BTW, I had to add a few more of these guys to my ignore list. One would post some stuff about Linux and FOSS and the like, but sprinkled in with lots of alt right/Nazi bullshit, and the others apparently knew the score, since they would typically post on every one of his political posts.

Keep calm and hit ignore! And tell everyone you know to hit ignore too.

I haven't seen them yet. I usually ask them polite questions until they wind up ignoring me.

It's a reallity created by the setup of open source and federation. In any case it's quite easy to address this by some code improving blocking features for pod's and acounrs as well as by the comunity thru comunication itself. The most important thing is transparancy itself by the pods.

There are some missunderstandings lately mostly by g+ people about the ideals of the federated concept and the open source comunity witch brings personal responsibility with it instead of expecting some kind of higher authority to solve things they don't like.

I hate to bring it to you but actually it's easy to solve, stay on centralized systems or use an instance that doesn't federate, actually that's the same.

You are basically atacking the esence of d* itself and I wonder why or with what authority.

99.9% of the internet isn't federated, how is it that you expect us to not be different?

If newbees get a poor impresion because they don't show an interest in knowing about the the very esence of this I guess we don't need them and it's better if they get lost.

The pitty is that the day idiots like Alex Jones realize the beauty of our setup they will flood us with their braindamaged crowds and we are doomed without propper blocking features.

I guess that's how the story goes always since the beginning of times .. :(

@Theodotos Andreou Yes, and delete troll, and ignorant posts such as the above!

Deleting a troll or a post is not always possible, or practical in federated networks. A moderator's realm is limited while a public post will federate everywhere. So a user is more powerful than a moderator. That's why I insist that a solution from the users themselves has more value than podmin moderation.

I agree, that's why posters need to delete troll postings!

Speak of the devil :)

Delete the shit, Report the Idiots!

@ivan zlax - you are saying I'm the troll? LOL. You are the one that has created multiple accounts and constantly repeat the same boring nonsense about a "stolen identity". Unless RAW is capable of rising from the dead, no one could possibly think my nym is the real RAW.

Also, you know FULL WELL you have posted very dubious content and I think it's your guilty conscience that has you harping on trivialities and lies like "stolen identities".

@Kenny Chaffin - I've been more likely to block and delete than I have in the past, that's for sure. We'll see how this goes.

@some of the others:

I've been on BBSes and the 'net for over 40 years, very much of that w/o moderation. I find the "moderation" of sites like FB, Youtube, and news comment sections, etc. very interesting, at least in America. Post genitalia or a nipple, and you'll find moderators coming down on that like a ton of bricks. Post Nazi and Nazi-adjacent material? Well, then it's something something "free speech". It seems even those guys are only finally, and in a very half-assed way, finally addressing their Nazi problem, but still being skittish about it, because they don't want to piss off the deplorables, all because of money.

Anyway, even in all these years of unmoderated Internet usage, I've never seen so much blatant support for fascism as when I came onto Diaspora (and I've been on for years, not all with this nym). Granted, I mostly steer clear of Internet cesspools and swamps like 4chan and subreddits that support Donnie, etc.

I don't expect podmins or anything else to really save anything; but I do wonder about finding more users that aren't toxic if some of the most vocal and prolific people that you first experience on d* are Nazis looking to recruit more people into their delusional belief system. Some of which will actually make not-very-veiled threats against others that don't think as they do, or look like they'd like them to look like.

I almost wonder if something like a crowd-sourced ignore list that could somehow be shared (on GitLab or the like) and others could somehow import, and script something to regularly update? Much like how one can blacklist toxic websites with lists such as this one by adding them to your local hosts file:

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/

Then, in the "welcome...." kind of messages a podmin could customize it to inform users of all the background, then point them to the resource(s) to do this if they wish.

I suspect this list (if confined to the Nazi and the Nazi-adjacent) would boil down to less than 20 actual people, but since they are so prolific, and constantly make new identities to try to make their toxic bullshit re-appear in people's feeds, it might be a pretty long list.

👍 @The Very Real Robert Anton Wilson

Nazi's are not the only kind of trolls you can find. They come in all sorts of colors and sociopolitical believes.

@Theodotos Andreou Exactly!

A crowd-sourced federated reputation scheme would be effective if the rating groups were invite-only. This would allow people to subscribe to the ratings scheme that suited their proclivities.

Overall, though, a global ban option would make the echo-chamber problem worse. We get so incredibly upset when anybody disagrees with the trifles that we don't even realize when their disagreement is important to social discourse. It's healthy for people to have to face their own cognitive dissonance every now and again.

I have no problem with debate. But what if a troll come along and accuses another user (one he met for the first time) for money laundering? Based on a true story!

That's not debate, that's libel. We have laws against that for a reason. We just don't have a solid accounting for it here.

@Kenny

Are you reefering to me?

@Robert Rapplean I have no problem with debate provided it is done respectably but when it's outright attacks, propaganda and known lies, that should be banned.

Nazis have no interest in respectable debate. But I prefer to see them shunned and exposed by individuals rather than having some kind of institutional banning of content.
This is an important discussion, but there has to be a better way to both fight Nazis and preserve freedom of speech.
If Nazis succeed in getting themselves censored, that censorship will be used on anti-nazis too. I think that may be their plan.

