Comment on Some weird spam and christo-cultic propaganda. Would we defed from it?
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Meh, it’s one C/ on the instance. This isn’t hexbear or exploding heads type of problem. This is where blocking per C/ is used, not defederation. You block that one community, and the problem is solved.
As annoying as that kind of spam is (and the frequency of posts is spam tier), just because I’m not interested in the subject matter doesn’t make it a problem by default.
andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
The core of this instance is these confessions. It depends on if you see it as a christian (maybe cultist) propaganda. I see it as a one. And many other posts are very weird too.
Let’s say, if there were 35k posts about scientology, would you find it weird, would ypu like to distance from it? Their mod is ill to collect and post them. It’s, imho, better to isolate their instance and don’t let them reach otner users, what they want with their finding-of-jesus content.
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
I’m not seeing much of the posts outside that single community though. This makes it trivial to avoid.
And, no, I wouldn’t see it as any different from scientology, or islam, or Buddhism, or taoism, or Hinduism, or whatever ism. When it isn’t an instance wide issue, the answer isn’t defederation. It’s per-user blocking.
Let’s be real, they aren’t reaching anyone with the kind of bat-shit, overly long videos they’re linking. Nobody has the attention span for that unless they’re already indoctrinated into that kind of bat-shit crazy thing anyway. If I see them pop up in my all/federated feed, I’ll block the community. Just like I do with any of the religion focused crazy C/s out there.
It’s a matter of how the fediverse should work, imo. Defederation is the final step, not the first. The only times defederation is a first step is when the instance hosts illegal things that the defederating instance would have legal liability if the materials in question; when the instance is dangerous to the fediverse, and/or when it’s nazis.
You can’t federate with an instance that hosts loli, if you’re located in a place where that’s illegal. So you defederate as soon as possible.
When something that’s going to destabilize lemmy/the fediverse by design, you can preemptively defederate.
And nobody likes nazis. We don’t want a nazi bar, so we have to keep them out from the beginning.
Anything else? You start with blocks by users, then user initiated instance blocking (now that it’s possible) or app based instance filtering, then consider defederation.
Since that instance isn’t doing any of those big things, and the problem content is very localized, I would vote against defederation in the agora. Which, btw, is where any defederation is decided for sjw as an instance.
Do you have proof of their instance acting to proselytize here (or elsewhere in the fediverse)? I haven’t seen any of their users doing it as individuals, and I found no threads planning such action. That is a big enough problem to change my vote if it ever comes up in the agora.
andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
I felt like general spam and lunacy are enough to cut them off even though they play safe. Is it wrong considering their content?
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
But they aren’t spamming elsewhere. There’s no indication that the community is doing anything other than posting in their own community. The content itself is bland, boring, but crazy. What it isn’t is inherently dangerous or bad. The only reason it counts as spam is the sheer volume. Since all it takes is a C/ block to prevent that spam, nothing else matters.
The rest of the instance is not harmful either, and none of the other communities have enough posts to be even close to spam levels. Defederation would remove access to ghost other communities and users.
Like someone else said, it’s like using a nuke to get rid of a single fly. You can do a surgical strike and completely avoid the C/. If isn’t like the posters there are out on other instances doing anything.
Unless you have proof of bad acts, and you haven’t provided any, there’s zero chance a defederation vote would succeed in the agora. This instance has a fairly consistent result on defederation issues when the INSTANCE being voted on isn’t disruptive.
And, frankly, the content is fine. Or, as fine as any religion’s more effusive elements. They aren’t calling for pogroms or crusades, they aren’t bashing other religions, they aren’t calling for some kind of Christian uprising, nothing like that. It’s just a bunch of religious nutters babbling about loving their religion. Which may be crazy, but it isn’t something that rises to the nazi test.
If we apply your criteria to content re: lunacy, then we’d have to defederate from any instance with a busy political C/, because most of those are full of posts from people treating politics like a religion. Are we going to defederate from any instance that has a C/ where they post constant anti-(insert politician of choice here) memes? It’s exactly the same thing.
If that’s what you’re arguing, that we defederate from any instance with crazies on it, bye-bye fediverse. Fuck I’m a left wing crazy, I just don’t post about it. But there are C/s on this instance that are no better than the one you’re objecting to, in terms of sane and rational posts. Should we defederate from ourselves?
I get it, though, I do. It’s easy to get on the anti-religion train and just stoke the boiler all the way. Organized religion is fucking cancer. But that’s irrelevant to federation as long as the offending material can be avoided by individuals. And, frankly, trying to outlaw any religion is a bad idea to begin with. And that’s really what you’re trying to do is go ham because you don’t like that religion.
I can’t support that way of thinking and would argue against defederation in the agora. I would argue against it even more vehemently than in this thread. Here, we’re just casually discussing the idea (or that’s what I’m doing anyway, this is casual for me lol). But if this was in the agora, where it would get voted on and possibly get the results you’re wanting, I would actively oppose the proposition. It goes against the very principles of lemmy in specific, and the fediverse as a whole.
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Would I find it weird? Yeah. Would I want to distance myself from it? Maybe. If I was the administrator of an instance with tens of thousands of users, I wouldn’t simply defederate if they kept their garbage spam on their instance. If instances made a habit of defederating with anyone they don’t like, we wouldn’t have a Fediverse.
andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
There’s true to your words. It’s just my opinion that every other actor in fediverse would benefit and won’t suffer from cutting them off. What can be the reason to enact such isolation? For some it’s piracy, or porn, or politics, or anything illegal. For me it’s 35k religious ads not kept in private or anything, but kept there to appear in everyone’s feeds. And seems like my opinion or argumentation are unpopular, so whatever.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Just sub to things you care about and ignore the rest. I almost never look at all, and if I do, it’s only on my local instance, so I pretty much only see stuff I opted into.
I recommend you do the same. Or just block the handful of communities you really dislike and continue using all.
Defederation is how we get silos like beehaw, which is antithetical to a federated platform. Defederation should know be used if an instance causes active harm (e.g. users constantly troll and admins are unresponsive). Having stupid content only impacts those who look at it, and it’s easy to block, trolls impact everyone.