I was there, I saw the thread. @TheDude, did you? It was pretty strongly in favour. Do we really need to keep waiting around to see if an instance administrated by a guy who wants to declare “cis” a slur is going to turn out okay?
https://sh.itjust.works/post/216888 for context.
I didn’t know any of the instances were run by the government. Private companies (in this case, instances) can deplatform whoever they like and it’s not infringement. They are under no obligation, be it legal or just a back room handshake deal, to allow any speech on their platform.
Whoever is clutching their pearls over it is either ill informed or disingenuous. There are plenty of both kinds of people spouting misinformation and disinformation.
They’re not, and they can absolutely decide to host or ban whatever they want. But I don’t think they should.
When you start banning things you don’t like, you end up creating an echo chamber, and then you eventually get to the divisiveness that we have today. Liberals flock to X, Y, Z platforms, and conservatives flock to A, B, C platforms. That’s a problem, because it eliminates any kind of cross-pollination of ideas.
That said, not all ideas are worth hosting. Harassment is never okay, so any individual, community, or instance that protects those who harass others should be blocked. But just having different ideas shouldn’t be grounds for blocking.
We should absolutely not support cancel culture in any form, we should instead encourage dialogue. Instead of blocking people that think trans people are gross or whatever, we should be open to explaining how those views hurt real people. If you convince just one person, they’ll influence others and we’ll make progress toward broader acceptance. I draw the line at actual harassment, but ignorance shouldn’t result in a ban.
So that’s why I urge restraint when blocking communities. We really don’t want to go down the road of blocking things we don’t like because that just puts up walls that fragments an already fragile community.
God this argument is old and tired. Why don’t we just sit down with the fascists, surely if they understand we have feelings that they’re hurting, they’ll stop threatening us and our families. We just need to be nicer to them!
You people don’t know any of the history of the 1930s.
There’s certainly a difference between an actual fascist (i.e. they literally don’t believe you should be allowed to live) and people you just disagree with. The first is a very small minority of people, yet a much larger group is labeled as such.