Besides the content you will always find the same kind of behavior in certain mindsets of people who try to impose @Joe**. Their intent is to set apart and extinguish different or opposed voices to the mainstream they want to see.
They call for ban and expell rather than live and let live, they hate the diversity of opinion and points of views and fear truth and reality, they prefer to rewrite history rather than respect reallity.
They are actually more dangerous than any outspoken enemy of yours as they try to comfort you when they actually only want to sillence voices they don't like.
It's easier to judge and live in a blindfolded way than to be truthfull and realistic.
The actuall Assange issue is a perfect example.

You are right to consider that it's better to have the right wingers at plain sight than letting them rott together in the dark.

So, we have three or four categories of problem:
1. Those behaving in an illegal manner (libel or spam)
2. Those behaving in a socially harmful manner (bigotry or hate speech)
3. Those performing denial of service attacks. e.g., posting long, nonsensical, or disruptive posts. "All talk and no listen" comes in this category.
4. Those with perspectives that are harmful to themselves and others. These can look like 3 above, but they're born of ignorance, not malice, and can usually be remedied by asking nicely.

Each of these would need to be handled differently to maintain open public discourse. Unfortunate, diaspora doesn't support any of them.

@Robert Rapplean +1

@ mʕ•ﻌ•ʔm
I do not agree with the following -
"they hate the diversity of opinion and points of views and fear truth and reality, they prefer to rewrite history rather than respect reality."
There are certainly some on the authoritarian left who feel that way, but we are talking about nazis and fascists here, not diversity of opinion and points of view, truth, or reality. The nazis are the ones who rewrite history rather than respect reality. That statement sounds just like something they would say in their own lying defense. And I hope you realize that nazis do not believe in liberal values like "free speech", but they cynically use our rights in order to create a regime that will censor everybody.
There are definitely other, more noble, motives at play in the concerns expressed on this thread. Perhaps they are antifascists? ;)

There is a paradox at work with the concept of tolerating the intolerant. The right knows just how to exploit this paradox. Don't help them.

So, we have three or four categories of problem:
Those behaving in an illegal manner (libel or spam)

In witch country illegal in legal terms?
This is a federation on the internet.
The pod that publishes the post or comment can be located in Timbuktu. The person that writes the text or post's the image could be literally on the moon.

Those behaving in a socially harmful manner (bigotry or hate speech)

From who's perspective?
The ones that sees a post of Charlie Hebdo in Saudi Arabia?

Those performing denial of service attacks. e.g., posting long, nonsensical, or disruptive posts. “All talk and no listen” comes in this category.

Who is to decide what is nonsensical?
You?
Me?
A simple majority?
The absolute majority?
Keppler was nonsensical in his time for the catholic church.
When Einstein wrote the theory of relativity it was nonsensical to most and it needed about 10 years to prove it.
Because you or others don't understand something it can make sense to some or any kind of minority maybe even only one called Albert Einstein the second that discovers because of some stupid comment something important while he is sitting in a street train in Vienna wondering about a cure for cancer.
We need disturbance!

Those with perspectives that are harmful to themselves and others. These can look like 3 above, but they’re born of ignorance, not malice, and can usually be remedied by asking nicely.

Same as the last point above.
Who is to decide that it is harmful to himself or to others?
For the catholic church the speech of Luther or Keepler was harmful.

Each of these would need to be handled differently to maintain open public discourse.

Again, by whom?
As @The Very Real Robert Anton Wilson pointed out already:

I’ve been on BBSes and the 'net for over 40 years, very much of that w/o moderation. I find the “moderation” of sites like FB, Youtube, and news comment sections, etc. very interesting, at least in America. Post genitalia or a nipple, and you’ll find moderators coming down on that like a ton of bricks. Post Nazi and Nazi-adjacent material? Well, then it’s something something “free speech”.

Unfortunate, diaspora doesn’t support any of them.

From it's very inception diaspora was in part designed to prevent this kind of system wide censorship. It's part if it's goal.

Sorry @Robert Rapplean but I find your comment completely out of touch with the very idea of diaspora, an insult to someone like @Ilya Zhitomirskiy .

Are you sure you want to be at diaspora* and support the idea of federation?
Why?

.. and by the way, we haven't even talked about exposing stupidity by letting it shine by itself ..

---

@all - If the permalinks don't show up on your pod just replace your pod name in the link with pod.geraspora.de

@**joe

I agree with you about the ones you call Nazis.
They have more names.
Like fascists or totalitarians.
I consider that you find totalitarianism on every extreme of every ideology.
I actually always outed myself to be against -isms.
Also you find it more commonly with older people.
Like to say it's common that with age you become stubborn and less "liberal".

I don't defend Nazis or the far right wingers at all out here and they are probably all on my ignore list. Most of them because they delete my comments without further notice or comment. Actually everyone who does that goes on that list of mine because it's a lack of respect in the first place.

The nazis are the ones who rewrite history rather than respect reality. That statement sounds just like something they would say in their own lying defense. And I hope you realize that nazis do not believe in liberal values like “free speech”, but they cynically use our rights in order to create a regime that will censor everybody.

