this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023

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Why was lemmygrad blocked? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Did the admins poll the community about it? Why was such measure so needed? If the tankie content is so annoying why not let users decide what they want to see or not and what they want to block?

I don't like that the admins want to censor the content I can view or not. You guys are not protecting us nor doing us a favor, you're imposing your views over everyone else by limiting the information we are able to receive.

I don't support the devs views or the views in lemmygrad, but this is a dangerous precedent.

I've read several of the "arguments" for blocking the instance and all I can see is a bunch of people talking about politics and arguing about "floods in the frontpage". Well, let the user block communities if that's the case, same way I'm already blocking communities I'm not interested.

I think the admins want to feel like Facebook moderation. I'd be OK with it if any instance repeatedly generated spam, security, doxxing or any other concern that couldn't be solved by banning individuals, otherwise it's just plain censorship.

I just don't want the admins to use their power to decide what I can see or not. If this is going to be like this, I'll leave for a better instance because I can see where this is going to.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

Hey icy,

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?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Thanks for your answer.

I understand, I assume it was during all that backlash against Lemmy and the devs, when even r/LemmyMigration mods created r/KbinMigration and closed that one due to the devs political affiliation and moderation policy.

Lemmygrad doesn't seem to be a very friendly instance unless you have those specific political loyalties, and it seems self-isolating as well to an extent, I just want to foster a culture of not letting anyone control what you see or what you can say, and also a culture of accountability and feedback. I just think thats what makes communities alive and good.

I understand (and it's something kind of ingrained in the Lemmy logic itself) this idea that you have to just join an instance taking into account things like politics. But I like the idea of having more neutral spaces, for example if you see why some users like your instance, they perceive it as an "apolitical", "chill" place with a good technical leadership.

As you say it's a personal conviction, maybe you thought your own instance should reflect your values and not federate with those that you don't like. But right now, don't you think that essentially mean limiting the access to the information? It's not "big deal", yes, they can create another account, but why? Why is it so needed?

I think you could perfectly run the instance and let everybody block what they don't want to see, and moderate on individual basis until circumstances require otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

I agree with the first part of your text. Not the last. Neutrality is a political position. Choosing to ignore genocide denial and to federate with an instance filled with known trolls that use bad faith arguments to try and affect discussions, and not only that but a disproportionately big community at that such as lemmygrad.ml since they were among the first ones here... I feel that neutrality in this case is support for them as they will not be fair in their attack, and unfair fights are uphill fights. I see no need to introduce this kind of trouble here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

"Lemmygrad doesn’t seem to be a very friendly instance unless you have those specific political loyalties, and it seems self-isolating as well to an extent, I just want to foster a culture of not letting anyone control what you see or what you can say, and also a culture of accountability and feedback. I just think thats what makes communities alive and good."

So do that. Create your own instance. Here you're just complaining that the people in this instance don't have the same opinion towards fostering open lines with asshats.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Honestly, owning up to it being a selfish decision deserves some respect. I'm a big proponent of free expression and avoiding censorship, but I took a gander at the kinda stuff they got over there and...

It's not even the views they hold that's my main problem. It's really that they're just so needlessly rude and aggressive, and as you pointed out, they seem to be a lot more censorship happy than here anyway. I would be more sympathetic to them if they were less censorship happy themselves, and if they were less mean.

I do want to stress that I hope you keep the number of blocked instances to a minimum, since I feel that it would be better if the Lemmy software had better tools for users to control what they block for themselves better, and also maybe just having "default" blocklists that users can disable, to keep the new-user experience nice, but yeah for that particular instance, I can't be too mad about it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It’s not like you could have polled users that hadn’t joined yet anyways. Maybe the blocked list could be made more visible so people could be informed early on before they get too invested in their account?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

I plan on making a post sharing some considerations people should take before registering to an instance. In it I’ll definitely bring this subject up.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I, for one, wouldn't have joined this instance if it wasn't blocked.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

When I first got to Lemmy I was deep in a thread with these guys spouting incredibly hyperbolic whataboutism in support of Russia against Ukraine, death to liberals and worse. It wasn’t any “different viewpoints” being discussed rationally, it was straight up shocking vitriolic nonsense and dangerous stuff. You want it? You can definitely go get it, most instances probably didn’t block them.

