Dbzero Governance Vote Post https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/63525728
Ahoy mateys!
A few of our users have recently pointed out that a lot of the pro-Zionist accounts on the fediverse nowadays seem to come from the feddit.org instance.
But whatever the excuse happens to be, they need to do better imo. Israel is currently the most violent, fascist and genocidal nation state in the Middle East (if you exclude the US military bases there). And yet feddit.org seems to regard the Palestinians fighting against Israel’s ongoing illegal occupation of their land as the real terrorists. …
More context
Our instance already voted to ban pro-Zionist accounts (see https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/60585441 for reference) and the rule that was implemented is here: Golden Rule #8.
As further context, you can find relevant comments and discussion in this post by a banned feddit admin in MoG (that fact they chose to post in MoG is in itself quite telling), and this post about their defederation from quokk.au over anti-semitism allegations has recently become active again. …
Note 2: If you think feddit.org deserves a full instance ban instead, or have alternative suggestions, then please leave your comments below. If enough people think that’s the better option, then we’ll do that instead.
In the end the Post had around 70% of support by dbzer0 users, who in the comments also called for defederation.
Here is a Link to Dbzer0 instances tab https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/instances where if you go to blocked instances you can see fedddit.org is now defederated
i dont think feddit has made a post now, but when they do i will add it
This comment section is a shit show. Be respectful of each other next time please. Locked.
This will probably be unpopular but the leftist - liberal infighting is my least favorite part of the fediverse and why I usually end up having to give people a warning before telling them to get on the fediverse.
This drama is kind of the epitome of that
I can’t think of any “leftist organisations” that support Zionism ? Maybe you’re confusing fascist with leftist ?
I mean “leftist organization” is a weird term and I would more speak of currents. And there is definitely the Antideutsche or Anti-Germans.
The German left, at least the loud one, is publically dividing between this topic. On demonstration you see a lot of people openly supporting Hamas, wearing the red triangle etc. For me it is only natural to fight this form of anti semitism. That makes you a “Zionist” on Lemmy, as there is often only “anti genocide and pro genocide” in online discussions. But the world is very complex and there is a large continuum between Islamic and Jewish ethno state philosophy.
Hemming and hawing over genocide is disgusting.
Seriously, imagine typing “there is often only ‘anti genocide and pro genocide’ in online discussions” and thinking “yes, I will post this and look like a very good and moral person”. Yes, if you’re not against genocide you’re for genocide. Yes, if you think supporting the resistance to genocide is antisemitic, you are a genocidal zionist. This type of “nuanced” “anti-zionism” (liberal zionism) is also widespread on feddit.org.
By fucking german law at that. And they enforce it too. Never again, as defined by nihlists with no soul serving the plutocracy while the far right takes their country from them and fixes elections while they are busy surrendering their people to tech.
One of them was extremely offended in another thread when I replied to them with “I was just following orders”.
What I think they meant was that people here only think about the genocide and thus declare the perpetrators evil (which they are) and the victims the good guys (hamas are not).
One side’s atrocities don’t justify the other side’s. Excusing your own group’s actions because they’re the good guys is far right thinking.
In reality there’s more factors to this than just the genocide, and both hamas and israel are the bad guys in their own way. One is just worse than the other, but that doesn’t make the other good.
declare the perpetrators evil (which they are)
Correct.
and the victims the good guys (hamas are not)
You’re wrong, Hamas are in fact “the good guys” in this conflict. The resistance to the genocidal settler state are good even if they don’t measure up to whatever arbitrary standard of perfection you have in mind.
One side’s atrocities don’t justify the other side’s. Excusing your own group’s actions because they’re the good guys is far right thinking.
Bullshit framing designed to try to equate between the invading settler state (with overwhelming firepower) and the (often barely adult) native resistance just trying to survive and protect their homes.
In reality there’s more factors to this than just the genocide, and both hamas and israel are the bad guys in their own way. One is just worse than the other, but that doesn’t make the other good.
“Hemming and hawing over genocide is disgusting.”
You’re wrong, Hamas are in fact “the good guys” in this conflict.
The world will be better when humans will be able to escape this manichean thinking.
You’re wrong, Hamas are in fact “the good guys” in this conflict.
Let’s agree to disagree there then. I wasn’t planning to convince you after all.
In this particular conflict, Hamas very much are the good guys (if we have to think in such childish terms) in the same way that the allies were the good guys in World War 2 despite the fact they were mostly genocidal empires themselves. Hell, Hamas are far less evil than almost every western government, especially the German one, because they aren’t actively supporting mass genocide.
You condemn all groups actually fighting against Isreals genocide. That is just supporting the Genocide with extra steps
Saying Hamas is antisemitic is sure fire sign of being a Zionist.
Palestinians are a semitic people.
If you want to saw that Hamas hates Jews, well, when your entire life has been being bombed by planes with stars of David on them, while jackbooted thugs with stars of David on their shoulder kick in your door to kidnap your family members in the night, and settlers with star of David necklaces show up and claim your home and land by divine right, I can start to see where you develop feelings toward the people who carry the same sign.
