choose, whether that is staying federated, starting a conversation with their admins and withholding judgement until after that, defederating, or something else.
Personally, I'm not a fan of those things you have found (transphobia, misinfo, etc.), but I understand that people like that exist. I at least can block them and the communities that spout that trash.
It's your instance, your hardware, and I trust your judgement.
It would be unfair for me to take place in the vote (Hi from Kbin.social).
Here's the current list of the instances (currently 92) that have defederated(block) EH.
Thanks to federation this post is visible on a wide variety of instances. Which specific instance are you petitioning to defederate from exploding heads? You're from discuss.tchncs.de so I assume that one?
I don't love this idea, would really prefer instead the ability to block the instance in the same way I do communities/magazines and see a petition for them to be auto-blocked which I could then remove if I wanted.
Really don't like the idea of defederation unless there's like active crime going on there.
Part of the reason we left reddit is because they felt entitled to impose draconian conditions on moderators. Defederating is a useful moderation tool until the Threadiverse develops better ones.
If someone is willing to ignore the social norm of wider society's "Don't say the n-word" why would they respect the social rules of a small community?
Have you even looked that some of the posts in their homepage Ffs? Defederation should be a thing when the whole instance is a piece of shit. Which it is in this case...
Let's hope that, unlike Reddit, these subreddits can't be shut down. You can see for yourself what happened after Reddit shutdown r/WatchPeopleDie NSFL videos spilt out to "normal" subreddits, and it made life hell, especially since cunts won't use the NSFW tag until hours after. Give them their little corner so they can fucking stay there.
Man they are really pissy about this choice too, a post with "fuck lemmy world" talking about some Biden Pedo post not being that bad yada yada is pinned to exploding heads.
I'm all for having arguments with reasonable people I disagree with, but let's be real here. That's not what happens with far right trolls. Their goal is to be incoherent and exhausting to deal with. They don't care about exchanging ideas. They want to make you waste your time and feel hopeless. Don't give them the chance. Just defederate.
Damn. I hadn't actually seen the exploding-heads community, but I went over to read their rules (seems fine) and posts (yikes). I am surprised that their rules even say what they do, as most of the comments in most of the posts I read would be breaking them.
Follow this link. On the right hand side you will see a box that says "domain" and beneath that "exploding-heads.com" underneath that there is a box with a link to subscribe and a symbol to block. Click on the symbol to block.
Moderation has not caught up with kbin's growth, despite the devs being very busy. Maybe it's best just to block for now. I'm sure that kbin will take out the trash once moderation tools and mod teams are in place.
On edit: These instructions won't work for you, because as @vaguerant pointed out, you are not on a kbin server. However, I'm going to leave the comment up for any kbin users who might want to block that instance.
I asked this another day. It will allow them to spread their nazi bs to new people who aren’t aware, which can become especially dangerous because they rhetoric will be unseen and unchecked by those who blocked them.
Personally I think that’s a good enough justification for defederating vs blocking. They are outright nazis after all, idk if we really need to wring our hands over it.
The beautiful thing about federated instances is that you can block whole domains from sources you don't like. If people are leftist they can block righty's and righty's can block leftist domains. Federation is beatiful
I mean they own the hardware and they're not being paid. It's gracious of any admin if they ask people's opinions. They run their servers because they do it as a hobby and enjoy it. What they believe is what is law on their property. If you
Don't agree you can move, that's why it's great. Start your own! And if the hardware changes hands it will mean rules may change. It's not a bad thing, I means people are free to run their instance as they believe fit.
Just directly write them a message. I don't think it needs a vote by the majority of the community to exclude some right wing crypto bros who like transphobia etc
Also if you focus your energy here instead of notifying an admin, they might not read it and you kinda did the opposite of what you intended. Focus your energy here only if the admins and moderation don't do their job properly.
I am against defederations being decided by instance admins. Lemmy needs (kbin being more mature project at least has domain blocking) tools to let users decide themselves what they want or don't want to see. Are you an adult or you need others to decide for you? I have blocked lemmygrad and other tankie/nazi (same shit) instances (domains) myself. If I don't want to see eg. transgender stuff then I don't cry about it but just block it. Grow a pair and do the same.
While I disagree with your opinion on admins, I appreciate the sentiment. But if you want to be on an instance that isn't defederated or view any content, run you own instance.