Of course that's true, the more stupid ones delete and censor right away. Also there are those that try to go under your skin by leaving your comments up and discuss with you trying to "win you over".
Actually I couldn't have recognized that without being exposed to them and that's the point.
Every vaccine exposes you to debilitated or dead "cells".
Debilitated for example by comments like these:

I’m pretty amused to see some of the gang of fascists still whining about how podmins that are “fags”, “SJWs” and so on are repressing them,

On rewriting history:
Every one does it.
Human mind does it nearly by default.
Even the mother of my children (I'm divorced) does it in my presence and absence.
The bad ones are always "the others".
In particular the winner write the history and rewrite it every now and than.
Deleting is the first step of writing your own history and rewriting history.

---

I defend the setup and the underlying idea of the federated web.
I defend the right to speak out your mind.
That doesn't mean that your speech will not have or might not have consequences.
I defend the right to make up your own mind.
Of course I defend the right of every pod to host only the content he wants to.

As I stated in my first comment:

In any case it’s quite easy to address this by some code improving blocking features for pod’s and accounts as well as by the community through communication itself.

This is happening right now in this conversation here for example by comments like:

if something like a crowd-sourced ignore list that could somehow be shared (on GitLab or the like) and others could somehow import, and script something to regularly update?

Then, in the “welcome…” kind of messages a podmin could customize it to inform users of all the background, then point them to the resource(s) to do this if they wish.

A crowd-sourced federated reputation scheme would be effective if the rating groups were invite-only. This would allow people to subscribe to the ratings scheme that suited their proclivities.

Overall, though, a global ban option would make the echo-chamber problem worse. We get so incredibly upset when anybody disagrees with the trifles that we don’t even realize when their disagreement is important to social discourse. It’s healthy for people to have to face their own cognitive dissonance every now and again.

As I stated in the beginning:
The most important thing is transparency itself by the pods.

---

The real problem I see is different.
Once blocking features on pod level for profiles or pods is available (a similar problem when the denouncing content sign came up) the pods can be enforced by local authorities, let's say Turkey, Iran or Saudi Arabia, to block content or connections to certain pods.
If an extensive and useful blocking feature is only available to the user the responsibility is up to the user and "greater" authorities are held back from influencing "the easy way".
They would need to ban the software itself.

I think I can agree with most of that, my objection was to the particular passage which I cited, for the reasons I stated.
Good point about how dictators could abuse that ability of podmins to block accounts.

my objection was to the particular passage which I cited, for the reasons I stated.

I get that, but as you stated yourself before:

If Nazis succeed in getting themselves censored, that censorship will be used on anti-nazis too.

That's why I discus the system and it's setup, no matter what's the contextual issue. It's not about nazi/anti-nazi it's about the setup in general as it can and will be used later on on any kind of "minority" not only the obviously undesired once.

I'm more worried about child abuse, or open violence for example and the possibilities to hide out here in the difficult to censor federation.

Not long ago, wondering about peertube and investigating it, the first thing I stumbled upon was child abuse in the open and it broke my heart in a manner that I haven't made up my mind yet and maybe prefer to stay on a "shitty place" like youtube instead. :(

---

btw
Perhaps the smaller the pods the better.
Having to moderate large pods exposes a few fellows to handle and see all kinds of sh**. Fakebook and Microsoft already have employees suing them because they can't get rid of all the perverted things they got to see as "moderators".
I don't want our podmins to have to handle that crap or to have to check the whole day stupid denunciation. I guess I'd started quickly to block the ones who live their life denunciating others the whole day yelling:
"delete! .. blockem! .. kick'em out!".

That's so childish. :(

@**joe

.. like to say ..

in order to have “free speech” and by which they mean hate speech.
...
And no, in order for a platform to truly promote free speech, they do not have to tolerate the speech of Nazis.
...
Post Nazi and Nazi-adjacent material? Well, then it’s something something “free speech”.

Here is a fairly typical example of the contemporary misunderstanding of what free speech is.

"Something something 'free speech'", or the endlessly clever "freeze peach" (hahahahaha. ha.), demonstrates these people's contempt for free speech. If you are unprepared for, and unable to deal with, speech which you do not like, you are not prepared to live in the world as a full, autonomous person.

@mʕ•ﻌ•ʔm jeSuisatire bitPickup / [italic] ~ irony, "From it’s very inception diaspora was in part designed to prevent this kind of system wide censorship. It’s part if it’s goal.

Sorry @Robert Rapplean but I find your comment completely out of touch with the very idea of diaspora, an insult to someone like @Ilya Zhitomirskiy."

I'm pretty sure that Zhitomirskly didn't intend for Diaspora to be somewhere that drives people away with their inability to shut out obnoxious jerks. What I propose is nothing more than a collective form of blocking. Does it horrify you to think that someone might not have to listen to you?

"By whom?"

By me, of course. :) Kidding. If it were someone like me blocking you from seeing people, then the answer might be important. In reality, it would be by whoever the blocker trusts. This might be a group that they belong to and contribute to, or it might be some group with strong powers of discernment (by the blocker's standards) that they subscribe to.

