There’s a new one suddenly popping up in my feed but obviously the reports are being “resolved” by the mods of that community. They suggested to me that I block their community but I will not because that is how you get a cesspit of an instance. How do we report disinformation communities straight to the admins?
Edit: the admins did remove the community in question so I’m going to take that as the official stance on disinformation communities and also assume that any type of community (right wing, left wing, or other) that are intentionally spreading disinformation will be removed. That makes me feel much better about the situation since this type of thing is pretty much guaranteed to pop up again.
The admin here takes a conservative stance on defederation. He doesn’t do it unless there are lemm.ee rules violations or network abuse. I haven’t looked at any explodingheads content, but if it does not violate any lemm.ee rules and presents no network abuse it will probably not get defederated.
I agree with lemm.ee’s philosophy on defederation and that’s one of the reasons this is my home instance. In general you can’t call for defederation just because you don’t agree with content. If it’s blatantly offensive then I suppose that would be valid grounds, but I would hope that reason is used sparingly. I mean discussion that’s offensive to you may not be offensive to me.
It’s hosted on this instance: https://lemm.ee/c/vaccines
“All reports calling post here missinformation will be ignored unless the post says that covid vaccines are healthy. Which is dangerous missinformation because covid vaccines kill.”
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected]
Given that even twitter is full of that these days, is a Lemmy community the end of the world? Idiots are going to keep believing their stupid beliefs.
End of the world? No.
By the same token, a few bugs in my house is not the end of the world, but I’d still prefer to have screens on the window and keep a flyswatter handy 😉
The “bugs” you’re referring to are actual people, and “your house” is my house too. We are both anonymous users on a general purpose instance shared with ~15k other people. If you start removing people from our house, and I don’t want you to remove those people, I think it’s fair to have a good-faith conversation about this.
How do you suggest determining whether or not something is considered disinformation?
I’m also not advocating for killing trolls that bother me… so take care not to belabor a quick metaphor.
The vast majority of disinformation comes in a few key topics related to current hot button political issues and is generally pushed by recognizable sources. It’s not unreasonable to expect admins to check into user reports of disinformation and organized trolling against known sources. I’m not an admin so I’m not going to write up the specific criteria right here and now.
Choosing not to do so is also a conscious choice to host such content.
Hey, it’s okay to break down a metaphor if I don’t think it’s applicable to the conversation.
Yes, totally I agree with you, I think admins should review reported content and do some investigation if needed.
I guess I have a problem with removing users and communities based on someone’s opinion of the content itself. Vote manipulation, brigading, creating multiple accounts to push agenda, repeated automated posting, and even organized trolling like you mentioned are not direct opinions on the content posted. They are clearly defined and relatively easy to identify. “Disinformation,” “recognizable sources,” and “hot button political issues” are direct opinions about the content or subject of a post or community. They are not clearly defined and differ greatly from person to person.
I asked you to suggest a definition or criteria of disinformation to move us from the “what” to the “how.” Thinking about how this might be regulated practically might help you understand why I think it’s problematic to remove users and communities based solely on someone’s opinion of their content.
Believe me I do understand why it could be considered problematic. My disagreement stems from the idea that it’s better to have no policy rather than an imperfect policy or one that relies on some discretion.
My point in highlighting that disinformation centers around a few hot button issues is to reinforce that we’re not talking about some nebulous or opinion-driven debate; rather there are a few key disinformation strategies that take advantage of the “bullshit asymmetry” to poison real discussion. They are easily identified because they are well documented and reported on.
I’m simply unconvinced by arguments that it’s too hard to identify and nip such malicious communities in the bud. Even less so by arguments that doing so is somehow a slippery slope.
This isn’t about defederating it’s about misinformation communities being hosted on this instance.
What would be the difference between a disinformation community being hosted on this instance and one being hosted on another federated instance?
From a practical perspective: it’s much easier to choose not to see content from an entire instance I’ve deemed unhelpful or harmful than it is to play whackamole with communities popping up on my home instance.
It’s the difference between my preferred news outlet broadcasting garbage vs a different channel.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but that sounds like this is about convenience then. I’m all for convenience, but completely removing content for everyone on a general-purpose instance because someone thinks it is harmful is not ok. That is suddenly declaring your opinion as everyone else’s absolute truth. Saying “you should not see that” is great. Saying “you can never see that” is censorship, and in this case it would be censorship based on a certain opinion.
I propose Lemmy adds the ability for users to label communities and posts when they create them with a content tag of some sort. Users could also suggest adding or removing a label from posts or communities as they browse. This would make content more refine-able and searchable for users/admins and give us each the ability to limit certain types of content we don’t want to see. It would also help solve the NSFW label issue where someone is okay with gore but not with nudity.