Maybe, just maybe, if Israel wanted the world to be a safer place for Jews they would stop associating a genocide with Judaisim as they are so fucking desperate to do.
Maybe, just maybe, if Israel wanted the world to be a safer place for Jews they would stop associating a genocide with Judaisim
You probably already know this, but Israel wants the world to be a more dangerous place for Jews to justify Israel’s illegitimate existence and aggression. That’s why they conducted terrorist attacks against Ethiopian Jews, to convince them that they needed to move to Israel as it’s the only safe place for them… where they’re then met by deep-rooted racism.
100%
Israel wants to be a Jewish ethnostate, but only the Jews they deem to be the “Good” ones
Antisemitic clearly means anti-Jewish. Sure it technically means all Semitic people, and as such a better word could have been used so long ago, but it’s intended and in use meaning today is very clearly defined. Jewish people have been some of the biggest victims of Middle Eastern and European hate for thousands of years.
You’re doing the #AllLivesMatter of religious hate.
Islamophobia is much more prevalent in the west than antijudaism. There is islamophobia on a systemic level. And lets not pretend that it’s directed only at muslims but arabs in general. Crying “antisemitism!!” about an indigenous armed resistance movement is the #alllivesmatter of this conflict.
The German left, at least the loud one, is public ally dividing between this topic. On demonstration you see a lot of people openly supporting Hamas, wearing the red triangle etc. For me it is only natural to fight this form of anti semitism. That makes you a “Zionist” on Lemmy, as there is often only “anti genocide and pro genocide” in online discussions. But the world is very complex and there is a large continuum between Islamic and Jewish ethno state philosophy.
This is all nonsense and you are indeed a zionist. Thank you for making it clear to everyone.
That makes you a “Zionist” on Lemmy, as there is often only “anti genocide and pro genocide” in online discussions.
Thank you again for clarifying which side you are on.
It does not make you a Zionist on Lemmy. You are a Zionist in real life.
“Opposing Hamas makes you a Zionist”, can you confirm that statement?
You said supporting Hamas is antisemitic. Why are you crawling back to the word Zionism now?
Me
[…] people openly supporting Hamas, wearing the red triangle etc. For me it is only natural to fight this form of anti semitism. That makes you a “Zionist” on Lemmy […]
You
It does not make you a Zionist on Lemmy. You are a Zionist in real life.
Again you
You said supporting Hamas is antisemitic. Why are you crawling back to the word Zionism now?
Me
???people openly supporting Hamas, wearing the red triangle etc. For me it is only natural to fight this form of anti semitism
This is a Zionist defense of Israel by conflating antisemitism with anti-Zionism.
Yes, opposing the main resistance to zionism makes you a zionist. Glad we all understand each other.
Edit: not that you’ll see this, I can see piefed.social dropping my replies to you because you have me (or maybe my instance) blocked.
You believe it is evil to resist Isreals imperialism. That’s Zionism
Spoken like someone that condemned the ANC as terrorists in the 80’s.
“Sure, apartheid is wrong, but the people suffering it and fighting it are the worst” <— you.
ask an anti german what they think of muslims in the middle east :) it’ll be the most misanthropic thing you heard all day. anti germans are disgusting zionists and need to be shunned from leftist places. they are pro-genocide and there is no nuance to it. they are not part of the left, just delusional cosplayers
What’s wrong with the term “leftist organization?” Educate, agitate, organize is the common saying, organizing is the fundamental task of leftists.
notice how you worry about how palestinians defending themselves, but not about the millions of them killed and starved.
“Is genocide bad? Who can say, it’s just so complex!”
You should have been bullied more in school.
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Before Lemmy, I didn’t know it was possible to go so left that you hated liberals.
Corporate media didn’t want you to be exposed to any ideas outside of the Overton window.
Sometimes the further left extremes I’ve heard hear are indistinguishable from conservative Q-Anon. I legitimately need to check users post histories to understand which extreme they are on
They are very clearly distinguishable, just not to you yet. Until recently, you’d only ever heard disagreements coming from your right, so you confuse disagreements coming from your left with them.
- ‘Horseshoe theory’ is nonsense – the far right and far left have little in common
- Are the far-left and far-right merging together? That’s what the ‘horseshoe theory’ of politics says, but it’s wrong
Liberalism in fact has more in common with fascism than socialism: they’re both capitalist ideologies. Previously.I legitimately need to check users post histories to understand which extreme they are on
If you can’t tell the difference between “media companies serve the interests of their owners and managers” and Q-Anon, that might indicate a problem with you rather than with others.
Ain’t much difference between MAGA and tankies.
Ain’t much difference between nazis and the people who stopped the nazis, apparently. /s
Communists and fascists are diametric opposites. Communists seek to collectivize production and distribution to fulfill the needs of everyone. Fascists seek the preservation of private property and the extermination of labor organizers. Lazily equating the two and doing nothing to back it up is just “enlightened” centrism.
Good thing I didn’t say communist then
Sure, if you’re a moron
It’s very easy to distinguish if you actually act in good faith, which you clearly don’t
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The comment I replied to vs. this from QAnon page on Wikipedia.
The cabal is thought to cover up its existence by controlling politicians, mainstream media, and Hollywood.
