the list for the curious. I don't mind if rimu wants to maintain a default blocklist, if I maintained my own fediverse app I would probably make something similar, based on my own preferences, to cut down on the mod work. If you want your piefed instance to allow botfarm produce, disable the blocklist or just fork it and live your dream.
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The right wing has ass fucked the entire world into the ground, I say good riddance.
Yeah but, know your enemy and all that
We know the enemy.
We know every unoriginal comment, trick, and bullshit they do, because they have repeated them over and over again for decades.
We don't have to keep giving them the false legitimacy of equal time or attention.
We don’t have to keep giving them the false legitimacy of equal time or attention.
If I want to point something out that a shithole site is promoting, I don't need admin to put up a baby gate so I can't talk about it. I don't know how that relates to legitimizing anything.
You can literally just say :shitholesite said "very evil shit". No need to feed clicks to their website.
Sounds like what a right-wing dipshit would say.
How so? Do we even have cons on lemmy?
The gatekeeping is to take away a cornerstone of misinformation. If brigading and manipulation didn't work the world wouldn't be in the state it is today. I run into conservatives frequently, even the question is disingenuous.
So I want to link to things idiots on reddit r/con are saying to point out a trend in right wing media, and that makes it spreading disinfo?
That’s a good point. Lemmygrad doesn’t disallow links to anywhere, because it trusts its users to have a solid ideological foundation and the media literacy to read anything without catching ideological “cooties.”
In fact, I often say that liberals believe in the cooties theory of ideas. They usually don’t understand how ideas develop or spread, nor how propaganda actually works. Previously. Previously.
The only reason any instance online doesn't get brigaded, botted, and psyop-ed to hell is because of the low user count and impact, currently. Again, the proof is in the pudding. It works on entirely too many people.
I’m afraid you are correct. They’ve had their eye on us for a while now. They just haven’t deployed significant resources on us yet.
Yeah, it's not worth losing this place to them.
Losing it to... reddit cons? You're not even on piefed. If you're so worried about disinfo why don't you switch instances?
I have a piefed account as well, as of recently. Just odd that you're so adamant about allowing misinformation.
OK well, the rest of us with good media literacy will keep checking the bad places and let you know what to watch out for. Hurry on over to your safe account now before you get swayed by info you can't be sure about.
Oh heavens I feel safer already now that you've successfully ignored the argument, thank you useful tankie idiot
You're welcome, dipshit. If you ever need help identifying things you find scary or putting a comprehensive argument together you know where to find me.
I don't trust you as the "misinformation decider", heaven forbid.
https://github.com/rimu/no-qanon/blob/master/domains.txt includes... wikileaks.org 🤦
afaik WikiLeaks still enjoys a spotless accuracy record and obviously has never promoted QAnon.
The fact that some QAnon promoters have themselves cited some WikiLeaks publications is, in my opinion at least, not a reason to prohibit linking to WikiLeaks (a site which hasn't published anything new recently but continues to host a massive archive of public interest documents).
I expected to see thegrayzone.com and was not disappointed.
They scored yet another vindication this week, this time on the OPCW cover-up of the 2018 Douma, Syria false-flag attack.
Assange cozyed up to Trump during his first presidency (despite, you know, the assassination attempts by the US).
Additionally while Wikileaks has never published any proven false information, they have left out information on purpose. During the 2016 election Wikileaks received information on both Clinton and Trump, but primarily published information making Clinton look worse while not publishing information they received on Trump and the republican party.
This editorializing is why they've fallen out of favor over the last decade, again despite not publishing anything known to be false; they chose to withhold information.
This was liberal misinformation, I apologize.
they chose to withhold information
citation needed
Sorry the liberal replying made me actually look this up and it turns out it was misinformation spread from liberal accounts. You're right. Apparently no evidence was ever uncovered that wikileaks ever received the RNC leak that came out a few years after they released the DNC leak; and the majority of Assange's quotes praising Trump were just wholesale made up by various shareblue linked propaganda sites.
butterymales VS lack of trump disclosures.
I can only imagine the person coming up with this idea

It was only about 15 years ago that censorship was an extreme taboo on the internet. I miss those times deeply.
I miss when fascists stayed on stormfront and left everyone else the fuck alone; and if they ventured outside, everyone hated them until they left.
