Post AV2MiFbLNwLtI9uo5o by mb@101010.pl
 (DIR) More posts by mb@101010.pl
 (DIR) Post #AUyRBkUfEJbugWGwxE by oliphant@oliphant.social
       2023-04-24T06:30:14Z
       
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       I'd like to thank eveningzoo.club for calling me a [redacted] after my very first #introduction post.Thanks to you useless motherfuckers, blocklists rain from the sky.Couldn't have done it without you, nazis.
       
 (DIR) Post #AUyRBlCGcCUMrkfluy by oliphant@oliphant.social
       2023-04-24T06:31:50Z
       
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       Literally. First post. "Oh, this looks like fun! I'll post an introduction and--oh look! There's already a reply. I wonder what it says.""No one cares, you t*n n*** f*****."And that was the beginning of the end. That's when I figured out it was time to compile a blocklist.
       
 (DIR) Post #AUyRBlqKDGX0rzPlM8 by oliphant@oliphant.social
       2023-04-24T07:13:25Z
       
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       That's the setup. I got 'triggered' by a bunch of shitty nazi edgelords.But what's shitty about this is that they had no idea who I was. This was a brand new server/instance, and it was a brand new introduction post I was making. The server was a blank slate. I had NO defederations, nothing. I didn't even know what that was. I didn't even know it would be necessary. My domain name wasn't this one, but it was just my last name, it wasn't anything that could have identified me as any particular identity of target.I was totally willing just openly to federate with the entirety of the internet; let the firehose open, baby.And it took me 30 enthusiastic seconds as a new server admin for that idea to wither and die.Instead, "How do I end you?" was my thought. I was furious, triggered, and I wasn't even the target of that trifecta of hate. I felt the fight or flight reflex that anyone online who has been told to go kill themselves has experienced.There were assholes out there intentionally watching the #introduction to find vulnerable people to target with hate speech.Perhaps in the hopes of drawing blood and chasing someone off the fedi forever, perhaps just for the lulz and screenshots and in an channer sense.That was shocking to me. This wasn't just someone passively being a dickhead in the replies this was someone going out of their way to be as hurtful as possible.It was hurtful and abusive and weaponized, deployed in bad faith, for no reason.A cold feeling suddenly swept over me. Oh....right. There's no "Twitter moderation team" here. There's no one. No one at all.There's just.....me.And instantly, despite all my privilege, I knew how much worse that must feel to marginalized people just joining the fedi for the first time.So I did the obvious first step.I checked the mastodon.social/about page and clicked "Moderated Servers" (not entirely true, I went to /about/more but that was an older version) and hand-copied, one at a time, every single server on their blocklist.I added eveningzoo.club first.Chudbuds was next. Talk to any server admin, they know about chudbuds. They know about eveningzoo. Those are two of the names currently on our "Tier0" list, before such a thing as Tier0 even existed.I looked online for more lists.Hachyderm had a public one in a github repo for awhile, before they took it down. I snagged it. Chaos Social published their blocklist, weirder earth.I grabbed those, too.I ended up with about 200 things on my blocklist, painstakingly entered one at a time.And you know what happened, my friends?All the people who were telling me to kill myself, who were coming at me in bad faith sneering and posting Pepe frogs and shit just disappeared.No moderation necessary, they were just gone. Poof.Now I've heard people say "Mastodon Social is where I go because I want to talk to the most people possible"But oh, my naive sweet summer child, you do not mean that. You only think you do.And if you look at your server, it blocks and defederates (suspends) a lot of servers, too. Currently about 150 of them. At this point, I consider that a bit on the light side, but that's just by my standards. It's certainly better than 0 and certainly better than what I started with.We're in a new age, so you can now skip past all that bullshit and import mastodon.social's blocklist for your server directly if you want. I make it available along with several others (as you are probably aware.)If you import that list, you'd be starting exactly where I did, and doing it in just two or three clicks rather than a freaking million clicks and several hours of my life I'll never get back because until we had bulk export/import of blocklists in Mastodon (like....last month?) it was a painful, painful one-at-a-time process.I started publishing my own blocklist because no one wanted to go on record and say, "Here's a blocklist you could download" and it just felt like I felt like it was pretty reasonable, it was assembled from blocks of others, it was based on #fediblock receipts, and it would be better than nothing, and also better than mastodon.social's blocklist.In my opinion.Everything changed once I joined the "Fedi Council" (It's on Mastodon.art's Discord, I don't want to be too vague and mysterious about this) with several other admins....I dunno, like 50 or 60 of them, maybe?I also found the Fediblockhole project, which allowed me to generate blocklists from various sources, merge them together, and even (most recently) weed out one-offs.Then I automated everything, and documented it. Not only do I explain exactly how to do it, I explain the algorithm behind it all.Blocklists now update every hour on the hour.And all of this because eveningzoo.club was a dick to the wrong person.
       