Only difference is that your side is “right”
Only difference is that your side is “right”
lmao, you’re the perfect centrist. By your standard, “the Holocaust happened” and “white genocide in South Africa happened” are both equally valid statements. Do you see how ridiculous it is to just group statements by superficial similarity and treat them as equivalent regardless of the substance of the claims or the evidence?
I never said those were equal statements
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I don’t believe the horseshoe theory. Far left and far right have a number of stark differences such as religion, economic policy, etc. I just believe that both sides are fringe cult-like environments, particularly when it comes to isolating yourselves and ideology control. Occasionally, I see other similarities.
Imo, far left isn’t clearly closer to the far right in most beliefs, except cult-like behavior
You are reducing both sides to an extreme and extracting a single quote from both of them - “corporate media is lying to you to protect politicians preying on children” . You understand that one side is right and the other isn’t - where do you think the difference appears? Certainly not at the extreme surface level of a single quote you are picking.
All sides in WW2 were killing people, I literally can’t tell the difference!
The statement is that far left makes similarly culty statements like “X entity is hiding evidence that supports our views from the general public”. It’s the “everyone except us lies” part of the culty belief. My statement is that both far left and far right have fringe beliefs that are culty or close to it.
Liberalism is supportive of capitalism, leftism begins at anti-capitalism. What did you think the left was before Lemmy?
Liberalism was the original leftism: see the French revolutionary National Assembly. It doesn’t intrinsically have anything to do with capitalism. In general, liberalism is neither left nor right. It promotes individualism. Historically, it progressed from humanism.
leftism begins at anti-capitalism
Not the political science definition.
General definitions & the historical development of liberalism are academic.
liberalism, political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics. Liberals typically believe that government is necessary to protect individuals from being harmed by others, but they also recognize that government itself can pose a threat to liberty.
Some of the earliest liberal practices are found in the US Declaration of Independence, which predates the French revolution spreading the practice of liberal ideals throughout Europe. The US declaration pretty much rehashes core tenets of liberal philosophy
- inherent equality of individuals
- universal individual rights & liberties
- consent of the governed (governments exist for the people who have a right to change & replace them, & authority is legitimate only when it protects those liberties).
Note how capitalism isn’t mentioned anywhere: it’s nonessential. Capitalism predates & isn’t liberalism. Liberalism is moral & political philosophy, not an economic one.
The philosophy is a natural progression of humanist philosophies from the Renaissance through the Protestant Reformation & the Enlightenment that stress the importance of individuality, secular reasoning, & tolerance over dogma & subservience to unaccountable authority. To address unaccountable authority based on dogma & traditions, English & French philosophers defined legitimate authority based on humanist morality pretty much as expressed in the US declaration. They argued that political systems thrive better with limits & duties on authority & an adversarial system of institutional competition whether in separation of powers, adversarial law system with habeas corpus & right to jury trial, competitive elections, dialogue, or economic competition.
Liberalism arose as a bourgeois ideology to use against the feudalist systems, the equivalent in feudalism being the clergy and the church. The mode of production capitalism is based on individual ownership of capital, and claiming the labor-power sold by workers is equal in position to the capitalists buying the labor-power and selling commodoties.
Liberalism was left when feudalism was dominant. Putting it in its historical context, it helped overthrow feudalism. However, there is no “Absolute Idea” of Hegel, what was progressive at one point is still reactionary at a later point. In the era of capitalist decay, socialism is on the left, the progressive ideology.
Leftist vs liberal infighting has been going on since the late 1700s.
Of course what you really have to ask yourself is, if they’ve been infighting since basically the beginning and if their ideals are diametrically opposed then is it even in fighting?
Liberals love to call it infighting because it allows them to take credit for all the progress that happened thanks to leftists. And yet they’re always on the right-wing side of those “infights”.
1700s
When the liberals were the leftists?
Nope.
Yes: crack open a history book.
Maybe you should actually read some of it next time. Read about Gracchus Babeuf and learn a bit.
Maybe read about the French revolutionary National Assembly & where political left came from?
I joined to talk about math and programming. It’s a letdown that this Podunk platform seems to consist mostly of the weirdest, loudest people who saw the political compass meme and took it way too seriously.
We take politics so seriously that we don’t take the political compass meme the least bit seriously:
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Political_Compass
Agreed. A bunch of general purpose instances with slight variations on ideology that are pretty much identical.
Yay anarchists! 👍
Boo zionists! 👎Classical Lemmy.ml comment
I thought .ml were disgusting authoritarian tankies, now also anarchists are tankies? Almost as if it was a left-punching slur all along :o
I meant the inability between distinguishing moderating hate speech and supporting genocide.
Lemmy.ml definitely has its problem with nuanced positions.
There is no nuance in settler colonialism and supermasist ideologies
Yes, we should be moderating hate speech and opposing genocide. The hate speech and genocide direct at the Palestinian people by the Israeli Settler Colony.
And all of that is 100% possible without having any conflicts with the existing rules. If you cant voice your opinion without direct hate speech that sounds pretty much like a you problem.
Which anti-zionists are saying what hate speech? The hate speech is principly coming from zionists who call Palestinians terrorists and call for their genocide.
