Yesterday, lemmy.blahaj.zone announced their defederation from lemmynsfw.com and argued that lemmynsfw don’t care enough about CSAM.
- announcement: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/1204784
- response: https://lemmynsfw.com/post/418317
Although I think lemmynsfw is right about this, that’s not the point. I believe lemmy.blahaj.zone is an instance caught in the positivity echo chamber (to put it more roughly, circle jerk).
You can never interact negatively with their decisions or thoughts. Downvotes disabled. Admin literally removing any opposing view while keeping positive ones.
Check this comment: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/1336587
Admin removed the comment while keeping reply of it and commenting with Exactly this. Dear friend, we don’t know the main comment so how can we agree any of them?
IDK. I think it is very annoying for an instance built on diversity to have such reactions. Is it just me thinking like that? Am I the stupid one here?
Note: Posting this here so admins won’t be able to remove.
Edit: I guess I should add this. IDC should they defederate or not. I just don’t liked their behaviour.
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(This is my personal impression, not a moderator statement.)
From here, this really does look like one admin saw something they didn’t like, and then did not listen when they were told that their first impression was simply not correct.
It’s the not listening that worries me. That’s how biases get reinforced and an initial mistake gets magnified into a whole Doctrinal Conflict.
From the dialog that was posted it sure seems that was what happened: a well-intentioned mistake becomes escalated to an accusation, then to what amounts to “the fact that I could make this mistake means that you are Bad People.”
At no point does the admin involved accept that their initial impression was wrong; they argue instead that it doesn’t matter that it was wrong.
It’s unfortunate, but sadly some double down when they discover they’re wrong. Even moderators.
Especially mods. and even more especially admins.
Fair point, the higher the position, the larger the perceived fall.
The community in question made requests for “child-like” content until the drama started.
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archive is failing to properly archive lemmy pages. It has a blank sidebar but will update to the current one.
The mod themselves said it was true and you’ve been given links to it multiple times.
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Here’s their discussion of the topic https://lemmynsfw.com/comment/682757
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Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !adorableporn@lemmynsfw.com
lemmynsfw.com does not show sidebars unless logged in
That doesn’t seem to have been brought up in the discussion prior to the defederation decision; maybe I missed something?
If it wasn’t, then it probably didn’t inform that decision … and it doesn’t affect whether the blahaj admin was listening to what the lemmynsfw admin was saying, or acknowledging that their first impression was a mistake of fact.
That doesn’t seem to have been brought up in the discussion prior to the defederation decision; maybe I missed something?
I think you are right, I tried to check the times and actions and posted in a comment below what I did find. TLDR, if I didn’t get the times wrong from the modlog and the defederation post, and didn’t misunderstand something, the whole child-like thing happened way past the admins discussing the community.
In the comment I’ve directly pinged the mod too, so in case if they want they can add to it.
You have it backwards. Defederation happened prior to the removal of the “child-like” reference. Per the explanation of the removal it was part of the community from the start when the definition of adorable was copy/pasted.
I don’t know why you would assume the addition happened after defederation based on the time stamp of it’s removal.
From the original post:
a community skirting the line trying to look like CSAM isn’t a line I’m willing to walk
That’s almost certainly a reference to the “child-like” rule
Could be? Can’t tell.
There’s also this: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/1363190
Can’t tell but you’re still willing to make assumptions and make up motivations without verifying anything. Is this community just for drumming up drama and targeting other communities?
I suspect that the admins of Blahaj are drama addicts.
Last week they made some big announcement about how the totally rampant transphobia must stop!
Next week it’ll be something else.
Last week they made some big announcement about how the totally rampant transphobia must stop!
Here is a conversation happening right now on my end. Note this started before your comment, I did not seek this out. I see this daily. https://sh.itjust.works/comment/1447324
edit: I’d also like to add I didn’t even know what blahaj was until yesterday or so.
Were they behind the whole “2Xchromosomes is transphobic” thing last week?
I’m still conflicted by that argument. At face value, like sure but neither the sub nor the Lemmy were enacting terf rules or instigating terf behavior so feels like a bit of a bad faith argument?
Nope. Totally unrelated. I assume this is the thread you’re talking about: https://lemmy.world/post/1809693
From one of their responses, it sounds like they’re saying that the name could be misinterpreted as a dogwhistle. I think that’s a reasonable worry, but also doesn’t seem to have ever resulted in that.
I get what you’re saying, but your more generous interpretation is the same kind of interpretation that allowed watern-----s to exist under incredibly thin cover so they could use racial slurs without scrutiny. Were they an explicitly racist sub? No. Were most people on it racist? Probably not. But did it provide an incredibly easy haven for racists to dogwhistle around? Yes.
They actually were pretty strict at moderating anything that was racist, which was why it was such an interesting flashpoint. The admins obviously had a shit storm with the people who felt context is irrelevant and that word is unacceptable at any time, but they couldn’t point to any moderated content that was racist.
Kinda sucks because it was a super interesting practical case study around language, racism, what moderation can look like within a context where racism is LIKELY to occur… Which I think is actually really important. “Burn it to the ground” is not a practical solution to the possibility of racism entering a discussion… Simply because in certain important discussions it is INEVITABLE and with that approach the conversations simply can not be had.
