@isolategab
Some of the app makers have since removed those blocks
@design_RG @arteteco @realcaseyrollins

@freemo

> Some of the app makers have since removed those blocks

I am glad to know that -- as that should be at the user's discretion. Otherwise it's Censorship.

To be absolutely clear -- I personally BLOCK all content from gab and affiliates, a personal user decision which is open to ANY fediverse user (depending on their platform, slightly different ways to implement).

I am not a flag bearer for free speech, considering an inherent human right, but the limiting of user options in the clients is wrong headed, imo. You opinion is probably different, but no offense meant or taken.

We could just ignore these fringes, blocking individual users or instances as needed in case of conflict.

Says me, a free thinker, opinionated and #FediReporter via my blog.

#QotoJournal worthy theme and mention.

@isolategab @arteteco @realcaseyrollins

@design_RG

Why woudl you think my opinion is different on if censorship should be in the client level. I certainly agree.

I think it should be at the user discretion largely because a user wanting to view immoral content is not the same as the user being immoral.

I do not block GAB personally. The reason is two fold 1) as a moderator I need a complete view as to what my users need to deal with but, more imporantly 2) I dont want to hide racist or nazi content. I want to see it, know its there, and know what im up against in the battle to end it. Information is the most important weapon I have.

That said I have yet to come across a single gab accoutn worth following or sharing content from. I usually just see their racist crap, roll my eyes, maybe tell them to fuck off, and go about my day.

@isolategab @arteteco @realcaseyrollins

@freemo @design_RG @arteteco @realcaseyrollins - for folks who do not want to block Gab entirely (our preference) our advice is at least silencing them helps. Then they are still there for admins who want to allow their instance to support that but at least uses not following it are not shown it.

@isolategab
But to what end? It woukd still impede our LGBT community from their purpose (to watch for risks to their community). They woukd be unable to see responses in threads or watch the overall gab timeline for threats against their community if we silenced it.

On the other hand, what good would it do that woukd be worth that cost? None of our members are allowed to share hateful content so its not like a generalist instance where there is a fear gabs voice might be amplified.

@design_RG @arteteco @realcaseyrollins

@freemo @isolategab @design_RG @arteteco I don't advocate muting either, I think the right thing to do is not take away their voice but talk to them about their opinions.

@SuperDicq
While thats a bit of a tangent to the concern i voiced i do agree you will do more good to talk to them and let them know their opinions are harmful and why.

Silence wont being about change uf anything it will give them a false sense of security as they will only hear people constantly agreeing with them.

@arteteco @isolategab @design_RG

@SuperDicq @arteteco @design_RG @freemo Federation is not a right. They are free to speak all they wish as app makers and instance owners have freedom of association.

@isolategab @arteteco @design_RG @freemo I'm not saying you are not allowed to block an instance. I personally look down upon instance admins that block instances other than spam.

@SuperDicq @arteteco @design_RG @freemo - I get that, but the opinion as I hear it is that it is a bad thing for instance owners to freely choose to exercise freedom of association.

@isolategab @arteteco @design_RG @freemo I look down upon it because in this case I think that an admin is giving away the freedom of association of its users.

@SuperDicq @arteteco @design_RG @freemo Users are fully free to join any instance on the Fedi directly, or to use an instance that has fedieration policies that they prefer. Nothing is infringed to them.

@isolategab
If i may, i dont think anyone in this thread claimed blocking gab is an infringement of rights, do as you wish for your instance. I think all that is being said is that the user in this cases wishes to decide that for themselves and puts instances that honor that wish as a high priority in how they select instances.

@SuperDicq @arteteco @design_RG

@freemo @SuperDicq @arteteco @design_RG Users absolutely have the right to choose instances that have Federation policies they want. For sure.

Was offering a different view than this: "I think that an admin is giving away the freedom of association of its users."

And noting that freedom of associaton rights of admins to block or silence Gab, or others doesn't curtail the rights of users to go pick another instance they prefer with different federation policies, or to go to said Gab instance directly and join.

@isolategab
Agreed
@SuperDicq @arteteco @design_RG

@isolategab

Well said, but just a reminder that many places do not disclose their blocking lists or policies.

And users will need an education and some experience to get to a point where this will matter to them, I think.

There's so many new ideas, concepts to learn, the Fediverse is vast, a lot more than Mastodon - and that I found fascinating. Still do.

Will collate a lot of the posts we made here in a #FediReporter article sometime in the near future -- this is an important issue, it's not just Gab and affiliates, but the internecine war and collateral damage done to decent people, who put an effort and money to be here, provide services, help others.

Thanks for your posts!

@freemo @SuperDicq @arteteco

@isolategab @arteteco @design_RG @freemo This would mean that if you wanted to access the whole fediverse you would need multiple accounts, and then you would also get some admins who ban you if they find out you have an alt account on one of the instances they don't like.

The fediverse is a lot like email, the prime example of a decentralized online service. Imagine if one day for whatever reason Gmail decided to stop federating with Hotmail, not allowing Gmail users to email Hotmail users anymore. Would you consider that is a good thing? I don't, so I think any good instance admin should not block other instances.

@SuperDicq

Thats a very well said and good point. Servers would have the **right** to defederate but in doing so ultimately do far more harm to the network than good. I generally agree to that.

But with that said as a counter argument you are aware gmail (and most email services) do actively "defederate" from specific servers. So thats already how email works, its just that it is very rarely due to the opinions held by any users on such a server.

@isolategab @arteteco @design_RG

@freemo @isolategab @arteteco @design_RG Yeah email providers generally block spam domains and such of course, but not opinions.

@SuperDicq

Right. Though to be fair thats likely because they cant legally read your emails anyway. If emails were public and shared as such I would imagine they would.

