The problem with these lists is that people sneak things on to them.
I’m an admin on (and owner of) lemmy.ninja. We have clear anti-harassment rules, up front, in bold, front page. We have zero bots (checked daily). We have users that are LGBTQIA+. I have zero tolerance for bigotry.
Yet our site is on the lists provided.
Apparently it doesn’t matter (the lists don’t work) because all of my cross posts (from my boomer shooter community) are available on beehaw.org in their gaming section.
So these lists can be used as weapons, if they work. When thy don’t work they are just an indictment without evidence.
you’re wrong, your site is allowed by all the lists I mentioned.
So these lists can be used as weapons, if they work
These lists are not weapons, they are provided by the instances themselves. They are not false or artificial. They are current, and they display exactly what is real in the configuration of the servers.
The issue is if these lists end up being blindly copied based on trust, and instances that don’t deserve to be banned end up being banned by dozens of instances just because they’re copying lists.
Something similar happened with Twitter banlists. A lot of the accounts were trolls and fascists and whatnot, but oftentimes someone with progressive views who is just a little controversial ends up on a banlist and banned by half of Twitter because one guy decided to stick him on a widely used banlist.
While you did clarify for MrEUser. I will say that they could be weaponized if they are just taken by instances without understanding why they were blocked by the originating instance (especially if it is a larger one). It is obviously up to the instance creators to research things. So I am not saying that it is the same as Reddit outright banning links to sites.
But I think it is fair to consider that since many of the sites that are blocked are either linking possibly illegal or openly bigoted content. That plenty of others will think that all the blocked instances are doing those things. All because the more mainstream a site becomes with “normies”, they just see it as black and white (like they do with lots of real world things). While the actual case is that the ones that aren’t doing those things might just be blocked due to more nuanced reasons. Maybe it is simply differences in politics or maybe even just the creator trying to only federate with instances of the same language in order to make sure everyone can read the posts/comments.
That doesn’t mean that instances being able to block other instances is automatically bad or anything. It is very helpful to be able to openly see which instances are and aren’t allowed. Which is at least surface level transparent for users and potential users. And can be used for creators of instances that might have been blocked to reach out and work things out if it was blocked. Which is something that (to my knowledge) all the major social media sites do not offer and tend to hide. Preferring shadowbans and only openly admitting it if it is super problematic (like bigots or openly illegal stuff).
I can somehow agree with a few things you say, but overall I think the premise is wrong. The fact is not that most blocks or even half the blocks are due to having illegal or bad content. I also don’t know any defederation based on language or any such matter (especially since languages seen is already solved by your profile selection of language). Most blocks are automated, especially for instances that have trouble handling bot sign-ups, or those that have moderation issues. I think that the assumptions that one can make are indeed dangerous but they’re not based in reality, but in imaginary facts about what defederation means. Obviously, since we’re growing very fast, I agree that newcomers and less technically minded people may believe this is the case and use blocklists to justify random assumptions. But in the end, they would be entirely wrong, and wrong assumptions can be made about practically anything, so I wouldn’t put much value or thought into the possible wraponizationability of instance defederation lists.
There are 3 categories in settings on your server, as far as I know: Linked, Allowed and Blocked. I don’t know the difference between Linked and Allowed, but yes, these links contain multiple lists on the same page. The format is the following: https://domain.tld/instances, you will normally find from 1 to 3 lists there, (the Linked, Allowed and Blocked lists). Linked is normal, Blocked is defederated. Idk what Allowed is but I think it is also federated so 🤷
Linked are servers that your server knows about (that have communicated with it)
Allowed, or the allow-list, if present means that the server can only federate with servers in the allow list. This is the most restrictive setting possible.
Block, or disallow-list, means that these servers may not federate with yours. This is where servers go generally when they are “defederated”.
Thank you for the clarification. The problem I have is:
Note that dbzer0 on the federation-checker.vercel.app shows we are being blocked. fba.ryona.agency shows that too, and apparently we are edgelords,don’t moderate, and have done something wrong with free speech…
The problem with dbzer0 is the same we had talked about before (edit: I talked with someone else from lemmy.ninja about this topic, your instance was blocked before). It’s old news. It’s from when you had a bot problem. Ryona has a cache and doesn’t clear it too often.