Speaking of which, I've limited your comments to 200 words, so you might want to be a little more concise.

Speaking of which, I’ve limited your comments to 200 words, so you might want to be a little more concise.

@Robert Rapplean
No need for that, I already expressed what I needed to say .. :)

I’m pretty sure that Zhitomirskly didn’t intend for Diaspora to be somewhere that drives people away with their inability to shut out obnoxious jerks.

https://twitter.com/zhitomirskiyi/status/122400286257070080

As I stated before:

some code improving blocking features for pod’s and accounts

Ilya probably had coded something when the situation had come up and he felt the need to do so.

And also, actually that's not the point. There is no such thing as a diaspora community that has to decide who can use the software or who can't.
Would you consider that phpBB (a forum software) decides what kind of obnoxious jerks installs their site with it and who don't?

There are aspects that have to be managed on a personal level. Others that might be managed on a pod level. Like to say, pluspora could "vote" on connecting to russian spy pods or not, but that's it.
Go and tell email to kick out some obnoxious jerks.
Is there an email community that decides who can use it and who don't?

There was a moment when ISIS accounts showed up and where deleted immediately by all the podmins. At the same time everybody new and was aware that if they decided to create their own pod there was little to do about. Actually I doubt that anybody could read arabic, they were just judged by some pics and appearance I guess.

In the end I suppose it's the "free market" that will or should create pods that protect their users from getting exposed more or less to certain content and I know pluspora is doing that when certain accounts don't fit their standards for example.
Code the addon and have fun on your site or connected sites!
199 characters, that was close!

I’m pretty sure that Zhitomirskly didn’t intend for Diaspora to be somewhere that drives people away with their inability to shut out obnoxious jerks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)
In September 2011 the developers stated, "...our distributed design means no big corporation will ever control Diaspora. Diaspora* will never sell your social life to advertisers, and you won't have to conform to someone's arbitrary rules or look over your shoulder before you speak."

"and you won’t have to conform to someone’s arbitrary rules or look over your shoulder before you speak.”

Isn't it interesting that that statement can be interpreted two ways?
There is the paradox I referred to earlier.

RAW
You really should do us a favor and “ignore” that fascist troll^
I had to ignore about 10 different accounts that it had.
It will call you “US propaganda” for no other reason than it hates each and every AMERICAN (it hates it when I say “American”). It thinks all AMERICAN babies are pigs.
It is also a pseudo-dischordian, so it hates you twice. Dump it. Next it is going to pretend to want a discussion with me. But all it wants is to do is spew hatred.

@<strong>joe **Yes! and it's unfortunate we do not have True Blocking!

@mʕ•ﻌ•ʔm jeSuisatire bitPickup / [italic] ~ irony, "199 characters, that was close!"

Respect. Thank you for playing along.

Let's dismiss the idea of picking who gets to use the software. I think we both agree that would be both inane an unworkable. Having centralized content control is equally inane, even if it would be workable.

We do have groups that selectively block email. That's why I use Gmail for random correspondence -- they filter out the bad actors so I don't have to. No human can be diligent enough to block all spam.

Unfortunately, the spam filter approach isn't adequate for hate speech and purposeful misinformation, and these are like zombie viruses with a digital transmission vector. This is the problem I'm looking for a solution to.

What I'm suggesting is like Diaspora's distributed messaging, except it would be distributed reputation rating. Any reputation scheme has four parts: The ratee, the scale, the actual rating, and the rater. The reputation of the rating is critical to the value of the system. By having multiple rating collectives, a person can pick one that suits them, and even contribute to it.

I would write it myself, but my spare time is inadequate.

"True" blocking, by the user, as opposed to the more limited "ignore" feature, would be fine with me.

@Robert Rapplean

That's why I use Gmail for random correspondence -- they filter out the bad actors so I don't have to.

In the end I suppose it's the "free market" that will or should create pods that protect their users from getting exposed more or less to certain content

---

A kind of rating system is apparently key element of the steem platform. Transform d* into something like that is more than a transformation creating something completely different.

I think that meanwhile we are few we are not interesting to spammers and alike.

A good blocking and ignoring feature, together with some elements like information "blocked by x-people" should be suffice.
Our biggest enemy is probably megalomania.
A ton of small pod comunitys should be more resilent and create enough niches for a diverse comunity than a big instances aproach. In the past, aparently we lost the ability to like comments because it didn't scale for a mega pod like joindiaspora. I guess that's true for lot's of aspects.

In my opinion we should go for KISS+S figuring the last S for "small".

Meanwhile "there is no money to be made with diaspora" lots of problems that come with the internet and asocial web are probably avoided. Limiting pod size could be a good tool to achive the non profit goal.

Since there is no money to be made on diaspora, the capitalist "free market" has nothing to do with it.
Free choice without commerce is just free, not a market.

@**joe, don't directly equate a market with money. Most models of an internet economy have multiple forms of currency, most notably attention (eyeballs), content, esteem, and intellectual contribution. With this in mind, a group that values the quality of their content would pay for, or contribute to, a solution that maintains the value of that content. The problem is that we're so used to the economy of paying our eyeball-time in exchange for simulated esteem that it takes a bit of a sales job to convince people that reliable information has value.