I was just responding to your question of what was the difference between blocking an instance and a community.
The community-sourced labeling is an interesting idea, which I hadn’t really considered. Not sure it fully solves the concern of bad faith actors looking to JAQ-off and otherwise poison discussions but it’s a step in the right direction.
Blatant lies are blatantly offensive.
Attempting to institute a brutal theocratic dictatorship and genocide all LGBT+ people is also blatantly offensive.
Speaking of disinformation…
What are you trying to say?
So in other words, it’s been taken over by right-wingers. 🤦 Wasted my time again.
Not everything you disagree with is right wing. You sound like an American lol FYI this server owner is Estonian, one of the most liberal countries in the EU.
And everyone knowd if a country is liberal it can’t have any conservatives in it /s
And? Is there something wrong with anyone not having US-style far left neo-liberal views? I don’t get your point
Since when was the US far-left?
It’s more about the bipartisan system and very vocal representatives of both extremes it breeds.
Since when was the US left very vocal?
You’ve exposed yourself with “far left neo-liberal views” because nothing about America or liberalism (much less fucking neoliberalism) is far left. Just admit you hate gays poc and women and stop pretending. You aren’t fooling people.
Wait what? How does your reply make any sense? You assume things and instantly belive those are true? This is ridiculous.
Because I’m not a fucking idiot born today. I’ve been around people like yourself who use language you use and complain about how far left America is. And guess what. Without fail every single fucking example of someone talking about far left neoliberalism which again doesn’t make any sense always ends with the mask coming off. No one is fooled by you. We all have seen this shit time and time again.
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You gave me so many labels, that’s Insane. You don’t event know me. And you most definitely don’t get to tell me where to go and what to do.
Your post is a prime example of what’s wrong with the extremists on both sides. You are no better than a nazi you are accusing me of being.
You need therapy.
Also I am a leftist. I would say a classic liberal.
Well that’s an overreaction. That vaccines community mentioned here sounds stupid but to say this entire instance has been taken over by right wingers because of one nut job? Is that really what you’re saying?
If you want to create an eco chamber for yourself, you could’ve just said so.
Well, if you wanted to take over left spaces and deny them the ability to have a community of their own so you can more easily kill them off, you should have said so
you
Implying that I’m a “conservative” just because i disagree isn’t a good way to start your point. Second of all, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to create a space (as long as they respect that space) where anyone can discuss and formulate and share their own opinions without being persecuted. That goes for any side even conservatives. Its a good way to prevent an us vs. them mentality (which is what you’re doing by the way) and allows us to prevent hate and misinformation from spreading from their own circles to us.
Implying you are going to manipulate or guilt trip me by playing victim when you are told you are wrong. You are not. Literally everyone who is different than you is your victim, and you are the one who will have to live with blood on your hands. But knowing you, you love the taste of it.
That escalated quickly.
I’m not implying I’m a victim. I’m just saying your assumptions are unreasonable at best and or manipulative at worst. Also who are you describing? Are you ok, anon?
This instance is still federated with explodingheads, so I wouldn’t expect anything to come of this. I saw the community you’re speaking about and it seems to be pretty small-time. You’re best off just blocking it.
Do I even want to know what that is? I’ll give the admins a chance to respond but if I don’t agree with the response I’ll just delete my account here, because otherwise more of this will pop up and I’ll have the entire instance blocked and then what’s the point?
Explodingheads is an edgy, red-pilled, manosphere-loving, alt-right instance. A real den of scum and villainy type place. Many of the larger instances have already de-federated with them.
I have to say, though, despite the fact that Lemm.ee hasn’t yet followed suit, I haven’t seen any posts from there in the local/all feeds.
I haven’t noticed any of it either, obviously since I was unaware lol I think there’s a difference between defederating from it if it’s causing an issue and showing up on feeds and actually hosting it though.
I spoke too soon in my other comment. It’s here. [email protected] (eye roll). That looks like it was just created so if the admins don’t squash it now it’ll take over the entire instance.
Are you saying you’re concerned that a small politics community that has one downvoted post of an article is going to take over this instance?
This type of community in general. When they are not dealt with it attracts the type of user who causes problems associated with that type of community and they tend to proliferate.
I just checked, it’s gone.
It’s barely even misinformation, but definitely some of the laziest trolling I’ve seen in years.
He’s doing that because I upset him but if you look at the actual links they go to known disinformation sites.
Edit: and he’s also probably upset about the downvotes, which were definitely not all awarded by me.
which community?
Sort by new and you’ll see it lol Vaccines
Well that’s just sad.
