Exploding-heads.com is another instance on Lemmy where alt-right MAGA types tend to reside. Some people on this server want us to defederate from them immediately, some people want to save defederation as a last resort. They have 104 active users (more stats below).
It seems that exploding-heads has also experienced a recent botswarm invasion. This is obviously another point in favor of defederating them, assuming you are worried about botswarms, which is currently being discussed here.
My advice to you all is please try to discuss this in a civil manner, we need not allow them to create divisive conflict inside our communities. No matter how the vote turns out, you're not going to be able to defederate from your fellow sh.itheads so be nice.
I've linked many of the previous discussions below so people who are out of the loop can get a general sense of the situation.
https://sh.itjust.works/post/216888 https://sh.itjust.works/post/225714 https://sh.itjust.works/post/281126 https://sh.itjust.works/post/410325
Lemmy.world just recently defederated them.
https://lemmy.world/post/747912
https://lemmy.world/post/577526
Although this could be considered a point in favor of defederation, it actually means even if we vote to remain federated, people have a great alternative in lemmy.world where they can still participate in our communities and simultaneously be protected from exploding-heads.
Ensuring diversity of servers is beneficial to the platform as a whole, but it is also not our responsibility to bear that burden.
TLDR, just wrap up any last points in this thread before we open the vote tomorrow. Please be civil.
EDIT: To clarify, this isn't the official vote, this is the final discussion. The vote thread will be posted tomorrow and you will only be allowed to make a single comment saying Aye or Nay.
EDIT2: Vote thread is up, this thread is now locked. Very lively discussion thread sh.itheads. Please try to be more respectful next time.
There is quite a lot in that thread that I find distasteful and wouldn't personally engage with. But I don't see anything that is a "Nazi bar" as you describe it. I see a lot of unfunny shitposts, some political bait of questionably authenticity, and some bad faith discussion of transgender issues that other users attempted to moderate. I don't see doxxing, inciting to violence, NSFL material, CP, or anything else heinous enough to warrant defederation. Just a lot of Fox News talking points which, like it or not, a large percentage of the US would agree with.
Then we disagree on what is heinous, and I suppose that's how it's going to be. I think they are well past the line for "people I want to platform on social media", which is what federation ultimately is. It is not a legal action or something.
From these replies and others you seem to be of the opinion that any conservative ideology is heinous - and for what it's worth many here seem to agree with you. Personally I feel that turning some communities into liberal-only safe spaces while isolating others into conservative echo chambers only radicalizes both groups and makes constructive discourse increasingly less likely. People with other beliefs exist, vote, pay taxes, write laws, etc - perhaps if we spent less time demonizing each other and more time understanding why people feel certain ways we'd all be better off. Lemmy may not be the ideal place for such conversation, but where is?
I don't particularly care which side of the neoliberal coin you want to place their memes. In fact I think by focusing on that you think this is a conservative/liberal debate is kind of telling on yourself a little.
I just don't want to platform people who, for example, call me a child abuser for allowing my kid to live the life they've asked to live. They can be as "liberal" as they like.
For that example, you are referring to the sarcastic comment about the child in a mask? Why not just downvote and move on? Idiots say dumb shit all the time, online and in life. I legitimately don't understand why this has you so concerned.
First, federation isn't just a passive series of links, it's paying to host and serve their content from our instance. I'm not going to be part of, and very much not going to donate to, an instance that's fine with hosting material like that.
Second, no, their admins are pretty visibly transphobic. It was seeing their transphobic memes in my feed, before this conversation even came up, that was my initial problem. Since then there's been far more stuff. Had it been a few users maybe this conversation would be different, but it's the admin and from there the entire community. I intend to be an active part of the community I join on Lemmy - I think that's really the entire point of the federation model - and I'm not going to be an active part of a community that, as I said, stores and serves that kind of stuff.
Further, I'm on here for fun. My job deals aplenty with stress along these lines... I don't need it in my relaxation time as well.
You're quite welcome to feel differently. If the vote goes against me I'm just going to leave for a place that fits my needs. Likewise I encourage you to do the same. That's how it's supposed to work.
That's a fair point and an interesting distinction regarding hosting content - I had assumed that your home instance was simply fetching content hosted from elsewhere but I really don't know much about the underlying technology.
And we can certainly all pack up and go separate ways. I just worry that excessive fragmentation is an existential threat to the success of the ecosystem. Today I don't feel like there are enough users on Lemmy to reach a self-sustaining critical mass - if the barrier to entry is too high, we won't get enough engagement and this could turn into another failed experiment like Google+. If the price to pay for having a full vibrant community is downvoting and blocking some bad users every now and then that's something I am willing to do.
Finally, I think this interaction has been a good example of what I hope to get out of Lemmy. I don't agree with many of your points, but I am glad for the conversation and think I have learned something by exploring a point of view different to my own. If we had been siloed with only like-minded people, that would not have happened. Food for thought perhaps.
Should be noted, I don't plan to silo myself with only like minded people. I have a line though, and exploding heads is well beyond it.
Thanks for the conversation!
Edit to explain further: for example,.even if I leave this instance, I don't have any plans to defederate from it in my other instances. It will clearly be a place far more "okay" with the alt right than I am, but that doesn't mean I need to remove it from my feed entirely.
I completely agree. This is why I vote not to defederate. I believe that demonization of the opposite group is propaganda. There are good and bad people in both groups. People have different views and it's a spectrum.
While I'm inclined to agree I have yet to see a working example. I haven't even heard of anyone successfully convincing even a moderate right-leaning person of a more progressive view online.
Because that never happens. No one has one conversation and thinks "Wow my entire world view is totally wrong, thanks for enlightening me!" It happens over a long time and many different discussions. There is no specific moment where everything changes with a post to catalog it. It'll happen internally to the person and so slowly if you look at their recent history it'll seem like they've always been that way.
And I haven't seen the inverse. Should all leftist instances be defederated?
To the surprise of absolutely fucking nobody, "social justice wizard" considers dissent to be heinous.