It's like art, but with turtles.

@Robert Rapplean, comparing all life to a market is an ideological act in support of capitalism. I do directly equate a market with money. "Free Market" is an ideological term of the right, just like "workers state" is an ideological term of the authoritarian left.

@joe**
By "free market" I mean the idea that if there is a "real" need for something someone will come up with it. The word market has lot's of meanings. Just forget the rest of the capitalist ideas surrounding that concept.
How about "free bazaar"?

If diaspora really lives on and really grows it's likely that there will be pods for kids, unmoderated pods kinda 4chan like and probably blocking features to mute entire pods or tags for example. The problem we both see is that if it's in the back end for the podmin as a standard feature it will lead to censorship by law enforcement. So there is probably an important discussion to make if there should be a slim core d* code and independent addons, like it's managed by phpBB for example or #friendica. That way at least law enforcement would be obliged to bring out official rules for the use of the software itself exposing the "legal intervention".

@**joe, You can't equate all life to a market, but you can equate all exchange of goods and services to a market. In fact, that's what the word means. A barter economy is still an economy. That's the whole point behind something like cryptocurrencies -- you don't need a central definition of "money" to have a market.

In a "free market", real needs are irrelevant. Fake, manufactured needs are one of it's most prized commodities. The only need the market has is profit. It will suppress real solutions if there is more profit to be made by keeping real needs unsatisfied.

Robert, "free market" refers to a neoliberal, deregulated, corporate free-for-all.
When it comes to mean a market, bazaar, or whatever, where you can take and leave whatever you want for free, I may embrace the term. But till then, it is a right-wing, capitalist term. Btw, cryptocurrencies are also capitalist. The definition of "money" has always been fluid.

To come back again on the term diaspora and the conversation with @Robert Rapplean .

In the end this is about:

And no, in order for a platform to truly promote free speech, they do not have to tolerate the speech of "XYZ".

What is "a platform"?
Diaspora* as a code?
Diaspora* as a community?
Can there be one diaspora community due to the idea of the code and federation itself?

In my opinion this idea or request comes from a mindset raised in single entity sites like g-less or fakebook and the perception of a common identity by using the same service. It does not apply to the idea of diaspora* in my opinion and doesn't have to.

In my opinion this is a request for a pod or a system of pods that adhere to a certain set of rules.

In the back end of #friendica for example there is an opt in option to restrict communication only with defined servers. I haven't seen the back end lately so I don't now if there is an option now to exclude servers from communication.

You already spewed all that bullshit at me weeks ago. It is easy to push your buttons. You are very easily provoked and then you repeat the same hate speech over and over and over again.

I told you this would happen, Robert Anton Wilson, my fellow AMERICAN. (rotfl).

Guys you are breaking one of the oldest rules of the Internet:

Do not feed the troll!

@mʕ•ﻌ•ʔm jeSuisatire bitPickup / [italic] ~ ironyI don't believe that was a quote from me. I would have phrased it more like "In order to truly promote free speech, a platform has to allow a person to listen to the signal through the noise. Each person should be at liberty to identify their own concept of noise, and be able to respond in kind to the concept of signal, but nobody should be required to hear them."

Freedom of speech does not equate to a right to be heard. When the noise of an environment overwhelms the signal, then everyone abandons it. This is often the problem with phpBB sites, and the reason for such solutions as spam hammer.

@**joe, for the crime of pushing buttons for the purpose of annoying, I name ye troll. Also, your concept of a free market as a neoliberal concept clearly identifies you as not being from the United States. In the US, keeping the government from spoiling capitalist fun is a strictly conservative stance.

@ivan zlax, you do seem to be troll fodder. I keep telling my kids that leaving food around their room will attract roaches and rodents, but they don't listen either.

Yeah I do troll the trolls sometimes. But I have no idea what that incoherent comment about "not being from the united states" is supposed to mean. I think you are just trolling the troll troller.

@Robert Rapplan

The quote is the last sentence from the inicial post.

---

btw
feeding the offtopic discussion is as usefull as feeding trolls.

@mʕ•ﻌ•ʔm jeSuisatire bitPickup / [italic] ~ irony "feeding the off topic discussion is as useful as feeding trolls."

Point taken. Calling a troll a troll is necessary, but the bonus stab was gratuitous, even if it was an attempt at enlightenment.

@**joe, In the US political spectrum, unregulated commerce is a purely conservative idea. Neoliberals want the government to protect them from commercial exploitation. The idea of a truly free market is a libertarian idea, which is neither right nor left, but tends to appeal to those who are into generating revenue more than to those who want to establish a level playing field. This is just a matter of term clarification.

No Robert you are confusing neoliberal and liberal. Neoliberalism is the pseudolibertarian "free" market, rightist, conservative, ideology of Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher. You sure sound like an antiliberal, neoliberal to me. To the degree that the Democrats have adopted neoliberalism, that is the degree to which they have abandoned liberal leftism and embraced conservative rightism.
There is nothing about your ideology that is "beyond right and left". The very idea that capitalism is non-ideological is part of rightist ideology. You will never hear a liberal, a socialist, an anarchist, or a communist claim that they are beyond right and left, or that Reaganomics is non-ideological.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/neoliberalism.asp
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/history-of-neoliberal-meaning/528276/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/neoliberal

@bleach@podbay.net - I think there are and should be limits to "free speech". It's not as black and white as some Libertarians would like to claim. I used to adhere pretty closely to a near-dogmatic "information wants to be free" kind of view, as well as "all voices should be able to be heard", etc.

