Making stupid comments isn't a problem, posting stuff that is against the instance's rules is. So if they're harassing people or posting disallowed content or something consistently (more than a handful of individuals), and the admin either refuses or ignores requests to take action, then they should be defederated.

If you have an articulable set of problematic posts that demonstrates that it's not just one a handful of users, post those and we can discuss defederation. If it's urgent (e.g. the instance is under active attack), bring it to the admin's attention immediately.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

~~stupid comments~~ propaganda

[–] sugar_in_your_tea -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ok. But they're very obvious (9/10 times, if they specify pronouns, they are from hexbear), so I'm really not worried about it.

If we could block instances at the user level, I'd probably block them. But I don't think defederating at the instance level is the way to go. Until we have that, I would only support defederation if moderation cannot keep up with the rule breakers (i.e. they automate their propaganda with bot accounts), or if their admins cannot resolve concerns when we raise them.

I don't know if we've reached that standard, so I encourage anyone particularly interested to make a post listing evidence for why we should defederate. I rarely see them on communities I frequent and I can easily ignore them when I do, so to me it's not an issue.

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

Propaganda is actively, successfully dismantling democracies around the world and supporting the rise of authoritarianism.

If you like having representation in your government you should stand up and defend that right.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a double edged sword. One person's "propaganda" is another person's freedom of speech. Instead of silencing views, we should be combating them with facts, that is the way a free society works.

I'm not saying we should give intolerance a platform, I'm saying we should be hesitant to silence views we disagree with. Reveal the hate and block it for what it is, don't just call stuff you disagree with "propaganda" and move on.

So no, I disagree. Silencing speech is what causes democracies to fail.

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

This isn't "one person's propaganda", this is an organized effort by a powerful authoritarian government to destabilize democracies.

"Combating with facts" doesn't work, they'll just try to engage you and waste your time. If you make a great point, they'll never admit your right, they'll just post a meme or picture to try to turn it into a joke.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 2 points 1 year ago

organized effort by a powerful authoritarian government

Source?

And if they respond with a meme, I just downvote and move on. If I notice the same person doing it multiple times, I'll block them.