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? 🤔

  • sunaurus@lemm.eeM
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    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.

    • Ilikecheese@lemm.ee
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      Thanks for this attitude. Lets me know I’m on the right instance. I want to be able to choose who I block, and I don’t want someone else choosing that for me.

    • Spzi@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      For the record, I changed my opinion regarding hexbear. While I generally very much appreciate the open federation policy, I think users from that instance overwhelmingly deteriorate the culture in comment sections. Appreciable individual exceptions exist.

    • misk@lemm.ee
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      But defederating Threads was fine lol.

      We need to stop recommending Lemm.ee to newcomers, it’s hostile to normal folks.

      • boonhet@lemm.ee
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        Why don’t you just start your own? You can defederate any instance you want.

        I’m on lemm.ee but I’ve personally blocked communities I’ve found to be toxic, some of them were on lemmygrad. I see very little tankie shit. Took me like 5 minutes.

        • misk@lemm.ee
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          People half-joke that coming to Fediverse is easy, all you need to do is select a provider like you do with e-mail.

          In case of Lemmy this omits the part where you have to block dozens of communities because they shill for genocidal regimes and you can’t block them and their users wholesale using instances. You also have to be on a lookout for trolls that coordinate on those instances and use alts from other instances. If you aren’t careful enough your experience might be akin to a conspiracy Facebook group but obviously it’s users fault.

          Mastodon doesn’t have this issue despite using same Activity Pub framework.

          Kbin doesn’t have it.

          It’s Lemmy developers and instances that somehow ended up with staggering amount of tankie trolls, to the extent that exceeds even alt-right trolls on Reddit.

          Telling people to start their own instances is acknowledging that the issue is so widespread that there are no instances with sane policies.

          • Rexios@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            I had to block so much fucking celebrity, right wing, sports, etc bullshit on Reddit. It’s literally the same issue just different genres of communities. I probably had 100+ subreddits blocked in Apollo.

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    1 year ago

    I second. Please do the instance a favor and disconnect from them. They are bad faith actors here to do nothing but cause chaos. If I could block them on my own, I would have done it day one.

    • Astroturfed@lemmy.world
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      Most of the apps allow you to block communities or entire instances. I’ve been using connect, it’s free and let’s you block. Most of the reason I downloaded it.

      • ultrasquid@lemm.ee
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        It doesn’t really work for comments though (it only places a content warning over them) which is 75% of the reason why hexbear is so horrible in the first place.

  • czech@kbin.social
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    Have you considered hosting your own instance? Its not difficult and you can control exactly who you federate with.

    • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.eeOP
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      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

      • czech@kbin.social
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        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.

        • GivingEuropeASpook@lemm.ee
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          Given how some are complaining that threads is defederated but not the left wing instances, I’m thinking maybe they only have a problem with some forms of disinformation

        • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.eeOP
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          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

          • juliebean@lemm.ee
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            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’.

            • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.eeOP
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              I meant Lemmygrad, but the admin came to the thread and said “fuck you, I want to boost my numbers up, the tankies are staying” so it doesn’t actually matter. 🤷

              • sunaurus@lemm.eeM
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                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.

    • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.eeOP
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      Nope, sounds like you need to go sign up for a tankie instance and leave the rest of us decent people alone instead of invading every space and expecting others to be okay with it.

        • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.eeOP
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          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.

            • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.eeOP
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              I am asking the admins to defederate from them but good job not even reading the thread and showing your priorities are all out of whack.

              • Frog-Brawler@kbin.social
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                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.

                • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.eeOP
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                  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.

  • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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    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.

    • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.eeOP
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      What about the Lemmygrad retards trying to claim Tianamen Square didn’t happen? How the hell is that reasonable or okay?

        • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.eeOP
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          Probably best to not try to scrape the bottom of the barrel when defending authoritarians pushing lies and propaganda. Like, if you’re going to go for a red herring, you could at least tone police me; that would at least be more plausible and less petty. Step your game up

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            i happen to agree with your point, however i don’t think it’s kind to people with a disability to use that disability as an insult

      • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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        I don’t have an opinion, because I really haven’t interacted with the Lemmygrad folks. Their instance culture just isn’t really my bag, so I don’t find much opportunity or common ground to engage.

  • shootwhatsmyname@lemm.ee
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    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.

  • zoe@lemm.ee
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    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 )

    • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.eeOP
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      Oh no, there is, because it’s their responsibility as admins and third party apps are not an excuse for them to shirk their responsibility toward their users.

      Needing a third party app for that kind of basic functionality defeats the point of Lemmy anyway.

      • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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        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.

        • Doug [he/him]@midwest.social
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          If the point was federation then defederation wouldn’t be an option.

          Defederation is a tool available to instances to protect the greater fediverse

        • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.eeOP
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          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

          • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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            I think you have some personal problems you want others to solve for you. But I don’t have time to humor emotional outbursts, so I’ll just wish you well and block you.

