Exploding-heads.com is another instance on Lemmy where alt-right MAGA types tend to reside. Some people on this server want us to defederate from them immediately, some people want to save defederation as a last resort. They have 104 active users (more stats below).
It seems that exploding-heads has also experienced a recent botswarm invasion. This is obviously another point in favor of defederating them, assuming you are worried about botswarms, which is currently being discussed here.
My advice to you all is please try to discuss this in a civil manner, we need not allow them to create divisive conflict inside our communities. No matter how the vote turns out, you're not going to be able to defederate from your fellow sh.itheads so be nice.
I've linked many of the previous discussions below so people who are out of the loop can get a general sense of the situation.
https://sh.itjust.works/post/216888 https://sh.itjust.works/post/225714 https://sh.itjust.works/post/281126 https://sh.itjust.works/post/410325
Lemmy.world just recently defederated them.
https://lemmy.world/post/747912
https://lemmy.world/post/577526
Although this could be considered a point in favor of defederation, it actually means even if we vote to remain federated, people have a great alternative in lemmy.world where they can still participate in our communities and simultaneously be protected from exploding-heads.
Ensuring diversity of servers is beneficial to the platform as a whole, but it is also not our responsibility to bear that burden.
TLDR, just wrap up any last points in this thread before we open the vote tomorrow. Please be civil.
EDIT: To clarify, this isn't the official vote, this is the final discussion. The vote thread will be posted tomorrow and you will only be allowed to make a single comment saying Aye or Nay.
EDIT2: Vote thread is up, this thread is now locked. Very lively discussion thread sh.itheads. Please try to be more respectful next time.
No, do not participate and block the communites if you want to. This should be a platform for free speech. Just because you don't like it does not mean it should be defederated.
I absolutely do not support what they say or do, but I think anyone should be able to discuss anything, not just stuff I support. That's what free speech is, and I am 100% against ANY form of censorship.
I haven't seen anything from them and I don't go looking for it. But if every instance defederated something they don't like, Lemmy will absolutely fail. No one wants to use 87 different instances so they have a complete experience. Every instance will be a special place for their snowflakes
"Free speech" is not compatible with social media, in my opinion. We have the "no bigotry" and "be respectful" rules, which already disqualifies us from being a free speech platform. Lemmy instances, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit; none of them are public squares.
I completely agree!