Few ever explicitly call for Palestinian genocide in mixed company. Instead they hasbara. And most Zionists in the fediverse are liberal Zionists who don’t want to see a genocide, but somehow still haven’t come to terms with reality after almost a year and a half of genocide.
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This really is a great thread for finding people to block!
Totally Agree
Funny how you guys generalize ml users then get mad when people generalize feddit.org users
I thought this was meant as a compliment until I saw “@feddit.org”, lmao.
Understandable, since ‘classic’ is more likely to be used for a compliment. If it were me, I would have used ‘typical’.
Sorry, what was that? I can’t hear you when you’re all the way over in defederation.
Especially since the .ml-ers are mostly Putin bootlickers and authoritarian fans. I hope real anarchists can see that.
But you don’t understand Putin is fighting NATO, he’s a hero! Who cares about the dead Ukranians, they deserve it for not wanting to be conquered by imperialist Russia.
Fuck anarchists, tankies, Zionists, regressives and bigots in general.
Y’all just different shades of the same crazy.
Everyone is crazy, except your team, right?
a predictable lemmy.ml user retort.
Relevant username? :)
Lol, go back to reddit
Usually how that works. Personally what’s going on over there, fuck em both. All they want is violence. Let them have it. Problem solves itself eventually.
Interesting that finally there starts to be some reprecusions for the Germans being so pro genocide. I know it’s a very small gesture in a very nish social media but I’m happy about it neverthe less.
A simplified world view is really tempting sometimes. What if I told you that fighting anti semitism and being pro genocide are two things that can be distinguished from each other?
tying the criticism of pissraeli state with antisemitism in general is antisemitic. “my fellow jewish people must be supportive of a genocidal settler colonial state” is a bad look that’ll bite the propagandists in the ass in the future and i feel sorry for the jewish people getting caught ip in that.
If you want to fight antisemitism, you should be fighting Israel. They’re the largest source of antisemitism worldwide by enacting a genocide in the name of Judaism.
Bro shut your fucking zionist mouth up. Nobody likes you and nobody gives a flying fuck about your excuses for the pedo genocidal murder country. Stuff your holes with wrustels and stfu.
Sorry, but this is not how you talk to people.
🤭 Oh no… here is the catch tho: who supports pedofilia, cannibalism, genocide, rape, murder to innocent people is a not a person.
At best you are a stupid incel brainwashed by your family to love some religious fanatics, at worst you are a low life demon sitting in tel aviv doing propaganda. I do not have respect for demons and I only have pity for kids and dogs.
You are just fucking revolting.
Zionists barely count as people
Now if only the Germans realised that
Sadly that seems to be upsetting some 😞
If it’s upsetting to someone they’re either a Zionist or a fascist. This thread has brought a lot of those horrible people out of the woodwork. It’s good we can easily see them for who they are now.
“By their actions you shall recognize them” and all that.
In those cases, no one being upset would probably show nothing was achieved.
about the later’s Zionist Bar Problem
I’d prefer to have a less biased title for this thread because this is a very one-sided point of view and just parrots what the db0 admin claims without questioning them.
Edit: Thanks for putting it in quotation marks, OP.
Disappointing how many downvotes you have, especially given zero other responses thus far. You’ve got a valid point, and the mod/admin teams at db0 already have their own behavior issues, so there’s surely more to the story than this.
It’s a pretty emotional topic for a lot of people, so I’m not surprised. Still, I’d advise everyone who downvotes to at least take a look at what the other side has to say. This thread has a feddit.org mod comment on the situation:
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I have downvoted. You are a zionist defending genocidal pedo murders and your opinion is disregarded. You do not deserve any reply but just to be bullied. Fascist cunt fuck.
so there’s surely more to the story than this.
I mean in addition to instances zionism the feddit.org admin used a troll comm to called out several users for the crime of upvoting the defed thread, and then those users started getting DM harassment
Love how someone is using that exact same mwog thread to show how the feddit admin was wronged
Look, they get to advocate for genocide and mass murder, but if you ask them to stop, they’re the real victims!
“We should be very careful lest we hurt the feelings of Zionists”
This all stems from a fundamental misunderstanding that no one seems to be interested in clearing up.
The original post that brought the allegations of feddit being zionist to more people is this one, and the one that originated the allegations is this one.
The feddit.org admin inside explicitly states that the removal of the comment being talked about by the original thread is not about pro-zionism or anti-semitism.
Now what does the person claim it is about? That seems to be majorly ignored. Let me rephrase it in my own words.
In Germany, after national socialism, we have very strict rules on how you are allowed to talk about it, because there were unfortunately a lot of people still denying it or not believing it. One of those rules is that no statement may be made that makes national socialism seem better than it was. So something you can’t say for example is “Trump’s ICE is national socialism!”. This seems extremely weird from an outside (the person saying it’s) perspective, because obviously, yes, the tactics Trump uses are directly borrowed from national socialism.
However, if you look at national socialism as a whole, it was much worse than just ICE. Millions were killed etc.