 (DIR) Post #AUyRBmVRkNQOvWebS4 by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
       2023-04-24T10:12:38.866072Z
       
       0 likes, 2 repeats
       
       @oliphant That’s very interesting development and as an admin myself I’m also very much interested in filtering hate speech instances. A good blocklist quality test for me is the presence of 101010.pl. It’s the largest instance in Poland by number of users and has been a subject of a few fierce debates that I can only describe as tribal on the (broadly speaking) “fediblock” side. It’s classification as “extreme” has been spinned by literally a couple of Polish activists promoting their own instances and based on two posts by a marginal far-right politician who immediately faced fierce opposition from the users of the very instance and soon left by himself.[^1] They very promptly escalated this Polish-language case through their English-speaking contacts in Fediblock and this is when 101010 was originally added to the blocklist.My recent attempts to get any rationale behind smearing the instance, which by now has already escalated to outright declaring it as “Nazi” and “endorsing skinheads”, face a wall which can be clearly seen in this[^2] thread and is increasingly Kafkaesque. Specifically, there were claims made by  @Artifex  and then quoted by @fediblock as “evidence”[^3]:let me list off a few sites publicly endorsed by 101010.pl administration : skinheads.social [a long list of allegedly far-right instances]All of the listed domains we checked are non-operational or long-abandoned one-person test-post instances, but most importantly my question how exactly the “administration” allegedly “endorsed” these websites was never answered. In my world this is classifies the claims as nothing more than a simple, unfounded smear, especially as during two years of running my own instance I have myself seen zero evidence that 101010 admin actually does endorse any far-right websites, and saw a lot of evidence to the opposite effect.Ironically, @Artifex does realize there’s a problem with their lack of evidence for blocking that website:[^3] an admin is complaining about #Fediblock without documentationThe above unsourced “list of endorsements” is therefore provided in lieu of evidence, without noticing the absurdity of such a circular argument. @fediblock further seems to imply that there’s no evidence to the “endorsement” because… it has been “scrubbed” from the original website:Most folks can check their databases and see cached things even after they’ve been scrubbed from the original site.Which  further doubles the absurdity of the argument, as the original accusation against 101010 made by the Polish activists was that they don’t moderate offensive posts sufficiently, whereas now we seem to learn that it’s the active moderation policy that prevents the ban proposers from providing any evidence.@fediblock also claim “people were calling your instance [101010] fascist”:[^4]You were complaining that people were calling your instance fascist, I pointed out it was not just name-calling, that’s all. Your admin can communicate out-of-band with other site admins.Evidence of whoever is “calling it fascist” is absent, but most importantly any evidence to on what basis they would call it “fascist” is of course also absent 🤷‍♂️My assessment therefore is that  the English-speaking #Fediblock community apparently made zero effort to actually validate the original claims by the Polish activists[^1] which is easily explained by the fact that they were published as screenshots (!) in Polish (!). As result, the consensus as for the need to block 101010 is apparently based exclusively on that past decision and right now holds exclusively on their inability to admit that it was biased, lacked any due diligence and based on hearsay.As result, what we’re dealing with right now is a textbook Kafkaesque hood court situation, where absence of evidence is presented as the evidence of guilt of its own. This situation is unacceptable for me as a supporter of transparent, rules-based and evidence-based removal of hate speech on Fediverse and I will continue to highlight how harmful these hood courts are for Fediverse as a whole.Others may support this kind of “trust me they’re fascists” bros philosophy as it allows you to promptly ban disliked instances without much hassle, but I can assure you will quickly find yourself that the only effect it will have is turning Fediverse into yet another Facebook or Twitter where content removal decisions are taken arbitrarily and you have zero impact and zero insight into the rationale behind them.[^1]: My summary of the original Polish-language debate with links to all original posts https://agora.echelon.pl/notice/APakwagTEPCQpkZjgu [^2]: https://agora.echelon.pl/notice/AUcCioj4nudNqVHyKG [^3]: https://artisan.chat/@Artifex/110192290187102730 [^4]: https://agora.echelon.pl/notice/AUchfV1cgyEQSGrUkC
       
