Based on concerns from both the admin team and most users here, the lemmy.ml admin team decided to add wolfballs.com to our blocklist. There is just too much reactionary content that breaks almost all the rules we have here.
It’s natural for open instances like this one to develop blocklists organically, and so far we’ve only felt it necessary to block 2 instances. If there’s any concerns about other instances that we should keep an eye on, let us know.
I recommended this on Matrix. It really was necessary. The site admins are in favor of vaccine misinformation and extreme fearmongering to the point of hostility towards science in general.
Thank you! I feel like the fediverse is made better and benefits from people who take notice and put information in front of the right people. It’s just one little thing, but all kinds of downstream outcomes are averted, and we don’t have to say “gee I wish we blocked them a long time ago” because we went through a period of them poisoning the well.
I agree with this decision. Freedom of association is a thing and Lemmy.ml can choose with whom to federate.
Besides, it wasn’t simply a “difference in opinion” like you could disagree on ice cream flavour preference or even serious topics like the role of China in the world: Wolfballs maintains and encourages users to be in communities like ‘c/racist’, which is just a community for straight up racism without any veils or dogwhistles in front. Wolfballs is an instance whose mission statement is to build a platform where people can call for and organize genocide and terrorism under the veil of free speech.
If it was simply a difference in opinion or even a staunchly conservative instance, I wouldn’t block them, but they were nothing but a front for unironic racism.
it’s always weird as hell to me that people will shout “but free speech” and “it’s just a difference of opinion”, when the people that’re being shut out support genocide, or segregation, or conversion therapy, or what have you.
100% agree with this. And I made a whole thread about this kind of rhetorical move, which is to take specific subject matter, such as support for genocide, and to step back to the generality of difference of opinion. That specific move, the step back, of not defending a belief on the merits is a characteristic strategy of people seeking to insulate it from criticism at the subject matter level.
It’s kind of like forum shopping, the way that a company might bring their case to one jurisdiction rather than another, it’s always defended in the abstract, but expressed in the specific.
But that’s just it, that’s literally what free speech is. There’s a downside to it, sure sometimes ignorant morons do in fact use it to spread hateful shit, but this is 2021, “hate speech” can be as simple as a disagreement on ANYTHING at this point, so if we draw a line, where does it end?
If I go on a mainstream forum and say I don’t think my kid should get a vaccine that hasn’t proven itself in kids, I’m spreading “misinformation”, except I’m not, I’m stating fact. They haven’t been tested enough. My kid has 2 friends at school that had nice trips to the hospital after being vaccinated because their parents couldn’t get the needle in their arm fast enough. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m also not stupid. You’re not allowed to have an opinion that goes against mainstream without having a political buzzword attached to you and having your statement wiped out of existence. That’s a very dangerous line to walk just to shut up some ignorant trolls that would have been ignored anyways.
Bad faith actors weaponize liberal virtues like free speech to support the spread hate, toxicity and misinformation. This became a thing around 2014-2015 with gamergate and created a model that is followed by angry online mobs to this day.
One of beautiful things about federation is that it defangs these arguments. There’s no legal sense in which free speach claims actually apply here, and there’s no conceptual sense in which it’s being denied. There’s no actual legal entitlement to free speech on any particular federated server, and you nevertheless have access to the underlying technology and the freedom to express yourself on the platform.
This structure makes it easy to see when the mask falls off, because you give people what they claim they want, and it turns out that it’s not enough, because what they really want is access to a captive audience with no constraints on behavior.
There are also other inputs to cultivation of an atmosphere where interactivity and creativity flourish that have a lot to do with avoiding poison, hate and arguments, but this dimension tends to be totally ignored by people who claim they are trying to protect such values by invoking the principle of free speech. Which, again, is a mask-off indicator.
I think for complaints about free speech to be taken seriously, it is helpful to proactively demonstrate that you care at least as much about the phenomenon of bad faith weaponizing of liberal values, which is what these rules exist to address, and are coming from a place of shared concern and not just trying to open up new captive audiences to trolls.
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“I am not very happy about this Adolf guy running for chancellor. I will try and find legal ways to discourage him from ruling in a way that feels fair to the SA and the SS.” — Weimar bureaucrats, 1932
I will try and find legal ways to discourage him from ruling in a way
You’d prefer that people be allowed to use illegal means to end (once and for all) potential future Hitlers? Or, really, anyone they somehow believe to be potential future Hitlers?
If there is a third alternative, I’m just not seeing it.