ACTUALLY IT’S ABOUT ETHICS IN GAMING JOURNALISM
Yeah… I don’t miss it the slightest. It was so bad that Breadtube came to be in reaction to it.
It isn't censorship though? Just as much as people have the right to speak, others have the right to not have to listen. The beauty of the fediverse is that literally everyone has the right to say what they want, you can join a new instance or make your own but if you start saying stuff that people don't want to listen to then they can't be forced to listen.
This isn't an instance with a block list though. He's putting it in the software the instance runs, without an opt-out option (besides forking).
So what? Its open source software and subject to what the developer wants. Don't like it then fork it, remove the offending blocks and run your own, literally exactly the same freedoms offered. There is absolutely nothing wrong with not wanting to platform people.
There isn't a problem, until it's blocking what you want. I don't trust all people. If all the users are informed, then fine. This isn't that. This is trying to by tricky about it. It's an attempt to control information that he doesn't like (including leftist information) without clearly saying what's happening. That's not OK. It's fine if you consent. It's shady trying to sneak it through.
I still can't find a reason to say it is censorship or sneaky. Isnt the point that it highlights the sources? In which case it isn't really hiding it. And if you decide you don't like it then just leave and go elsewhere. I don't really see a reason why a creator of something has a requirement to be apolitical or make their feelings known. People complain a lot about .ml and lemmy's creator. Never understood why, nobody is forcing you to participate and stay instead of going elsewhere - and I say that as somebody who was on .ml during the exodus then saw everyone defederating.
I guess i very much see it as creative freedom, it isn't doing anything malicious and my understanding is that it does expose these blocks to the user when encountered?
Here's a question: how many users do you think are aware of this? Were you aware of this before the post? If the answer to those is not very high and/or no, it's not being forward with what it's doing. If the creator sees it as a feature users would like, and not trying to be sneaky, why wouldn't they proudly display it?
I don't use piefed so no, of course I didn't know or have seen it. And it doesn't need to be malicious, i would have zero issues morally in suppressing or warning about links to stormfront or infowars and would think nothing of it - the line that somebody draws for themselves is personal and it seems the person making piefed has decided what they think is appropriate for them and their userbase.
the line that somebody draws for themselves is personal
Exactly my point. Let it be personal. I don't understand why you would do this without a toggle and without being clear to users.
I don't care that you don't use Piefed. If you've seen it before and didn't know about it, you're in the same position as most users. This wasn't advertised.
Also, you only said Stormfront or Infowars (now a The Onion site). If it was only extreme right stuff that'd be one thing (still bad if it's not made clear, in my opinion). It isn't though. It also includes some less radical right stuff, but also some left stuff. If he's supporting the status quo by hiding Israel genocide information from users, that's bad, right?
It's a piece of software that should be designed to facilitate what the user wants, not what the creator thinks. It should be made in a way that's easy for users to add or change the block list. It isn't. The only option is to fork it, which is possible, so he isn't stopping this, but purposefully chose to make this not clear so people won't. It's an attempt at thought control by being hidden and sneaking it in. If he wanted it to be a choice, again, it'd be a toggle. It is a choice through forking, so he hid it.
Exactly my point. Let it be personal. I don’t understand why you would do this without a toggle and without being clear to users.
Err... what? That wasn't my point at all, you just took the words and decided to say something totally different. I'm talking about the line one draws in what is seen as obvious, objective or morally responsible. Which is exactly what you then go to totally misconstrue here:
Also, you only said Stormfront or Infowars (now a The Onion site). If it was only extreme right stuff that’d be one thing (still bad if it’s not made clear, in my opinion). It isn’t though. It also includes some less radical right stuff, but also some left stuff.
I made no comment on the filter list in this part. I said it as my own opinion on what I see as morally correct, not them. I made the comment as a set-up to the next part of the comment; I would think nothing of filtering those two items out as way of demonstrating that few people would object to them being blacklisted as hateful sites of no useful substance. The entire point was to demonstrate that my moral compass in that regard is less controversial yet ultimately it is the same concept - the developer chose to filter what they likely think is hateful or fake, they just have a different idea of what that covers.
(And thank you so much for the "UMMM ACKCHULLY" on Infowars. I'm well aware of the situation with it but it was clearly done as a way to pick an obvious website that few would have cared about blocking).
I don’t care that you don’t use Piefed. If you’ve seen it before and didn’t know about it, you’re in the same position as most users.