This is a general-purpose instance on a decentralized platform that doesn’t have much of an algorithm. All of us here most likely run into things we don’t like or want to see, and as long as it’s not illegal I think things like this will still be allowed. You can always block communities and follow ones that you like to tailor what you see. If you’re looking for more specific content all around, I’d join an instance that’s more specific to the type of content you’re looking for
We’re talking about a community that is dedicated to posting misinformation and apparently trolling. It is very common for that kind of content and community to be explicitly forbidden in general purpose online communities because that isn’t general purpose content. This isn’t a matter of things people simply don’t want to see. It’s content that has proven to be problematic for any community that it infiltrates and generally results in a decline in quality and decorum.
I agree. The unfortunate reality is that the line between misinformation and opinion is very different from person to person—especially when it comes to politics. It’s easy to moderate and remove illegal content based on local laws of the country an instance resides in, but trying to moderate content from a single U.S. political party raises more questions and will take more volunteer manpower from admins. We would need to define as a community:
- What is the criteria for a misinformation or trolling community?
- Will we defederate from entire instances if they meet the criteria for misinformation/trolling?
- Will we regulate all types of communities (like technology, hobby, humor, culture, news, and war-related communities), or will we only regulate politically-driven communities.
I still don’t think this is the right move. I joined the Fediverse because of the ability to post and consume content without any person or entity manually or automatically determining what I can and cannot see. I specifically chose this instance because of it’s relaxed policy on defederation. I value being able to see all content and be aware of everyone’s voice, even if it is blatantly false information or offensive.
I don’t think anyone is advocating for defederation, just upholding some base standards for discourse on communities directly hosted by this instance. If it was just a normal rightwing sub, I’d agree with you, but defending a blatant troll/disinformation sub is getting into “paradox of tolerance” territory for me personally.
Hell, the snowflakes banned me for making a single post warning another user not to feed the trolls. 😂
I have zero problem with staying federated with instances I vehemently disagree with. But I also have little desire to stay on one that "Free Speech"es itself into becoming a safe space for trolls and disinformation peddlers.
The one problem is, specifically with this type of conversation, anyone even in the center is not welcome in the conversation because the echo chamber is so strong that anything even in the center is instantly labeled “misinformation”. Who decides what the difference between “opinion I disagree with” and “misinformation” is? Far too often it’s left to a person or group, be it on the left or the right, that holds that anything they or the most vocal political users disagree with is “dangerous misinformation”. And I tend to notice that unless it’s a specific right-wing instance like explodingheads, anything that’s not on the far left is either down voted to oblivion or outright removed and anyone who posts or says anything positive about it is effectively driven out, including people who argue such things in good faith. That tends to lead to the creation of such instances as explodingheads and attitudes like the people who reside there.
That is a fair point, but I submit its kind of tangential or maybe orthogonal the core topic. The problem of people not being able to discuss controversial topics maturely is not improved by hosting clear bad-faith conversation. That just poisons the well and makes it even harder to hold the good faith conversations.
You don’t wring your hands about throwing out the baby with the bathwater when you’re faced with a bucket of sewage.
But that’s how what I mentioned happens - the vocal users decide that anything that disagrees with them is that “sewage” or “poison”, even if it is legitimate, and then you end up with that echo chamber situation. I would think that proper moderation of political communities would ensure that polite, good-faith argument, regardless of the political leaning of the view, would be allowed, but that’s not how it often happens because of how moderators and vocal users define what good faith argument is, mostly based on whether the argument agrees with their own view.
Hell no, I’m not vouching for defederation or defending those communities in any way. Step back and look at the bigger picture with me. I think there are potential problems with moderating based on vague and non-concrete things, and I’m trying to further the discussion so we define them better together.
If we’re going to remove the communities OP is referring to, for example, we need to define (1) what qualifies as misinformation and trolling, and (2) what content/communities/users we’re proposing to remove in the future.
If we use dictionary definitions…
misinformation: false or inaccurate information, especially that which is deliberately intended to deceive
troll: a person who makes a deliberately offensive or provocative online post
…then admins will have the new responsibility of (1) deciding whether content is true or false, (2) determining the intent of the content creator, and (3) deciding what is offensive or provocative.
Are we going to remove content if it offends someone? Will admins be deleting content based on the assumed intentions of the creator?
That’s not the instance I signed up for, and it also goes against basic human rights. I can see it being highly problematic for moderators and admins in the long run unless we move away from being a “general purpose” instance.
Hello, OP here and I just circled back to this. I want to clarify that I personally used the word disinformation and never used the word misinformation. These are different.