However, after quite some time on the 'net, I've changed my views somewhat. Free speech is not an absolute right. Even the First Amendment in the U.S. puts limits on free speech. You cannot discuss assassination plans on a President. You cannot shout fire in a crowded theater. There are consequences for inciting violence via speech. You cannot tell people to perjure themselves. And so on.

Besides law, there is the moral plane. Nazis and those like them pretend to care about free speech, but that's just a ploy they use while they bide their time, in the hopes that one day they can illegitimately seize power. Extending them the "right" to spread their ideology and to allow them to recruit and to tolerate intolerance on that level is not something required of moral people. In fact, to do so is to abnegate the responsibilities of those that value and want to protect an open society. Sitting by and allowing, or, indeed, continuing to enable, such speech does those that really truly DO value free speech no favors. Ultimately, I think it's immoral to allow such things to go on unfettered.

Popper dealt with this years ago.

Paradox.
mʕ•ﻌ•ʔm seems to think that allowing nazi propaganda is part of the essence of freedom on diaspora, while RAW seems to think it is essential to free speech to be able to ban them.
But mʕ•ﻌ•ʔm suggests a bottom-up community approach that begins with the user having more individual power to block content, plus the making and sharing of lists by the community...
While RAW has a more top-down approach beginning with the podmins.
However, neither of you sound like you are trying to dictate or impose your ideas.

In my intoleration of fascism, I am closer to RAW.
But I am intrigued by the bottom-up approach, and would like to see the additional features that mʕ•ﻌ•ʔm is talking about, and see if there can be a comprehensive solution that way.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/opinion/sunday/chris-hughes-facebook-zuckerberg.html

Finally, the agency should create guidelines for acceptable speech on social media. This idea may seem un-American — we would never stand for a government agency censoring speech. But we already have limits on yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, child pornography, speech intended to provoke violence and false statements to manipulate stock prices. We will have to create similar standards that tech companies can use. These standards should of course be subject to the review of the courts, just as any other limits on speech are. But there is no constitutional right to harass others or live-stream violence.

As to making lists, the fascists are way ahead of us.
https://diasp.org/posts/11702008

mʕ•ﻌ•ʔm seems to think that allowing nazi propaganda is part of the essence of freedom on diaspora

No I don't.
I consider that to a certain degree they are inevitable due to the setup of the decentralized service and that their for we need better blocking features. There is no such thing as a "diaspora community" for me in that regard as their is no such thing as an email community.
Essence of reallity not essence of freedom.

A top down approach will lead sooner or later to the same mess of abuse of power as we have already witnessed at fakebook or zwitter.
I was shadow banned several times on zwitter in the tahrir event of the arab spring. Apparently my crime was to translate tweets from tahrir into spanisch, relate myself to accounts with tons of followers and made them aware of the actual hour "east cost" with comments like "It's monday morning in NY, time to flood the comments section of the news articles", or referring to Ghandi and Tupamaros.
Lot's of people lost their life in Egypt since than.
That's when I joined the federated web (2001) and if d* changes the core idea I will leave for sure.

As I stated in the beginning, for me this is a G-less discussion.
People that came from that service came because it closed, not because they have no problem with being at the mercy of a single landlord.

Take the email reality we talked about already.
I host my own email with my own domain.
My mails go regularly into the spam boxes of gmail and hotmail.
I regularly have to sms my real life contacts to make sure they get my mail because they have to fetch them in their spam folder.
And there has never been send even one spam from my domains.
They are just using their power to kill the competition.

---

Also a really intriguing question:

Who is going to decide who is Nazi or a troll or XYZ and who isn't?
You?
Kenny?

Some citizens of the american empire?
Maybe it's actual president who finds good people on both sides unless they are mexican?

@**joe, Thank you, I stand corrected. I'd like to point out a couple of things. First, this term was largely abandoned after the 80's because, like most insults, its definition diffused its meaning to the point that it just meant "bad person" to most.

The second is a quote from the Atlantic: "To Lippmann and his peers, such as Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, neoliberalism was meant as a new kind of liberalism that espoused, contrarily to what was expected of liberals, laissez-faire capitalism." I was still wrong, of course, but I find comfort that the term is notably confusing.

@Jesuis tonamie, in regards to "Who is going to decide who is Nazi or a troll or XYZ and who isn’t?", we can apply the same definition we apply to bacteria or viruses. If misinformation is killing people, then you inoculate for it and wash your hands. In this way, the anti-vaxxer movement is a form of metavirus - a memetic virus that allows physical viruses to spread.

From this perspective "Group X is superior to group Y and has a right to limit their opportunities" is exactly that kind of memetic virus. This message is usually conveyed through a choice of words, and can even be detected by Latent Dirichlet Allocation. Because an objective standard can be applied, it can be applied fairly across a population.

