- No server operator needs to federate with you.
- No server operator needs to tolerate things they don't want on their instance.
- No user of an instance needs to personally curate their own extensive never ending blocklist of users and channels they don't want to see.
Quit your pseudo-intellectual whining and choose what instance(s) work for you. If you think regularly interacting with shit content somehow helps you stay out of an echo chamber then go ahead and make a second account on those garbage instances full of hateful people. Then you can read both the decent servers and the trash ones and be the fedora wearing ackshually right fair and balanced uber nerd you always wanted to be.
Edit: The huge number of upvotes on this post compared to the low numbers on the whiney imposers' posts is proof of exactly where this community places its priorities.
The people screaming about free speech for bigots & fascists seem to neglect the free speech of the instance owners and admins.
They're doing this out of the kindness of their hearts. Paying for bandwidth and servers. Donating their time to create the software, work out the kinks, and moderate the communities so we don't strangle each other.
From their perspective: Would you want to use your money and time to rebroadcast Nazism or similarly toxic ideology? Because that's what they're being asked, and most of them say "HELL NO!" When the chuds are demanding that these people rebroadcast such crap, it's like they're asking these admins to do a Hitler salute with them.
This is their space. They have free speech rights too. That's what curation is, free speech. You send a message by the choice of messages you rebroadcast or refuse to rebroadcast.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
That can be used by any authoritarian claiming to be the greatest good.
It's great to bully and censor but inevitably ends in subjugation.
That's the types that want this end up in very small circles or simply agreeing with whatever authority sells.
As long as you have clear boundaries as to what's acceptable or not, a population with critical thinking skills will always be able to tell what's going on.
I had this debate with a friend a while back. He said we should tolerate nazi flags because "what if the government decides the pride flag is a hateful flag". Well, the nazi flag (at least coloquially) stands for "Kill all jews", while the pride flag stands for "Be proud of your sexual orientation and gender identity". One of these passes the hate speech/incitement test, the other doesn't.
There just needs to be consistent and well thought out rules in place. If it's the case, I'm not scared of authoritarians using the paradox of tolerance to their advantage because it's so transparent.
This is a pretty farcical argument, because the instance admins set things up specifically so that the instance users can discuss and vote on what the instance does.
What in the everloving hell is this awful take. No, curation is not free speech. Nor does it need to be.
Content moderation absolutely is a form of free speech. They get to decide who to associate with and what ideals to rebroadcast with their own equipment. They aren't government entities and do reserve the right to express their individual beliefs. If you have a problem with that, find a better-suited instance for your own personal beliefs, or host your own.
If you want further reading on the subject, here's a well-written post that explains the positive relationship between more active content moderation and "freer" speech.
Amazing.
"I'm censoring people so that I can promote free speech!"
Just admit that it's not free speech. That's just a roundabout way to justify your decision when there's no justification required.
Edit: Cracks had Agora on the brain and applied it where it wasn't necessary.
I think you have issues with reading comprehension. I haven't bitched anywhere about any defederation, moderation, censorship or whatever done by instance owners.
Obviously, it's up to them and can lead to better content. It can also lead to echo chambers, but that's an implementation detail.
All I did was point out that censorship is not free speech. Free speech is an ideal that doesn't work in the real world, and it's fine to admit you're not open to everyone having free speech.
Edit: You know what? You're right - this was a poor response to your comment. I blame too much Agora and too little coffee. Will come back to this if I think of a better response more in line with the level you're addressing (more general and philosophical sense).
I do think curation is not necessarily censorship, and is itself a form of free expression when looking at all means a person can express themselves in a given society. [End of edit, slightly less but still kinda dumb comments remain below]
I apologize - this was more of a general statement. "You're free to build, or you're free to complain, both are valid". *Edit: And taking the recent hub-bub as a case in point re: the Fediverse stuff. Bleh, been a bit too meta recently.
My issue was with curation not being free expression. This only holds for me if there are absolutely no other alternatives to express your ideas.
Last time I read this it was musk on Twitter, days before censoring electoral messages in Turkey
cool story bro, why do you think it's relevant?
If I own a wall and allow people to post signs on it, I can choose to remove whatever signs I deem inappropriate. The creator can put their signs up somewhere else and I’m under no obligation to use my property to broadcast their message if I choose not to.
Nothing stops you from using your own resources to broadcast your message. Be the change you want to see in the world.
So you're saying I shouldn't be able to choose who to allow onto my server?
Not sure how you got to that answer. Censorship isn't free speech.
No one has to support free speech. Just own it instead of making up rubbish like "I'm actually censoring to promote free speech"
Would you consider it acceptable for an instance owner to ban advertisements?
An instance owner can do whatever they want for their own instance.
Calling censorship free speech to make yourself feel better doesn't make it true though.