 (DIR) Post #AUylryBEjQOINYaxlI by mb@101010.pl
       2023-04-24T14:04:51Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @kravietz @fediblock @oliphantI am a user of the 101010.pl instance since November 2022. I have chosen this one because it is the biggest and the oldest Polish language Mastodon instance. The news about defederating of the this instance has been very disappointing to me. I think that it was a hasty and an unfair decision. I believe that it should be changed and that the instance should be allowed to refederate. A whole community shouldn’t be punished for deeds of one (or few) individuals, who, to my knowledge, are no longer active here. I believe that Admins of this instance have started applying stricter moderation rules and that universally unaccepted content is no longer allowed here. I believe that instances should have the right to appeal against defederation decisions. And in cases some wrongdoing was made, these should be allowed to refederate after some time. It is in the interest of all to make the Fediverse a better place for everyone, and I want to be part of this as a user of this instance. This is why I request that you reconsider your decision about blocklisting of this instance. I also call on Admins of 101010.pl to address the issue, re-engage with other Admins in a constructive manner with a view to refederating of 101010.pl with the rest of the Fediverse. @Artifex @xaphanpl @rcz
       
 (DIR) Post #AUyn8Ib0h6MEHi077I by oliphant@oliphant.social
       2023-04-24T14:03:58Z
       
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       @kravietz @Artifex @fediblock skinheads.social [a long list of allegedly far-right instances]Just a quick interrupt here, but, um...Are you saying skinheads instances are not far-right instances that should be avoided?
       
 (DIR) Post #AUyn8KmmYIxj4nWXk8 by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
       2023-04-24T14:18:39.245858Z
       
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       @oliphant skinheads.social clearly is but can you say anything about burger.rodeo which down since 2021? But that’s not my point: my point was what evidence of “endorsing” of these websites by 101010 the proponents of the block had. As of now it turns out they had zero evidence for not even any active “endorsement” but even any relationships between these instances and 101010 and they just dumped it as a “scare list”.@Artifex @fediblock
       
 (DIR) Post #AUyoriaF1GzvrwrXYe by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
       2023-04-24T14:38:05.202335Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @oliphant On unrelated note, I would also very much like to hear on what basis @Artifex listed https://mylegendary.quest/ on par with skinheads.social as the former not only doesn’t have any content even remotely similar to far-right but is not even an ActivityPub instance, just someone’s personal blog.And my main question stands open: what relation 101010.pl has with any of these websites listed that you claimed they “endorse”? That  mylegendary.quest is just an exceptionally absurd example here… @fediblock
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0AuP3uRsW6LJNw36 by oliphant@oliphant.social
       2023-04-25T01:11:49Z
       
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       @kravietz @Artifex @fediblock I'm not going to speak for anyone else.However, federating and boosting content from skinheads.social would be enough.Usually that's what people mean, they are looking to see what kind of posts and servers the admin boosts or endorses in their bubble.The simple answer on my server is this:I don't federate with right-wing instances. I don't federate with instances that think boosting right-wing content is okay, or allow the right-wing and their fascist, eliminationist ideology onto their server.Since the right-wing is usually synonymous, particularly of late,  with racism and is (in my country) responsible for a pogrom against trans people, I have little patience for a 'free speech zone' where hate speech and creeping fascism is tolerated.
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0AuPhG5ZzaJLnMNk by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
       2023-04-25T06:19:39.332802Z
       
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       @oliphantOnce again, there was zero evidence they  boosted anything from skinheads.social or "tolerated creeping fascism", which is my main point from the very beginning. Fediblock people made far fetching statements and accusations but were unable to provide any actual evidence to their support.@Artifex @fediblock
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0BVP899oxdGl0i8m by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
       2023-04-25T06:26:33.552574Z
       
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       @oliphantAnd no, right-wing is not "synonymous with racism" in Poland, where it describes a broad range of views from moderate conservative or Catholic. Making such generalization without understanding the local specifics is just as biased as equating all left-wing with Stalinism. Most importantly, and  I'm repeating this for Nth time without any sensible counterargument, there was zero actual evidence 101010 actually tolerated any racist or extreme views or "endorsed" skinhead instances, which was the core of the Kafkaesque justification provided by @Artifex and @fediblock
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0GMJo25FXBv85aWu by oliphant@oliphant.social
       2023-04-25T06:43:45Z
       
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       @kravietz @Artifex @fediblock Please allow me to repeat again, then, I can't speak for anyone else you're tagging in this post. Just because I'm the one willing to respond, doesn't mean I speak for everyone here.I didn't do the fediblock post.I can only speak for myself, and my own server.
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0GMKPxoDsLolpseW by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
       2023-04-25T07:20:48.657437Z
       
