The screenshot shows the recommendations from https://join-lemmy.org/.

Still being federated with exploding-heads does not mean the instance supports them. But it means that shit-heads are allowed to take part in the discussions on their communities. They do intoxicate the discussions we will have. They will attack minorities. Maybe you will not be harassed by them, more vulnerable people will be. They are allowed to moderate communities on these instances. Exploding-heads members actively guide young and unknowing people to their hateful instance.

They try to start discussions about the holocaust https://sh.itjust.works/post/227268. They create communities only to crosspost exploding-heads content https://lemmy.world/c/pharma They take over discussions against them https://exploding-heads.com/comment/132189 “WHY are vulnerable people joining a decentralized system? Isnt this why you want a closed, not for public eyes community?”

This was a link to exploding-heads, because when someone copies a permalink of a comment from them on another instance, it will be a link to their instance.

Are we building a place where vulnerable people are welcome and safe or are we building a place where nazis are welcome and safe?

They want you to block them, they comment that everywhere. They block people who are in favor of defederating them https://sh.itjust.works/post/225714 When their opponents won’t see them anymore, they can harass and recruit without being noticed.

Blocking will not solve the problem. They will spread even when you close your eyes.

M̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ t̶h̶i̶s̶ w̶a̶s̶ n̶o̶t̶ d̶o̶n̶e̶ i̶n̶t̶e̶n̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶l̶y̶, b̶u̶t̶ n̶o̶w̶ there is a post with a list of ‘health communities on Lemmy’ with the first entry guiding to exploding heads. https://lemmy.world/post/396561

It is still possible that some of the mentioned instances do support them. The owner of sh.itjust.works says that because of “free speech” all other instances would be allowed. It is suspicious to me that his line is drawn only for lemmygrad https://sh.itjust.works/comment/130474

The decision to block the Lemmygrad instance was less a question of censorship, and more an issue of personal conviction. As a volunteer dedicating my personal resources and time to facilitating a space for users to create, discover, and discuss - not just on this instance, but across the Fediverse - I admit that this choice was made alone, selfishly, without the consent or thoroughly considering the collective opinion of the community. With the above said, sh.itjust.works has had the lemmygrad instance blocked from its first day.

I’d like to also point out that the lemmygrad instance has far more blocked instances than what is currently blocked here. Maybe you can create a post on that instance to see what that’s all about and report back?

At the same time they seem to ignore the call and vote to defederate with exploding-heads https://sh.itjust.works/post/433483.

They rejected to delete The_Donald from sh.itjust.works until they feared to get isolated from the other instances: https://lemmy.ml/post/1467310. They where aware of The_Donald and ignored early warnings. (https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/266248). TD was more important to them than keeping the only mod of their 4th biggest community c/patientgamers (https://sh.itjust.works/post/291747, https://sh.itjust.works/post/388922)

Since The_Donald was removed, I did not find more racist content on the mentioned servers. That is part their tactics. They act harmless but recruit to their instance, attract likeminded people and chase others away. Discussions on sh.itjust.works about such topics are very toxic already, soon they might be able to do more harm.

(My research is very limited, as i could not search for all exploding-heads member content on other instances by entering their domain. I know there are nice communities on sh.itjust.works.)

What can be done? On joinmastodon.org there is a Mastodon Server Covenant with very few useful rules, one of them is “Active moderation against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia”. https://joinmastodon.org/covenant It would be a first step to implement these rules for join-lemmy.org. At least instances that want to be recommended on there should have to agree to that rule.

More actions should be taken now. Please make suggestions. Things will only become more complicated. The next reddit wave is incoming.

For those who did not already know:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

https://www.upworthy.com/bartender-explains-why-he-swiftly-kicks-nazis-out-of-his-punk-bar-even-if-theyre-not-bothering-anyone

This is not the first time new platforms face these problems, do we really have to repeat the same mistakes?

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  • terribleplan@lemmy.nrd.li
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    1 year ago

    I expect the moderators of communities to do sufficient policing of their community to make sure it follows the rules of the instance it is on and the rules of that community. If those rules permit something you disagree with (or don’t permit something you do want to see) the power is in your hands as a user to not participate or even see that community. The only way for a user to guarantee they won’t interact with someone from instance X (whether that is exploding-heads or lemmygrad or whatever you don’t like) is to only interact with communities on instances that have them defederated. There are places you can get a more curated and aggressively moderated experience, and have been recommending places such as beehaw to anyone looking for that.

    I will take action against:

    • Local users harassing someone
    • Local users breaking local rules
    • Local users repeatedly breaking remote rules
    • Local communities that break local instance rules
    • Remote users harassing local users
    • Remote users repeatedly breaking local rules
    • Remote instances that repeatedly allow its users to break local rules
    • Remote instances that repeatedly allow its users to harass my users

    The first rule on my instance is a catch-all “Be welcoming”, that will be wielded to aggressively remove far more than just “racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia”.

    As an admin I don’t have the time or desire to police:

    • Local users interacting on remote communities, so long as they are following remote rules
    • Remote communities
    • Remote users interacting with remote users/communities

    I do hope for a way to better curate (or just disable for now) the “All” feed, at the very least for anyone who isn’t logged in. Given the general rules above that feed may include disagreeable posts, and is not a good representation of my instance or the type of community most users there will experience.

    • Zagorath
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      1 year ago

      I do hope for a way to better curate (or just disable for now) the “All” feed

      I really don’t want to see that done, because right now that has been my primary method of community discovery, outside of the small number I’ve discovered through explicit Reddit migrations.

      /all should be a feed of everything available to users on your instance. That’s…what the word “all” means. Defederating is the way to curate that. An instance being able to block individual communities within another instance could be a good tool to have as well, perhaps, but beyond that I’m not sure I would want to see curation of /all.

      • terribleplan@lemmy.nrd.li
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        1 year ago

        I understand that urge, and in my ideal world it would a whole new option of “Suggested” feed rather than a replacement for “All”, like how that other site has a /all but defaults to a more curated selection of content that has broad appeal (and IIRC even some things are excluded from /all over there). For now I’d just take being able to filter the “All” view of the most objectionable stuff that I only want to allow users of my instance to explicitly opt into by seeking out those sorts of places.

        Also, unless your instance is purposely seeking out and subscribing to every community in every instance the moment they are created “All” is never going to actually be all posts from everywhere… I imagine larger instances may approach that, but I am certain there is a ton missing from smaller instances like my own.

    • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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      1 year ago

      That’s pretty much my philosophy on my instance.

      I’ve only defederated instances for pedo (usually loli) crap - I don’t want their communities in the “All” feed. I don’t want users joining my instance to access such things (when they upload images, even when posting on remote communities, that gets hosted on MY server).

      That and spam.

      • terribleplan@lemmy.nrd.li
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, illegal things are sort of an existential threat to any instance, so I will not hesitate to defederate over embracing of and failure to moderate such content at an admin/instance level. That is another one of the rules on my instance.