Aww, I'm sorry for offering up information that was entirely relevant to the question that you asked me:
Were you aware of this before the post? If the answer to those is not very high and/or no, it’s not being forward with what it’s doing
I know you apparently don't care about answers to questions you ask but I'll make it clearer for you - Why would I be aware of the features of a piece of software I don't use???
If he’s supporting the status quo by hiding Israel genocide information from users, that’s bad, right?
Yup. But that's up to them. Don't like it? Don't use it.
t’s a piece of software that should be designed to facilitate what the user wants, not what the creator thinks.
Absolutely could not disagree more. You do not get to decide on their behalf what they produce - it is no difference in that sense than creating art, or writing a book or running a website. What the creator puts out is up to them - you don't like it then you stop using it or you change it. Would allowing more user control over stuff like that be preferable to me? Yes. Would it make it more popular? Probably. Can we or should we force or pressure them? No. It is entirely their choice, you have no right to try force their hand to make it more palatable to your sensibilities. They create it that way because that is what they think is best. You can question that choice, you can hold that choice against them, you can attempt to change their mind, ask to re-think it, object to it, submit your own changes to it with justification, do whatever you want but implying that they have some kind of obligation to anyone but themselves to make them do what you think is best is absurd.
The only option is to fork it, which is possible, so he isn’t stopping this, but purposefully chose to make this not clear so people won’t. It’s an attempt at thought control by being hidden and sneaking it in.
Aah yes, genius-level thought manipulation and level 100 sneak achieved by *checks notes* leaving the list in a plain text format in a publicly accessible repository, fully indexed, copied & replicated online &offline and integrated right into the most popular AI models. What a galaxy-brained master of subterfuge.
It isn't hard-baked into the code. Instance owners can adjust it as needed in the software they want to run and the community they wish to create. If this is such a moral injustice then I'm sure we are going to see a fork of this with filtering removed and the original one will fade into irrelevance...
This is such a non-issue blown out of the water as some kind of evil mastermind carefully crafting the media landscape rather than just one person making a thing they like and blocking out the things they think are bad. This literally is freedom of speech and it couldn't be more free than "don't like what I'm doing? Go and do it yourself then, here are all the instructions, no strings attached". Trying to force somebody's hand because you don't like what they are doing will only have the effect of driving the developer away entirely.
There are loads of projects and pieces of software I have seen that are either created by hateful people or people who tolerate bigotry in their community but it is my right to ignore them and pretend they don't exist. Likely all they are doing is hurting themselves and I can live in hope that it doesn't work out in the long run. I'm happy to make my distaste for it known and make it clear that i object to it but to say they have some kind of duty to cater to me or anyone else??? No, but hopefully if people get the message, agree and stop using their software or fork it and make their own then that's a win.
Personally think it's just really not the software's job to handle this or have an opinion on this - it's rather up to the instance admins to decide.
Meanwhile on every other platform, billion dollar algorithms dictate what videos millions of people can watch, for the benefit of the billionaires.
But the instance admins do decide this when they decide to use PieFed
blocklist.enabled = True
Having a blocklist option is of course perfectly fine. Pre-filling and pre-enabling that list is not the software's job, if you ask me.
that feels rather "i don't like politics"-y to me, i see no problem with shipping a default blocklist so long as it's opt-in.
free, open source software developed by humans with emotions and opinions is allowed to do things the developers think can help the world be better, so long as it doesn't cross the line into actively malicious: e.g. hardcoding blocklists and trying to hide that it exists.
According to Rimu Atkinson, the main developer of PieFed, all PieFed instances come with a 3000-long block list of resources that cannot be linked to. These include all sorts of right-wing outlets. There is no easy opt-out, forcing existing instances to follow the blocklist.
I support blocking hiding/flagging propaganda and fascism, this case is just censorship imo. This could be a good feature, IF the ultimate choice is on the instances and its users on if they want to have it enabled or not by default, not from the developer and "on all instances with no easy opt-out"
I don't even support blocking propaganda and fascism. Maybe you could block malware sites, but even that's a push. Let moderators of individual communities figure it out, otherwise you're just going to turn whole instances into echo chambers.
Piefed dev's I talked to said they can decide to allow or disallow instances at least even as many come preblocked.
No, very probably not all PieFed instances, and AFAIK the socialist sites are not in that list of defaults.