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       @oliphantAnd thank you for engaging in the discussion, as the secrecy surrounding the Fediblock operations  is truly unsettling.You are however compiling the blocklist and you declare on your website the main criterion for inclusion seems to be a consensus agreed on a private Discord channel, based on highly subjective personal impressions and prejudices, with zero objective evidence, as seen in this discussion. People are happy to smear an instance as "endorsing skinheads" or simply "fascist" but apparently don't have to prove anything to anyone.As it stands now I see it as a harmful attempt to enforce prejudices of a small, closed clique who feel too privileged to even explain their reasons and that will be the message I'm taking from this discussion and pass to others when discussing the topic of Fedi blocklists in future.@Artifex @fediblock
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0Hr1M6pcYjd3ES1o by oliphant@oliphant.social
       2023-04-25T07:33:27Z
       
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       @kravietz @Artifex @fediblock I'm involved in two pissing contests over blocklists right now, I'm doing the best I can, it's well past my bedtime.Everything in a blocklist is subjective.There is no objectivity possible.One person's "unacceptable" is another person's "wonderful".all you can do is find like-minded folks and work together.That's what I've got here.I'm not trying to offer this list to everyone, but I am offering it to anyone, if you can understand the difference there.There will be other councils, other blocklists, and it won't end with me.Mastodon can now bulk export or bulk import blocklists. Sharing a blocklist is a matter of exporting it and sharing it. Many admins would probably provide it upon request to someone looking to start up a server.I just take the heat because no one else will. I get to be the bad guy for providing the lists, and that's fine.But anyone can do it. Anyone will do it, and I tell them how to do it.all I did was take the results of the process and publish them.https://writer.oliphant.social/oliphant/how-to-sync-up-blocklist-changes-from-trusted-sources
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0JFrOl5bkzwNsae0 by mb@101010.pl
       2023-04-25T07:53:39Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @oliphant @kravietz @Artifex @fediblock The EU stands against racism and discrimination of all kinds, it supports minorities, it speaks in their favour. This is the EUs DNA. As it happens, there are left, centre and right-leaning MEPs in the European Parliament, as well as in national parliaments, for example. Have you blocked them, at least preemptively, because they are right-wing? Are their instances on your block lists? Do you want these institutions to be banned from fediverse because also some right-wing individuals sit there?While I share your belief that racism, discrimination and racism are abhorrent, they are not necessarily tantamount to all right-wing standpoints. There is a difference obvious to anyone who has some interest with public life or politics. Political views should be judged individually and only after they fave been expressed, not preemptively. Individuals who do not have nor express radical views should not be collectively discriminated against only because some other individuals once expressed an inadmissible opinion. This is collective responsibility - something that is strange to the Western culture. A punishment should be given by a lawful court, it should be evidence-based, individual and proportionate. And there should be right to appeal. Because of your blocklist I feel discriminated against, I am unfairly treated. This is not because I can’t express radical opinions. I do not have them. This is because your arbitrary actions deprive me of my right to participating in the Fediverse.  By blocking the biggest Polish language instance you are unlawfully preventing its users from accessing to the rest of the Fediverse. You try to cut them off from potentially valuable content. You are not isolating yourself from them, but you isolate them from the Fediverse for no objective reason. This is discrimination. I again request that you reconsider and raise your block.
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0JMhddm7avhK6Shs by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
       2023-04-25T07:54:29.589319Z
       
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       @oliphant I appreciate your position on how the process works, but I disagree with this quite postmodernist statement:Everything in a blocklist is subjective. There is no objectivity possible. One person’s “unacceptable” is another person’s “wonderful”.That would be perfectly OK with me, as it’s their right to dislike whatever they dislike.But they’re not saying “it’s unacceptable”. They instead they run around and say “X endorses skinheads” or “X is fascist”. The words “endorse” and “fascist” have a meaning and are not subjective. On why they do it, it’s quite obvious: much less people would pick up their blocking preferences if it was openly declared as “unacceptable for us” (subjective), than when they smear them as “fascist” (objective) and correctly assume nobody will ask what exactly they mean.As a side note, in Poland just as in many EU countries, the display and endorsement of Nazi symbolics is literally a crime, and it’s being enforced. If you call someone a “fascist” you make a very specific accusation, very much like you accused them of corruption, theft or homicide. Such accusation is usually followed by evidence, otherwise you may end up sued for libel and falsely reporting a crime.I do suspect in the US and other countries that were quite distant from the Holocaust it all goes under “free speech” which devalued the use of words such as “fascism” or “Nazi” to yet another daily slur. It’s now quite ironic that people can call someone “a fascist” for a supportive stance on free speech in general, while they themselves use and abuse their right to free speech well beyond the boundaries that would elsewhere make them sued for a libel.@Artifex @fediblock
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0NROHLa3oqv5ANaC by mb@101010.pl
       2023-04-25T08:40:33Z
       