About transparency, these instances are home run by hobbyists, not corporates who start out with a week dedicated to policy and procedures establishment.

Truly, you can start your own instance and do it your own way, I and many others have.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Cause they are a toxic shithole that permanently deny genocide and are brigading other instances.

The stuff they post there is straight up illegal in many places.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Here's the god's honest truth: Instances are not, as a rule, democracies. They are more like benevolent dictatorships. You can make your complaints heard, for sure, but the name of the game is really "Don't like it? Take your business elsewhere or build something better". As it always should be, imo.

There's nothing really stopping you from spinning up your own single user instance and using that to interact with Lemmy and the wider fediverse however you please. If you're the only user you can pretty much run it off a toaster (or at least I'm led to believe this). If you don't want to do that, then you choose to play by the rules of whatever instance you call home.

And this isn't necessarily a dig at you - if you're worried about admins engaging in censorship, I sincerely recommend looking into selfhosting. It's the only real way to ensure you're the one at the helm at all times.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (13 children)

If you want absolute control over what instances you’re federated with, start your own instance. Otherwise, find one that’s more closely aligned to your views.

As others have said, this is one of the main points of federated networks, if you don’t like how an instance is run, you can take your ball and go play somewhere else.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Literally. People forget that these instances are privately run (just as Reddit is). There is no obligation to the “public good”.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Just make another account on an instance that federates with them. It's really not a big deal. It's not like reddit where you don't have anywhere else to go.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Yes I surely know it's not "a big deal" and I already said I will leave on my post.

But I won't be silent about it. This is about the culture of the platform itself.

This instance has been receiving a lot of newcomers like me, and to me this is not OK. It is not OK to let the admins decide the content you'll receive.

If instances keep defederating from each other, you're fostering a culture of censorship and isolation where admins decide over users.

Enjoy your echo chamber / tyranny as any other subreddit where mods did what they wanted with you.

Culture is more important than software.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I see where you are coming from, but semi isolation is inevitable as groups with opposing views just don't want to see each other's shit.

Just create alts on other instances. The world is your oyster.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Defederation is an inevitable fact of life for a federated ecosystem and it won't always be for things where everyone agrees (just look at the fediblock tag on mastodon). The important thing is that instance owners have clear criteria for how they defederate from other instances and transparency about their reasons for having done so, so that their users and other instances have the correct expectations for their future behavior.

It's early days for a lot of instances and probably many of us will end up migrating to other instances as it becomes clear which ones make decisions that suit our values.

What I do worry about is the fact that folks are setting up communities wherever they first land and Lemmy doesn't yet have tools for migrating a community between instances (correct me if I'm wrong about that). That seems like a ticking time bomb in some ways.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Their choice was an act of cultural discression that operated well intended parameters of the software.

Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it was a tyrannical violation of culture Lemmy culture. It's par for the course with federated systems. Perfectly normal.

This might be a sign you should move to another instance, or start your own!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago

How would people feel about a feature where instances have a default user block list, or, hide certain communities from the front page unless a user specifically searches them out. Similar to how EG some instances hide NSFW unless you are logged in, it prevents newbies from having their front page show them stuff that's going to get them outraged at the whole site.

That could be a better solution than defederating some instances, like burggit, where users here are just mad about having a few weird porn communities shown to them. Ideally, communities could opt in the this flagging as well if they want to be less discoverable. Booru sites do this with default blacklist tags, for example, and it's been a successful way of having their cake and eating it too with regard to having normies and weirdoes on the same site and avoiding controversy.

Me, personally, I wouldn't mind if ONLY lemmygrad stayed defeated, but there's going to be more issues like this in the future.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Look at the discussion in other instances, for example

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/99601

Yet most the answers this thread has been receiving essentially consist of "stfu & gtfo", if I end up leaving it's not going to be just because of the admin decisions but much more because of the poor userbase that does not care about holding admins accountable and retaining control. I don't even blame the admins at this point.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago

I think part of the reaction your getting has been your attitude.

You linked a great example, they wanted to know information on why things where happening and asked about it in a neutral way.

Nobody is censoring you, you are free to view the content you want to.

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