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Seems like a good plan while their content is unmoderated. Appreciate your monitoring of the situation TheDude.
I think this is the perfect issue to use as a springboard for the discussion and possible creation of a federation policy that TheDude can refer to in order to better navigate decisions, and we can influence the specific instances via changes to the policy. As a first stab at this, I’ll reference the federation policy originally written by @captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works here. I have made some slight tweaks to the original that I feel capture the spirit, while simplifying it. I have included references to Canadian law, as that’s where the server physically is and thus it makes the most sense to use Canadian law as the reference.
Admins of sh.itjust.works may defederate with another instance when that instance:- is experiencing technical difficulties that impact the functioning of sh.itjust.works
- is host to a large number of bot accounts that generate unwanted/disruptive traffic
- is currently without administration due to credential theft, lack of time/interest, or any other reason causing the instance to be unmoderated.
Defederations done for these reasons must be immediately reverted once the admins are made aware that the underlying issue is resolved.
Admins of sh.itjust.works must defederate with another instance immediately when that instance:- is operated for the purpose of posting commercial advertisements to other instances.
- does not remove in a timely manner posts considered illegal under Canadian law, including but not limited to child pornography, hate speech, hate propaganda (advocation and/or promotion of genocide).
is operated primarily for the purpose of political extremism/radicalization to include rampant bigotry, racism, sexism, calls to violence.
EDIT: On further reflection and reading, I’m unsure of my 3rd point there about political extremism, as that’s very subjective. I’m unsure if it’s even needed, as bigotry, racism, sexism and calls to violence are all adequately covered under Canada’s hate speech laws.
is host to a large number of bot accounts that generate unwanted/disruptive traffic
Defederation questions/requests should be made in private, at least initially. That is to avoid turning an instance, which may temporarily not be actively administered/moderated, into a hotbed of illegal posting.
As it stands, any concern troll can turn a random small instance, which may not have an admin around for two days or three, into a hotbed of illegal or potentially-illegal activity, simply by bringing attention to it with a public defederation request.
Even with the presumption of genuine concern, the effect and end result will be the same.
Fun fact: My original was written in a hurry so I could run out to the grocery store before it closed, so please consider it a rough draft to be improved upon.
“is host to a large number of bot accounts” I think needs a little more context.
Awhile ago my All New feed was clogged with nearly identical bot posts to nearly identical communities somewhere out on the fediverse. Someone had created a community for every team in some sports ball league, and had set up bots for each that posted game scores/results for each. While it’s very bot spammy, I think it is legitimate traffic that does not warrant defederation. This is a perhaps inelegant example of what bots are for.
How about “is host to a large number of bot accounts that generate unwanted/disruptive traffic”
Thanks, edited!
I 100% agree. I also think point 3 should be time boxed, as in give the admin 3 days or something to respond, after which it’ll be defederated, but it could also be defederated if it meets another criteria in the meantime.
I was coming to make the [Discussion] Defederate Rammy post anyways as the drama seemed to be blowing up, thanks for saving us the trouble.
Love the ideas I keep seeing to adopt a defederation policy so you all don’t get called authoritarians everytime you have to defederate from an unmoderated instance quickly.
Solid move The dude. That’s, like, my opinion, man.
Good call. Seems like a fairly straightforward decision as here and Lemmy.world defederated from exploding heads, and the person posting inflammatory content on rammy is literally the exact same person from exploding heads.
Who is he and why is he doing it? Does anyone know?
Seems to be basically a 4chan edgelord type of person.
What was he even posting?
from what I saw, racist and anti-LGBT memes that were supposed to be humorous but obviously were offensive and not very funny, as well as that one style of manipulative right wing news - Breitbart style I guess.
It’s good he was banned, then
From what I recall, the discussions (which are still available) were 10% people saying the concept of defederation troubled them (which I don’t agree with, myself) and 90% people saying yes, fuck online hate speech.
Will the users be able to block instances in the future? The whole defederation doesn’t sit right with me but neither is the hate on that instance okay. But shouldn’t the user be the one who should be doing this in the first place, for the overall health of fediverse
I believe it’s on the roadmap for Lemmy, but that’s outside an instance admin’s control
I think some apps allow you to do this.
Doesn’t Mastodon?
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Rammy.site seems to be behind a TOR Encryption (yes i used a ip grabbing tool) or at least that’s what its normally like when evry ip locator gets a different continent…
2023-08-04 20:17:08 UTC
144.172.73.16
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/102.0
2023-08-04 20:17:15 UTC
144.172.73.16
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/102.0
Anyway, yes block it unmoderated stuff is bad and will likely cause problems, legal problems if it goes especially bad.
Btw found the hoster, its a German Company :/
fyi tor exit node list is always public, and that address is one
Yes. But the website i use doesn’t check the TOR exit nodes, just location checks via IP over a bunch of different locator services, but tor nodes are easy to identify like that as well.
Makes complete sense.
Great Job!
You are going to have to put up with a bunch of whining and fake tears if you don’t, so go ahead.
I’m not a huge fan of defederation (unless they’re doing something illegal). We should just let Nazis make fools of themselves in public.
Not a good move. That instance had almost no content before the defederation trolls gave it publicity. You just made the age old mistake of feeding the trolls. And they will come back for more, and more, and more…
There’s always the option of bringing them back later once they sort their stuff out. That’s also just how Lemmy is designed so the trolls get cut off
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I’m just along for the ride but Federated and Democratic are 2 different things. Also they’re not preventing them from existing and creating content, they’re just not cross-hosting them. I prefer my Lemmy Nazi-Free.
Democracy can’t support Fascism because Fascists only want to abuse the freedoms of Democracy in order to destroy it.
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seemingly entirely because one random guy with no history raised a post calling for defederation
Did you read any of the linked announcements and is that what you honestly got out of it? Or are you trolling?
I read them and it states pretty clearly that admins tried to contact rammy admins and were unsuccessful, therefore the unmoderated label was correct, therefore remaining federated does open up the admins of our server to illegal child porn.
I’m assuming you’re not going to show up to defend the admin from legal charges with any useful help, so I’d say the admin is justified in prioritizing their opinion over yours (in this case)
This will continue to be the reality of making your home on someone elses’s hardware. If you want to federate with every unmoderated instance out there, MAKE YOUR OWN - and enjoy the legal fees.
Ultimately it’s his instance, his liability if shit goes sideways, so his call to make.
I don’t think it’s the end of democratic anything, and it seems to be more because another instance took action and defederated than the call of a single person, because context matters.
The statement referenced said there was no responsive administration at rammy as reported by a rammy user and attempts to reach admins by others were not successful.
That’s very different from what you’re trying to claim.