The problem with toot.foundation has nothing to do with that, though. I have no idea why they would block you. You can find the up to date list of blocked instances on a mastodon by going to the https://instance.tld/about. For example, for toot.foundation, which does block lemmy.ninja, here is the updated blocklist at the bottom, you have to click Moderated servers: https://toot.foundation/about
I run my own instance so that i can take a little control over the drivel that scrolls past my eyes. Far right ideologies don’t deserve a platform or an audience.
Yeah, free speech simply means that you won’t get arrested for being an asshole. It doesn’t mean you’re entitled to be bigoted on a service someone else is hosting. This could be a single person hosting a pet as a hobby, or a corporation at a large scale. It doesn’t matter as long as it’s a third-party that you don’t own.
If people want to be jerks on purpose without others getting involved, they can find their own place to share ideas or host a service themselves. And if they don’t like people challenging their ideas, they can block them too, because they have that right on their own stuff.
Some people believe that hate and discrimination is the new normal and should be condoned by everyone. If it’s a religion thing, perhaps they should reconsider what aspects of “blind” is important in blind faith? Regardless, it’s incredible how people find these unfounded hills to die on.
Besides, their hate is directed towards what’s fashionable at the time. “Owning slaves” and “owning women” was once something people fought for. Later, when human rights started getting voted into law, their disagreement started to be expressed through bigotry.
But now that society doesn’t have much room to be racist or sexist, they are migrating to other groups they don’t like. Did they generally decide that they were wrong about their previously-targeted groups? And they’re positive that the new groups are the right groups to hate? Or perhaps some people just have a chip on their shoulder and want to hate using whatever mental gymnastics are necessary to validate themselves?
Regardless, social media is just a way for people to talk to each other, hosted by a person or a group. In terms of what’s allowed to be said, technology is irrelevant. If someone invites you to dinner for the first time, and you’re blatantly racist, you’ll probably get kicked out. Social media, hosted by others, presents exactly the same set of circumstances, no matter if your voice goes through a webserver and a database first or not.
It’s the deciding which ones are worthless that gets dangerous
Not making a decision is in and of itself a decision. Saying ‘Nazis deserve a voice because everyone deserves a voice’ removes the voice of minorities because Nazis murder and oppress minorities. There is a decision that has to be made somewhere. Saying ‘everyone deserves a voice and Nazis deserve a platform!’ is limiting the voice of minorities.
Sure. In authoritarian states, it’s common to outlaw “lies” about the government, where the government essentially gets to define what a lie is. The United States has its history with such laws in the Alien and Sedition Act in the late 18th century. In more modern times, you see things like Russia outlawing “lies” about the Russo-Ukraine War (including calling it a war). And by lies, I mean anything that does not match Russia’s “everything is fine” narrative. There’s also Poland banning discussion of Nazi collaboration by Poles in 2018.
I definitely separate that from things like deplatforming. Both people and companies should have freedom of association when it comes to political opinions. They should never be forced to support speech that they disagree with.
None of them. Lemmy instances defederating are the epitome of another freedom, freedom of association. People should be able to choose who and who not to associate with without interference from the government.
Fascism isn’t an ideology that gets defeated in the marketplace of ideas. It’s core belief is enabling a small minority to violently destroy other lives. It’s not worth your consideration.
The problem is, this isn’t just a challenge to beliefs. This is the internet. The darkest most depraved shit that can exist… does. People forcing children to do things with animals… I’ll stop there…
The U.S. constitution supports free speech. Even it has limits. You can’t yell fire in a movie theater and not face the consequences of injuries your speech causes.
Idk, gonna be a very hot take, but I like my beliefs challenged and believe that everyone deserves a voice
Nazis had a voice once, and folks listened to them. And we ended up with the Holocaust.
