Hello all,
Over the last 48 hours the community has had the opportunity to vote on defederating with Exploding Heads and rammy.site (as an extension of Exploding Heads following its abandonment).
Before we move on to the result, I just want to add that there are no winners or losers here, and rather this is a vote we had to call because the moderation tools for Lemmy users and for Lemmy admins are not yet robust enough, and that in the future we hope that the real best outcome will be to allow users to choose to defederate/block instances entirely.
The results of the poll are as follows:
76% of votes were to defederate, with 24% of the vote to not defederate.
Based on the majority of votes, we’ve now implemented the block on those instances.
If/when the robust moderation tools are in place in the future, we will revisit this block and look instead to block problematic communities.
I appreciate everyone taking the time to vote, and all the discussion that has taken place around this topic. It has also helped the admin team to better be aware of our responsibilities to yourselves as users of this instance, and our instance’s footprint in the wider fediverse.
I also need to mention we’ve been made aware of illegal content on the burggit.moe instance involving depictions of underage children in sexual acts. Even in cartoon style, these are illegal in many countries, including the UK, and so we’ve implemented a block on that instance too under the “illegal content” clause in our Defederation Policy. Upon review it appears we had very few (i.e. 1) subscribers to most of these communities on that instance, and so we don’t believe this will have any impact on the current userbase.
Just want to add that the devs are working on allowing users to block instances - this is a really good step towards a more robust moderation solution.
Could we get an ongoing list of defederated instances with their reasons/relevant posts? I feel that’s an important transparency aspect for instances, and would be useful to look back on if it ends up growing a little more by the the moderation tools improve to become a viable alternative
I think that’s a great idea, I’ll add it to the defederation policy at the bottom with the site name and the reason for defederation.
I’ve been impressed with the thoughtful and careful way the team handled this. I decided to set up a regular donation on Open Collective as a result. I moved from Lemmy.ml a couple of months back, and this has proven to be a very well-managed instance. Kudos to all! 🙏
Thank you, that is incredibly generous. We really appreciate the kind words. It’s a really tricky subject to navigate and we’ve tried to do it as transparently as possible.
Glad you’re here and enjoying the instance ❤️
Ps I’ve updated the thank you thread :) Pps great website 😉
Love to see this! Well done.
This is exciting! Can someone use that AI generated newscaster to turn this into election-style news report?
EDIT: Just now I read the second part about illegal content… that’s also news-worthy I guess.
Here’s an AI-generated recap:
Good evening,
In a pivotal update from Lemmy.zip administrators, the community’s recent 48-hour poll has yielded a clear mandate. A significant 76% of the votes called for defederation with Exploding Heads and rammy.site, while 24% opted for the connection to remain.
In response, Lemmy.zip has promptly implemented a block on the specified instances. This action, however, remains subject to review as more robust moderation tools are developed, with the intention of targeting problematic communities in the future.
Additionally, a block has been placed on the burggit.moe instance due to the presence of illegal content depicting minors engaged in explicit acts, even in cartoon form. This measure aligns with Lemmy.zip’s commitment to responsible content within the online community.
This succinct update underscores Lemmy.zip’s dedication to its user base and its responsibility within the broader fediverse.
Thank you for tuning in.
Perfect!