Now, the person who makes the statement “Trump’s ICE is national socialism!” is obviously using it to express that ICE is terrible. But if you want to look at it from a certain way (which German law likes to do) it’s also saying that they’re roughly equal, which, since Trump and ICE is currently not quite at the level of full national socialism, would minimize the severity of national socialism by bringing it “down” to the same level as the Trump regime and ICE.
Obviously, from a perspective of a person today, this seems ridiculous, because the current threat is ICE and not national socialism, so who cares about “how national socialism is talked about exactly”?! Isn’t it much more important to make sure that ICE is taken appropriately seriously? And you would of course be right. But the stance is that the ends do not justify the means, and it is very much possible to fight against ICE without comparing it to the whole of national socialism.
This is what is being talked about by the mods/admins. It has nothing to do with either anti-semitism or anti-zionism.
Now, if you say something like “Trump’s ICE resembles early national socialism!”, that is a completely fine statement to make in the eyes of the law. You are actually comparing ICE to what it actually is, “early [stages of] national socialism”, and not “national socialism [in general]”.
Feelings are running high, even as I type these words, I can imagine it. But please try to think about this stance for a moment and try to see that it is not Trump ICE apologist, or trying to minimize what ICE is doing. It is simply trying to pay heed to two important issues at the same time, of which one has much more immediacy and current real impact on people’s lives than the other.
I used this ICE example on purpose because it is even nearer than the genocide in Gaza. And because it is farther away from “full national socialism style genocide”. I hope I could make the thinking in this example clear, and I hope at least a modicum of rationality can be attributed to this.
And now let’s go back to the original zionist accusations. The original comment was removed because of the last part of it, which said “Providing material support to Israel is no different from providing material support to Nazi Germany”. As much as people don’t want to see it, the situation in Gaza is actually different than the situation in Nazi Germany. The Jewish population in Nazi Germany never launched rockets at Germans, in fact, jewish people in Nazi Germany were exceptionally peaceful. In Gaza, there is genocide happening, there is a power differential, and Palestinians need to fight back, but there is simply no rational denying that it’s not the same as the genocide in Nazi Germany.
Obviously what is happening in Gaza is terrible and Israel needs to be condemned, but what they’re doing is still not on the same level of evil as Nazi Germany. And thus you could argue that comparing the situation in Gaza to national socialism is minimizing the severity of national socialism. And thus the same kind of argument applies as in the previous example with ICE, it just is even less understandable for a person who didn’t know/understand/agree with this argument.
I’m basically sure I’ll be condemned as a zionist now, or whatever, go ahead.
So many comments jesus. I ain’t reading all that. Free Palestine and Death to Israel.
Zionists eat shit.
Nice. Props to db0
Very cool of dbzer0.
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You should read up on the position of germany before making dumb posts like this https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/aussenpolitik/regionaleschwerpunkte/nahermittlererosten/middleeastconflict-228366
Thry send weapons to israel to maintain the occupation and continue the genocide
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Wow, Germany sent A STRONGLY WORDED LETTER?? Damn, how did the genocide not stop immediately? Oh wait, they still maintain full diplomatic and economic relations with the genocidal Zionist entity, and have done no effort to ban Zionist and far-right media after proving that under German law there are provisions to ban media (as was done with Russian media).
They even gave them a finger wag! Israel is really brave to stand strong against such antisemitism! /s
Oh nice meeting a Zionist apologist who I had already tagged “Evroshitlib 🤡”, posting apologia for a settler-colonialist project. The Zionist entity has no right to exist. Period.
So no negotiations and no two-state solution then? What do you want?
You’re right, the Jews should have negotiated their way out of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Surely a reasonable deal could have been made with the Nazi génocidaires.
Whataboutism, nice. But surely starting another war was the only reasonable choice for hamas…
This is Holocaust exceptionalism. It is a trivialization of the slow, grinding genocide that Israel has been prosecuting for the last eighty years.
The great majority of Gazans were born in and have lived their entire lives in that open-air prison, that ghetto, their parents having been condemned there, many after their homes were stolen in the Nakba ethnic cleansing campaign. All Palestinians in Israel have lived under apartheid, settler-colonial rule their entire lives, in their own land, under military occupation.
Your whataboutism thought-terminating cliché is in bad faith.
Citations Needed podcast: Whataboutism - The Media’s Favorite Rhetorical Shield Against Criticism of US Policy
Since the beginning of what’s generally called ‘RussiaGate’ three years ago, pundits, media outlets, even comedians have all become insta-experts on supposed Russian propaganda techniques. The most cunning of these tricks, we are told, is that of “whataboutism” – a devious Soviet tactic of deflecting criticism by pointing out the accusers’ hypocrisy and inconsistencies. The tu quoque - or, “you, also” - fallacy, but with a unique Slavic flavor of nihilism, used by Trump and leftists alike in an effort to change the subject and focus on the faults of the United States rather than the crimes of Official State Enemies.
But what if “whataboutism” isn’t describing a propaganda technique, but in fact is one itself: a zombie phrase that’s seeped into everyday liberal discourse that – while perhaps useful in the abstract - has manifestly turned any appeal to moral consistency into a cunning Russian psyop. From its origins in the Cold War as a means of deflecting and apologizing for Jim Crow to its braindead contemporary usage as a way of not engaging any criticism of the United States as the supposed arbiter of human rights, the term “whataboutism” has become a term that - 100 percent of the time - is simply used to defend and legitimizing American empire’s moral narratives.