Might be controversial but I don’t believe that people who want to murder minorities deserve a voice. I feel like that’s a pretty reasonable bar to set lol.
Might be controversial but I don’t believe that people who want to murder minorities deserve a voice. I feel like that’s a pretty reasonable bar to set lol.
It’s not controversial at all. The only people making “controversy” out of it are the ones who are mad they can’t spew hate
Tf is to sealion?? And I’d like to see the nazis you seem to be unable to not mention in a comment. What I’ve seen is that instances are defederating from exploding-heads. I’ve gone there, seen some edgier memes, some christianity oriented memes, some better memes(those three not being the same memes obv, the Biden ones are pretty unfunny). I’ve seen some honestly sensible policies - instead of banning people for using le bad words, they encourage people who are sensitive to such stuff to block and move on. You seem to call people fucking Nazis for using language that offends you, right?
The world came together in WWII and decided that Nazis didn’t deserve a place at the table. There’s a difference between “let’s decide whose economic policy is more useful now” and “hey I want everyone to have a nice life and these guys think a large chunk of the world doesn’t deserve to live at all.”
you like it when “other people should be treated as people as a bare minimum” is getting challenged? because that’s the belief that your average xeno-/homo-/transphobic asshole challenges. Many beliefs I have ought to be challenged on the regular, but not THAT one
Blocking instances actually makes the lives of instance admins a lot easier. It not only reduces a whole chunk of problematic content for you to moderate, but it also encourages Nazis to go to the servers you block instead of yours. Nazis can’t subscribe to the subs they want to on your server, and they get banned if they say Nazi shit, so they just leave and go to a Nazi server instead. It’s like fly paper for Nazis lol.
As a Mastodon admin with a few thousand users, I rarely see Nazi content that I have to moderate. And that’s because when I started I spent an enormous amount of time sifting through every server we federated with and blocking all of the Nazis and all the pedos and all the TERFs. And because I did that at the start, I only get maybe 10 reports a week, none of them are content that would traumatize me (almost always spam), and I also helped the servers that now use my list to do the same.
Blocking instances not only makes it easier for me to do my job, it encourages other admins to not tolerate these kinds of behaviors as well. Because if they don’t moderate well, that attracts Nazis, and then we have to limit or ban them because we’re volunteers. So everyone just ends up blocking the shittiest servers and moderates their user base well. It’s a win/win for everyone.
Nazis are not entitled to access to minorities on my server. TERFs are not entitled to access to trans users on my server. Assholes are not entitled to have access to an audience on my server. There are tons of white supremacists or TERFs or other assholes hosting plenty of other servers where they can go and do that. But I don’t want that on servers I host and my users don’t want that on servers I host. If you truly believe free speech is such a big fucking deal, then you are welcome to leave and join one of those rotting servers as well. See how fun that is for you and how long it takes for you to come crawling back.
Is there a running list of bigot instances that I can block?
There is! Browse by instances like lemmy.blahaj.zone/instances, beehaw.org/instances or lemmy.dbzer0.com/instances. They have the most up to date list of people-commonly-disagreed-with-by-lefties. You can start blocking right away 😊
The problem with these lists is that people sneak things on to them.
I’m an admin on (and owner of) lemmy.ninja. We have clear anti-harassment rules, up front, in bold, front page. We have zero bots (checked daily). We have users that are LGBTQIA+. I have zero tolerance for bigotry.
Yet our site is on the lists provided.
Apparently it doesn’t matter (the lists don’t work) because all of my cross posts (from my boomer shooter community) are available on beehaw.org in their gaming section.
So these lists can be used as weapons, if they work. When thy don’t work they are just an indictment without evidence.
That sucks to be you. Enjoy being seen as a right-wing extremist no matter your personal or professional actions.
P.S. asking for evidence is racist and enables harassment (they genuinely believe this)
you’re wrong, your site is allowed by all the lists I mentioned.
These lists are not weapons, they are provided by the instances themselves. They are not false or artificial. They are current, and they display exactly what is real in the configuration of the servers.
