We're closing this thread. Everything that could be said has been said. Thank you
Original Post:
Today, we want to inform everyone that we have decided to defederate from https://exploding-heads.com/. We understand that defederating should always be a last resort, and individuals can certainly block communities. However, blocking alone does not prevent potential harm to vulnerable communities.
After carefully reviewing the instance, reported posts, and multiple comments from the community, we have concluded that exploding-heads is not adhering to the Lemmy or Citizen Code of Conduct. Therefore, we cannot, in good faith, continue to federate with an instance that consistently promotes hate, racism, and bullying.
Examples:
https://lemmy.world/post/577526 - Community Moderator Harassment
https://exploding-heads.com/post/92194 - Systemadmin Post
https://exploding-heads.com/post/90780 - Systemadmin Post
https://exploding-heads.com/post/91488 - Systemadmin Post
https://exploding-heads.com/post/93725 - Community Moderator Post
Again, deciding to defederate from an instance is not taken lightly. In the future, we will continue to review instances on a case-by-case bases.
As for our community, please refrain from posting or commenting with hateful words as well. Arguing back and calling people names is not the solution. The best course of action is to report the posts or comments violating our server rules.
Lemmy Code of Conduct
https://join-lemmy.org/docs/code_of_conduct.html
Citizen Code of Conduct https://github.com/stumpsyn/policies/blob/master/citizen_code_of_conduct.md
โWe are committed to providing a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for all, regardless of level of experience, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, or other similar characteristic.โ
No, "big fat cat" would not be considered hate speech. Comparing black people to apes is a well established racist trope. Again, context. That seems an oddly random insult to make to a commenter, since it is explicitly visual. It would be like me getting mad at you and calling you a "fat lardass". I have no idea if you're overweight; it has an excellent chance of being a comment more likely to amuse you with its inaccuracy than to hurt you. Its much more typical to express insults online based on perceived behavior rather than random unfounded guesses about a person's traits that aren't a direct part of the discussion. Whereas there have been a steady stream of racists referring to Michelle as an "ape" ever since the election. Occam's Razor applies here, IMHO.
The problem with your assessment regarding the LGBT meme is that you continue to view these from a lens that assumes that hate speech is a nebulous and subjective area. In reality, it isn't. It is any form of expression through which speakers intend to vilify, humiliate, or incite hatred against a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, religion, skin color sexual identity, gender identity, ethnicity, disability, or national origin. There isn't some arbitrary level of egregiousness that has to be met. "Haha you r****d" is still hate speech. It doesn't have to be "I think we should kill every member of [insert minority]" to qualify.
If you assume the meme is about God punishing sinners, then the meme vilifies the LGBTQ community as sinners. It also strongly implies that anyone in the LGBTQ community deserves death because they're sinners.
Interpreting it as some innocent commentary about how "the amount of chaos [i e. fiery execution by God] is proportional to the number of celebrants" is such a mental contortion that I really struggle to believe you're making that argument in good faith, no matter how you couch the rest of your position.
And no, I'm not making assumptions based on "surface level" similarities. I'm trying to take your position seriously, which is the only reason I've continued to engage with you the way that I have. But the things that I pointed out are valid reasons to suspect that you may not be sincere in your position, either because you think that by presenting defense of hate speech in a fashion that doesn't portray you as malicious may move the bar on what should not be censored, or because you don't fully recognize the scope of your own internalized prejudices.