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       @kravietz @Artifex @fediblock @oliphant By applying fediblocks you apply collective responsibility. And this often leads to collective irresponsibility - murder by committee, an obscure group of individuals who impose their subjective judgements to many others, often innocent. By applying,promoting and propagating your blocklist you contribute to collective irresponsibility. You do harm innocent individuals. You are not a judge, at least because you are neither unbiased nor objective. You said yourself that your list is subjective. You are also not a law enforcement officer. This is because you actions are not targeted to individuals offenders, but to whole groups of individuals, communities that in your subjective and not-substantiated opinion, you accuse of opinions that were not even expressed. You wanted to make the Fediverse a good place. You are not the only one here. But think, if what you do, does not make more harm than good. You can be subjective in the privacy of your space, but you must not impose your subjective beliefs on others. You must not harm individuals’ right to access to information and to self-expression. This has gone too far and is clearly disproportionate and discriminatory. Please, reflect upon this.
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0haZE2FV0iYkGpXM by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
       2023-04-25T12:25:58.396808Z
       
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       @Leszek_KarlikYou nicely summarised the complexity of the problem: the person who called ONR a “fascist organisation” likely presented in court sufficient evidence to justify this description (there indeed were photos of ONR members using Nazi symbolics and gestures). At the same time the evidence might not be sufficient to prosecute ONR based on the law that bans display of the symbolics, likely because ONR as an organisation distanced itself from these people and thus denied it promotes Nazism as an organisation. The law literally speaks about “promotion of fascist or other totalitarian system” for a reason,  otherwise mere display of Nazi flag in Wikipedia or a history book for informational reasons would be a crime.I don’t think we need to emulate the whole complexity of the legal system on Fediverse, but when  they call 101010 a “fascist” or “endorsing skinheads” they’d better have any evidence to support that, while they had none.
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0j7iIbdMkWDAmH9E by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
       2023-04-25T12:43:11.238950Z
       
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       @Leszek_Karlik Law works this way, sorry. Whoever sued ONR might have presented evidence but it after trying in court it was not deeemed sufficiently matching the prohibited behaviour.The Fediblock folks have accused 101010 of being “fascist” and “endorsing skinheads” but presented zero evidence and then refused to provide any further rationale or explanation.This is precisely what made me describe their behaviour as Kafkaesque and hood court. I simply don’t buy this “trust me bro, they’re fascists” attitude.
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0pRyNSAH93as5YAK by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
       2023-04-25T13:54:06.606780Z
       
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       @Leszek_Karlik I can quite decisively declare that I oppose fascism and other totalitarian ideologies, but what these people are doing is in its nature very similar to what happens in totalitarian systems: secrecy, unaccountability, opaque criteria, arbitrary interpretation, immunity to dispute, decisions taken exclusively by an inner circle and merely communicated to the public. This whole thread serves as an evidence to this effect.Self-organisation is no excuse, lynching is a perfect example of self-organised violence. This is precisely why the whole concept of legal process was created in the first place. And the Fediblock folks are taking it back to the times of “unthankful labour” of judges in witch courts.
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0rKQISg19LmBHVlw by oliphant@oliphant.social
       2023-04-25T14:07:56Z
       
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       @kravietz @Artifex @fediblock Indeed, what another country considers libel doesn't really have much teeth here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPEECH_ActWhat would be fascist would be a government deciding it's a criminal act to label someone a fascist unless they conform to some narrow, state-defined definition of the term.That would be, perhaps, a fascist state attempting to "define away" fascism to exclude the current regime or those in power.In the States, we're free to use our own judgment to apply labels to things.Eco and Trotsky don't even agree on the definition of fascism, so your assertion that this is an objective fact flies in the face of that.It also flies in the face of a couple hundred years of US law.https://www.britannica.com/topic/fascismThere has been considerable disagreement among historians and political scientists about the nature of fascism. Some scholars, for example, regard it as a socially radical movement with ideological ties to the Jacobins of the French Revolution, whereas others see it as an extreme form of conservatism inspired by a 19th-century backlash against the ideals of the Enlightenment. Some find fascism deeply irrational, whereas others are impressed with the rationality with which it served the material interests of its supporters. Similarly, some attempt to explain fascist demonologies as the expression of irrationally misdirected anger and frustration, whereas others emphasize the rational ways in which these demonologies were used to perpetuate professional or class advantages. Finally, whereas some consider fascism to be motivated primarily by its aspirations—by a desire for cultural “regeneration” and the creation of a “new man”—others place greater weight on fascism’s “anxieties”—on its fear of communist revolution and even of left-centrist electoral victories....For these and other reasons, there is no universally accepted definition of fascism.So how, pray tell, can calling someone a fascist ever be truly "objective"?
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0rKR17zwsY0iBBOS by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
       2023-04-25T14:14:59.710273Z
       