The issue is if these lists end up being blindly copied based on trust, and instances that don’t deserve to be banned end up being banned by dozens of instances just because they’re copying lists.
Something similar happened with Twitter banlists. A lot of the accounts were trolls and fascists and whatnot, but oftentimes someone with progressive views who is just a little controversial ends up on a banlist and banned by half of Twitter because one guy decided to stick him on a widely used banlist.
While you did clarify for MrEUser. I will say that they could be weaponized if they are just taken by instances without understanding why they were blocked by the originating instance (especially if it is a larger one). It is obviously up to the instance creators to research things. So I am not saying that it is the same as Reddit outright banning links to sites.
But I think it is fair to consider that since many of the sites that are blocked are either linking possibly illegal or openly bigoted content. That plenty of others will think that all the blocked instances are doing those things. All because the more mainstream a site becomes with “normies”, they just see it as black and white (like they do with lots of real world things). While the actual case is that the ones that aren’t doing those things might just be blocked due to more nuanced reasons. Maybe it is simply differences in politics or maybe even just the creator trying to only federate with instances of the same language in order to make sure everyone can read the posts/comments.
That doesn’t mean that instances being able to block other instances is automatically bad or anything. It is very helpful to be able to openly see which instances are and aren’t allowed. Which is at least surface level transparent for users and potential users. And can be used for creators of instances that might have been blocked to reach out and work things out if it was blocked. Which is something that (to my knowledge) all the major social media sites do not offer and tend to hide. Preferring shadowbans and only openly admitting it if it is super problematic (like bigots or openly illegal stuff).
I can somehow agree with a few things you say, but overall I think the premise is wrong. The fact is not that most blocks or even half the blocks are due to having illegal or bad content. I also don’t know any defederation based on language or any such matter (especially since languages seen is already solved by your profile selection of language). Most blocks are automated, especially for instances that have trouble handling bot sign-ups, or those that have moderation issues. I think that the assumptions that one can make are indeed dangerous but they’re not based in reality, but in imaginary facts about what defederation means. Obviously, since we’re growing very fast, I agree that newcomers and less technically minded people may believe this is the case and use blocklists to justify random assumptions. But in the end, they would be entirely wrong, and wrong assumptions can be made about practically anything, so I wouldn’t put much value or thought into the possible wraponizationability of instance defederation lists.
So these lists are both block AND allow lists? Or are they just allow lists?
There are 3 categories in settings on your server, as far as I know: Linked, Allowed and Blocked. I don’t know the difference between Linked and Allowed, but yes, these links contain multiple lists on the same page. The format is the following: https://domain.tld/instances, you will normally find from 1 to 3 lists there, (the Linked, Allowed and Blocked lists). Linked is normal, Blocked is defederated. Idk what Allowed is but I think it is also federated so 🤷
Linked are servers that your server knows about (that have communicated with it)
Allowed, or the allow-list, if present means that the server can only federate with servers in the allow list. This is the most restrictive setting possible.
Block, or disallow-list, means that these servers may not federate with yours. This is where servers go generally when they are “defederated”.
Damn I think beehaw is there? I think they have an allow list.
Thank you for the clarification. The problem I have is:
Note that dbzer0 on the federation-checker.vercel.app shows we are being blocked. fba.ryona.agency shows that too, and apparently we are edgelords,don’t moderate, and have done something wrong with free speech…
So something somewhere is broken…
The problem with dbzer0 is the same we had talked about before (edit: I talked with someone else from lemmy.ninja about this topic, your instance was blocked before). It’s old news. It’s from when you had a bot problem. Ryona has a cache and doesn’t clear it too often.
The problem with toot.foundation has nothing to do with that, though. I have no idea why they would block you. You can find the up to date list of blocked instances on a mastodon by going to the https://instance.tld/about. For example, for toot.foundation, which does block lemmy.ninja, here is the updated blocklist at the bottom, you have to click Moderated servers: https://toot.foundation/about
Okay. Thank you or your time. I’m just trying to identify if I have a user that is harassing people or something.
