The screenshot shows the recommendations from https://join-lemmy.org/.

Still being federated with exploding-heads does not mean the instance supports them. But it means that shit-heads are allowed to take part in the discussions on their communities. They do intoxicate the discussions we will have. They will attack minorities. Maybe you will not be harassed by them, more vulnerable people will be. They are allowed to moderate communities on these instances. Exploding-heads members actively guide young and unknowing people to their hateful instance.

They try to start discussions about the holocaust https://sh.itjust.works/post/227268. They create communities only to crosspost exploding-heads content https://lemmy.world/c/pharma They take over discussions against them https://exploding-heads.com/comment/132189 “WHY are vulnerable people joining a decentralized system? Isnt this why you want a closed, not for public eyes community?”

This was a link to exploding-heads, because when someone copies a permalink of a comment from them on another instance, it will be a link to their instance.

Are we building a place where vulnerable people are welcome and safe or are we building a place where nazis are welcome and safe?

They want you to block them, they comment that everywhere. They block people who are in favor of defederating them https://sh.itjust.works/post/225714 When their opponents won’t see them anymore, they can harass and recruit without being noticed.

Blocking will not solve the problem. They will spread even when you close your eyes.

Maybe this was not done intentionally, but now there is a post with a list of ‘health communities on Lemmy’ with the first entry guiding to exploding heads. https://lemmy.world/post/396561

It is still possible that some of the mentioned instances do support them. The owner of sh.itjust.works says that because of “free speech” all other instances would be allowed. It is suspicious to me that his line is drawn only for lemmygrad https://sh.itjust.works/comment/130474

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?

At the same time they seem to ignore the call and vote to defederate with exploding-heads https://sh.itjust.works/post/433483.

They rejected to delete The_Donald from sh.itjust.works until they feared to get isolated from the other instances: https://lemmy.ml/post/1467310. They where aware of The_Donald and ignored early warnings. (https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/266248). TD was more important to them than keeping the only mod of their 4th biggest community c/patientgamers (https://sh.itjust.works/post/291747, https://sh.itjust.works/post/388922)

Since The_Donald was removed, I did not find more racist content on the mentioned servers. That is part their tactics. They act harmless but recruit to their instance, attract likeminded people and chase others away. Discussions on sh.itjust.works about such topics are very toxic already, soon they might be able to do more harm.

(My research is very limited, as i could not search for all exploding-heads member content on other instances by entering their domain. I know there are nice communities on sh.itjust.works.)

What can be done? On joinmastodon.org there is a Mastodon Server Covenant with very few useful rules, one of them is “Active moderation against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia”. https://joinmastodon.org/covenant It would be a first step to implement these rules for join-lemmy.org. At least instances that want to be recommended on there should have to agree to that rule.

More actions should be taken now. Please make suggestions. Things will only become more complicated. The next reddit wave is incoming.

For those who did not already know:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

https://www.upworthy.com/bartender-explains-why-he-swiftly-kicks-nazis-out-of-his-punk-bar-even-if-theyre-not-bothering-anyone

This is not the first time new platforms face these problems, do we really have to repeat the same mistakes?

-Share/crosspost

-Contact admins

update: lemmy.word defederated eh

  • The Cuuuuube@beehaw.orgEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    They’re playing the traditional Alt-Right playbook, and they’re playing a bunch of instance admins like fiddles. I’ve noticed a consistent pattern of abusive trolls being from that instance. My secondary account is on sh.itjust.works, and I’m looking for another instance to be my secondary instance that I use to look at lemmy.world content I can’t see from this, my primary account. Thus far, there aren’t any instances I can find that have a federation / defederation list that matches my ideal list, so for now, I have my happy account and my “it stresses me out” account.

    It seems like there are two camps here in the threadiverse. People who are excited to find an instance admin who moderates the way they like, and people who think an instance admin is only responsible for uptimes and that this entire experiment should be fully unmoderated

    • terribleplan@lemmy.nrd.liEnglish
      01·
      1 year ago

      Be the change you want to see. Setting up an instance is surprisingly easy, it’s the admin stuff that will take much more time, and finding users that will probably be hard. Also scaling once you hit a certain level of size/traffic, but that’d be a good problem to have. To me the most beautiful part of the fediverse is that if you’re not finding the instance with rules/defederation/etc you want you can make that place exist.

      If you are interested in doing so I’d be more than happy to give what advice or help I can.

      • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.meEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Running your own is the way, and you get to choose. I personally don’t defederate any instances so far, and I think in some way being able to see that content and be aware that it exists is good to not become an echo chamber and remain aware of the gravity of the problem.

        Being outside of the US, I wasn’t aware of how bad the alt-right was until they started invading Reddit, which used to be rather welcoming and accepting, as was Twitter many years ago. If we just defederate them, it’s easy to forget it even exists, and end up with essentially two competing echo chambers.

        If not already a feature, instances could filter remote communities and drop posts/comments from locally defederated instances so that local users don’t see that content despite the remote instance hosting it. You own the server, you can present the content however you want.

        I’m sure in time some of those filtered instances will pop up, if they haven’t already.