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?
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.
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?
I plan on making a post sharing some considerations people should take before registering to an instance. In it I’ll definitely bring this subject up.
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.
Sorry wrong person
“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.
Keep doing what your doing! It’s in the name, it’s gonna just work. I don’t wanna read their garbage and I like how your running the place. Keep up the great work and thanks for the performant Lemmy instance :)
Just make another account on an instance that federates with them. It’s really not a big deal. It’s not like reddit where you don’t have anywhere else to go.
Yes I surely know it’s not “a big deal” and I already said I will leave on my post.
But I won’t be silent about it. This is about the culture of the platform itself.
This instance has been receiving a lot of newcomers like me, and to me this is not OK. It is not OK to let the admins decide the content you’ll receive.
If instances keep defederating from each other, you’re fostering a culture of censorship and isolation where admins decide over users.
Enjoy your echo chamber / tyranny as any other subreddit where mods did what they wanted with you.
Culture is more important than software.
Their choice was an act of cultural discression that operated well intended parameters of the software.
Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean it was a tyrannical violation of culture Lemmy culture. It’s par for the course with federated systems. Perfectly normal.
This might be a sign you should move to another instance, or start your own!
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I see where you are coming from, but semi isolation is inevitable as groups with opposing views just don’t want to see each other’s shit.
Just create alts on other instances. The world is your oyster.
Defederation is an inevitable fact of life for a federated ecosystem and it won’t always be for things where everyone agrees (just look at the fediblock tag on mastodon). The important thing is that instance owners have clear criteria for how they defederate from other instances and transparency about their reasons for having done so, so that their users and other instances have the correct expectations for their future behavior.
It’s early days for a lot of instances and probably many of us will end up migrating to other instances as it becomes clear which ones make decisions that suit our values.
What I do worry about is the fact that folks are setting up communities wherever they first land and Lemmy doesn’t yet have tools for migrating a community between instances (correct me if I’m wrong about that). That seems like a ticking time bomb in some ways.
That’s why I made this post. Want to see transparency on why they blocked an instance. Honestly if the guys running this want Reddit 2 with all the oversanitization I think I’m going to set my main acc on another instance.
Keep in mind that these are the early days of Lemmy and the admin is donating time and resources to get this community going. Getting the configs published publicly so that people can make informed choices about which instance they wish to use would certainly be nice, but comparing this to Reddit is a bit far-fetched. TheDude is trying to sustain the community as best as he can, whereas Reddit has been suffocating the community in exchange for corporate profits.
From what I’ve seen people saying it’s because the users have a reputation for getting overly involved in other instances (skewing voting in news communities) which seems like a recipe for conflict. That kind of thing can have a big impact on a new/small instance, maybe if this was bigger with more mods then it wouldn’t be such a problem. I think some separation of politically extreme communities might be required in general because they mix like oil and fire then spill everywhere.
More discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/Lemmy/comments/142h1a5/choosing_an_instance_and_my_issues_with_lemmygrad/
If you want absolute control over what instances you’re federated with, start your own instance. Otherwise, find one that’s more closely aligned to your views.
As others have said, this is one of the main points of federated networks, if you don’t like how an instance is run, you can take your ball and go play somewhere else.
Literally. People forget that these instances are privately run (just as Reddit is). There is no obligation to the “public good”.
So tldr “stfu and gtfo”? I can get outta here and, been saying it from the beginning, I probably will, but I won’t be silent about it.
Oh no…
Anyway…
Bet that’s what Spez said about the whole reddit blackout protest. Great to see this attitude over here…
Possibly, though spez didn’t have the option of joining the other servers that are in link and have looser rules regarding what content is acceptable.
This user has all the ability to join any and all of the instances they desire, but chose to come to this one and then threw a fit about the moderation style.
Tell me about the other Reddit clones that I could join to avoid spez. Please. Make that connection so that your point holds any water.
It’s not about having the ability to “take the highway”. Most people here don’t seem to be getting it. It’s about the way things are done.
It’s still the early days of Lemmy as a whole, and things haven’t yet fallen into place. People come with different expectations, especially regarding censorship, myself included. There’s nothing in this instance’s ruleset that gives the idea that the 4th largest Lemmy instance is unacceptable due to “commie thought” and pro-China views.