That said, the ability for users to moderate the content they see on their own profile could definitely use more flexibility. The ability to block communities as a user is good, but they should absolutely also be able to block instances on their own. Beyond that, the ability to filter out content based on keywords (title, content, urls) would also be a nice addition.
Coming from RiF on Android, the app had filtering and let me say, being able to block Elon, Kanye, Meta, TikTok, a bunch of shit spewing fascists, etc made my Reddit viewing experience much better. This was, of course, after already leaving all of the default subs and finding niche communities but for some reason people had a hard-on for those topics and I could literally not care any less about them.
I don't mind filtering out things I don't like, if it's a me-problem. If I find my feed has too many "lOoK aT mY nEw BoOmStIcK" posts from gun-toting idiots, I'll block them. I may find gun ownership unnecessary in a civilised society and the cult around it stupid, but 'murica is arguably father from civilisation than I'm used to and they're well within their rights. So that's on me.
Nazis, however, I consider a we-problem. It's our collective duty as society to make it clear to those dimwits, that there is no room in civilisation for their backward mindset and they can either adapt or get lost. If they can't play by society's rules then they can't play at all.
So instances that are "just a little" or "not excessively" racist/fascist/intolerant should be defederated just like the all-out ones.
and other tankie/nazi (same shit) instances (domains) myself.
didn't see that yet but at least some user with a name in that direction.
Anyway, I found it quite not amusing to see this stuff on my second day of using Lemmy - which was 2 weeks ago or so. Honestly, I've seen enough online communities degenerate and having a few power users/enthusiasts who like fine tuning every setting is not enough to get a healthy community going.
I think if Lemmy doesn't get it's shit together in that regard, it'll be like Mastodon where there are alt-right communities powered by it and then another normal (or whatever you want to call it?) part. However I've been quite surprised when my first subscriber was some alt-right dude. That was enough for me to delete my account.
At the moment I see chances 50/50 that Lemmy can make it. But this highly depends on:
making it convenient for non-technical people (discoverability across instances)
have a reasonable filtering system (if it's fully democratic and it works that would be awesome. but to be realistic, that would be a first...)
I am not a fan of excluding servers from the network because of their users. A better way is to confront the users, try to change their minds with arguments and, if there is no other way, make the network so unwelcoming to them that they leave of their own accord.
There are nearly 7,000 registered users on the nazi instance. Nearly every bad interaction I've had on the Fediverse has been with someone from the nazi instance (along with some sh.itjust.works folks saying the nazi instance is fine). I'd rather just wash out all 7000 users now. Granted, I'm not on discuss.tchncs.de, so my opinion has no weight, I just think it's something to consider
Having a discussion to form an opinion in the community is a very democratic and adult thing. This helps everyone to make up their own mind and share their opinion. In the end I believe it is very important to defederate instances that cater to conspiracy theories and spread misinformation. The reach of such content in the fediverse must be limited and it is a statement by the community that forms culture.
Thrn you don't think it's important to have a discussion. You can't think that and also be pro censoring discussionns and ideas. You can't have it both ways
I would totally agree with you if the general populace weren't as easily influenced by misinformation and indoctrination as, in fact, 5th graders.
Like, there's really nothing for anyone to make up their minds about. Don't give these people a home here; they don't need to reach the rest of us.
Back in the 1940s, the philosopher Karl Popper came up with something called “The Paradox of Tolerance.” It goes like this:
If everyone is tolerant of every idea, then intolerant ideas will emerge. Tolerant people will tolerate this intolerance, and the intolerant people will not tolerate the tolerant people. Eventually, the intolerant people will take over and create a society of intolerance. Therefore, Popper said, to maintain a society of tolerance, the tolerant must be intolerant of intolerance… hence the paradox.
Yeah thats a good thought experiment and worth thinking about.
However this is the internet. And like the internet, lemmy is hosted by many people with many different views, and used by an even broader range of people. Tons of things get people branded as intolerant. If everybody accused of being intolerant was shunned we'd be left with only the most homogenous, boring, milquetoast echo chamber.
"I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it"
The main problem is that things show up in the "All" view even if you are not subscribed to them. And some instances are really so toxic, that blocking their individual communities isn't practical anymore.
Then a better solution would be a user-side instance block, similar how to on lemmy users can block communities. Defederation is the wrong direction for the site to take.
When you’re federating with 90%+ of communities, are you really defederating everything? I mean, these people are Nazis. It’s not like they’re some benign group