It’s also in stark contrast to the moderation of blackPeopleTwitter where you need to physically prove you are “black enough” via pictures sent to the moderation team, where you are adjudicated for blackness (on flaired posts).
It’s complicated, and waterni–as was an interesting and fresh approach. It absolutely tapped into some kind of zeitgeist because of its explosive growth, and it was demonstrably NOT predicted on racism.
We did ourselves a disservice by failing to take to understand the nature of that zeitgeist.
BPT was one of the most racist subs I ever tried to participate in. I honestly hate all spaces run by authoritarians though.
You’re stirring the pot. The conversation is over. It’s their instance and they can do what they want.
They can do whatever they want. I’m not critising that part. But removing opposing comments? What?
shrug Part of doing what they want is moderating how they want.
That’s the beauty of federation - if you disagree with an how instance’s admins do things, you can just use a different one and block their communities. Though we’re still missing the option to block an entire instance rather than just specific communities, hoping that feature gets added soon.
So I am supposed to ignore whole situation. What about not doing that? Like if I don’t like the behaviour and want to express myself?
This is not their instance and I am writing what I want. If you don’t like my criticism, you can leave the post lol
They aren’t removing opposing comments. They are removing comments from other instances as it’s a meta post about their instance. Opposing comments from their own instance have not been removed.
If you aren’t on their instance your opinions aren’t relevant and this doesn’t affect you.
Defederating from the porn instance is common sense. It doesn’t matter what your stance on porn is, the way Lemmy works, you will be hosting data from that sub and having user submitted pornograhy is a collosal minefield for liability. What if an underage person uploads pictures of themselves, does that instance have strict id requirements? What if it’s a fake id? The law does not care. You’ve still distributed child pornograhy. What if revenge porn is uploaded? Again the liability is immediate.
You guys… the lemmynsfw community had the term “child-like” in its sidebar. Why is everybody conveniently forgetting that? Don’t even try saying that’s not a disgusting request to have in a sidebar too.
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If you look here you will see that there was discussion over there about it https://lemmynsfw.com/comment/682757
Oh, good catch, thanks. It sounds like that was removed without admin involvement at all?
https://lemmynsfw.com/comment/682757
There’s them discussing removing the term in a mod post in that community. It was added after the latest way back machine archive.
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !adorableporn@lemmynsfw.com
Right? If this ends up killing my instance imma be pissed
Who cares? People can run their instance however they want. Why are your knickers in a twist over it?
Who cares? People can run their Reddit however they want. Why are your knickers in a twist over it?
Different opinions exists. I’m just asking do people agree with it or not.
Reddit is a for profit company, I’m not sure how this compares. They have stakeholders they need to appease. Are you a stakeholder of one of these instances?
If not, this thread amounts to “my uncle like blueberry jam and my mom says blueberry jam is the worst and won’t buy it. How do I teach my mom she is wrong?”
Instances like that that really want to stay closed off to the general public, really should have the option to not show all of their content to all of the Fediverse. It’s true that what they do on their instance is their business, after all that’s why they have an entire instance and not just a community on a random server.
But that post being posted all over the network, especially with the admin behaving so… Well you’ve seen it, no need to call names, obviously attracts attention.
I have to say tho, the other admin has a point. Body shaming of skinny people is absolutely normalised and rarely anyone sees any issue with it. Recently, ageism is ramping up to absurd level as well. It’s like other -isms are frowned upon now, so the society has found a new subject to pile upon. One would thing that the people of blahaj in particular would see the irony.
It does beg the question of why federate at all if you are going to make a walled garden anyway? I would think a private forum would cost a lot less to host too.
People of diverse communities tend to have similar viewpoints on issues does not signify a lack of diversity. Diversity of ideology or opinion is not necessarily good or in line with the ideals of a larger community.
Why does anyone even give a shit about who defederates from who? Pointless drama mongering.
Hey, thought you might want to know you posted this comment twice.
Well sure, be as much of a hivemind as you want, jusy don’t claim to be diverse.
The fact that this criticism exclusively comes from white male right wingers will never stop being hilarious
I know its a tired, over used joke, but did you just assume my gender?!
(I kid, I kid!)
But really, thats just because you’re left wing, hang out in left wing spaces. Self selection bias.
How many black people are you friends with? Bet you do a lot more self selecting.
But yes, I choose to not be around fascists, which the vast majority of American ‘conservatives’ are. This entire argument is just posturing in an attempt to continue to spread vile shit.
Well theres 4 black guys at my model train club, but I’m friends with only one. One of them is kinda of an ass, another is a damn furry (his fursona is a purple dog), and the last guy doesn’t show up often. But my friend is just a cool dude. Loves old passenger steam.
How many black friends do you have? How many brown? Asian? White? Gotta have a friend group straight out of a college brochure.
It’s an interesting discussion, I’ve been following it from far away.
While you may be right, as this is the Fediverse, and people are used to move accounts from instance to instance easily, I guess that if the admins are really abusive, a large part of their users would just move to another instance that would also support queer people.
