TO THE ADMINS: Read this thread and give me one good reason why federating with toxic, propaganda spreading tankie loons is a good idea.

No one wants those fucks, or the alt right dipshits for that matter, around, and they’re spreading blatant lies, yet I see they are here. Does lemm.ee only care about boosting its numbers and is willing to sink to new lows to do it, I wonder? 🤔

  • For the time being, I have no plans to change our federation policy. I realize this is not what you want to hear, and I’m sorry to disappoint you. It’s just not a goal for lemm.ee to curate external instances for now.

    There are probably many instances out there that have horrible content (content which would get users banned if they posted it on lemm.ee), but vetting instances and maintaining a defederation list is a big effort, and I believe this effort is much better spent elsewhere.

    I’ve stated this in many other similar threads, but let me also reiterate here: the above should not be taken to mean that lemm.ee is some bastion of free speech absolutism. Users or communities breaking rules on lemm.ee are dealt with. Also, we do reserve the right to defederate any instance which starts causing problems for lemm.ee on a bigger scale (so in cases where banning individual users is not effective).

    I realize this is a topic where it’s impossible to make everybody happy, because each person has their own view on what should be federated or defederated. At the end of the day, for anything that’s not illegal or directly hurting lemm.ee, I believe it’s best to leave these decisions up to users - you can make your own choices with which users and communities you block, and I’m certain that soon you’ll have the tools built in to Lemmy itself to make the same decision on an instance level as well. And if that doesn’t work for you, then there’s always the possibility of joining a different instance with a different approach to federation.

  • I’ve personally found the hexbear locals to be really inclusive, and pleasant to interact with. I couldn’t say I agree with the totality of their political outlooks, but I’ve not found them particularly unreasonable.

    • I shouldn’t have to as that costs money. It’s the admin’s job to fix his server, not mine.

      If he’s a tankie or a supporter of them, he has a responsibility to us to be honest about that fact instead of allowing them to run roughshod and inundate the instance with propaganda. He KNOWS they don’t belong here but he’s ignoring the problem. That means he either is one of them, supports them or is being taken in by them. And that’s a serious problem that will affect the whole federation, not just this one instance.

      If tankies get away with doing that here, they’ll do it to other admins, and poison the whole federation. It’ll be impossible for new instances to flourish without kowtowing to them, and so it has to be stopped here and now with the bigger instances.

      EDIT: Welp, clearly I’ll have to, and it will be expensive, but we sane folks have no choice. These piece of shit admins on several different instances have shown us that they clearly don’t care about their users (this is not the first instance I have seen that’s pulled this crap).

      Let me see what I can do

      • How do you foresee tankies poisoning the whole fediverse? Do you find their arguments compelling? It doesn’t even seem like they are trying to make a case, they are just bluntly stating misinformation. If we are going to remove all misinformation then we are going to need paid admins because even at the current scale its a full time job. Or should we only remove certain misinformation? I see blatant misinformation everywhere on the fediverse already and only a tiny percentage is tankie related.

        • How do you foresee tankies poisoning the whole fediverse?

          Because I’ve been watching what has been going on. Instances, big ones, that were previously hard-nosed about being defederated from them have mysteriously let them on their instances again, including this one. I signed up for this instance specifically BECAUSE it banned them, and then all of a sudden, for the past few days, my All feed is inundated with their crap.

          That is shady, sus, and wrong. A lot of people came here specifically to get away from tankies and their garbage, and now we’re expected to put up with it because the admins refuse to act and even let them back on? Explain to me how money, blackmail, intimidation, manipulation or abject retardation isn’t involved in that?

          Or how it won’t happen to other instances once those cretins get a foothold in a big enough percentage of the fediverse?

          It doesn’t even seem like they are trying to make a case, they are just bluntly stating misinformation. If we are going to remove all misinformation then we are going to need paid admins because even at the current scale its a full time job.

          The admin already accepts donations so he has no excuse.

          I see blatant misinformation everywhere on the fediverse already and only a tiny percentage is tankie related.