Maybe you can write an algorithm with that and create an upload/post filter??

What about satire and stand up comedy?
Aren't they trolling by default?

You do run into the problem of Poe's law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

However, with that in mind, it is a common tactic for people to say things like "Niggers are just obsolete farm equipment, haha just kidding lol roflcopter, can't you take a joke?" If it's used as an example for improved communication, then there would have to be some way to flag an exception. Most comedy falls into this category in one form or another. If it's meant as a humorous dig, then it's indistinguishable from a real dig (even by humans) unless it's specifically marked as sarcasm.

"Maybe you can write an algorithm with that and create an upload/post filter??"

I'm actually busy writing just such an algorithm for news analysis so, yes, I could, but not today because I'm busy writing just such an algorithm for news analysis.

have fun ..

My concept of fun: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/

I do not want to trust such things to robots, and that is all an algorithm is, imo. Soon, government itself may be just an algorithm, or a series of them. The notion that such things could be better judges and more impartial than people is very dangerous.
While Nazis and Fascists are here on diaspora, it is through the large commercial social networks that they invaded the mainstream of politics. There, the profit-motivated algorithms magnified and multiplied their reach.
I do like the idea of giving individual users greater blocking power, and would like to hear about what more can be done on that front.

@**joe, too true. Even today, we have to be vigilant against algorithm induced bias.

I have to laugh that Nazis style themselves as "dissidents". Jesus fucking Christ, these assholes.

afaik they have always styled themselves as dissidents.

They were dissidents. After WW-I, They hated that the rest of the world was telling them what to do. That's what made the Uber-race message so attractive. They considered world domination to be "getting what they deserve." Sound like anyone you know?

Fake dissidents. Fully on the side of the ruling class. A reactionary movement against both democracy and international socialism - the actual dissident movements against the ruling class.
The capitalist industrialists (the status quo) lined up behind them, including non-German industrialist oligarchs like Henry Ford.

.. be aware because! ..
* first they came for the nazis
* than they came for the antivaxers
* after that they came for the climate change enablers
* in the end they came for the anti-semites

when the came for me they laught out loud and went on ..

The real RAW would point out that you occupy a very bizarre reality tunnel that you seem to tenaciously cling to no matter the evidence. I suggest you re-read his work and re-read what I've actually said and re-think matters.

I've told people that know me well that a troll on social media keeps claiming I'm some adherent to spreading "government propaganda" on behalf of the U.S. and we have a very hearty laugh at that. If only I could somehow convey how far off the mark you are, and how HILARIOUS I find that. I've more or less assumed I've been on some government lists (via COINTELPRO or otherwise) since I've been a teen.

And in no way do I mean to "obey" anyone here. No podmin or anyone else has ever said anything, so what you think is immaterial.

Lastly, I think all this obsession you have with me is because I rightly highlighted some of the things you have said and the sort of people you seem to run with, and this deeply bothers you. Until I did that, you never said diddly squat about my nym. It was only afterwards that you suddenly leapt into stalker mode and making the wild-eyed (and hilarious) claims about my alleged affiliations.

Very telling.

The original RAW was a big fan of pointing out how poor our information gathering habits are, and how easily we're duped by spurious information sources. While I think he would have been disturbed by someone trying to claim his identity, I'm sure he would be amused by the interplay between you two.

I agree. He found hilarity in the early Internet hoaxes about how he had passed away. However, I should make it clear that I've never claimed to be RAW, even though ivan seems obsessed with making such spurious claims. I doubt anyone but him could ever think that someone with the same name as him is actually him, any more than if I had chose the picture and name of "Richard Nixon" would mean someone could credibly claim I'm impersonating Nixon. Ivan is just pretending to be shocked and dismayed about this; his real issue is that I've correctly pointed out his past postings having anti-Semitic/alt-right/Nazi-adjacent leanings.

At least he trolls in this way which is just a mild irritant. Some of the fascists have made not-at-all veiled allusions to looking forward to murdering me and my family under a fascist regime of Trump's (or other proto-fascist). And all because I don't think like they do.

And then some of these same fascists claim they are interested in "freedom" and "free speech". Which is flat-out horse shit. These people are dangerous. Very dangerous. Especially if Spanky or other fascists ever fully seize power in the U.S. (or in parts of the EU, etc.).

I don't doubt that less overtly violent types like ivan may equally dangerous and either him or people like him would eagerly partake in such awful things, too. I'm not sure which is worse - those that would actively participate, or the huge majority that would look the other way because they are not actively being harmed - yet.

zlax is just a hateful troll with fascist sympathies. He tricked me into sincerely defending myself from his charges too, for a while.
At least both "RAW"s have a sense of humor.
zlax appears to believe that Dischordianism is a real religion and that Wilson was a real high priest (or whatever he liked to call himself).
Blasphemy!

@The Very Real Robert Anton Wilson

And in no way do I mean to “obey” anyone here. No podmin or anyone else has ever said anything, so what you think is immaterial.

You are lying. For several months i asked you not to steal and not to discredit the identity of the RAW. You ignored my requests, did not obey. One of your subscribers recommended writing a complaint, i did it - and you immediately changed the name of the account to a parody form, only after bureaucratic threat you obeyed my requirements:
https://support.diasp.org/tickets.php?id=312

I do not hide my identity and my real address. You hide your address, use someone else's identity. It's simple.