I guess we’ll all be forced to relive (and ignore) Treaties of Versailles forever.
… Yeah, I would prefer that people use illegal means to end potential future Hitlers.
Ok.
So…
- How do they actually perceive or confirm that someone is a “potential future Hitler”? We don’t live in science fiction novels after all.
- Don’t those same science fiction novels actually suggest that sometimes we create potential future Hitlers by trying to use illegal means to end them, that we cause them to be future Hitlers when they wouldn’t be if we weren’t trying to pre-emptively assassinate them?
- Don’t some of those science fiction novels also suggest that in doing so, the protagonists have become the future Hitlers themselves?
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You know, we have the scientific method in the realm of history and politics. You can analyze which interests someone supports, which goals someone has and what policies and action they support. Because it’s not about killing a literal future Hitler but instead fighting any kind of reactionary, anti-people ideology, this is quite straightforward.
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That’s a strange question because we don’t live in a science fiction novel. We are not trying to assassinate little baby Hitler clones, we are trying to lead the class struggle against future and current fascist and reactionary movements.
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Again, I don’t know why your political conclusions come from science fiction novels.
we have the scientific method in the realm of history and politics. You can analyze which interests someone supports,
Ah. The one that has us run the experiment many times before we jump to conclusions?
So like, if 1 million people had those interests and never became Hitler or Mussolini, then we invalidate those interests as a determinant of whether they’re actually going to become another Hitler?
It sounds like you’re now trying to twist science so you can use it as an excuse to unperson those you don’t like. Extrajudicially.
We are not trying to assassinate little baby Hitler clones,
No, instead you’re suggesting assassinating real, live people. That you don’t like.
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A little too mask off?
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I would like to add that wolfballs.com will still be included in the instance list on join-lemmy.org. Thats partly because it makes moderation of this instance easier if users can join an instance thats more appropriate for them. Plus the admin is making good contributions to Lemmy and promoting it. Also, Lemmy cant be a real alternative to Reddit if we exclude such a large part of the userbase.
Maybe in the future we can implement more fine-grained federation controls, so that we could federate only certain, non-political communities with wolfballs. For now, every instance admin can decide whether to federate with it or not, and users consider that as a factor when choosing an instance.
I don’t think funnelling people to an openly fascist and racist instance is a good strategy. It merely gives them a platform that might die if you weren’t their lifeline.
Ah you are one of those people who call everyone they disagree with a fascist. I suggest you read through this post.
My man, I literally have a degree in political communication. When I say fascist, I mean fascist: the armed defense of crumbling capital in face of working class movements, designed to split the working class by diverting their attention to identity politics to secure the power of private ownership of the means of production.
That is happening over at Wolfballs. I don’t call anyone fascist who isn’t. And I don’t think that’s a proper way to communicate as an admin either.
I’m not involved in the internal workings of this site, but I will say that there’s a reason that companies tend to be split into departments. Separation of concerns is a big deal and having people who are both the core developers also be admins of a major instance (the largest instance? I’m not sure) is risking burnout and conflicts of interest in terms of attention.
Well put.
I dont think that definition is entirely correct, but lets consider it for now. First, “armed defense” is impossible when we are talking about an online community with no real-world element (I also havent noticed any promotion of violence on the site). Second, the users on wolfballs are at times more critical of capital than those on lemmy.ml (but with a different focus, like the pharma lobby).
So no, I dont see any indication of fascism, its just right-wing.
I agree. Those people aren’t fascists, or even similar enough to fascists for the term to be useful.
That doesn’t make them not dangerous idiots. Of the sort that, in the right circumstances, can be scary to other people who have done nothing to deserve it.
Very based. I observed one Indian Hindutva fash over there, and since I am Indian, I could identify him quickly. Disgusted me. The environment on that instance is not particularly spectacular.
i made the mistake of going to that site to check if it’s really problematic 🤦♀️
Well, it’s your choice. They’ll likely form their separate part of the fediverse.
I was looking forward to trolling them though :/
You look forward to taunting them when you’re insulated from any responses?
I was looking forward. It’s no fun anymore
That’s what a troll does! Their purpose of existence is to be an ignorant douchebag.
I was considering moving out of Reddit because bans and shit. My first day using Lemmy and first post I read is about blocking/black lists etc. :( Why the need to block? You dont like you dont go there.
This is actually the strength of federation and open source. There is no central authority to stop any use. We individually have control over what we interact with in the usual way and we (collectively as an instance) have the same control. If you don’t want to belong to an instance that blocks anyone, join a different instance or even start your own. This is just one place of many. Each of us can find or create the one that is right for us.