                • Frog-Brawler@kbin.social
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                  He really does suck. He called me a tankie too, and said I’m a part of the problem. I’m not even on that instance. This dude has mental issues, is drunk, or is on drugs - maybe all 3, it is the weekend after all.

                • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.eeOP
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                  Nah fam, I personally want tankies here and I don’t care if they spread propaganda, astroturf and gang up on anyone they don’t like and generally cause trouble and you complaining makes me feel afraid they’ll be defederated again, go away and stop threatening my friends’ attempts to control popular instances

                  -You

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                Jesus Christ, dude. I’ve blocked all the tankie subs when they render in my feed, but you’ve got me wanting to call you comrade. Smoke some weed and go outside for a while

                • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.eeOP
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                  And here’s a .worlder all butthurt because he remembers the time I called out his shitty instance on doing the exact same thing, and as history repeats itself, he feels embarrassed

                  Do you feel like you should have to go through the gargantuan effort of blocking every single tankie sub on every single server you go to? Or do you think you can garner the stones to get at least one admin somewhere to do his damn job?

                  Is that asking too much? Or would you rather hide behind me to justify defending scumbags literally spreading propaganda claiming the Tianamen Square massacre didn’t happen because you don’t like me and want to play tone police to express it?

                  Because if me being angry about this is more of a serious problem to you than that, then there’s a good reason why we label .worlders as alt-right dipshits and don’t listen to you.

      • zoe@lemm.ee
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        well: guess u need to hold a vote and see who’s in

  • Nkiru Anaya@lemm.ee
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    I want to hear all viewpoints. Don’t talk for me. You can block if you’re against diversity, equity, and inclusion.

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    Please don’t defederate because others have different views. There’s an ocean of difference between right wing fascists advocating for the elimination, enslavement, or oppression of innocent peoples and “tankies” who ultimately want to help people even if they have a different path to get there and some can be dicks about it.

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      Modern day tankies are indistinguishable from fascists since they shill for fascist shitholes like Russia and China. I don’t care about intent, everyone can lie about it. You can’t lie about outcomes.

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        This is my problem. I support communist and socialist eonomic ideals and reforms, all these tankies claiming China or worse Russia are somehow actually communist hurts the cause. They’re basically fascist nationalists claiming to be communist. It’s infuriating…

        • marxistsynths19@lemmy.ml
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          No communist thinks modern day Russia is communist. Your being disingenuous and I bet you would rather allow liberal fascism on her than socialist views you disagree with. Typical liberal censoring communism because it challenges uour brainwashed reality.

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            Yup, totally. No way there’s literally pro Russia articles regularly posted in the communist communities. I just imagined that. I agree no real communist is pro Russia. That’s why I have a fucking problem with it.

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      I don’t have an issue with people having different views, but I had to block a ton of that shit due to the blatant propaganda. I have to think it’s filled with Chinese bots at this point. Saying the Tianamen square massacre didn’t happen is akin to Holocaust denial. It’s insane blatant shilling.

      • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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        Saying the Tianamen square massacre didn’t happen is akin to Holocaust denial. It’s insane blatant shilling.

        To me, these are not equivalent. Things are bad because they harm or promote harm to innocent people. A person not believing a particular, and controversial historical event, on it’s own, does not make a person bad, insane, or mean they’re shilling.

        Holocaust deniers are typically bad people because denial of that event is part of their larger anti-semitism. It’s an aspect of their hatred of innocent people. It is acceptance of genocide.

        Denying that the events of Tiananmen Square in 1989 were a massacre is not a part of hating innocent people. It’s instead based on not trusting the U.S. government, an organzation with an incredible history of lying, gaslighting, and media manipulation. Unfortunately, they seem to instead trust a different government with a similarly incredibly bad history.

    • Grangle1@lemm.ee
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      Your argument makes absolutely no sense. “Don’t defederate because you disagree with their views” when it comes to left-wing/communist extremists, yet you turn around and complain about places with right-wing/fascist extremist places existing. As others have said, doesn’t matter what “side” they’re on, violent extremists are cut from the same cloth in that way. Personally, I’m with the admins here, in that I don’t mind being federated with either of them so long as they play by the rules here. But then again, I tend to stick to my own interests and set my default view to Subscribed, and don’t venture into the All feed much. Even then, I haven’t really noticed what people are complaining about very much. If people here are smart enough to know real misinformation when they see it, they can just scroll on and ignore it.

  • goat@sh.itjust.works
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    Please visit [email protected] for a taste of how hateful these Instances are.

    Also remember that this kind of extremist content is endorsed by the Lemmy developers.

  • 👁️👄👁️@lemm.ee
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    I hate these instances too but don’t want to change the instance policies. Pretty soon instance blocking should become a thing and you’ll be able to block them outright.

    • Bakzik [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      You know? We are open to discussions and polite exchanges in Hexbear. If there is good faith (and no racism, hate, ableism, homophobia, etc) there are a lot of bridges to build and learn.

      But you came to Hexbear to start shit. And now you are resurrecting a 2 days old post because you are angry about not receiving upvotes in our instance.

      che-smile