Ben Burgis at Current Affairs: Is “Whataboutism” Always a Bad Thing?
Discussing the crimes of our own country as well as the crimes of others is not always an effort to downplay other countries’ crimes—it can be a test of whether we are serious about our principles.
@BrainInABox@lemmy.ml, remember that you’re on lemmy.world, where reporting someone for being a Zionist is likely to only backfire.
Funny how Israel constantly bombing, shooting, and kidnapping Palestinians prior to October 7th wasn’t an act of war, but when Palestinians do it back suddenly it is.
Also good to see we’re at the point of referring to any and all analogies as “whataboutism”
Lol, the two state solution was never real, but it’s been obviously unfeasible for decades now. Anybody still spruking it is doing so in bad faith
Don’t bother engaging with the troll, they are clearly not arguing in good faith.
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ok.
I’ve noticed this too and have been following the conversation. However, I think self-isolation isn’t the answer. Allowing r/The_Donald to go private didn’t stop the far right.
What works is challenging these people, constantly. Mockery, abuse, whatever it takes. But building up echo-chambers, or allowing echo-chambers isn’t the solution.
its not really an echo chamber, lemmy unlike reddit is decentralised, so nothing is stopping a dbzero user from just making an account on feddit.org and interacting with them, in reddit if the admins decide to ban a community that community is just gone.
also having an echochambers isnt bad, like an instance like blahaj should be allowed to exist and not federate with instances that have a lax policy on transphobia, and thanks to lemmy’s decentralised nature you can join or make an instance that does have wide federation
Just because lemmy is decentralized doesn’t mean it doesn’t for echochambers. I mean look at ml. Or look at what squid did as a moderator to worldnews and political memes.
Echo chambers are absolutely a thing on lemmy. They exist at different scales (instance, sub, individual) but they absolutely exist.
I mean look at ml.
You mean the place constantly flooded by disagreeing liberals? Let’s be honest here; by “echo chamber” you just mean “place where my ideology isn’t the default”
The idealist, liberal myth of the “marketplace of ideas,” in the face of domestic and Israeli fascism.
Socialists—and in particular antifascists & Marxists—understand the paradox of tolerance.
You can’t change the mind of someone you don’t have access to.
Yes, that’s the idea, making sure that Zionists don’t have access to anyone.
- gestures vaguely at an entire western world that is effectively pro Zionist*
Does no one here understand the younger generations access to ideas? I think the idea that every one claims of creating echo chambers is not an effective one. The law of diminishing returns (as a business term) states that all else held equal an increase in production( or the free debate or posting of opinions) will not produce more profit after a certain point ( or the changing of others opinions) . When it comes to people posting and espousing for state sponsored genocide I think we have hit the top of that curve. If you stop the flow of that information you are not creating echo chambers but more effectively stopping the spread of bullshit and hate. They have Xhitter. Fucking ban this genocidal shit every chance you get, either foundationally or personally. I dont get a whiff of this on shitjust works because I dont engage with it.
Does no one here understand the younger generations access to ideas?
Feels an awful lot like “won’t somebody think of the children?”
All that means is you’ve closed your eyes to the world around you. It doesn’t mean that the world has changed. Avoidance doesn’t help. It actually makes things worse because you cede the moral and intellectual territory.
Alternatively, you can actually take the fight to people instead of hiding from problems. And as far as what the younger generation sees, if you aren’t providing arguments against fascism, against zionism, who is going to win that mind?
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Man you really beat the fuck out of that strawman.
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Go back to Reddit
Its not won’t somebody think of the children… Its get this shit out of their face. Block it. Thats the beauty of the fediverse.
The initial point was that younger generations feed off engagements. You block the conversation and it doesn’t exist. Its not a matter of closing your eyes to the world. Its closing the gates to the exact statement I made. Does no one understand how the younger generation get the information? Engagement. Was the answer. Failure to allow a platform will stop the spread of the misinformation in the first place.
‘Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference’.
E: these people and often misinformation machines are not trying to have a discourse. They are planting propaganda. ie. The qoute above. Stop the shit in your home. End the spread by denying a platform.
E2: I mean. I get what your saying on an institutional level, but fuck that this is a social media instance argument so. My first edit stands.
I get what your saying on an institutional level
Yeah. Is what it is. I don’t think feddit is some kind of zionist propaganda machine, although its clear that it hosts plenty of zionists. I’d rather berate, abuse, mock, and contest them in the comments. I have enough respect for the youth to trust their judgement.
The mods would ban you if you did that
People love to criticize the marketplace of ideas and sure it’s imperfect… but what’s he alternative? Covering your ears and going lalalalala is even less effective than persuasion.
Some of the options can’t be discussed on lemmy.world because of rule 1.
I’m sad at how selectively they use that rule
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Well I don’t think that’s very effective either but if we can’t have a discussion then we’ll just have to disagree.
It’s worked before. If only we’d had more premature antifascists, we might have nipped it in the bud before it enveloped most of Europe and China.
