Defederation from Lemmygrad.ml

lwadmin@lemmy.worldmod to Lemmy.World Announcements@lemmy.world – 1632 points –

Hello World,

Today, after careful consideration and evaluation of recent events, we have decided to defederate from Lemmygrad.

Regrettably, we have observed a significant increase in hate speech and calls to violence originating from the Lemmygrad instance. Due to the severity of the posts and comments, we are not waiting for the next Lemmy update that will allow users to block instances.

At Lemmy.world, we have always strived to foster an inclusive and welcoming user environment. However, recent posts and comments from Lemmygrad have clearly violated our server rules and, more importantly, our core values. We firmly believe that hate speech and incitement of violence have no place in our community, regardless of personal beliefs or affiliations.

As always, we encourage all users to report any content they deem inappropriate or harmful. No matter one's stance in any conflict, Lemmy.world will always take immediate action to remove and ban any posts or comments that incite violence or propagate hatred.

We encourage everyone to continue engaging in discussions within the boundaries of respect and understanding. As we move forward with this decision, we remain committed to providing all community members with a safe and welcoming space. We appreciate your continued support and cooperation in upholding our shared principles.

Thank you,

The Lemmy.World Team

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Thank goodness.

I'm reminded of a story I read a while back - not sure where - about how if you let a Nazi into your bar, you eventually end up running a Nazi bar. I think the same applies to online forums. You let Nazis overrun a forum, everyone else leaves, and eventually you might as well just be running Stormfront.

Original Twitter post

I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, "no. get out."

And the dude next to me says, "hey i'm not doing anything, i'm a paying customer." and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, "out. now." and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed

Anyway, asked what that was about and the bartender was like, "you didn't see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them."

And i was like, ohok and he continues.

"you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it's always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don't want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.

And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it's too late because they're entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.

And i was like, 'oh damn.' and he said "yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people."

And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven't forgotten that at all.

Wiktionary has a fairly relevant definition for "Nazi Bar":

(Internet slang) A space in which bigots or extremists have come to dominate due to a lack of moderation or by moderators wishing to remain neutral or avoid conflict.

moderators wishing to remain neutral or avoid conflict

It's always in the name of "free speech".

God, I wish there was a shitty crustpunk bar near me... I think that the closest thing to one within 100 miles of me shut down during the pandemic. :(

Karl Popper's "paradox of tolerance"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

In my other (non-Lemmy) life, I've written extensively about the paradox of tolerance, and how recognizing it de-fangs the arguments of wanna-be totalitarians.

For people not in the know, Popper proposed that infinite, unrestricted "tolerance" is paradoxically self-destroying, because it necessarily means tolerating attempts to destroy tolerance.

The solution is simple and obvious in retrospect, but so many people have trouble finding it and worry about whether they're hypocrites or not for refusing to tolerate Nazis and the like. The solution is this:

Recognize the fact that you never promised to tolerate Nazis.

No one ever promised to tolerate everything without caveats or restrictions. Instead, we promised to tolerate each other, to respect one another's right to exist. In other words, tolerance is a peace treaty.

As soon as you realize that, it becomes obvious that you needn't tolerate Nazis, because they have broken the treaty. You are not bound by it when it comes to them. In fact, given the nature of people like that, they were never really signatories to the treaty in the first place, because they start from a basis of intending to destroy it.

Oh, how they hate it when people realize this and refuse to put up with Nazi bullshit or apologize for that refusal. Well, sorry, Nazi turd burglars, we never promised to put up with your shit in the first place, so y'all can fuck right off.

Tolerance and peace are both treaties. We agree to leave each other be and not take up arms in exchange for the other to do the same.

You have no obligation to be tolerant of someone who is intolerant or preaches intolerant ideology.

You have no obligation to be peaceful to belligerence and violence.

Isn't that also kind of what is happening to Twitter right now?

Yep. In welcoming back the Nazis, Elon made it clear he intended to make it a Nazi forum. Oh, he said a few things about "free speech zones" or something, but when you peel back the veneer of idealism, you just find a bunch of Nazis.

They love "free speech zones," because no one wants to share a forum with Nazis and leave when the Nazis take over.

Whenever someone makes a big deal about allowing "free speech," it always ends up meaning hate speech.

You can value free speech without supporting that.

Indeed, and most places do.

I'd hope so, but I hardly see anyone mention free speech without painting it as being on the side of bigots and bringing up arguments against it.

Because bigots love to wield it as a weapon and use the term in bad faith.

You sure that's why? I can't help but feel like a lot of people are genuinely anti free speech now.

The irony of liberals calling communists Nazis is not lost on me in this comment. It’s genuinely hilarious.

Red fascists: claim to be leftists, behave like Nazis. Leftists: "Fuck off, Nazis." Red fascists: :surprised pikachu:

This whole thread is just a demonstration of "enlightened centrism". Someone above is even arguing that hating landlords makes you a fascist! Just chef's kiss.

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