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       @oliphant pray tell, can calling someone a fascist ever be truly “objective”You conveniently skipped “endorsing skinheads”. Does your “freedom to apply labels” also apply to this popular verb?a fascist state attempting to “define away” fascism to exclude the current regime or those in power.Not disagreeing here, we have a live example of this in front of our eyes right now: Russia.But overall I have an impression that you’re just trying to avoid the discussion on the essence of the ban proposals.If anyone can apply any label to anyone based on their feelings at any given moment then it just boils down to “I don’t like them”. And I don’t have any problem with that. But that’s not what they’re doing: they’re accusing 101010 of very specific things (like “endorsing skinheads”) but refusing to provide any tangible evidence for that.@Artifex @fediblock
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0s5qXguiEEmn1BgW by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
       2023-04-25T14:23:44.890844Z
       
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       @Leszek_Karlik Whether it’s obligatory or not doesn’t matter here. What does matter is that we have a bunch of people running around and calling people “fascists” and “skinhead supporters” while refusing to provide any evidence or justify their assessment in any other way. And as you watched the original shitstorm in Polish half year ago you should remember it was not only about running around but also making unsolicited appeals to users of 101010 to run away as nearly the whole Internet considers them fascists, calling to ban instances because they don’t ban someone else and many other manipulative things that can be collectively described as “bullying”. So no, it’s not only about “content moderation”.And right now they granted themselves the self-appointed name of “Fediverse Council” and kind of posing as the authoritative source of moral guidance for the whole Fediverse, ruling the world from a bloody Discord channel! 🤦‍♂️
       
 (DIR) Post #AV0yxl5O15AHE1rxHE by mb@101010.pl
       2023-04-25T15:40:59Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @Leszek_Karlik To be more precise, these are not double standards but two separate offences: one is defamation (Art. 212 kk), and the other one (Art. 256) is the offence of public propagation of fascism or a totalitarian system. By calling someone a fascist one may fall under defamation, an offence indicted from private prosecution. The prosecution is facultative and depends on the defamed. But it must be proven in the court. The defendant would need to prove that he/she didn't commit the offence. Long story short: you need to go to the independent and objective court, rather than be subjected to self-proclaimed powers to an obscure committee, what is the case in the Fediblock matters.The absurdity of the fediblocks is that there is a self-proclaimed authority that is spreading ill-founded accusations, and no recourse to an impartial higher instance. Normally it would be an administrative procedure, and eventually an administrative court. Here we have an algorithm and a few individuals who define their powers and procedures at their discretion. The second issue is the disproportionality of action and disindividualisation of measures: defederation affects whole communities rather than merely the offenders.Because of the discretionary powers of self-proclaimed authority harmed are innocent individuals and whole communities. The procedure of delisting from fediblock seems to be completely arbitrary. All this is unfair to say the least.@kravietz
       
 (DIR) Post #AV1FzjLj8rMddj2SGG by rcz@101010.pl
       2023-04-25T18:51:50Z
       
       1 likes, 2 repeats
       
       @mb You're appealing to proportionality, impartiality and such measures of reasonable standards of moderation, so just for context:Earlier in this thread, one of people here talked about “pogrom against trans people” (which is *really* insulting to the memory of victims of actual pogroms).Other person here has a history of listing „terfs” between „nazis” and „child porn”.https://nitter.net/Leszek_Karlik/status/1592103992095653889So I *really* do not think you'll get far with these appeals to proportionality.Again, I need to go back to what I've been saying all the time: the cliques of tech bro Mastodon admins and developers are severely under-equipped for making the decisions they feel entitled and enticed to be making. This is the problem. They shouldn't be seen as leaders setting community standards, they should be seen as what happens in a playground before adults arrive.We need more adults in this playground. That's why I've been arguing for more non-technical rule-based moderation teams, separate from tech bro admin teams.@Leszek_Karlik @kravietz
       
