socialjusticewizard

Aye

We can't do anything to enforce moderation of content on another server. If they come here to do it we can boot em.

You already know but posting for those who might not yet, the reason defederation is framed as a "slippery slope" is because they know full well that there will be a clone of exploding heads rising soon enough and we're going to need to continue defederating alt-right bot farms in perpetuity to maintain a good instance. They want to keep having two week long debates about it in every. Single. Case. By framing it as a slippery slope, they're hoping to keep these incessant arguments going on, forever, or until anyone decent has given up and left.

I'm sorry, you're the only representative of the instance in here responding to stuff like this and as a result I feel like I'm coming down harder on you than you deserve...

But you already have this guy and me in the thread who have left because of the instance's inaction and through it, tacit support of e-h. We're two who bothered to watch the server to see if anything actually happened. By nature, most people who left will definitely not have done this. They're just gone, they're not popping into agora to see if you got your shit together. I only did because I have a community I was working on and don't really want to restart it.

Your "oh maybe, I kinda guess it's possible" attitude here is the problem. You are acting now, great, but this was an incredibly slow response, it doesn't matter if your vote is tomorrow. It's already incredibly, mind bogglingly slow, and you still decided to post a day long debate thread before the vote (it seems to show overwhelming support for defederation, which I consider totally unsurprising, and makes me wonder again what you've been waiting for).

I understand a little about why it was so glacial, but you continue to appear to not understand that this was actually a huge issue, that in that time you let the server bias towards the alt-right, showed a general support for alt right topics, and alienated an unknowable number of users in the process. Those are all the sort of users you probably wanted to keep, the ones who aren't just content to see things go badly and will take action when they see it rather than stare like a deer in headlights. If they're like me, they were probably posting and trying to find out the delay before leaving in disgust. They're folks that care about having an instance that reflects their values, and you've let them - us - down.

That can't be undone, but the way you keep shrugging it off as though you really don't see it does not inspire confidence. It tells me that you think it's not really a huge issue that you lost a bunch of users who aren't comfortable with hate media showing up in their feed, stored on the servers they're using, because you're more worried about alienating the people who are okay with it by acting too quickly.

I don't disagree with any of this in principle, but I don't think any of it applies here. Time, evidence, and even some sociology have shown us that all we gain from trying to mix alt right communities online with other ones is an increase in conflict, alienation of people disgusted by alt right, and strengthening of the alt right as a result. This isn't a place for conversation and conversion in those regards. Helping someone through ignorance and extremism requires an empathy and understanding that is almost impossible to achieve online, and certainly isn't suited to this kind of environment.

As I said, I deal with this stuff in real life all the time. I talk to these people often, and have I think even opened a few minds now and then. I don't even attempt it online. It's fruitless. That doesn't mean I think they're all lost causes individually, but it does mean I don't want their distasteful opinions stanking up my leisure time as well as my professional time.

I like the cut of your jib, fella.

Yeah and if you replace "opinions" with "babies" then "shut down" with "murder" then suddenly you're talking about murdering babies!! Oh man. This is a real slippery slope.

My friend, I'm worried I'm going to come across dickish here in my next paragraph, so let me say that you've proven intelligent and pleasant to talk to and I think well of you from our conversation here.

With that out of the way, I'm not sure how - as someone who seems legitimately pretty intelligent and reasonable, overall - you could hold an opinion like this in the year of our lord 2023. Have you not seen what's happened to public discourse over the last seven years? I think we're long, long past the point of wondering what the consequences of letting things that seem distasteful and unfunny in the particular vein of e-h go unchecked. It's an experiment that has been tested, tried, tested again, and tried again, and always to the same end. How many times do we need another /pol/ or r/t_d or r/conservative or r/asktrumpsupporters or on and on and on and on before people are allowed to point at something like this and say "yep it's this again" and be understood?

Have you watched the alt-right playbook? It's a wonderful summary of what people are concerned about.

You want me to explain myself, but don't want to read what I say. I don't quite know how you figure that will work, but I appreciate you being up front about it I suppose.

Lol I almost responded with, “I appreciate the options.”

I chuckled good at that. And I too enjoy conversations like this, no worries. This thread has mostly been nice, intelligent discussion and I've liked it.

(bit concerned as it seems the trolls are now coming in, but I won't doomsay yet)

• Not every dissenting opinion is an obvious apologist account. If it were, you wouldn't see me through this thread all over the place having what I consider productive discussion with other people who have differing opinions.
• Within the post you just quoted, I explained why I am unimpressed. In the replies, I explained it far more. I find it a little hard to believe you could read what I wrote even in that one post and come up with that reply in good faith, but if you'd like to hear what I mean in more detail, try reading the copious explanation I've added in this very thread over the last six hours.

Frankly, I think the evidence thus far suggests that users do side with me, so your hostility is both unwarranted and kind of nonsensical.