• Ategon@programming.devM
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    1 year ago

    The instance is currently federated with every instance (including places like lemmygrad and explodingheads) as the current stance is defederation should be a last resort with users being able to choose what they want to see instead

    Exploding heads has some very questionable content though so its status is currently being discussed by the admins

    • Shikadi@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Free speech absolutism is harmful. By remaining federated with them, you’re participating in distributing their content and giving them a platform. People do have a choice of what they want to see, they can choose to be a part of another instance without morals. I would hope that a programming instance of all places would understand the consequences of propaganda given so many programmers work in data collection and targeted advertising. If you show an ad to 1000 people and one of them buys the product, the ad worked. It’s no different for disinformation campaigns.

      It’s not like they’re just sharing differing opinions or saying awful shit, they’re taking things out of context or making things up (or posting articles that make things up) and it’s very easy to prove if you do a tiny bit of googling. One article listed off a bunch of climate predictions that were wrong along with sources to look credible. If you checked the sources though, they were all wrong. Some of the predictions were actually made by humans (but not the claimed academic institutions) while others were straight up made up.

      I hope the admins make the right decision here. Protecting free speech doesn’t mean allowing people to say whatever they want on your platform. It means allowing them to say it on their platform without being fined or put in jail.

      • Ategon@programming.devM
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, the goal is mainly to get everyone in the fediverse able to participate in the coding chats as long as they’re respectful about it rather than being a free speech absolutism instance. An ideal scenario would be allowing users to participate in here while limiting the posts in their communities to not show up in things like the all feed if their instance is problematic

        Decision should be pushed out soon, just making sure we get everything sorted out before we push anything and been a bit slower due to vacations

        • Shikadi@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          That’s much more reasonable than I expected =D I’d argue they can make an account on another instance if they want to participate

          • Ategon@programming.devM
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            1 year ago

            Yeah thats why defederation isn’t as bad of a decision currently while things get coded. It ruins a bit of the fediverse mechanics though of only needing one account to interact with different sites which is why having them able to interact in the instance communities while their outside posts are hidden is ideal

            The main sorts used in the instance are local new, local active, and subs which is what we are mainly optimizing for. Default sort when people make an account is local active which is a bit different from most other sites that default to all so it hasn’t been as big of a problem for us as other instances but since we’re growing more and more been working on some different guidelines for things like bots, federated instances, etc slowly on the side

        • Shikadi@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          I’m a very strong supporter of free speech. But free speech absolutism where you go out of your way to make all voices heard is not what free speech is about. It’s about the government not interfering. Just like people have a right to a gun, but Walmart has the right to kick you out for bringing one, rammy.site users have the right to say whatever they want, and other instances have the right to defederate.

          If a teacher goes against the curriculum and teaches children that black people are all out to get them, I sure as hell hope the school would step in and stop or remove them.

          That’s not a violation of free speech, but in your opinion above it would be.

            • Shikadi@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              I strongly disagree with you and think you’re wrong. Especially that you would allow teachers to teach children that black people are out to get you, all to protect some made up ideal that was never intended when the first amendment was added.

                • Shikadi@beehaw.org
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                  1 year ago

                  Free speech is not what you think it is. In your scenereo you have the right to try to say what you’re trying to say. Just because your opinion is unpopular and people are unwilling to publish (freedom of speech and the press goes both ways, you can’t force someone to say something either) does not mean your rights are being infringed. This is universal and not just the US. There are no countries I’m aware of that say “all publishers must publish anything anyone says regardless of their credibility”. It would be ludicrous.

                  And if we go back to my example, that person who believes that they’re teaching children something true can go through the proper channels of society to change the curriculum. I’m also unsure if you’re actually giving the idea of “black people are out to get you” space or just hypothetically, I chose it as an example that’s obviously not true. Replace it with teaching them that strange white vans have candy in them and it’s okay to eat it. Or replace it with them explaining to the children sexual actions they desire in great detail. Your absolutism says they should be allowed by the school to do this, and if that doesn’t change your mind, I’ve made my case, you disgust me, and I choose not to engage further.

    • 8ace40@programming.devOP
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      1 year ago

      I understand the reasoning but I think it’s not the same situation as lemmygrad, which I feel is a normal instance with an ideological bent. Exploding heads is just violent propaganda. I hope you defederate.

      What about hexbear? Is programming.dev federated with them? Or are they intentionally defederated with everyone?

      • Ategon@programming.devM
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        1 year ago

        hexbear split off and has been running their own fork for awhile separate from the rest of lemmy (so they couldnt federate with lemmy instances). They are coming back now though so lemmy instances will start to be able to interact with them soon

        • 𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏@lemmy.one
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          1 year ago

          Their interactions in threads were unpleasant, and a small group of them were persistently provoking lemmyworld users.

          If you search exploding-heads you might come across some examples, if they haven’t been nuked from that instance.

          Aside from that, I find Hexbear users really pleasant, and I’ve never seen a lemmygrad user provoke anyone 🤷‍♂️

        • Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          The content that occasionally ended up in my All feed was mostly Hate against trans people (I.e. being happy about people’s suicide), or complete nonsense conspiracies.

    • Nate Cox@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      I am not a fan of reaching for defederation often; I actually came here from beehaw because I felt like they just pulled that trigger too fast and too frequently.

      However, I do think that we should defederate from exploding-heads and hexbear. I don’t go looking for chances to be offended, but I do notice that when I see something truly distasteful on All it is almost exclusively from one of those two lately, and at this point removing them from All would make my lemmy experience just a bit more friendly.

      It’s not even worth reporting content about them because when you do it seems like a common theme is that they just tag you so they can harass you. I tested this myself recently by reporting obvious misinformation/propaganda and the next time I logged in there were indeed items waiting in my inbox calling me a coward, etc.

      Edit: fun fact, even if you block a user, and you block the community they are posting from, any time they mention you in a post you still get a message in your inbox, which seems like a pretty ridiculous oversight and a tool for harassment.