Misinformation is false or inaccurate information—getting the facts wrong. Disinformation is false information which is deliberately intended to mislead—intentionally misstating the facts.
I think the majority of people are ok with interacting with people who are misinformed. We’ve all been misinformed on various topics at different times in our lives. The community in question, however, and communities like it, exist for the sole purpose of spreading lies to cause harm to individuals or society. I probably should not have used the words “right wing” in my post but the majority of communities spreading harmful disinformation right now tend to be right wing. The admins removed the community and I take that as a sign that they will remove other disinformation communities as well, including but not limited to right wing communities.
The community in question had links to known disinformation sites. I and others reported these posts. I included links to sources identifying those websites as disinformation sites. The moderator of that community “resolved” the reports without removing the content, which I have since confirmed does remove it from the admin queue. Herein lies a serious problem. A bad actor can conceivably post a bunch of intentionally misleading information and links, then clear reports to hide it from the admins and there is no clear way to report a community or mod who is acting in bad faith. I was also unable to find anything in the instance guidelines that specifically outlined a stance on disinformation, which was concerning especially given that the mod was “resolving” reports in that way.
I’m not really looking for a lot of further discussion as I think the difference between dis and misinformation is important and that seems to have initially been misunderstood by some people. I would hope that the admins make an official clarification on the issue but since they removed the community I think that makes the position clear and any further discussion, if anyone wants to be on an instance that hosts disinformation communities, should be directed to the admins.
Again, this isn’t about misinformation as we have all experienced “being wrong”. Anyone who has been misinformed and is interacting with the wider community on good faith will generally listen when someone gives them some valid information to the contrary. People spreading disinformation are acting in bad faith and will continue intentionally spreading known lies. This distinction is important to my original post and I just wanted to clarify for anyone who happens in here.
A few things wrong with what you said:
- You did use the word “misinformation” in the comment I was replying to:
We’re talking about a community that is dedicated to posting misinformation and apparently trolling.
- The definition of misinformation I used in my previous comment includes “deliberate deception” and matches your definition of disinformation, so if I’m not mistaken we are actually on the same page there and my points are still relevant to the discussion.
I totally agree there needs to be a good way to report communities to admins. I also think vote manipulation, making multiple accounts, brigading, automated posting, and other ways of manipulating the system to push an opinion should be prohibited.
What I don’t agree with is removing communities for “disinformation.” What’s happening is:
- Those community mods banned you because you posted “disinformation”
- You want the community removed because they are posting “disinformation”
I think there’s an inherent flaw with our definitions of truth here. If you say one thing is truth, and some community mods say another thing is truth, how do we decide which voice is silenced on lemm.ee?
This might be a hard one to digest, but please genuinely consider it: I think we are mis-labeling opinion and calling it truth without realizing it. Calling your own opinion absolute truth is a very dangerous game to play when you are making decisions for other people (read history to learn more). And, like I initially pointed out, moderating an entire instance based on opinion doesn’t seem to line up with a “general purpose” instance like lemm.ee in my opinion. Do you think that’s plausible?
I know you said you don’t want to discuss further, but it’s hard to learn from you if you don’t converse or answer questions. If you have specific thoughts or disagreements on any points I’ve made, I’d appreciate hearing them
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Yeah of course. I think there are some big-picture issues with moderating “misinformation” and “propaganda” because of how different those definitions can be from person to person. One person might see something as misinformation, while someone else might not see it as misinformation. Another person might value seeing both sides.
“Misinformation,” and “propaganda” are both by definition based on the intentions of the creator, and that’s a difficult thing to try and regulate in an unbiased way while retaining human rights of expressing thoughts and beliefs. A worldwide general purpose instance on a decentralized social network should not be removing content based on assumed intentions or offense.
If we’re dead honest, we are all just repeating things we’ve read, heard, or learned from someone else. Very few of us were actually present in the moment something was done or decided. I think we all should have the freedom to express what we’ve seen, heard, or learned from somewhere else here on this instance.
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Alright fair point, what are your thoughts on everything else I said?
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Nah man, sorry if I miscommunicated that. I’m genuinely trying to have a productive discussion on what admins are responsible for and how to handle similar situations down the road
That’s what they always say.
I’m new here so I don’t have much of a vote, but I have mixed feelings here. I like the idea of not blocking content, but at the same time I think a Vaccines community that is dedicated to spreading misinformation is not something healthy to have.
Yeah, it’s difficult. If it’s bots/automated posting, that very clearly goes against this instance’s policies.
I like being able to see the full picture, including false information, so removing communities in this way effectively steals that freedom from me.
I like seeing misinformation
Holy shitballs man, this is really who you want to be?
You trying to have a conversation or are you trying to insult me?