 (DIR) Post #AV1GzLEMulFsn6yW8m by oliphant@oliphant.social
       2023-04-25T14:45:14Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @kravietz @Artifex @fediblock I'm trying not to speak for the people you're upset about in this thread. I realize you're sort of talking to them, through me, but let's remember here:I'm just the one responding to you. I don't have the evidence you're asking for, because I didn't make the post.I never labeled 101010.pl as anything. In fact, I never include any reasons in the posted blocklists because otherwise the situation turns into this.You and I have very different ideas about what objective and subjective mean.Endorsing could mean boosting and replying favorably to skinheads, inviting them into your "bubble", and maybe by some people's definition, endorsing includes simply making a space for them.If you don't block them, if you let them in, one could say, you're inviting them.If you're inviting them, one could say you're endorsing their behavior.I'm not sure I always abide by that definition of endorsement, but it's not unheard of.Consider Elie Wiesel:“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.”By this standard, even a neutral party that refuses to take sides can be viewed as endorsing a fascistic status quo.I'm not saying that's what happened here, and I don't have the receipts you're looking for. But then I wasn't the one making the post in the first place.I sometimes block in solidarity with others on the council and while I investigate most claims myself, I don't exactly speak Polish.I can say this, speaking for myself:101010.pl blocks nothing. Its list of defederated and silenced servers is nothing. Zero.That means no blocking of pedo instances or nazi instances; that content is freely available to all users on the server.And that's the "nazi bar" problem.Consider mastodon.art's policy on this, for one possible explanation was to why the server might be on their blocklist:https://www.patreon.com/posts/on-our-policy-74436103
       
 (DIR) Post #AV1GzLpEhgkIdSDxbc by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
       2023-04-25T19:02:32.687598Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @oliphant OK, so if I understand correctly what has now happened here…If you don’t block them, if you let them in, one could say, you’re inviting them.…is that you completely twisted the meaning of the word “endorse” and made it a synonym of “not blocking them”. Which explains why @Artifex and @fediblock were so reluctant to elaborate on their statements - because they did realize how controversial and stretched their argument was.It’s hard to believe that people involved in #Fediblock don’t understand how ActivityPub works, but no content from skinhead.social etc will appear on 101010 until someone from that instance subscribes to it. And would be the only case when, as you imply, “that content was freely available to all users on the server”. And it wasn’t.Which explains perfectly well why nobody of the accusers was able to find any such offensive content there  - nobody subscribed to it from 101010, which is quite easy to understand as it’s predominantly Polish-language instance.And I don’t think I will be revealing a huge secret when I admit that my instance also does not block (almost) any domains! I don’t block any “pedos and Nazi instances”, yet none of their content ever appears on my timeline simply because none of my users subscribe to “pedos and Nazis”.And if your users do, it’s your problem, not mine. I do understand that instances that have hundreds of thousands of users may have different perspectives, but this doesn’t give them any additional rights to impose them on thousands of small or regional instances who don’t have this problem. But in the first place it doesn’t give them any right to run around and accuse others of “endorsing Nazis” just because they don’t blindly copy your blanket methods of dealing with actual Nazis (101010 rules explicitly ban content illegal under Polish law, which also includes Nazi content, but how would you know if you never asked?)And it’s not about “pedos and Nazis”, contempt for which we very much share, but also about many other subjects proposed by Fediblock such as “ACAB”, which I had to look up. I haven’t met any US cops, I don’t have any prejudice against them and I simply don’t care about them. And even if I did, I do reserve my right to assess their publications on my own rather than apply blanket “solidarity” bans based on recommendations from a clique that has clearly demonstrated bias and manipulative practices. I believe this lack of cultural sensitivity, arrogance and US-centrism was the primary reason why the attempts to enforce US-specific blocklists were met with skepticism (to put that lightly) and simply ignored, while  attempts to bully their point of view using manipulations and logical fallacies (“if you don’t block, you endorse”) were met with well-deserved hostility.
       
 (DIR) Post #AV1HMi0IPXy854XEsS by mb@101010.pl
       2023-04-25T19:07:09Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rcz @Leszek_Karlik @kravietz I agree. Mere algorithms and IT-savviness are no substitute for sound judgment, fairness and jurisprudence. Life is a non-binary game, ie. not everything can be narrowed down to machine learning, algorithms and scripts.
       
 (DIR) Post #AV1HY83Hu92k3NNcps by mb@101010.pl
       2023-04-25T19:09:14Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @Leszek_Karlik @rcz @kravietz You seem to be adding oil to the flame. This is not the problem we are discussing here, I believe.
       