If you’re going to make public accusations, please don’t sabotage yourself by making incorrect or imprecise claims.
Users that prefer a more curated and politically uniform experience might prefer PieFed over the alternatives.
There’s no reason to think that. I’d argue that Lemmygrad is more curated and politically uniform than any PieFed instance is.

If this is the most mainstream of websites being blocked I think I'm ok, piefed is still great software even with these sites included in a linking block
Wonder if they'll unblock Infowars, now that it's The Onion.
My solution: make blocklists subscription-based. I don't mean for money, though like most of the Fediverse, donations would be accepted.
What I mean is, there'd be an independent site that maintains a list of everything that could be blocked with keywords that specify why you might want to block it. People who run instances can make a custom, dynamic block list based on keywords that they want to block.
Say we have a tag, "paedo shit." I suppose most people would want to block that.
But say we also have a tag, "Zionist." So some instance would block that. Others wouldn't.
Now say you're running some site, you go to this site and see you're flagged as Zionist. You don't think you are, so you contest it with your reasoning. This opens a thread and anyone can comment on it.
Now when you go to block all "Zionist" sources, you have an option to also include all "contested" sources as well. If you say yes, it doesn't matter what they say. You're taking the source repository at their word. If you say no, you are presented with the sources that have contested it, and you can read the threads, and add or exclude them as you like.
How is this a bad plan? (In the words of my boy Luis Guzman from The Count of Monte Cristo (2002, Kevin Reynolds))
I need to tack on a moderator blurb to this post. I received a report from Rimu that this post doxxed them. While it does appear the original post contained Rimu's full name, I do not believe this qualifies as doxxing.
Posting someone's full name typically would be doxxing, but Rimu has completely subverted their own expectation of privacy by publicly linking their full name with their development work on Piefed. Their username is even their real first name. I do not believe you can doxx someone who already did it to themselves.
This information is publicly available, and it was made so by Rimu themselves.
Not only is this not doxxing but under these circumstances it smacks of a half hearted attempt at censorship. Rimu made themselves a public figure. You cannot post their address, or other personal information, but their name is fair game by their own choice.
Indeed, removing his full name is more of a good faith act. I don't think much is to be achieved by leaving it anyway, so if someone is so discomforted by it that they ask for the removal - alright, I will. After all, we all need to remain good neighbors around here.
But, as you said, leaving your full name out in public and then trying to make it never see the light on the Threadiverse specifically is very inconsistent, and will likely fail at some point.
Rimu, of all people, complaining about user visbility on the Threadiverse? Ironic...
My main issue with this actually is its controlled at the instance level. I actually have said I am fine with a default block list as long as it can be changed later. Its understandable that someone having an instance would want a good default experience form their perspective and I can even see it at the code level in this case. I have a few caveats though that make it troublesome for me. One it should be highly advertised or easy to peruse and change. Bigger though is as a user I want as much as possible to be controllable at the user level. So I want to be able to reverse this for myself. I completely understand defederation for legal reasons and the ideal instance for me would deferederat based on that, but I would completely appreciate a default block list for my user that I could then go through and revers if I cared to. I was actually aware of this and do intend to get off my tuckus and move instances because I can't control the blocks but Im lazy and honestly I have no real incentive to unblock any of these but rather on philosophical grounds want the ability to do so. Im kinda hoping the software will evolve to allow a more direct user control like that before I move but its been awhile and I sorta doubt at this point that is going to happen.
Given that many "right-wing" sites are full of lies, bigotry, and hate, I think I'm quite fine with this.
At this point, the difference between right wing and left wing polititics is simply that right wing politics is all about a single strong fascist billionaire leader who makes sure only his buddies get richer, and left wing politics is that we all have a nice life.
Many people actually prefer nthe former because only the former supports selfishness, and discrimination on race, sexuality, and whatnot, while the latter doesn't.
That literally nis the difference between the two. If you are rightwing, I will presume you're racist, sexist, and selfish.
This is should be considered an utterly absurd sentiment; and for the sake of fairness and good will no leftist should ever condone having this sort of perspective.
Which is why it hurts me so fucking bad to agree. Modern rightwing is utterly broken and evil. It feeds off of primitive instincts, unsuppressed intrusive thoughts, greed and prejudice.
"We may disagree with eachother, but at the end of they day, what we all really want is what's best for our country".
What the fuck happened that this adage has been completely nullified globally
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