It’s the same concept of destroying history or literature. The bad parts of history are just as valuable as the good parts of history. Destroying the bad destroys our ability to see the full picture and learn from it.
I get where the comment is coming from. I followed Qanon drops even though I know it’s batshit crazy and completely untrue. I just want to know exactly what the conspiracy theorists and right wing chuds believe in. It’s a “know your enemy” situation, but it also helps me to determine who to avoid and how to deal with crazy people.
Dude, not cool.
Reactionary communities are also the bedbugs of social media.
Once they established themselves on reddit, they quickly spread to other subs and overwhelmed their content with brigading and vote manipulation, trying to push lonely, frustrated people into the far-right funnel.
Thats why I’m not interested in an instance that tolerates them. “Getting an inch and taking a mile” is exactly their statetgy and they’ll quickly render local communities worthless.
God I fucking hope not. There are plenty of other servers that take this stance that you can sign up on. Don’t try to change this instance when there’s a million out there that already do what you’re looking for
Sounds like the admins removed that community, so I guess this instance is just another one of the millions 😄 Best of luck to you in your search for a new instance!
From the very brief statement admins made about the removal, it sounds like those users might have been creating multiple accounts and manipulating the platform more than once. I never saw any comments from admins on their stance towards right wing disinformation communities.
Allows federating with them, not allowing it to be posted on their server.
You…you want to be on a server that allows the intentional dissemination of harmful disinformation? There are lots of instances that allow that for you to sign up on.
Yes, and that’s why I signed up for it. Feel free to not join lol. I don’t want to defederate from anyone (except illegal instances), so I want access even to the porn ones. Most ban these so I don’t want them to decide what I see.
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Remember, this is a global general-purpose instance with a wide variety of backgrounds and worldviews.
With that in mind, I think I should have the choice to see information if I want to—even if someone else determines that it is incorrect, right?
From my perspective, you can learn extremely valuable things from the corrupt (the horrific history of my country for example) just as much as the good. Removing information like this effectively removes my ability to see the full picture. By definition, this is censorship. It is removing content based on someone’s opinion of the content itself.
If your going to tell me that your definition of disinformation is 100% truth, I’d love to hear how you got to that conclusion.
The amount of idiots sitting here defending right wing propaganda trolls is fucking incredible. No one wants them, and they ruin everything they come in contact with, ban them. It’s not the end of the world, and if they wanna spread their bullshit let them pay for their own server to host it on. ThE fAr LeFt nEoLiBeRaL eLiTe ArE SiLeNcInG uS. Get real, no one buys your bullshit, and no one wants to pretend to have a conversation with you
They suggested to me that I block their community but I will not because that is how you get a cesspit of an instance
Who cares? Just block it and carry on as normal. What other people do doesn’t effect your enjoyment of lemmy at all.
Better yet, curate your own homefeed with subscriptions.
This is a terrible attitude to have towards disinformation.
We should defend the quality of the information we get through social media. It has considerable influence over how we perceived the world and live our lives.
There’s disinformation all over the internet, I block it and get on with my life.
Disinformation affects first hand those who don’t block it. It then sways them and affects everyone through democracy.
Putting blinders on doesn’t solve the issue
Are you implying liberals are too stupid to know misinformation when they see it and will become alt-right because of that? Give the left some credit lol
I don’t think I implied anything
Do you think it’s possible you or someone else might be wrong about something being disinformation?
Of course there’s no absolute certainty of what is or what is not.
Does it matter to that?
Yes, I think it matters greatly when making decisions to completely remove or silence other people. What’s your process for determining if something is disinformation?
What do you mean to remove or silence people?
How do you approach solving the issue?
Are you sure your definition of disinformation is absolute truth? Maybe someone else comes along with a slightly different definition of disinformation. Which one of you makes the calls?
Why do you think this should be a global policy regulated by several admins as opposed to something we can each do ourselves?
Edit: Hey if you’re downvoting, consider contributing to the discussion by sharing why you don’t like this comment
No I don’t think I have absolute truth. I’m not the person in charge of this instance, so I don’t have a process for choosing between definitions.
It should be a global policy because admins are the ones with tools to deal with systemic disinformation campaigns. Also, some people can generally do it for themselves but nobody can always tell when they’re being manipulated.
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Actually if genocide happens then it wasn’t real communism
I find the content engaging and uplifting.
One of this account’s most recent comments:
Posted by a kid. Or a groomer.
Unsurprisingly your comment received nothing but downvotes because you mistake enraging for engaging.
This isn’t reddit
Bless your heart, you have nothing more to do with your life than recon on people’s interweb accounts.
Better than what you’re doing with yours bubba.
