@alexia This is an unnecessary focus on defederation imo: the line to be drawn is at an individual instance's discretion, not for you to specify when you aren't even a user of that instance.

In this case, they've assessed that there's sufficiently many innocent / good accounts which they want to maintain relationships with on bsky (or, equivalently, mastosoc) that it's worth the moderation overhead of banning the individual accounts instead to protect their users - something which is also a viable choice between ActivityPub instances, albeit rarely chosen.

Some instances are irredeemable: those whose purpose and entire user base is complicit in spreading hate and vitriol; that does not currently, ime, describe bsky overall, whose users have pushed back against Singal, Vance, and hell, even bullied Adobe off their platform (something fedi, in any other context, would usually be celebrating).

Freedom of association exists and should be one of fedi's greatest strengths. Would I agree with their assessment myself? Idk. But my opinion doesn't matter here as I'm not a user of their instance, so I'm unaffected. If I was affected, then my opinion would matter as to whether I defederated from them or not -- but again, thus far, their moderation has meant I've been unaffected by similar actors, so...

@lyrenhex @alexia

"the line to be drawn is at an individual instance's discretion, not for you to specify when you aren't even a user of that instance."

No.

This is absolutely the wrong approach to fascism and hatred. Once you leave it entirely up to individual discretion, you are opening up society to 1930s scenarios where hatred is mainstreamed.

I've tried to give an example here:

social.chinwag.org/@FediThing/…

Vulnerable minorities will suffer and die if you use an individiual block approach.

It's vital that we drive fascists out of all mainstream discourse. They are not participating in good faith, they are participating in order to radicalise people to do acts of the worst kind of hatred and violence.

They don't care if individuals block them, because all they care about are those who don't block them. Those who don't block them can be radicalised into spreading hatred themselves, which radicalises even more people.

Fascism is a virus, it thrives on publicity.

I feel obligated to clarify, given that you have misrepresented my words in your reply.

I did not, at any point, talk about individuals blocking fascists. I talked about instances banning the individual fascists, rather than cutting off entire instances, as a choice of moderation style. I also agree that defederation is a valid option for instances, perhaps due to moderation burden, or because the remote instance in question is irredeemable.

An instance banning Vance means, on that instance, no user is capable of being radicalised by Vance's account. This is the same as if an open-signup instance banned Vance's account upon registration. This is the same result as defederating the entire remote instance for the sole reason that Vance is on there, except that otherwise innocent users on the remote instance are not caught in the crossfire.

Many of those remote users will not be aware of Vance's presence on their instance (especially when that instance is Bluesky), and therefore cannot be considered Nazis by mere affiliation: they have not interacted with him. Those users remain on that instance, and defederating will do nothing to protect them if he attempts to radicalise them; however, a moderation team can monitor the users of that instance and continually assess the risks and whether defederating later is reasonable to them. What can, in fact, sometimes happen is the opposite: the Nazi gets bullied out of there, or -- as in the Nazi bar analogy -- the users notice the Nazi and leave of their own accord (at which point I'm sure the calculus will shift in favour of defederation); perhaps such users move to fedi in this scenario, having not been ostracised for reasons they would not otherwise have understood.

Finally:
Does your instance currently block mastodon.social? If not, as some instances have out of concerns for its moderation & size, then that is an example of what I was describing which you quoted and responded "No." to.

No instance should be hosting a fascist who has masked thugs literally kidnapping people off the streets without due process.

Any instance that hosts such a person is itself supporting fascism, and should be shunned by everyone. Admins should defederate it, users on that instance should leave it.

The idea is to isolate not only fascists but those who tolerate and help fascism.

Fascism has to be resisted in every way possible, while such resistance is still possible.

@daemon_nova @alexia

If Fosstodon hosted Vance, you can bet it would be defederated by people who are on the fence.

I would personally defederate any instance that hosted Vance, including mastodon.social.

I've also spent lots of time trying to discourage large instances even existing, I run a site at fedi.garden and account at @FediGarden to promote good smaller instances.

Fedi.Garden

Highlighting nice servers on Mastodon and the Fediverse

^fedi.garden

Precisely. I saw a number of their moderators dismissing and gas lighting the concerns of LGBTQ people in my feed

I don't see that on Bluesky. In fact when there is a trans /homophobic user there, they are dealt with swiftly by the community. Here there are often crickets, or when marginalized groups bring up concerns there is much defensiveness.

@alchemistsstudio @daemon_nova @alexia

"I don't see that on Bluesky. In fact when there is a trans /homophobic user there, they are dealt with swiftly by the community. "

Vance's first post is all about eroding trans rights, and Bluesky are sending emails to Fox News telling him how welcome he is.

@daemon_nova @alexia

I guess you care more about making a point then addressing valid concerns about trans/homophobia here on the Fediverse.

I find that sad.

JD Vance is not a moderator on Bluesky.

And believe me, the fediverse often platforms racism, transphobia, misogyny and homophobia. Here it can only be dealt with after the fact. On Bluesky its mostly dealt with proactively.

Do you love being scared that fascists are going to beat you up or kill you?

Because that's the effect Vance has on vast chunks of vulnerable minorities.

Maybe you could stop joking about this and address this seriously.

I'm not being smug about Bluesky, I'm being scared and angry. Can you have some empathy for that?

I don't give a shit about tech, I give a shit about people who are scared. If tech exists, it should be to protect such people.

@GroupNebula563 @gabboman @alexia

"secondly, some things aren’t worth arguing over"

Fascism is worth arguing over.

Calling me a "smug cunt" for trying to warn against fascism is just... there's no words. What are you thinking?

Do you think this is some kind of childish tech vs tech dispute like Mac vs Windows?

I run these accounts purely to try to stop the spread of fascism and hatred. Any tech that helps in that fight, I promote. Any tech that hinders that fight, I warn about.

@GroupNebula563 @gabboman @alexia

If you think I've got a tech wrong that's fine to discuss, I do discuss things regularly and I often message developers to find out more. But hateful name calling and patronising and avoiding mentioning the Nazi elephant in the room is not the way to do it.

I can assure you I'm not. I am terrified about what is going on.

I don't care what protocol is used as long as it makes federation accessible and controllable by anyone including very-low-cost grassroots instances that can communicate without relays.