What worked was the might of a multiple empires waging total war against one another. I don’t think any Lemmings have that power at their disposal.
Of course this only worked after tens of millions of deaths, so it wasn’t exactly the ideal solution even then.
As much as I hate to agree with Tankies, I think their point was that a more surgical method could have prevented things from boiling over into a world war.
People love to criticize the marketplace of ideas and sure it’s imperfect… but what’s he alternative?
Ban Zionists and Nazis and Fascist from all aspects of the public sphere. Europe was quick to ban all Russian media when the war began, we could literally do that with far right media.
Sure, if you have total power over the media ecosystem. But we don’t.
So the question has to be asked–are you banning Zionism from the public square or simply exiling anti Zionism into a small echo-chamber where no one will hear it anymore and Zionism will go unchallenged? This is my problem with this approach.
Idk if it’s building echo chambers in this case or just wanting to get away from a toxic admin.
See the comments and actively of them before the vote and then as it was happening
Plenty have alleged that db0 admins are toxic. I don’t think that but plenty have. See the ptb sub.
People throw around all kinds of slanderous language all the time: it’s the internet, our accent is hyperbole. It’s fine.
The bigger issue that I see here is the cultural tendency to not want your viewpoint challenged, and that’s coming from both sides on this one. It’s also an issue on ml and hexbear; and those instances will throw the same accusations right back in the face of the broader fediverse, and not be wrong.
Every defederation hurts the fediverse, and substantially. The issues that came up in 23’ between .world and .ml, things like that destroy these kinds of projects. Defederation also doesn’t change the minds of those who are on feddit, and for the db0, and versus vice. If you think someone is wrong, you should tell them so, and you need to be able to tell them.
I think it’s the wrong move. I think defederation is always the wrong move. It’s more important to fight about important things than it is to be comfortable right now. If db0 users think feddit is a bunch of fascist Zionists, then get into the comments and call them out. Don’t just let them comfortably be Zionists while you ignore the problem. And the same applies to feddit. If they’ve got the right of it, take the fight and defend your points.
But defederation is a lazy and community damaging move, not just to db0, but to the entire project. Defederation is how Lemmy dies.
No. Having instances with varying approaches to defederation is good for the fediverse. Having no defederation is how you end up with nostr.
Hard disagree, and thats thoroughly evidenced by the usership and engagement numbers.
The numbers of fediverse users have more to do with onboarding, VC funding for marketing and the inherent nature of federation itself than it has to do with defederation policies
Social networks thrive because they are networks. De-federation collapses the network. Its not more complicated than that.
Less content, less interactions, less engagement.
It is more complicated than that. Vulnerable minorities don’t thrive in spaces where they’re endlessly playing whack a mole with bigots and trolls.
I didn’t leave Twitter for the fediverse because of its network. I left even before Musk, because Twitter was full of hate that the admins didn’t feel the need to action.
Your preference is just that… And as long as there is room for your preference on the fediverse without it being the only way to experience it, we can both have the experiences we want.
how do you explain hexbear’s growth?
If my instance didn’t defederate hexbear I wouldn’t be on the fediverse at all.
What makes it different from just blocking the instance at user-level?
Defederating also blocks the users on Lemmy. Instance blocking at the user level just blocks the communities in Lemmy, you have to block each user individually.
It makes it so I don’t have to individually block the myriad trolls that emanate from that cesspool. I was seriously a couple pig shit images from never opening this site again.
I was reading the original discussion on dbzer0 and kept wondering what the removed by mod was under every comment agreeing with either partial ban or defed, so I looked at the modlog. It was literally the same pigshit picture posted over and over again, almost twenty times, by the same user, though fortunately I only had to see it once, by choice.
That’s a serious personal commitment to assholery right there, and this is apparently just one of the people coming over to do this on dbzer0 comms. To be honest I can’t claim to understand some of the political nuance that was coming up in the thread, but that one dude sure did make a strong argument for defed via the modlog, lol. If that’s an example of what dbzer0 has to put up with from multiple individual users of another instance, then considering defederation is absolutely a legitimate discussion to have.
That appears to be a troll account from my instance that was created just to do that, but by that behavior they are almost certainly a hexbear. They’ll never change
I think defederation only really makes sense if there is a concern of botting. Individual bad actors should be banned on a case by case basis, blanket banning seems shortsighted. However, I do believe there are bots on some instances now, compared to say a year ago where I believe they were more far and few between.
Part of my issue is also with bad actors “flooding the zone”. If enough noise is getting pushed constantly by bad actors/bots, it can sway public opinion just by virtue of people seeing those opinions more often. This was one of the things that killed Reddit for me, personally. Well that and a slew of other issues.
I think defederation only really makes sense if there is a concern of botting. Individual bad actors should be banned on a case by case basis, blanket banning seems shortsighted. However, I do believe there are bots on some instances now, compared to say a year ago where I believe they were more far and few between.