I say that as a non-communist that holds no love for China’s government, but I sure as shit ain’t threatened by them either.You mean like the rule that states no bigotry?
How are they dealing in bigotry over there? And if they are under a set definition, are we to apply that definition equally to all other communities as well? Or just the commies?
You’re way too aggressive about this. You can join any other instance and access the same content, or start your own. Nobody is “silencing” you.
I haven’t claimed to be silenced by anyone at the moment. I’m just tired of like 10 people stating the obvious “join other instance” as if I didn’t know it beforehand and said I was thinking of doing that same thing since my very first post; or stating that I shouldn’t be demanding anything from the admins (not even reasons or transparency?)
I don’t think I’m being aggressive at all, I do think this community is way to defensive about any criticism to this particular measure, and I think it is due to a deeply ingrained censorship culture that sites like Reddit and Facebook groups greatly normalized in the internet.
The cultural defeat is so strong that people here are equating transparent and responsible leadership with corporate governance, lol. As if volunteer or small-project admins couldn’t be serious or good.
It’s just not serious or good for you. Don’t just go out here and hate on all of us lol. I’m perfectly fine with that community being blocked so that there will less likely be tankies here. It’s not that deep homie
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.
Here’s the god’s honest truth: Instances are not, as a rule, democracies. They are more like benevolent dictatorships. You can make your complaints heard, for sure, but the name of the game is really “Don’t like it? Take your business elsewhere or build something better”. As it always should be, imo.
There’s nothing really stopping you from spinning up your own single user instance and using that to interact with Lemmy and the wider fediverse however you please. If you’re the only user you can pretty much run it off a toaster (or at least I’m led to believe this). If you don’t want to do that, then you choose to play by the rules of whatever instance you call home.
And this isn’t necessarily a dig at you - if you’re worried about admins engaging in censorship, I sincerely recommend looking into selfhosting. It’s the only real way to ensure you’re the one at the helm at all times.
Cause they are a toxic shithole that permanently deny genocide and are brigading other instances.
The stuff they post there is straight up illegal in many places.
I am in no way opposed to Lemmygrad being blocked, it’s not really the kind of content that I want to see.
But, I do understand how one of the main attractions of sh.itjust.works is supposed to be that it just works, regardless of what you may want to post about, and that blocking communities isn’t very conductive to that. I think the answer here should be democracy, doing a poll on such things isn’t a hard thing to do, I think most of us would have been fine with the block.
What about what the admin wants to see? Everyone do be like it’s their right to choose but they choose by being here. The admin chooses what he likes, people choose whether they like what the admin likes or not. If they don’t, they either don’t join or they leave. If they do, they join and stay. Simple as that. I don’t see why people should try and force their ideas onto some dude who prolly just doesn’t want random genocide denial loonies filling the comment sections with hateful vitriol about why certain parts of the population should die.
I guess I’m just philosophically objected to dictatorship in that way. I completely agree that I don’t want random genocide denying loonies filling the comments section, I just don’t think it’s much effort to ask people. I also imagine a lot of people here are attracted to this instance because it’s supposed to be less complicated than other instances where there’s a lot of moderation about what can and cannot be seen by users. So when it comes to banning whole communites (which in this case I think is completely justified) there should be caution and discussion.
I just don’t think it’s much effort to ask people.
“Hey guys so i was thinking we shouldn’t allow genocide denialists into our network, but i don’t know, hmmm should i let genocide denialists into your network? here’s a poll”
maybe for other more neutral communities maybe but for this one i 100% agree to onesided ban since it’s just a political sub and an extreme one at that.
The stuff they do might be illegal where the server is hosted, genocide denial is bad. (also they love brigading)
Hey, have you moderated something before?
Yes and I value transparency and I think a good mod/admin gathers feedback from the community before and after making important decisions that might be perceived as censorship.
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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.
Then join a different server?
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.
Fair, but you don’t get to go into someone’s house and demand they act according to your rules.
If you want the change so bad, go to a different house or make your own.