The community doesn’t seem to contain any extreme content, I looked through a 15-20 posts there was no hardcore pornography, and it was clearly all adults in the images.
There is nothing wrong with age-play it’s a pretty normal element in erotic role play, e.g. student/teacher role play often has an age element with younger/submissive older/dominant, and this of often true regardless of the teacher being male or female, it’s just a fetish it has nothing to do with pedophilia.
Maybe they have more evidence, and maybe there is more to that community, but at face value it looks like kink shaming to me.
Lemmynsfw is actually pretty restrictive as far as porn sites go. Its pretty much just being prudish.
I’m with you on that one
You can never interact negatively with their decisions or thoughts. Downvotes disabled. Admin literally removing any opposing view while keeping positive ones.
I don’t disagree that this is concerning coming from an instance admin. But on the other hand, I can kinda understand where it might be coming from. The admin is a trans woman, and as such I’m sure she deals with enough shit IRL/online with people questioning her very right to exist. I bet anyone would get tired of making space for opposing opinions when frequently those opinions are hateful and dangerous and directed at one’s validity as a human being. I imagine she’s out of fucks all around now and acting accordingly, even in a circumstance that might call for more nuance. I can have empathy for that.
No opinion on the NSFW issue since I don’t want to interact with that content. Just wanted to gently remind that we’re all just people doing our best here.
That appears to be true, but I don’t see how it matters.
If you don’t have an account there, it doesn’t matter at all.
If you do have an account there, it matters exactly and only as much as you think it does, and only to you. And if it comes to that, it takes mere minutes to open an account on a different and presumably better instance.
I just wish a user can block an instance.
I don’t want a lot of porn, I don’t want the drama that consistently comes out of the other one, I also don’t want the far right assholes, and I don’t want the one that claims to unironically support the CCCP and USSR.
Sure, I can block individual communities, but for all of those instances it feels like someone makes 20 identical subs everyday
I could also make my own and instance and federate with who I want. But we’d end up with everyone doing it.
I don’t want to pick a “cable package” where I settle for a bundle, I want a user to be able to add what they want ala carte
There are current ways to block entire instances, either in the web interface through userscripts or in apps through their app-internal features.
So some apps or desktop browser?
I use the website on my phone because I don’t see the point of an app. But if some apps add a whole bunch of extra features I might need to look into that
So… subscribe to communities you want, and ignore the rest? Isn’t that how everything works?
Eventually, yeah…
Till then I browse by /all for the volume and block communities (and even some users) I don’t want to see anymore.
If I just browsed by what I’m already subscribed too, I won’t see any new ones, and that’s kind of important when new subs are getting made constantly.
But thanks for your suggestion you put zero thought into, it was a huge help
Just my two cents as the admin of my own private instance: I’ve been on the fence about defederating lemmynsfw and other NSFW instances for a while.
People might not agree with the decision on a personal basis, but we’re all liable here as admins for any content that can be accessed from our instances, because when you browse remote communities, it’s presented from your domain and from your systems. We understand how it works and how we shouldn’t be responsible for it, but the courts might not. Try explaining the fediverse to boomer judges and a jury, especially when CSAM is potentially involved.
I can 100% understand why they’d err on the side of caution. There’s a reason there’s so few NSFW instances: it’s legal hell. Some countries are a lot more strict on that stuff too, maybe lemmynsfw has the means to deal with lawsuits and keep the sketchy stuff like loli/shota/child-looking, maybe blahaj don’t.
And that’s fine, you probably should make an account just for lemmynsfw anyway.
I’ve been kind of back & forth on posts like this, but I think we’re now at a point where there are other established communities better suited to topics like this.
If you want to discuss other instances’ decisions/behavior, I’m going to begin directing posts to either one of the many fediverse communities, e.g. !fediverse@lemmy.world or similar, or one of several lemmy/fediverse drama communities, e.g. !lemmydrama@lemmy.world or !fediverselore@lemmy.ca. Discussions like this are better suited to those communities as this community is not really intended for venting nor discussion of fediverse decisions/activity (or “drama” as it may be viewed).
Lastly, for discussions specific to Lemmy.World decisions & moderation I’d recommend !support@lemmy.world. I hope this helps to clarify matters, and apologize for the ambiguity up to now, but honestly just hadn’t come to a decision until now.
If you would like to continue this conversation, I’d recommend cross-posting the thread to one of those aforementioned communities (or whichever other ones you find that feel appropriate). Thanks!
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If anyone wants to know what I said, obviously I don’t have the exact wording anymore, but it was something along the lines of:
"I don’t really see the problem if the community is really always verified to only have actors of legal age.
I feel like if you really have a problem with seeing stuff like that, which of course is fine, it makes more sense to block the community in question, not ban the whole instance."
I see the viewpoint of it being an internal affair, and I didn’t mean to try to change anyone’s mind, truly. But I personally always think more conversation is good, never bad, as long as everyone is well-intentioned. I just didn’t see that point of view that I had expressed anywhere and thus thought it would be valuable to be there. If it’s disregarded for whatever reason, I’m completely fine with that.