this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023
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Controversial - the place to discuss controversial topics

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Controversial - the community to discuss controversial topics.

Challenge others opinions and be challenged on your own.

This is not a safe space nor an echo-chamber, you come here to discuss in a civilized way, no flaming, no insults!

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, "trust me bro" is not a valid argument.

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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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[–] FlagonOfMe 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

What a ridiculous question. "Is a stabbing really more hurtful than a gunshot?"

They're both hurtful!

We can't stop physical abuse in the real world by defederating with a hateful instance, but we can stop the hate speech from having an audience here.

Hateful content is routinely disguised as memes, "just asking questions", "just a joke", etc. Humans are human, and many of us are suggestible. There's a reason Holocaust denial is literally illegal in Germany. If people hear something often enough, from enough people, it doesn't matter what it is. They'll start to wonder if it's true.

It's super easy to teach a child to hate, for instance. They believe everything they hear, and it's very human to hate things and certain people. This doesn't just go away when they hit the legal age to have an account here. Reddit allows 13 year olds to have an account. (Or is that Facebook? Whichever.) I don't know what the official policy is of this instance or Lemmy in general, but the fewer 13 year olds we have reading literal hate speech, the better. It's a black hole that it's easy to get sucked into.

If every "good" instance blocks the hateful ones, then no one will see their content unless they go out of their way to sign up for that specific instance. That's a good thing. It keeps the hate locked away where it's hard to stumble into.

Now, what counts as hate? Whatever the admin decides. If the admin chooses to delegate that decision to the users, it's still the admin choosing to do that. If you don't like that, find a different instance.

Fuck hate. Fuck Nazis. Fuck the alt-right. Defederate them.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

That's the beauty of the fediverse - you can join an instance that agrees with you (or host your own).

Some want a haven where everything is allowed, some would not like to see certain content. And both are serviced with a decentralised model.

[–] dnick 4 points 1 year ago

I'm really starting to like the term 'defederate'...it's so much more descriptive and applicable than 'censorship' or 'cancelling'. Me intentionally choosing not associate with you isn't the same as me actively trying prevent you from speaking. Me choosing a group that is choosing not to associate with you doesn't infringe on your rights in the slightest. You whining about the fact that no one wants to listen to you is so far away from censorship that it's almost humorous to listen to folks trying to shoe-horn it into the conversation.

By 'you', I obviously (I hope) mean the people whining about being 'defederated', not the commenter I'm replying to.