Following your logic all the people that protested the API where wrong by demanding the leadership to not fuck the platform? Lol
Maybe if the API were the only part of that. It was part of the problem but the other parts were losing extensive modtools to actually moderate the subreddits you go to bitch in, with no replacements despite a decade of promises. Also the whole brush off of accessibility tools for users with visual/cognitive/physical impairments which only just got an exemption.
There’s a huge difference. Reddit has people working for free to moderate content with no support from the site and decided to take those tools away without replacing them. The people who provide value to the company thus being shafted.
Lemmy has tons of instances so you can find the one with the rules you like and join there while still getting access to all of the “subreddits”.
So no, it’s not the same at all. It would be more akin to demanding that all of the third party apps have the same tools and access across all devices despite there being plenty of other serviceable options.
To me leadership and administration is in place to serve the people. The people managing this server are essentially providing a service whether for free or whatever. It is totally OK to raise concerns, questions and demand changes. I think most people just feel reassured of having that instance blocked because it matches their worldview.
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 think you not wrong but at the same time, you should look at the context here. Instances are being run by private people, not professional corporations.
I feel like you expect company level support here and want explanations why things are moderated a certain way. But this is up to the instance owner. You can ask why but if you don’t get a response, that’s basically your answer.
Good thing is, you can pick an instance where the moderator actually does respond to you and engages in discussions about why he did what he did. I love that we are federated.
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I also know how to create an account in several instances. It’s not about technical issues, it is about the culture.
So someone who is donating their server for your entertainment should be forced to potentially be hosting terroristic comments and posts, child porn, you name it… And be put on govt lists and have a higher risk of being raised because people want to do whatever they want? Yeah…I’m perfectly fine with someone restricting stuff that can be considered extremist from their machine that were borrowing.
Not saying any specific instance is doing the stuff I mentioned above. More giving my 2 cents on why Its not an issue, especially since you can go to another instance and see everything anyways . These are not companies doing this stuff, it’s individuals with actual lives, not some board of directors who want more money.
Ok and where’s the announcement? Where’s the explanation? There’s just a lack of transparency. I already mentioned there might be valid reasons but this clearly seems worldview/politically motivated.
Go check out the modlog, its publicly visible. It’s their instance, they can do what they want. If you dislike how the admins handle their server’s federation status, make your own. I’m going to eventually because I want to control what I’m federated with, but for now I accept that I’m at the instance admin’s mercy.
Shifting control to randos via federation is a double edged sword. This is the downside, from your perspective.
Bro I am already planning on making my own for other reasons. What’s the matter with someone asking questions or reasons for a ban? I know I can leave and probably will. This is a much needed conversation. Don’t like when users let themselves to be treated as babies. That’s why corporations do what they want with us.
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.
There already is a mod log, on the website bottom you can see the instances, mod log and more useful stuff, the mod log right now however doesn’t really show reasons, unless they manually enter one.
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Mods are afraid these other instances might influence your views. Just switch to another uncensored instance.
Honestly they post some extremely controversial, potentially illegal stuff on there so it probably isn’t a great idea to federate with them. Also that type of content tends to scare away users so it just kind of makes sense.
I, for one, wouldn’t have joined this instance if it wasn’t blocked.
How would people feel about a feature where instances have a default user block list, or, hide certain communities from the front page unless a user specifically searches them out. Similar to how EG some instances hide NSFW unless you are logged in, it prevents newbies from having their front page show them stuff that’s going to get them outraged at the whole site.
That could be a better solution than defederating some instances, like burggit, where users here are just mad about having a few weird porn communities shown to them. Ideally, communities could opt in the this flagging as well if they want to be less discoverable. Booru sites do this with default blacklist tags, for example, and it’s been a successful way of having their cake and eating it too with regard to having normies and weirdoes on the same site and avoiding controversy.
Me, personally, I wouldn’t mind if ONLY lemmygrad stayed defeated, but there’s going to be more issues like this in the future.
I’d like more levels of control here. I’d like “default” all to be generally SFW. If you sign up then search for something and subscribe THEN it can show up in your ALL, but not the whole instance’s ALL
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.
I think part of the reaction your getting has been your attitude.
You linked a great example, they wanted to know information on why things where happening and asked about it in a neutral way.
Nobody is censoring you, you are free to view the content you want to.
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