Removed by mod
yup, they block many things, so if u wanna block many many things, why not start looking at what ppl who block many many things block?
Ah yes, block entire instances en masse without the hassle of actually making the decision yourself, that would be nice
I run my own instance so that i can take a little control over the drivel that scrolls past my eyes. Far right ideologies don’t deserve a platform or an audience.
Yeah, free speech simply means that you won’t get arrested for being an asshole. It doesn’t mean you’re entitled to be bigoted on a service someone else is hosting. This could be a single person hosting a pet as a hobby, or a corporation at a large scale. It doesn’t matter as long as it’s a third-party that you don’t own.
If people want to be jerks on purpose without others getting involved, they can find their own place to share ideas or host a service themselves. And if they don’t like people challenging their ideas, they can block them too, because they have that right on their own stuff.
Some people believe that hate and discrimination is the new normal and should be condoned by everyone. If it’s a religion thing, perhaps they should reconsider what aspects of “blind” is important in blind faith? Regardless, it’s incredible how people find these unfounded hills to die on.
Besides, their hate is directed towards what’s fashionable at the time. “Owning slaves” and “owning women” was once something people fought for. Later, when human rights started getting voted into law, their disagreement started to be expressed through bigotry.
But now that society doesn’t have much room to be racist or sexist, they are migrating to other groups they don’t like. Did they generally decide that they were wrong about their previously-targeted groups? And they’re positive that the new groups are the right groups to hate? Or perhaps some people just have a chip on their shoulder and want to hate using whatever mental gymnastics are necessary to validate themselves?
Regardless, social media is just a way for people to talk to each other, hosted by a person or a group. In terms of what’s allowed to be said, technology is irrelevant. If someone invites you to dinner for the first time, and you’re blatantly racist, you’ll probably get kicked out. Social media, hosted by others, presents exactly the same set of circumstances, no matter if your voice goes through a webserver and a database first or not.
How do yoy feel about far left ideologies?
Evergreen meme:
Considering it’s their own instance, it doesn’t matter.
Love ‘em!
Pretty good, those are the best.
Imagine thinking far left and far right are equivalent.
Right wing extremists burn people alive, while left wing extremists burn cars.
Obviously the latter is far worse as it could be my car but I don’t own any humans.
pretty based ngl
Idk, gonna be a very hot take, but I like my beliefs challenged and believe that everyone deserves a voice
Deserving a voice is in no way the same as deserving an audience.
I agree with this, but some beliefs are well… utterly stupid and not worth reconsidering. It’s a waste of time really.
It’s the deciding which ones are worthless that gets dangerous, particularly when “worthless” involves prison sentences.
Not making a decision is in and of itself a decision. Saying ‘Nazis deserve a voice because everyone deserves a voice’ removes the voice of minorities because Nazis murder and oppress minorities. There is a decision that has to be made somewhere. Saying ‘everyone deserves a voice and Nazis deserve a platform!’ is limiting the voice of minorities.
Could you clarify?
Sure. In authoritarian states, it’s common to outlaw “lies” about the government, where the government essentially gets to define what a lie is. The United States has its history with such laws in the Alien and Sedition Act in the late 18th century. In more modern times, you see things like Russia outlawing “lies” about the Russo-Ukraine War (including calling it a war). And by lies, I mean anything that does not match Russia’s “everything is fine” narrative. There’s also Poland banning discussion of Nazi collaboration by Poles in 2018.
I definitely separate that from things like deplatforming. Both people and companies should have freedom of association when it comes to political opinions. They should never be forced to support speech that they disagree with.
Which Lemmy instance was it that suspended Habeas Corpus?
None of them. Lemmy instances defederating are the epitome of another freedom, freedom of association. People should be able to choose who and who not to associate with without interference from the government.
Fascism isn’t an ideology that gets defeated in the marketplace of ideas. It’s core belief is enabling a small minority to violently destroy other lives. It’s not worth your consideration.
