Did the admins poll the community about it? Why was such measure so needed? If the tankie content is so annoying why not let users decide what they want to see or not and what they want to block?
I don’t like that the admins want to censor the content I can view or not. You guys are not protecting us nor doing us a favor, you’re imposing your views over everyone else by limiting the information we are able to receive.
I don’t support the devs views or the views in lemmygrad, but this is a dangerous precedent.
I’ve read several of the “arguments” for blocking the instance and all I can see is a bunch of people talking about politics and arguing about “floods in the frontpage”. Well, let the user block communities if that’s the case, same way I’m already blocking communities I’m not interested.
I think the admins want to feel like Facebook moderation. I’d be OK with it if any instance repeatedly generated spam, security, doxxing or any other concern that couldn’t be solved by banning individuals, otherwise it’s just plain censorship.
I just don’t want the admins to use their power to decide what I can see or not. If this is going to be like this, I’ll leave for a better instance because I can see where this is going to.
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Hey icy,
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?
Thanks for your answer.
I understand, I assume it was during all that backlash against Lemmy and the devs, when even r/LemmyMigration mods created r/KbinMigration and closed that one due to the devs political affiliation and moderation policy.
Lemmygrad doesn’t seem to be a very friendly instance unless you have those specific political loyalties, and it seems self-isolating as well to an extent, I just want to foster a culture of not letting anyone control what you see or what you can say, and also a culture of accountability and feedback. I just think thats what makes communities alive and good.
I understand (and it’s something kind of ingrained in the Lemmy logic itself) this idea that you have to just join an instance taking into account things like politics. But I like the idea of having more neutral spaces, for example if you see why some users like your instance, they perceive it as an “apolitical”, “chill” place with a good technical leadership.
As you say it’s a personal conviction, maybe you thought your own instance should reflect your values and not federate with those that you don’t like. But right now, don’t you think that essentially mean limiting the access to the information? It’s not “big deal”, yes, they can create another account, but why? Why is it so needed?
I think you could perfectly run the instance and let everybody block what they don’t want to see, and moderate on individual basis until circumstances require otherwise.
“Lemmygrad doesn’t seem to be a very friendly instance unless you have those specific political loyalties, and it seems self-isolating as well to an extent, I just want to foster a culture of not letting anyone control what you see or what you can say, and also a culture of accountability and feedback. I just think thats what makes communities alive and good.”
So do that. Create your own instance. Here you’re just complaining that the people in this instance don’t have the same opinion towards fostering open lines with asshats.
Honestly, owning up to it being a selfish decision deserves some respect. I’m a big proponent of free expression and avoiding censorship, but I took a gander at the kinda stuff they got over there and…
It’s not even the views they hold that’s my main problem. It’s really that they’re just so needlessly rude and aggressive, and as you pointed out, they seem to be a lot more censorship happy than here anyway. I would be more sympathetic to them if they were less censorship happy themselves, and if they were less mean.
I do want to stress that I hope you keep the number of blocked instances to a minimum, since I feel that it would be better if the Lemmy software had better tools for users to control what they block for themselves better, and also maybe just having “default” blocklists that users can disable, to keep the new-user experience nice, but yeah for that particular instance, I can’t be too mad about it.
It’s not like you could have polled users that hadn’t joined yet anyways. Maybe the blocked list could be made more visible so people could be informed early on before they get too invested in their account?
I plan on making a post sharing some considerations people should take before registering to an instance. In it I’ll definitely bring this subject up.
Keep doing what your doing! It’s in the name, it’s gonna just work. I don’t wanna read their garbage and I like how your running the place. Keep up the great work and thanks for the performant Lemmy instance :)
I, for one, wouldn’t have joined this instance if it wasn’t blocked.
Here’s the god’s honest truth: Instances are not, as a rule, democracies. They are more like benevolent dictatorships. You can make your complaints heard, for sure, but the name of the game is really “Don’t like it? Take your business elsewhere or build something better”. As it always should be, imo.
There’s nothing really stopping you from spinning up your own single user instance and using that to interact with Lemmy and the wider fediverse however you please. If you’re the only user you can pretty much run it off a toaster (or at least I’m led to believe this). If you don’t want to do that, then you choose to play by the rules of whatever instance you call home.
