Are users who openly parrot literal Nazi talking points allowed here?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Zagorath@aussie.zone⁩ to ⁨meta@aussie.zone⁩

A few days ago I came across a comment in one of this Instance’s Communities made by a user of this Instance, which very directly parroted Nazi talking points. Not in a way that was satirising Nazis, but which was endorsing their type of supremacist worldview.

Other comments in that thread noted that the user in question has a history of unironically endorsing a foreign genocidal regime and its actions.

I tried reporting the comment in question, but as of today the comment still stands and the user who made the comment has been as active as ever.

Is this Instance ok with Nazis?

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Nath@aussie.zone ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
We’re missing a bit of information here. I got your report, went to the thread to get the context.

Firstly, I saw that you had literally screen-capped the comment in question and included it in a new reply. So, removing the comment would have achieved nothing - it would have still been there.
Secondly, the comment was Zionistic in nature, which while especially unpopular in nature is not against instance rules.
Thirdly, I wasn’t aware that the comment in question was similar to something Nazis said. I don’t even know if the user who made the comment knew that. So, leaving it there and letting downvotes do their thing allowed for education as well.
Lastly, the comment was in the Australian Politics community - which is intentionally the lightest-touch moderated community because there’s a difference between political discussion where parties disagree quite vehemently and an outright echo-chamber. If you delete all the users from your politics community that you don’t agree with, what is the point of the community?

To answer your question: No, we don’t allow Nazis here. It is literally one of the questions we ask on the application screen. “Nazi talking points” is not on its own a good metric of what is acceptable today. We basically have a whole community in support of Reichsnaturschutzgesetz. I don’t especially take issue with Tierschutz, either. One of the reasons the Third Reich gained actual popular support was some of their early policies were in fact in the best interest of the German people. There is still a Kindergeld today, though giving full credit to the Nazis to that one wouldn’t really be genuine. It is fair to say they supported this policy. So I guess our stance on “literal Nazi talking points” will boil down to other factors and get taken on a case-by-case basis.

Finally: If there’s a user you genuinely don’t wish to see around here any longer, you can hit the little down arrow on any of their comments and block them.

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- eureka@aussie.zone ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I want to raise a point on the “Nazi talking points” response:
  
  On one hand, it’s certainly more useful when a report is more specific, yes. I know plenty of fascist talking points which aren’t common knowledge or obvious.
  
  On the other, it sounds like they’re talking about Lebensraum - “living space”. If we look at it technically, it was a common concept in German politics decades before the Nazi Party was formed. And it’s a far cry away from the various social reforms implemented in the Third Reich you mentioned. But in context, I think it’s clear that someone on aussie.zone reporting a post for “Nazi talking points” is reporting that a post is fascistic, supporting the supremacist aspects Nazism is famous for. People surely aren’t going to report pro-vegetarian posts for this reason, or even anti-union posts (despite the crushing of worker’s organisations being core to fascism).
  
  Lebensraum is a relatively infamous policy, and one which neo-Nazis like the NSN explicitly invoke. They’re never holding up banners saying “protect the wildlife”, “support animal rights” or “fast roadways now!”, this is the bigoted supremacy generally associated with Nazism and carried on by neo-Nazism.
  
  If you delete all the users from your politics community that you don’t agree with, what is the point of the community?
  
  But this isn’t just “all the users you disagree with”, or even just disagreement - if someone, when discussing an expansionist regime, tries to justify “living space”, that makes me think that person might well want me thrown in a camp and killed. It’s no smoking gun, but it’s a loud wolfwhistle.
  
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  - Nath@aussie.zone ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    Lebensraum is a relatively infamous policy, and one which neo-Nazis like the NSN explicitly invoke.
    
    Sorry. While I readily acknowledge that I don’t hang out in those circles, nor really scrutinise their rhetoric, I have honestly never heard that phrase before. In English or German. This does paint the comment in a brighter light, and I probably would have been more inclined to remove it had I been familiar with the term.
    
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- cockmushroom@reddthat.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  If you delete all the users from your politics community that you don’t agree with, what is the point of the community?
  
  mobilisation.
  
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- Zagorath@aussie.zone ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  To suggest that lebensraum is just some random policy that Germany happened to have in the '30s and ‘40s, and wasn’t one of the core things that made the Nazis the Nazis (as in, the personification of and byword for evil itself that they have since become) is an absolutely wild take to have, in my view.
  
  I screen capped it because I did not want to engage directly with a Nazi. But it was nevertheless important to publically call out that behaviour for what it was. I don’t believe it has no effect to ban Nazis while also, in the relevant context, to use Nazis’ words as examples of what to look out for with other Nazis. If others disagree with me there I would be happy to have a respectful conversation on the topic of whether my comment should have been removed or edited. But I do not believe that there is that nuance to be had with whether the Nazis themselves should be welcome.
  
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  - Seagoon_@aussie.zone ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I think you should engage.
    
    How else are you going to change minds than by engaging.
    
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Seagoon_@aussie.zone ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
OK. So you took my comment totally out context.

what you wrote never even crossed my mind

what did cross my mind was the saying " River to the sea" , which is about living space and I wrote living space ironically

River to the sea is a dog whistle

I was in the protest on Oct 8th 23 when the protest leader called River to the Sea and the crowd answered, Kill them.