It’s actually a limp ice cold take that’s been debated to death
The problem is, this isn’t just a challenge to beliefs. This is the internet. The darkest most depraved shit that can exist… does. People forcing children to do things with animals… I’ll stop there…
The U.S. constitution supports free speech. Even it has limits. You can’t yell fire in a movie theater and not face the consequences of injuries your speech causes.
You in fact can yell fire in a theater without being arrested. It depends on the context (and weather or not there where injuries)
If the play calls for it and an actor says it. Or more simply if the theater is on fire.
With speech laws it matters more what the context is to the intended audience than what is specifically said.
Did I not mention being responsible for injuries? Your absolutely right, but you’re not correct…
Go test your theory out, I’ll be waiting for a reply.
I will next time I’m in a theater that is on fire.
Nazis had a voice once, and folks listened to them. And we ended up with the Holocaust.
Might be controversial but I don’t believe that people who want to murder minorities deserve a voice. I feel like that’s a pretty reasonable bar to set lol.
It’s not controversial at all. The only people making “controversy” out of it are the ones who are mad they can’t spew hate
Sure, but did they actually say they want to murder minorities?? I’m yet to see that
@kityr @borlax on the fediverse we ban the “nazis deserve a voice” types
So you ban the “everyone deserves a voice” types? Because that’s what I said.
@kityr don’t try and sealion your way around making excuses for nazis
Tf is to sealion?? And I’d like to see the nazis you seem to be unable to not mention in a comment. What I’ve seen is that instances are defederating from exploding-heads. I’ve gone there, seen some edgier memes, some christianity oriented memes, some better memes(those three not being the same memes obv, the Biden ones are pretty unfunny). I’ve seen some honestly sensible policies - instead of banning people for using le bad words, they encourage people who are sensitive to such stuff to block and move on. You seem to call people fucking Nazis for using language that offends you, right?
@kityr I tell you not to sealion and then you fucking do it right before me like the dumbest sociopath who’s ever lived
You whine that everyone deserves a voice, “everyone” includes the fascists
This isn’t Twitter, this isn’t Reddit, shut your mouth and go tf back to Reddit
The world came together in WWII and decided that Nazis didn’t deserve a place at the table. There’s a difference between “let’s decide whose economic policy is more useful now” and “hey I want everyone to have a nice life and these guys think a large chunk of the world doesn’t deserve to live at all.”
you like it when “other people should be treated as people as a bare minimum” is getting challenged? because that’s the belief that your average xeno-/homo-/transphobic asshole challenges. Many beliefs I have ought to be challenged on the regular, but not THAT one
Nazi’s deserve to be named, shamed, and ignored.
Blocking instances actually makes the lives of instance admins a lot easier. It not only reduces a whole chunk of problematic content for you to moderate, but it also encourages Nazis to go to the servers you block instead of yours. Nazis can’t subscribe to the subs they want to on your server, and they get banned if they say Nazi shit, so they just leave and go to a Nazi server instead. It’s like fly paper for Nazis lol.
As a Mastodon admin with a few thousand users, I rarely see Nazi content that I have to moderate. And that’s because when I started I spent an enormous amount of time sifting through every server we federated with and blocking all of the Nazis and all the pedos and all the TERFs. And because I did that at the start, I only get maybe 10 reports a week, none of them are content that would traumatize me (almost always spam), and I also helped the servers that now use my list to do the same.
Blocking instances not only makes it easier for me to do my job, it encourages other admins to not tolerate these kinds of behaviors as well. Because if they don’t moderate well, that attracts Nazis, and then we have to limit or ban them because we’re volunteers. So everyone just ends up blocking the shittiest servers and moderates their user base well. It’s a win/win for everyone.
Nazis are not entitled to access to minorities on my server. TERFs are not entitled to access to trans users on my server. Assholes are not entitled to have access to an audience on my server. There are tons of white supremacists or TERFs or other assholes hosting plenty of other servers where they can go and do that. But I don’t want that on servers I host and my users don’t want that on servers I host. If you truly believe free speech is such a big fucking deal, then you are welcome to leave and join one of those rotting servers as well. See how fun that is for you and how long it takes for you to come crawling back.