Yawn. I notice you don't address the real issue here. And you know what it is.

Oh, and this is the first I've heard of you writing a complaint. LOL. I only changed my name to parody your ridiculous claim, not because of a complaint I was not aware of.

Huh, wow, yea, Ivan's the real deal. Dissociative disorder is often imitated, but rarely intimated.

At least he trolls in this way which is just a mild irritant.

Calling someone a Money Launderer is not mild. And we he was inevitably added in the ignore list he didn't say "Hey, these people do not want to have anything to do with me, let's leave them alone". He create a bazillion accounts so he could continue his attacks. Standard troll modus operandi.

You confuse censorship with moderation. They are not the same no matter what your kind thinks.

The offender is offended. Fair enough. Let me rephrase that. Deleting personal attacks is not censorship it's moderation.

Promoting your theory of Illia's death on a post not related about Illia's death is irrelevant. It is called post highjacking, another trollish behavior. If you want to discuss about your theory do so on your own posts with your own followers. Nobody can bother you in this scenario except your own podmin. And even if you post something so offensive that you get kicked from the pod, hey you can create another account. I know you have mastered the art of creating D* accounts. Be careful of the pod you are going to use though. You can ask your nazi friends to give you the 'bad pod' list. Never use those!

As for deleting your comments. I deleted your comments from my own posts. The people you offended/harrassed deleted your comments too after they realized what you are. That is a right, people have. Moderation not censorship.

And when people add you to their ignore lists they are basically saying: "Hey man I don't want to talk to you, I don't want any interaction with you, just leave me alone". In that case you leave them alone. You don't come up with another account to talk to them!

If you follow these simple rules maybe you can find people that actually want to talk to you.

So here I am breaking my own rule and talking to a troll. You can have the last word. Over and out.

@ivan zlax
" @Theodotos Andreou, you are sure of your superiority over me, aren’t you?"

Really, with your childish behavior, lack of impulse control, and obvious thrill with attacking anyone who comes close, we're all pretty convinced that he's superior to you. Keep up the good work.

Poor troll has an inferiority complex and he abuses us because he want to be abused himself. He feels inferior so he blames people that he himself thinks are superior to him.
Fascism begins with wannabe victims like him.
Nobody is inferior or superior. Everybody has something that they are superior at and other things they are not good at.

@**joe "Nobody is inferior or superior. Everybody has something that they are superior at and other things they are not good at."

This is an entirely true statement. I would posit, however, that our subject here isn't actually a body. He's a disembodied incarnation of anxiety, discomfort, and recrimination. He might actually be a machine, if machines as such were possible. His repertoire is certainly limited enough.

I believe that we shouldn't assume the worst of someone, but in this case the entity behind these messages is only presenting the worst. Under such circumstances, I have no qualms with believing that said entity is a more limited form of life than those who are capable of conversing intellectually and civilly.

@<strong>joe, There is an unfortunate dichotomy around the pursuit of superiority. It's embodied in the dichotomy between doing and being. There is a saying that "writers write". Put another way, it isn't enough to become a writer if you only want to be a writer. You have to actually want to write, or you'll never get there.
Superiority is similar. If you want to do something, then you can become superior in that specific pursuit. If you merely want to **be superior, then most of your efforts will actually be counter-productive. I feel that this is a lot of what we're seeing here.

^ That's probably true, but I question the whole idea of "superiority", as it is based on competition rather than cooperation. If you truly love the art of writing, wouldn't you want all writers to be "superior"?
I think that it is more than a dichotomy. I would call it a paradox, an impossibility, since "superiority" requires that there be "inferior" writers.
And besides, if one can't write well, what can they do well?
Hopefully they will find a supportive community in whatever they are good at.

This gets into in-group psychology. Those within our in-group are those we are charitable to. Those outside of it are those we take from. Each person sets their own border -- I call it their heliopause -- based on their own understanding of reality. This is why nationalism is just the most immediate form of racism.

With writers, maybe we do want all writers to become better writers. Most people, however, limit their charity to those within the same sub-group of writers as themselves. Science fiction writers loathe romance novel writers, romance novel writers loath non-fiction writers, and the aficionados of fine literature loath all of them.

We all pick our scales. Most social or educational organizations embody their scales in their motto, or their core values, or whatever. Unfortunately, many scales are conflicting. Like Carlin said -- everyone on the road is either an idiot or a maniac. Idiots are the ones who value safety over speed, maniacs are the ones who value efficiency over idle time. Efficiency and safety are the good-cheap-fast tradeoff of driving. You always have to decide what your balance is.

And then the majority of us decide that those with a different balance are the bad guys, who deserve to be abused and punished. This isn't essential, of course, but it's still what happens because it validates our decisions.

Wow, I kind of tuned out this thread for a while, and am only now catching up on it. I did not realize how many more posts there were to it since I last looked....

Haha sometimes when I re-read an old thread, I see how I misunderstood some of the comments I was responding to.

Haha sometimes when I re-read an old thread, I see how I misunderstood some of the comments I was responding to.