Oct 8th there was no genocide

You know who else I have heard use the concept living space? A Rwandan. I met a Rwandan when I was a member/speaker at the Marxist Institute in nyc. I asked why he did it, he said it was traditionally their land and they needed the land to live. I was shocked and asked, Even children.

I left and was very shaken. Left the Marxists shortly thereafter.

I’m sorry you are so frightened of me, that you are so unable to question information presented to you, that you are behaving like you are in a cult, that facts and reason to do not make you question your own beliefs.

I won’t post here again because you are just too fragile and there is no point.

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- CTDummy@aussie.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  OK. So you took my comment totally out context.
  
  Wat, am I missing something here. Doesn’t really seem out of context at all. Seems like you’re claiming it was an ironic remark on behalf of the Palestinians, accusing them of genocidal intent with the chant? Misinterpreted maybe. Which is shown by:
  
  You know who else I have heard use the concept living space? A Rwandan. I met a Rwandan when I was a member/speaker at the Marxist Institute in nyc. I asked why he did it, he said it was traditionally their land and they needed the land to live. I was shocked and asked, Even children.
  
  So you know it has at least genocidal connotations then? Which seems to contradict.
  
  what you wrote never even crossed my mind.
  
  From a quick interpretation it seems you’re claiming “I was making an ironic remark implying people being genocided are the ones being genocidal, not a Nazi dog whistle.” Which ya know, the first kinda contradict the second.
  
  The rest, i.e the protest stuff is anecdotal and even if it did happen, doesn’t really add anything to this particular discussion. Given a lot of comments under the post OP is referencing seem to question the meaning of your comment maybe providing context there would have been the move. For all the good it would have done.
  
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mech@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Is there a particular reason why you’re dancing around what they actually wrote, or naming the “foreign genocidal regime”?

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- Zagorath@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Because I don’t want to bring attention to an actual Nazi. The admins have received a report on the comment in question and I’ll happily provide more details if they request.
  
  The comment in question was justifying Israel’s invasions with reference to “living space”—exact words.
  
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  - mech@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    [deleted]
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Seagoon_@aussie.zone ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Censorship is what nazis do.

And even tho seeing nazis and nazism distresses me greatly I would rather talk with them and try use good sense and facts

because exclusion is only going to make them more set in their beliefs

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- notgold@aussie.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  You’re right. Discussion and healing is how we fix these things not banning them.
  
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Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I don’t see this as, as much of an acceptance of Nazis problem than a lack of moderator problem. There is one active moderator for that community, that moderator also happens to be a rather busy bloody bee, seeing as they are the AZ admin/owner, and they’ve stated their personal life business before.

This is a problem I’m actively concerned about with communities I moderate. I advocate for more moderators per community, and to ensure those moderators are still somewhat active.

If @lodion@aussie.zone wants help with moderation I can jump on board with the community in question.

I’d also advocate lodion inviting by P.M. another one or two people to help out with moderation as well. Because many hands = light work. And a bank of moderators could help smooth things when issues such as inactivity of mod accounts arise.

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- Nath@aussie.zone ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I get every report about every community on the instance, even if I’m not listed on the Community. They come as notifications to my phone. It’s pretty rare for any report to take longer than an hour or so to be looked at.
  
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  - Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Yeah, i realised the admin angle I’d overlooked after I posted this and saw you’d responded this arvo as well.
    
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SaneMartigan@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
FWIW I’m not okay with Nazis and their Nazi bullshit.

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- GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Awesome name, on the kinda dickhead we need!
  
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eureka@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I don’t see the point in beating around the bush.

A glance at the homepage tells us that Nazism would break the first 3 instance rules, there’s no reason to expect it to be allowed. The difficulty comes when bigoted rhetoric is subtle enough to go unrecognised, or has been normalised. So it would help to know which comment is repeating which talking points.

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- ryannathans@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  The “Nazi talking points” that aren’t mentioned could be a bait, and be something as simple as anti communism or economic reforms that stimulate production through public works (e.g. the autobahn)
  
  They may not be the things the Nazis were hated for…
  
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  - Zagorath@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    It was a user suggesting that Jews need “living space” (exact words) and that this justifies Israel’s multiple invasions of its neighbours.
    
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Bazell@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
It applies to each comunity and instance separately. Some instances(like Lemmy.ml) not only allow this, but their admins do similar things actively. So, it writing Nazi comments is against policies of comunity and/or instance, this user most likely will be punished. Otherwise, you may be punished for interfering with Nazi doing its stuff in Nazi place.

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- eureka@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  This is a user on aussie.zone on the meta community of aussie.zone talking about a user of aussie.zone.
  
  And it’s bizarre and ridiculous to claim that lemmy.ml allows Nazis.
  
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  - Bazell@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    That’s the point. I didn’t say that. I haven’t specified the opposite. Lemmy.ml welcomes pro-russian propagandists and nationalists. So you comment it irrelevant from this point of view.
    
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- Zagorath@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I’m an aussie.zone user commenting on !meta@aussie.zone to understand the aussie.zone admins’ and users’ stance. I’m not sure what any of your comment has to do with this.
  
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