          You can thank the alt-right dipshits at .world for that, and that’s why I speak out now: unless admins’ feet are held to the fire and they’re held accountable for not protecting their users, it’ll keep getting worse. The admins made an instance they want us to use and accept donations to keep it running. Therefore they have a responsibility toward us they’re not meeting, and it results in dangerous shit like propaganda claiming the Tianamen Square massacre did not happen to run freely when it should not. That is crazy and you know it

          • I signed up for this instance specifically BECAUSE it banned them

            i think you were mistaken. someone correct me if i’m wrong, but i don’t think lemm.ee ever defederated from hexbear, rather, hexbear was defederated from everyone. they quite recently changed that, and lemm.ee users then subsequently joined hexbear communities, which is why you’re now seeing them if you browse by ‘all’.

              • I’m sorry if you feel like I was rude to you, that was not my intention. Try to see it from my point of view - there are dozens of people like yourself who are making demands to instance admins in different channels on a more or less weekly basis. “You need to be doing more X”, “You need to stop doing X”, “You need to react faster, we need deadlines for admins”, “You need to stop reacting so hastily”, etc. It’s really exhausting to read and respond to these (conflicting!) demands constantly, I think I am going to have to take a step back and start ignoring such posts in the future.

                Please remember that I am a volunteer. Over the past few months, I have put in hundreds of hours of my own time and hundreds of euros of my own money into building up this instance. I understand you feel like I have a responsibility to invest even more time, but I have been very upfront about what I’m prepared to offer in terms of federation - that’s the whole idea behind having a public federation policy, which is on display not just in our sidebar but also in our pinned welcome post. If that policy is not a good fit for you, then that’s fair enough. There are plenty of other instances out there with much more strict policies (I can recommend Beehaw, for example).

                By the way, contrary to what you’re claiming, until today, lemm.ee has only ever defederated bot instances + one instance which encourages posting CSAM drawings (+ there is also the decision to not immediately federate with Facebook if that ever becomes a possibility). Sure, I’ve seen some users from other instances who post seriously disturbing content, and these users have been dealt with (through bans and some other methods as well), but so far, I have not seen any federated instance which has users posting bad content at a scale that would only be solvable through defederation. Keep in mind that reports are my main source of seeing such content - I do not go out looking for it on other instances, I never promised to do so and I don’t plan to start any time soon. This is a group effort, and users are expected to help build a community they want to be a part of through reports and/or downvotes.

        • Apparently yes, because you’re here defending them in a meta thread for my instance written specifically to address this issue, an instance you’re not even a part of, so what reasonable conclusion can we make except you’re here to defend them and keep them around when you know instance natives do not want them?

          See, this shit is why the tankies need to leave. They’re astroturfing and getting their buddies/alt accounts to stick up for them and this is like the third that has cropped up in the thread so far. How can meaningful engagement happen if they are going to be allowed to just gang up on anyone who complains or disagrees with them? That’s not a fun instance and the admins of lemm.ee have no business allowing it.

              • I read your initial post, and the two comments above mine. Not everyone sorts the comments section the same way, and if you think I give any more fucks than that about what you’re saying after showing yourself to be a hypocrite, you’re going to have a bad time.

                • bad economic policies

                  Who cares about China anyway?

                  Yea the person claiming Biden has bad economic policies wants to ignore the second largest economy in the world… 😂

                  Well lookie motherfucking loo here boys, the proof is in the pudding.

                  You all are really butthurt that no one else wants you around that you gang up on anyone who complains, resorting to cheap personal attacks and tone policing, thinking you’re going to pretend to be an onlooker when in reality you’re just some dipshit tankie acting in bad faith hoping to astroturf.

                  THIS is why you scumbags don’t belong here. THIS is why the admins need to take responsibility and defederate from your asses, so we can have meaningful conversations in good faith without them being inundated by your ilk so you can feel like you’re in control of something.

                  Tankies DO NOT belong here and they need to be defederated from this instance before they do worse.

