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.
Feddit.org's explanation for this situation seems to fit into a few common variations:
- They accept both pro- and anti-Zionist members, so it's not proof of a bias.
- They [choose to] comply [in advance] with strict German / Swiss / Austrian laws regarding [overly broad] "antisemitic" language, or they might get in trouble.
- Calling for the destruction of Israel must obviously mean you want to kill every last man, woman and child, rather than simply wanting to overthrow Netanyahu's genocidal fascist regime. Because [bad faith] reasons.
- Lots of Euros (and Germans specifically) are pro-Zionist, so they feel like they have to accommodate this view.
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. As such, I am calling for feddit.org to:
- Explicitly prohibit pro-Zionist accounts from joining.
- Take measures to resolve their claimed legal issues, e.g., moving their server location to a less regulated jurisdiction, and ensuring that admin accounts remain anonymous regarding their location.
- Stop referring to folks who call for "Death to Israel" or similar as though they are the terrorists or violent extremists. The Zionist Israeli settlers, the murderous IDF rapists, and the entirety of the Israeli government are clearly the violent ethnostate extremists we should be worried about, not the Palestinians in Gaza who are fighting for their lives every single day against completely disproportionate levels of Zionist violence.
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.
I've also pulled out some choice morsels from the modlog to illustrate the sort of thing we are talking about:
This one says it all... mrdown@lemmy.world being banned for calling out feddit.org users for being Zionist apologists. It's apparently "xenophobic" to state a few hard truths.
If you have had similar experiences on feddit.org, please feel free to share in the comments.
Voting instructions
I am proposing to ban the following communities from feddit.org, which seem to be the most problematic communities in terms of hosting pro-Zionist posts/comments:
- https://feddit.org/c/YUROP
- https://feddit.org/c/europe
- https://feddit.org/c/buyfromeu
- https://feddit.org/c/europa
- https://feddit.org/c/dach
- https://feddit.org/c/deutschland
- https://feddit.org/c/germany
Upvote this post if you want dbzer0 / anarchist nexus to ban these communities.
Downvote this post if you'd prefer not to ban these communities.
Note 1: Votes from external instances do not count, unless one of our admins has vouched for you.
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.
Note 3: Although I don't really expect this to happen, if feddit.org agrees to make policy changes to address these issues then we are willing to reassess the situation.
I'm all for banning the listed communities, although I'd candidate giving their c/buyfromeu a temporary pass given the other societal context surrounding it (finding and promoting alternatives to produces and services from the US, the other big zionist state in the list). How long a pass? Uuuuh dunno, something like three strikes or whatever.
Regarding Note 2: For the time being I am against a full instance ban, but I expect that position to change. I understand that some people want to still see them so they can "refute their bullshit" but let's be honest, when has that ever worked? We all know f.o are going to double down on their fascism because they feel they have the backing mandate (power) of a state, and those here willing to go and try "ackshually"ing them, are free to do so via an account elsewhere.
I've started up !BuyFromEU@lemmy.dbzer0.com as an alternative to using anything Feddit related.
Preach!
I know there are some "Fediverse growth" communities where one goes to announce new communities, might be a good idea to do so?
the thing is that u cannot know what impact it has. mainly my perspective is, i agree that theyre unlikely to change their mind, but its not a 1:1 talk. u appeal to the audience, not the fascists themselves.
therefore, if i could choose between a world where fascist talking points are never refuted or one where they are refuted but never convince the fascists, id still choose the latter.
add to this that u will never flip someones beliefs 180° in one comment thread on the internet. but this does not mean it doesnt plant seeds of doubt that will grow with time. this has worked in the past, it just isnt as flashy and immediate as we expect it to be
I wonder if they allow people saying you should not use this german product because it has ties with israel and occupied palestine
In theory they should at least for the first half, since part of the objective of the community is to discuss the technical appeal of given cross-European solutions and offerings. Of which, given the central focus on European sovereignty, something like "has investors / storage / data access / provision from a country not-in-Europe" should be notable.
But who knows. We'll have to see.