Some weird spam and christo-cultic propaganda. Would we defed from it?

Submitted ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works⁩ to ⁨main@sh.itjust.works⁩

There’s that weird place discussed by the other instance’s admin here:

It’s a small nitherlandian instance that automated posting of christian testimonies (30k+, basically a youtube crawler by keywords, updated hourly) in one community and others are filled with conspiralogical content. Maybe they have their place somewhere before?

Haven’t seen a direct bigotry at a quick glance (closing my eyes on muslims finding christian Jesus-posts), but it looks like spreading conspiracies and serving as an ad for a cult. Is that against our rules? They sometime showed in my feed too. And they are an outright spam entity having 30k posts for like 50 users.

I think that’s either a sectarian indocrination or someone being very ill in the head.

I vouch for defederating them and maybe contacting them if they need help.

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Comments

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sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Nah, the users aren’t causing problems, the content isn’t illegal, and there’s no impact to our users unless someone opts in to view those posts.

Leave it. If they start spamming communities outside their instance, then consider defederation.

Also, this should probably go in The Agora, not here.

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- andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Can you explain what’ Agora is?
  
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  - nyahlathotep@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    sh.itjust.works/c/agora
    
    It’s the voting community of this instance. Users (or admins) post discussions on rule/policy changes like your post here, they’re discussed for a while, then an admin posts a vote thread for sh.itjust.works users to vote whether we should accept the change. Your post should go there.
    
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  - sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    sh.itjust.works/c/agora
    
    Basically it’s a place for the community to discuss instance-wide changes like defederation or rule changes, and is named after the forum in ancient Greece. The process is:
    
    Post a discussion thread
    
    After discussion, post a vote thread
    
    After thread timeout, admins act on the decision
    
    This community is for general discussion about the instance, but most non-urgent actions need to go through the Agora first.
    
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Stanley_Pain@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Just because you don’t like stuff doesn’t automatically mean everyone needs to de-fed from them. Kinda stupid how many people call for de-fed for the most basic of things…

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- sj_zero ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Certainly living up to generational stereotypes about never being able to remotely tolerate anything that they don't agree with.
  
  I wonder if there's a market for a Reddit clone that is just a large language model that analyzes every post you make and makes more posts agreeing with whatever you said identically, and anytime you don't like what you see, you can just hit the ban button and every post even remotely like it is just removed because it's just a bunch of gibberish sputtered up by a large language model trying to copy you.
  - RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    There is a market for everything. But people would probably figure out that none of the posts are real so nobody would use it anymore. Unless you made it into a game where you roleplay as a forum admin, somewhat akin to HyperSpace Outlaw.
    
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  - southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You just described reddit ;)
    
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- andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Have you checked the numbers there?
  
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  - Stanley_Pain@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Are any of those posts/users doing anything bad in particular? If you’re worried about spam block and move on? De-fed is like using a nuke to kill a fly.
    
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RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Just because you don’t like the content doesn’t mean you have to instantly defederate. I am getting really tired of this increasing trend of wanting to immediately defederate just because some users don’t like or agree with the content. I don’t like that content either, but it is so easy for me as an individual user to block content I don’t like to see.

Unless the users on that instance are maliciously posting illegal content in droves onto other instances or something, there is no reason defederation should be considered. Defederation is a last resort option, not a first response to something you don’t like or agree with.

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- andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Posts there are a spam to indocrinate other users.
  
  Imagine them, but being about how they’ve found their place in the church of scientology.
  
  Besides that spammer, there are not many users, not much content. It can be sawed off without anyone noticing that shit.
  
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  - RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Of that one problematic community, there are like 6 users. Just block the users and the community. Very easy.
    
    Why should we punish people that decided to create an account on that instance just because of the like 6 people posting content you don’t like by removing the other user’s right to access this instance via their account on that instance?
    
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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.

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- 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.
  
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  - 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.
    
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  - 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.
    
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stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Just reading through the comments, OP what part of its already contained don’t you understand?

People are allowed to be fucking weirdos here as long as they aren’t bugging others. End of story.

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- andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Why picking Fediverse for a website content? It’s not contained if it’s randomly shown to other users across the Fediverse. They could’ve created a dedicated WP site just for their archive of links. End of story.
  
  Yet, here it is, with a content that can be characterized as an entry into their religion, like shampoo samples, and all Fediverse is open for their posts randomly appearing.
  
  It’s either they don’t know it leaks, or they do it intentionally. Either way I myself vouch for a ban. That’s my pov.
  
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  - stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I can’t help but feel you’re doing this on purpose…
    
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nyahlathotep@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
See the posts column in this screenshot for context:

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That testimonial community at the top is the only spamming one as far as I can immediately tell. Every user is able to easily block that community with two clicks. I’m personally not inclined to defederate from an instance without multiple communities/whole instances dedicated to spamming, tons of bots, rampant and/or admin-sanctioned bigotry, rampant trolling, illegal content (that the admins already defederate automatically on their own), or something causing an existential crisis within lemmy (like threads). I don’t think lemmy.staphup.nl qualifies on spamming. If I were admin of that instance, I’d definitely ban the testimonial community though.

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MomoTimeToDie@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Just block it if you don’t like it ffs

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- andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Lol, true.
  
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