I still don’t understand this federation idea. Maybe because I’m used to the simplicity of centralization. Where can I find more info about how this federation works?
Its just like email. One person on gmail can email someone else on protonmail. A person on one lemmy server can subscribe to communities on other servers, and see posts and comments from users elsewhere.
With email, you can also block email addresses who keep spamming you with things you don’t want to see, which is what we’ve done here.
Is there a federation, social media platform, or some online community or wtv on the internet where representatives of both sides, left and right and maybe center etc, have civilized discourse and are at their best behavior? I mean is there a place where people with opposing views can co-exist and debate respectfully? Without the fear of being cancelled, blacklisted, censored, harassed etc? Because if there is I want to join. Thanks
No, because marginalized peoples pretty quickly get tired of “debating” bigots on their right to exist. A comment of mine about this last week.
You are sick. Hope there’s not many like you moderating this website.
Difference of opinion… Blocklist. That fits.
I don’t think you understand. This wasn’t a case of different opinions. This was an instance where the admins were aggressively promoting racism, vaccine misinformation and fearmongering, and staunch opposition to science. They had essentially openly bragged that, when faced with evidence, they would strongly prefer the opposite.
- An admin posted this. I hope I don’t need to explain all the layers of garbage here.
- Here, an admin posted, saying that somebody who suggested compassion towards trans athletes was a “RINO,” and saying fuck him – how dare he suggest basic human decency towards trans people!
I really don’t want to dig anymore, but it’s bad.
On top of that, their idea of federation does not include the perspective of outsiders.
On the Ronald McDonald thing… who cares? Why are you that hypersensitive? Welcome to free speech. On the “Illegals” thing, that was referring to people from other instances coming on and down voting the crap out of things which was made pretty clear… so?
On the Dr Oz thing, I disagree. Somebody isn’t a RINO because they’re on the right and say they have compassion for trans athletes, but MANY now regardless of what side of the fence you’re on have a cult like belief that you either subscribe to 100% of an (assumed) political ideology or you’re canceled. But again, moron or not, free speech.
I have compassion for trans athletes, and trans people in general, I can’t even imagine what it must feel like to think you’re in the wrong gendered body for what your brain is telling you that you are, but I’m also not going to pretend that especially in the case of a professional athlete that a biological man doesn’t have a huge unfair advantage over a biological female. Changing your name and clothing, and even taking a bunch of hormones doesn’t remove that advantage. That simply can’t be ignored. This is only a thing because it’s been politically charged. If an athlete tests postive for PEDs they’re kicked out on their ass and labeled a cheater. But when they biologically have more muscle mass, more bone mass and all around more power it’s ignored you’re cancelled and labeled a “bigot”. Sorry, that’s bullshit. That’s simply ignoring the biological differences between men and women, if there wasn’t a diffeerence as some people living in a dream world actually claim, then why do trans people have to load up or hormones, hormone blockers, be prescribe other anabolics etc?
I’m for everybody living their life the way they want, but that doesn’t include disconnecting from reality to do it.
Disagreeing is fine, but not insulting other users. This is an official warning.
Thank you for proving my point, we have a difference of opinion so I’m a “cunt”. Thanks for showing your level of intolerance.
Hopefully you’re not also promoting “inclusion” other places. Because that’s clearly not something you believe in.
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Fully agree. Unfortunately many people now consider it a personal attack when someone disagrees with their opinion.
If that opinion is to promote a genocide, of course it’s a personal attack.
You are being downvoated for, in my view, a very reasonable opinion. People are being social engineered into this woke or political correctness mentality badly. This shits scary. Remember seeing an interview done to a Chinese deflector warning about this and its similarities to Mao Zedong’s revolution in China.
You are being downvoated for, in my view, a very reasonable opinion. People are being social engineered into this woke or political correctness mentality badly. This shits scary. Remember seeing an interview done to a Chinese deflector warning about this and its similarities to Mao Zedong’s revolution in China.
That is one of the points behind federation. Instances can choose to remove federation for another site without infringing on the speech of anyone in the blocked site.
Wtf.
ive just added it on lemmur, i dont want lemmy to become yet another echo chamber, but i will admit the instance is reactionary
Extremely! Same dude I just agreed with on a reply called me a cunt (didn’t elaborate why) right below it. It’s the agree with me 100% on everything or it’s full on attack. Yet accuse wolfballs of being intolerant bigots. Good ol’ pot calling the kettle black!