Not saying its right, I agree with you, its counter productive to a well intentioned network (as well as morally counter productive). But just saying they probably would.

@isolategab @arteteco @design_RG

@freemo @isolategab @arteteco @design_RG They can read your email. It's not against the law like opening reading someone's postal mail is. For example Google uses the contents of your emails to generate ads for you and it's right there in their ToS and nobody minds.

@SuperDicq

Well they can scan my emails by automated systems.. but does their ToS permit a human to read my emails or otherwise disseminate their content?

I dont know but I would hope not.

@isolategab @arteteco @design_RG

@freemo @isolategab @arteteco @design_RG I'm not sure if that is specified in the ToS but I do know that if you host a mail server it is not illegal to read your users emails.

@SuperDicq @arteteco @design_RG @freemo Federation is not akin to email lists. Much more like Usenet, where different admins had different polcies. Including spam, but also for thinks like objectionable alt groups.

@SuperDicq @arteteco @design_RG @freemo You as an individual are still free to chose instances that have moderation policies you like...And see my other thread: think that email is fundamentally not analogous to Fediverse. Fediverse is more akin to Usenet.

@SuperDicq @arteteco @design_RG @freemo - I agree that this can be good -- the way to do it then is to join their instance and do so, but don't amplify it via Federation or at least by not silencing them.

@freemo - to the end of not amplifying speech that instances do not wish to play any role in helping gain larger social reach. And everyone still free to be on alert for risks to their communities directly on such instances.

@isolategab
If the purpose is not to amplify hatefuk speech from gab then we already already serve that purpose as our users do not promote hateful speech from gab in the first place. In fact i have never witnessed one of our users ever sharing a post from a gab account of any kind, and i doubt our users would.

@freemo Federation alone amplifies the social reach of the speech of what you choose to federate....you offer it a bigger audience.

@isolategab
How do you figure? Since their content is not shared by anyone on our server how is their reache extended?

@freemo You are giving a larger potential social audience to the content. Giving them a bigger potential platform to speak to, regardless if people retoot it or not.

@isolategab

You created it to isolate Gab, they are gone now and it's time that you also go and have fun.

Stop this and Get some help.

@freemo

@Inditoot

What do you mean by "they are gone now" ?
Has gab stopped federating with all other instances?

@isolategab @freemo

@mukt @freemo @isolategab

Yes, They broke the federation saying Activity Pub is restricting in many ways.

The Main reason was they were not able to fix some issue and there site went down for around 4 days.

As You can see this can be big loss for them so they must have given priority to up there site first and federation didn't really helped them to get that extra reach so breaking it just to get rid of issues.

@Inditoot

This is worth investigating. Especially if one has activist level feelings about them one way or other.

@freemo @isolategab

@isolategab
If by that you simply mean that qoto users themselves are capable of viewing gab content, then yes i agree.

But as i said given the wishes of our LGBT community and the reasons thry felt gab federation was necessary i ultimately decided that was acceptable.

Consider this if you personally happened to see the gab timeline for some reason, as someone who is presumably not one to agree with hate speach, by having viewed that (and increased their audience by 1) how has that action strengthened the position of gab? Or would your mere viewing of their timeline have no effect since you reject hate speech? Id woukd imagine the latter no?

@freemo: "If by that you simply mean that qoto users themselves are capable of viewing gab content, then yes i agree."

Cool it was.

I'd say to your question Gab (like other exremist networks) is strengthened by it's potential reach socially. Frankly - even more for Gab is a private business, and it lives or dies by it's recruitment and it's advertising deals benfit it by it's potential audience.

@isolategab Can you link me to an example of an advertisement gab makes money off of that is a federated toot? This is new info to me.

@freemo They had multiple deals where in exchange for tooting out VPN posts, they got money from VPN providers, and other products. https://twitter.com/isolategab/status/1174140218313719810

@isolategab These deals coe from the @gab account? I will discuss with moderators silencing that account. Thank you for the info.

@isolategab

To me this looks like a two-way street : federation with gab also amplifies fediverse content to gab audience - potentially countering some of their propaganda.

@freemo

@isolategab

I prefer to leave the decision of that in the user's hands, and to provide them with User Guides and support, explaining how to do it. That has been my course of action here at Qoto, even before I joined the staff.

Personally, I use a full Block for them and their satellite instances. We all have limited free time and energy to spend here, and I rather not getting into confrontations or name calling with users from known radicalized places.

Irks me though -- when we see a respectful instance (ours here) get treated as Guilty by Association -- due to the admin's decision, still standing, to keep federation links normally.

Gab is irrelevant for the Fediverse -- their own software developer's post, included above in this thread, admitted to the Insularity they have -- which is Off the scale.

Public data and careful analysis create these reports, for all instances. Gab's numbers are phenomenal -- they are in a corner, and not talking to anyone.

Many of us are not interested, and if things stay like that, the rage love fedi block is in my view incorrect, negative and doing damage to Non-facist instances all over the place. Despicable.

Those supposedly anti-fascists are actually the ones acting the way they profess to despise. I have confronted one of their members, when I came across a thread advocating de-federation of this instance.

That person acted surprised, to have a response.

See the thread here : https://radical.town/@DissidentKitty/103360603294150583

Adding a screenshot of their OP -- pretty low effort job, if you are going to War, at least prepare for it.

This person went on to creating a big incident in early March this year (three months after the thread above posted) which nearly destroyed the instance they were involved in at the time. This is documented and known by many people, it was big indeed.

@freemo @arteteco @realcaseyrollins

@freemo @design_RG @arteteco @realcaseyrollins None with any real userbase.

@isolategab
That seems largely incorrect. Fedilab is and has been one of the most popular clients in the app store and has since reversed their block on gab.
@design_RG @arteteco @realcaseyrollins