This is what I agree with. Regardless, I think almost the entire thread would agree that the fediverse/ lemmy is not fully cooked when it comes to the issue of federation.
it is important for people to be able to build spaces that provide community for people who have perfectly legitimate reasons for not wanting certain things around.
unfortunately providing that functionality inherently provides the functionality to create echo chambers for arbitrary reasons
you cannot have one without the other and I’d rather have both than neither
Building an echo chamber isn’t something done intentionally. Well… Sometimes it is.
It’s most often created by avoiding people you find annoying, toxic, etc. As long as you keep up that reasoning you eventually only interact with people who mostly agree with you. You’re blinding yourself to counter opinions. The definition of an echo chamber.When avoiding ideas or being challenged yes. When avoiding abuse no
The former often feels like the later.
Even more so when you’re not used to it.
This is only the case if you’re annoyed by people disagreeing with you. That’s what makes echo chambers.
You’re right, we should continue listening to the opinions of fascists and Lolita Express passengers until the end of time, otherwise we’ll be blindly bumping into furniture in our echo chamber.
I think you misread my comment. I agree that we shouldn’t let the fascists speak. I’m arguing against the comment above that says blocking fascists is a slippery slope to blocking everyone.
Oh my bad
First: your comment appears to be a reply to them not me. I think that’s where the confusion came from.
Second: You seem to be conflating listening to ideas with supporting them.
Third: Blocking places with bad ideas doesn’t silence the people there or eliminate their ideas. It contributes to their isolation and echo chamber. Often more then yours. You in fact end up helping make them worse. Which of course is worse for everyone.
Second: You seem to be conflating listening to ideas with supporting them.
We’ve already heard more than enough Zionist & fascist ideas.
Third: Blocking places with bad ideas doesn’t silence the people there or eliminate their ideas. It contributes to their isolation and echo chamber. Often more then yours. You in fact end up helping make them worse. Which of course is worse for everyone.
This echo chamber obsession is silly.
- The echo chamber is overstated: the moderating effect of political interest and diverse media
- Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing”
Online discourse isn’t going to defeat fascism. Fascism isn’t an ideology. It’s capitalist crisis management. It’s capitalism in decay.Once more let me remind you what fascism is. It need not wear a brown shirt or a green shirt – it may even wear a dress shirt. Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.
— Tommy Douglas
Feddit.org bans criticism of Israel. There is no point in a Zionist instance which does not allow debate on its own turf.
We tried they still defending the terrorist statr of Israel. It’s like debating neonazis it is useless
I mean, allowing echo chambers doesnt really seem avoidable on fedi tho? Like, only one side has to defederate to break two way communication, so if someone wants to avoid you, you cant really stop them, and the whole concept of moderation in a decentralized system relies on each instance being able to selectively view or block content from other instances based on the values of that instance. You cant really say “what works is challenging people” if the people you want to challenge have an “ignore” button for when you get too loud for their taste.
I mean it is. Look at .ml versus . world versus say… hexbear.
Banning, defederation,anything to de-voice people: it’s constantly being used to create local echo chambers. And it’s not like we don’t have a down vote button. We have a way to do “no” to content. But banning or defederation is saying “I don’t think you should be able to form an opinion on this content”. It’s very different.
And it’s not like we don’t have a down vote button.
I’ve been banned from communities merely for downvoting posts in them. Such behavior is toxic (on the part of the community’s mods, not me), but that doesn’t stop it from happening.
What’s toxic is downvoting everything in a community you don’t like instead of curating your feed. It’s vote spam.
💯 . As a project we’ve got some governance things to figure out.
Maybe Im not saying this right: Im wasnt arguing for the virtues of echo chambers with that, Im saying, with how fedi is designed, there is no means to prevent someone that wants to make an echo chamber from doing so, so suggesting that one should not allow an echo chamber to exist is a fool’s errand. In a more general sense, it seems to me that, either you let people decide what kind of content to see, in which case many if not most will naturally create echo chambers simply because they dont want to see views too different from their own, or you have some means to force people to see stuff they dont want to, which requires some difficult-to-escape authority have power over their media feed and as such is incompatible with decentralized federation (and of course risks that authority pushing everyone into their echo chamber). Both of those things lead to serious issues in my view, so its a bit of a “pick your poison” situation when it comes to social media design. Beyond that though, it does have to be acknowledged that there is simply more content, more messages and people wanting to spread their word, out there than any given person has the time or attention or mental capacity to process. That means that some system must exist that determines what fraction of it all you actually see (even if its just as simple as “the things most recently posted on a given platform when you looked at it”). I can see no way to do this that doesnt introduce biases.
ah gotcha. Now I understand.
I agree in principal but not in part. I do think its possible to set up echo chambers in the fediverse, and while its not impossible to break out of them, its definitely not convenient.
I agree entirely that its a design/ conceptual issue. I’ve long argued that the fediverse in its current format is very clearly a “1.0” conception.
You’re on an instance that is defederated from Hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml, though, both fairly popular instances. Why not move to Lemmy.zip, if you oppose defederation?
I didn’t notice c/europe was zionists. I just typed israel, I see highly (legitimately) upvoted posts against it.
I’m sure you can find some unsavory stuff, but I haven’t stumbled upon it once.
On the other hand I’ve been confronted to authoritarian bootlickers too many times from ml. If you don’t defederate from them too then you’re not being consistent.