  •  zoe   ( @zoe@lemm.ee ) 
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    161 year ago

    u can always filter instances using connect or sync as u please: there is no need to ask ur admin for defederation ( it is kinda extreme really )

      •  Dr. Wesker   ( @wesker@lemmy.sdf.org ) 
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        1 year ago

        The point of Lemmy is federation. If it doesn’t solve your needs, then it’s your responsibility to make the decision if it’s a healthy ecosystem for you, and if you should keep using it or not.

        • No, the point of Lemmy is to replace Reddit, and if we’re just going to get enabling admins who likely are tankies or being unduly influenced by tankies, then it is pointless.

          I will NOT go away or be silenced. You will NOT demand I just put up with it or do the admins’ job for them. It’s their job to protect us from bad faith scumbags looking to fulfill a stupid political agenda and brainwash people.

          Insinuating anyone who complains about abuse is the problem for complaining, not the abusive behavior is a tactic bad-faith actors always use to silence legitimate dissent. Are you here in bad faith? Because by doing it you sure sound like it

  • I don’t think a worldwide general-purpose instance should be removing content, users, or instances based on an opinion of the content. That’s censorship by definition.

    Removing content based on an opinion is very different than removing users or instances that are manipulating Lemmy votes/accounts or expressing extreme targeted hate towards an individual.

        • I actually haven’t really debated them and this isn’t the first time I’ve seen them invade an instance. I want them gone because they are spreading blatant propaganda and that should not be allowed on any instance worth its salt

          Point in fact, I came here to lemm.ee specifically because it was defederated from them, but now I see the past few days that they’ve been let on again and are now invading threads with pro-CCP astroturfing and inundating the All feed with their propaganda and garbage like they always do. And that shouldn’t be allowed.

            • That’s exactly what they’ve been doing. Their Tianamen Square propaganda showed up on my All feed which is how I know about it to begin with. We’re all being inundated with their garbage and we did not come to this instance to be flooded with propaganda and garbage.

              I’m arguing with their shitty alt accounts here because they tried to mass downvote the thread and astroturf and gang up on me, because they don’t want efforts to defederate them to gain traction, but guess what? It didn’t work. Because they’re little bitches who thought they could scare me away, and it did not work, because I am an asshole. 😉

              You’re here blatantly fucking lying to our faces thinking you can discredit me and protect those hopeless retards, proving my point. Tankies don’t belong here. If you love them so damn much, go sign up for Lemmygrad.

  • I have enough luck to have joint instances that don’t federate with fascists, being they red or not. However, when one of those instances decide to federate with them (not going to happen, but let’s pretend), I’ll protest like you’re doing. And if it doesn’t work, I’ll go to a more inclusive instance.

    Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand that a fascist is not the same thing as a communist. But they’re equally despicable.

    •  misk   ( @misk@lemm.ee ) 
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      1 year ago

      Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand that a fascist is not the same thing as a communist. But they’re equally despicable.

      Fascism is inherently anti-democratic, communism isn’t. I know communism is a shorthand for stalinism, maoism and other totalitarian ideologies that use socialist facade (similar to national socialism) but it’s worth to make an effort not to discredit the whole idea.

      • Yes, you’re right. Sometimes I think that communism is merely an economic system. But thinking about Stalin, Mao and Il-Sung, whose communist developments where economic, social, democratic and whatnot, it’s sometimes hard to discriminate the noise from the useful information too.

        Besides, I can’t understand why communists / tankies are so prone to support dictators. Dictatorship is not exclusive to communism, even capitalism had and has some kind of dictatorships: Hungary, Belarus…

        • I think capitalism leans into the human trait that wants power. I think communism leans into the human trait that wants to be taken care of. That’s a little off, but you get the idea. In both dictatorship is possible but capitalism has more infighting.

  • “We kicked extremists off our platform, now they’re congregating without oversight and becoming more extreme. Who could have seen this coming??”

    If you actually think a massacre at Tiananmen Square happened, and actually think it was a worthy event to remember, wouldn’t you want to be aware that people are trying to rewrite it?