And this isn’t necessarily a dig at you - if you’re worried about admins engaging in censorship, I sincerely recommend looking into selfhosting. It’s the only real way to ensure you’re the one at the helm at all times.
Just make another account on an instance that federates with them. It’s really not a big deal. It’s not like reddit where you don’t have anywhere else to go.
If you want absolute control over what instances you’re federated with, start your own instance. Otherwise, find one that’s more closely aligned to your views.
As others have said, this is one of the main points of federated networks, if you don’t like how an instance is run, you can take your ball and go play somewhere else.
Literally. People forget that these instances are privately run (just as Reddit is). There is no obligation to the “public good”.
So, a political thing? And why I’m not allowed to see denialist content? Am I a baby? You feel like a baby that needs parental control from admins?
Sorry for the hostility but that’s what this boils down to. Admin decisions over users. And I don’t care about whatever political/worldview controversy they use to base their abuse of power.
Jokes on you, I have an account on multiple instances, I just don’t share it with anyone who I am lol
I also know how to create an account in several instances. It’s not about technical issues, it is about the culture.
So someone who is donating their server for your entertainment should be forced to potentially be hosting terroristic comments and posts, child porn, you name it… And be put on govt lists and have a higher risk of being raised because people want to do whatever they want? Yeah…I’m perfectly fine with someone restricting stuff that can be considered extremist from their machine that were borrowing.
Not saying any specific instance is doing the stuff I mentioned above. More giving my 2 cents on why Its not an issue, especially since you can go to another instance and see everything anyways . These are not companies doing this stuff, it’s individuals with actual lives, not some board of directors who want more money.
Ok and where’s the announcement? Where’s the explanation? There’s just a lack of transparency. I already mentioned there might be valid reasons but this clearly seems worldview/politically motivated.
Go check out the modlog, its publicly visible. It’s their instance, they can do what they want. If you dislike how the admins handle their server’s federation status, make your own. I’m going to eventually because I want to control what I’m federated with, but for now I accept that I’m at the instance admin’s mercy.
Shifting control to randos via federation is a double edged sword. This is the downside, from your perspective.
Bro I am already planning on making my own for other reasons. What’s the matter with someone asking questions or reasons for a ban? I know I can leave and probably will. This is a much needed conversation. Don’t like when users let themselves to be treated as babies. That’s why corporations do what they want with us.
Then join a different server?
Thanks for pointing the obvious but this is about having a conversation. Users should not let admins impose their views and accept it as normal. That’s why subreddit mods where acting like tyrants.
Even if I create an acc in another instance and forget about this one, I raised questions. You guys are free to draw your conclusions.
I am in no way opposed to Lemmygrad being blocked, it’s not really the kind of content that I want to see.
But, I do understand how one of the main attractions of sh.itjust.works is supposed to be that it just works, regardless of what you may want to post about, and that blocking communities isn’t very conductive to that. I think the answer here should be democracy, doing a poll on such things isn’t a hard thing to do, I think most of us would have been fine with the block.
What about what the admin wants to see? Everyone do be like it’s their right to choose but they choose by being here. The admin chooses what he likes, people choose whether they like what the admin likes or not. If they don’t, they either don’t join or they leave. If they do, they join and stay. Simple as that. I don’t see why people should try and force their ideas onto some dude who prolly just doesn’t want random genocide denial loonies filling the comment sections with hateful vitriol about why certain parts of the population should die.
I guess I’m just philosophically objected to dictatorship in that way. I completely agree that I don’t want random genocide denying loonies filling the comments section, I just don’t think it’s much effort to ask people. I also imagine a lot of people here are attracted to this instance because it’s supposed to be less complicated than other instances where there’s a lot of moderation about what can and cannot be seen by users. So when it comes to banning whole communites (which in this case I think is completely justified) there should be caution and discussion.
Look at the discussion in other instances, for example
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/99601
Yet most the answers this thread has been receiving essentially consist of “stfu & gtfo”, if I end up leaving it’s not going to be just because of the admin decisions but much more because of the poor userbase that does not care about holding admins accountable and retaining control. I don’t even blame the admins at this point.
I think part of the reaction your getting has been your attitude.
You linked a great example, they wanted to know information on why things where happening and asked about it in a neutral way.
Nobody is censoring you, you are free to view the content you want to.
