this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023

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Calls for defederation - Is the idea of the open marketplace of ideas outdated? (self.controversial)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by Hastur to c/controversial

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Lately I see a lot of calls do have specific instances defederated for a particular subset of reasons:

Don't like their content
Dont like their political leaning
Dont like their free speech approach
General feeling of being offended
I want a safe space!
This instance if hurting vulnerable people

I personally find each and every one of these arguments invalid. Everybody has the right to live in an echo chamber, but mandating it for everyone else is something that goes a bit too far.

Has humanity really developed into a situation where words and thoughts are more hurtful than sticks and stones?

Edit: Original context https://slrpnk.net/post/554148

Controversial topic, feel free to discuss!

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[+] Hastur -11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I had that impression from your initial response, but I might have misunderstood.

I still disagree that thought and speech lead deterministically to action which is a thing you actually stated. Your argument is the same as the one used against POV shooters and there's no evidence for this claim.

[–] WheeGeetheCat 15 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Yes, my stance is far from 'ban everything I dont like'. But you need to understand that 'ban nothing at all' (which is what free speech absolutists argue for) is on the other extreme of the moderation spectrum. I like to think I fall somewhere in the middle.

it's hardly a binary choice between the 2 so I was thrown when you instantly assumed that.

There's plenty of evidence that 8chan leads to mass shootings as many of the shooters leave vast manifestos on the site itself referencing beliefs they learned on the site. It has nothing to do with video games. If you want to claim that 'words and beliefs never lead to actions' that's fine but I think that's obviously false. In fact I'd say all actions are the result of our beliefs.

its fine for us to disagree here.

[–] saltysel 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I definitely tend to agree with you in terms of being in the middle. But the middle is such a vast, grey area that is hard to pinpoint exactly where the middle is.

Is there no way to block a particular instance for the individual (I've never tried)? I feel like if there is a way for individuals to do so, why not put it in their hands? And if not, is it possible to make it so they can? Kind of removes the need for an entire instance to make any calls in the first place.

But I'm very much new to the federation universe and incredibly dumb in terms of computer/internet workings.

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

Kind of removes the need for an entire instance to make any calls in the first place.

Not really. When some instance is federated, the home instance is literally hosting and serving the content from that instance: comments and posts. (Only if one or more home instance users subscribe to a community on the other instance) If the users and/or admins think the content is that bad, or the users are that bad, then why host them at all? Defedetate them and keep the content off the server entirely. Why help lies and hateful content spread, even in that minor way?

[–] saltysel 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Well, considering we were defederated from beehaw, and I don't find our instance particularly negative or hateful in much of the content and users I've personally seen - I think it's hard to paint a whole community with one brush stroke. Not that it's not possible or even useful to do in some cases, but it's not something that should be done willy-nilly. And I guess I like the idea of a more individualistic approach. That's just my thoughts.

But the beauty of it is there are plenty of instances to try out; the fedi-universe is certainly an interesting concept I'm starting to wrap my head around.

[–] WheeGeetheCat 0 points 2 years ago

I would really advise you to go read Frederick Brennan's thoughts and watch his interviews etc. I think he will address a lot of your questions. He is also the perfect person to make the arguments because:

he was a handicapped youth who HATED having others protect him from content, he wanted to know what people REALLY thought, would have agreed with the most extreme people here 100% in his youth
he actually undertook making the idea real, while fully wanting it to succeed
as a result, he was forced to engage with the reality of these ideas most of us just discuss
his first person experience taught him lessons about this that we can all learn from, without repeating the same mistakes

[–] Hastur -4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm not sure I disagree here. I don't see 8chan or 4chan or any other webforum with lack of moderation as comparable with lemmy and the Fediverse.

Can you expand on where you see similarities?

[–] WheeGeetheCat 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They are forums
With open registration
Hosted online
Where a wide variety of people post and comment

The only difference I see is their moderation stance in fact. So that would suggest that their (lack of) moderation is why it has become a haven of hate, and not some other aspect.

[–] Hastur -3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Agreed to all points.

While:

Lemmy is federated and not run on one central site (not like Reddit or any webforum)
Lemmy has instances with different stance on administration and moderation but all of them are moderated to some extent
AFAIK you can't block, mute, or filter on most image board-like forums as a user. While on Lemmy you can filter and block users and communities (and probably soon even whole instances, it's not that hard to do that client side)

Given the above I think we have severely different scenarios and as such a completely different use case and type of user.

[–] WheeGeetheCat 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Totally disagreed. That we see an exodus from reddit to lemmy shows that its not a different type of user. Most users are unaware of the server architecture and would not know the difference between a federated or centralized service.

From my point of view, you are trying to look for a difference to muddy the waters, because this experiment has been run so many times already on so many social networks.

If you want to be 'innovative and experimental and take risks to find greater things' then fine, don't let us squares hold you back. But understand you sound a bit like the rich sub guy saying it'll be different this time. And go far away from me when you try it ;)

I have to run out so I will stop replying here.

[–] Hastur -1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Apologies I messed up and mixed things up badly.

Reddit and Lemmy share the same user base and type of user. The point I wanted to make and failed for xChan-Boards Vs Lemmy.

[–] steakmeoutt 2 points 2 years ago

Reddit and Lemmy share the same user base and type of user

No they don't - they just share some users, right now.

Reddit users have no fucking idea how decentralized services like Lemmy work. They have been at the whim of mods and a commercial enterprise on Reddit - the most they can do is change subs and report badmins with the latter often leading nowhere or having sometimes deleterious effects.