 (DIR) Post #AV1U1Hm22NyM3Jyi7k by oliphant@oliphant.social
       2023-04-25T20:54:57Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @kravietz So we're going around and around on this one, and against my better judgment I was acting as if your whole inquiry was in good faith.But you repeatedly seem to want to yell at me for something that someone else did, and that's not exactly what I call good faith.you completely twisted the meaning of the word “endorse” and made it a synonym of “not blocking them”. That was, in context, me explaining how endorse is something not with a clear, objective definition. How endorse could, possibly, maybe, from a certain point of view mean you put up no barriers at all to harassers and abusers.I also linked mastodon.art's patreon where they discuss the issue to explain how it might have been you got on their bad side.I said I wouldn't speak for them, but I attempted to take a guess in their absence.Be mad about it. I don't care. I didn't say what you're mad at. You're yelling at me and using me as a proxy for someone else.But this thread is no longer the proper venue for that. Let's be clear:It’s hard to believe that people involved in #Fediblock don’t understand how ActivityPub works, but no content from skinhead.social etc will appear on 101010 until someone from that instance subscribes to it.If you'd read this thread at all you'd know that this is simply not true.I didn't subscribe to eveningzoo, no one subscribed to eveningzoo, there was one total user on my server when they jumped onto an introduction post to throw hatespeech in my direction, mocked me, and told me to kill myself.Do you know how ActivityPub works?It's bi-directional.Sure, if no one on your server follows skinheads.social, then it never appears on the Federated feed on your server.So what? You're still creating an avenue for skinheads to harass people on your server. Because they can still get in.They can still find one of your users or one of your threads and post there. Because there are no barriers for them to do so, because 101010.pl doesn't block any servers.Therefore, any of those servers can post there.Therefore, the admin does not seem to have any objection to that content or those servers having access to people on their server for targeting and harassment.If you paid any attention to Fediblock at all, rather than trashing it, you'd discover numerous cases of abusive servers going out of their way to harass people with hateful, abusive language.The same servers, over and over again. No one had to follow them for them to get in. They just had to leave the door open.Maybe you've been lucky and they ignore you because you're Polish? That seems to be your contention. No one is attempting to "enforce US-specific blocklists" here.Because no one can "enforce" anything here. And because most of the people involved in these blocklists aren't from the USA.Servers are allowed to establish boundaries.Other servers consider 101010.pl a risk. In the past, some admins have witnessed behavior from that instance they find troubling. In an attempt to warn others about it, they reported the instance.That's all I know about the situation.Get over it, and stop yelling at me about it.
       
 (DIR) Post #AV1U1Iduo34ekRBk6y by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
       2023-04-25T21:28:38.771053Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @oliphant So what? You’re still creating an avenue for skinheads to harass people on your server. Because they can still get in.If they do, I’d happily block and defederate them. But they don’t. Therefore, any of those servers can post there.But did they ever actually post there? The answer is: no. Maybe you’ve been lucky and they ignore you because you’re Polish?Maybe. Go bully instances in India or Ukraine preaching them about the need to  block your English-language US-based racist instances, see their reaction. It’s not because we support racism, but because these instances are irrelevant to us, we don’t see them, we don’t care about them. If they do come, we’ll respond.numerous cases of abusive servers going out of their way to harass people with hateful, abusive language.Excellent, if Fediblock was exclusively about these servers I’d happy apply it on my instance. But it’s not. Because no one can “enforce” anything here.They smear people as “fascists”, call themselves “Fediverse Council” and bully others with the “if you don’t ban them, we’ll ban you” stick, so how exactly it’s different from enforcement?In the past, some admins have witnessed behavior from that instance they find troublingOh, I’m very much aware of what happened in the past, as I was following it from the very beginning. The shitstorm around 101010 reaches half year back and started with a few Polish activists/admins who: accused 101010 (the largest Polish instance) of being “far-right friendly” based on two posts by a far-right Polish politician who posted some filth… and was promptly kicked out (I was one of the people who reacted to his posts) sold this story to their English-speaking friends, who understood no word in Polish, on the “trust me bro, they’re fascist” basis and expecting a “solidarity ban” sent unsolicited spam messages to a number of unrelated 101010 users with “your instance is going to be blocked globally haha” FUD promoted their own instances as a “safe” alternative continue running around and smearing 101010 as “fascist” in the absence of any evidence to the effectAs you can see, there’s much more context behind what you were sold as “they were concerned and just wanted to warn others”. I have all that documented, happy to share if you’re interested.
       
 (DIR) Post #AV2MiFbLNwLtI9uo5o by mb@101010.pl
       2023-04-26T07:41:49Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @kravietz @oliphant @fediblockIt is high time that #fediblock list Admins, as well as the Fediverse Council redresses the damage done to the 101010 community and removes the instance from blocklists. It was an illinformed decision and must be corrected. One can’t be kept in purgatory for eternity. This situation has become kafkesque. The Fediverse should be a friendly place for decent communities, and such is the 101010 as well. Time to end the injustice!@rcz @xaphanpl #refederation