Dear programming.dev userbase,
Before downvoting me to hell please read this:
As you can see I’m an EH user and I really like to look around here. I don’t comment as much but if I ever want to coment I would like to be able to.
RN the communities where “harmful and dangeorus propaganda” is being actively posted on are !freeorum@exploding-heads.com, !dankmems@exploding-heads.com and one more which I can’t remember the name while writing this moment. If you don’t want to look at them please block them or ask the admins to purge them.
Defederation is not a good option. The fediverse was not made to be defederated from.
I’m ready for conversations
Ategon@programming.dev 1 year ago
The instance is currently federated with every instance (including places like lemmygrad and explodingheads as the current stance is defederation should be a last resort with users being able to choose what they want to see instead
Exploding heads has very some very questionable content though so its status is currently being discussed by the admins
elbarto777@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I wish there were a way to block entire instances per user.
targetx@programming.dev 1 year ago
It is an option in Sync for Lemmy at least.
silas@programming.dev 1 year ago
This is actively being discussed too
astral_avocado@programming.dev 1 year ago
Yeah it should be a per user decision…
aport@programming.dev 1 year ago
This would make my life so much easier
Shikadi@beehaw.org 1 year ago
Free speech absolutism is harmful. By remaining federated with them, you’re participating in distributing their content and giving them a platform. People do have a choice of what they want to see, they can choose to be a part of another instance without morals. I would hope that a programming instance of all places would understand the consequences of propaganda given so many programmers work in data collection and targeted advertising. If you show an ad to 1000 people and one of them buys the product, the ad worked. It’s no different for disinformation campaigns.
It’s not like they’re just sharing differing opinions or saying awful shit, they’re taking things out of context or making things up (or posting articles that make things up) and it’s very easy to prove if you do a tiny bit of googling. One article listed off a bunch of climate predictions that were wrong along with sources to look credible. If you checked the sources though, they were all wrong. Some of the predictions were actually made by humans (but not the claimed academic institutions) while others were straight up made up.
I hope the admins make the right decision here. Protecting free speech doesn’t mean allowing people to say whatever they want on your platform. It means allowing them to say it on their platform without being fined or put in jail.
Zalack@startrek.website 1 year ago
My experience has often been the opposite. Programmers will do a lot to avoid the ethical implications of their works being used maliciously and discussions of what responsibility we bear for how our world get used.
It’s why I kind of wish that “engineer” was a regulated title in America like it is in other countries, and getting certified as a programming engineer required some amount of training in programming ethics and standards.
Ategon@programming.dev 1 year ago
Yeah, the goal is mainly to get everyone in the fediverse able to participate in the coding chats as long as they’re respectful about it rather than being a free speech absolutism instance. An ideal scenario would be allowing users to participate in here while limiting the posts in their communities to not show up
Decision should be pushed out soon, just making sure we getting everything hammered out and been a bit slower due to vacations
parpol@programming.dev 1 year ago
False information is a global problem, but arguing against free speech absolutism sounds more dangerous to me.
I hear people say free speech absolutism is dangerous because it can lead to loud extremist voices overwhelm the more “moderate” ones, often referencing Nazi Germany and the success of their propaganda. However, any limiting of free speech can lead to censorship of voices falsely labeled extreme and fake. The entity regulating speech would need to be absolutely immune to corruption, which just isn’t possible.
Extremists voices often reach further because of how radical they are, but sometimes the radical ideas are the right ones, even if at the moment the general public disagree with them. After all, we have no idea of knowing that what we really hear is the general public opinion or bots deployed by a currently dominant entity, and the general public is not always correct. For example, in certain countries the general public still believe homosexuality is sinful and should be banned, which is horrible. In these places we need radical voices. If there is a regulatory system of speech, it could be skewing and mislabeling what is considered public opinion, and what is considered extreme views.
My views do not align with the right, but I am a strong advocate for free speech and privacy, especially on the internet. Free speech and privacy must be absolute, or it isn’t free speech or privacy.
8ace40@programming.dev 1 year ago
I understand the reasoning but I think it’s not the same situation as lemmygrad, which I feel is a normal instance with an ideological bent. Exploding heads is just violent propaganda. I hope you defederate.
What about hexbear? Is programming.dev federated with them? Or are they intentionally defederated with everyone?
masterofballs@exploding-heads.com 1 year ago
Lemmy grad actively denies Genocides. Lemmygrad says that that Tienanmen Square was fabricated by the U.S.
Lemmygrad consistently host antiwhite racism and then defends it by saying something like it’s not racist because white people aren’t real or something
Exploding-heads will poke fun at gender dysphoria in two communities, dank memes and dank taco.
EH is morally superior to lemmygrad in every way.
Finally,
You all should be using nostr where admins can’t take your voice away or your right to hear opposing opinions.
parpol@programming.dev 1 year ago
Looks like a typical right wing instance to me. I personally don’t feel like propaganda is enough of a reason to defederate. You have propaganda everywhere, even from official news outlets.
Ategon@programming.dev 1 year ago
hexbear split off and has been running their own fork for awhile separate from the rest of lemmy (so they couldnt federate with lemmy instances). They are coming back now though so lemmy instances will start to be able to interact with them soon
cwagner@lemmy.cwagner.me 1 year ago
FWIW, I (single user instance) defederated from hexbear and lemmygrad, but not exploding heads. Not because I think nazis are better than authoritarian fascists, but because hexbear and lemmygrad users are everywhere, while the nazis never seem to comment on anything.
natecox@programming.dev 1 year ago
I am not a fan of reaching for defederation often; I actually came here from beehaw because I felt like they just pulled that trigger too fast and too frequently.
However, I do think that we should defederate from exploding-heads and hexbear. I don’t go looking for chances to be offended, but I do notice that when I see something truly distasteful on All it is almost exclusively from one of those two lately, and at this point removing them from All would make my lemmy experience just a bit more friendly.
It’s not even worth reporting content about them because when you do it seems like a common theme is that they just tag you so they can harass you. I tested this myself recently by reporting obvious misinformation/propaganda and the next time I logged in there were indeed items waiting in my inbox calling me a coward, etc.