@bdonvr, admin of The Lemmy Club here. I’d like to provide an update and some comments.

What went wrong:

One prolific user (realcaseyrollins) of my instance has created several communities and is usually one of the only submitters to their own communities. The posts in them generally garner very little interaction but once in a while hit some main feeds and get a few comments. One such post by this user to the (relatively) largest community, /c/[email protected], was a link to a Breitbart article. The content and headline of the article was not particularly objectionable, but as one user pointed out, Breitbart is a terrible news source whose use should be discouraged. The aforemenioned moderator of the community removed the comment citing a rule they had: “Using the Poisoning The Well fallacy to attack sources shared in a post is presently not allowed (this rule may change in the future, and isolated instances will not subject you to a permanent ban)”. This sparked a post to /c/yepowertrippinbastards.

I have previously checked into this user’s post history and comments and although I don’t agree with them politically (or in the way that they moderate), they did not appear to me to be an extreme MAGA/neo-nazi type and was otherwise reasonable in interactions with others, so I did not ban them. I saw it like this - if you don’t like their little news community, use one of the many other communities on the fediverse. Such is the strength of our platform. The one moderated by this user would continue to languish in obscurity.

After some interaction with db0 staff in that thread it was pointed out to me that many of my instance’s “top” communities were right-wing or adjacent to that kind of thing. This is something I was aware of and not at all fond of. I had already been debating removing several before this. The only reason I hadn’t was that all of these communities were essentially dead. The posts in them barely ever got more than 2-3 votes, and comments even rarer still. I was more hoping that some more normal communities would take hold here and just drown them out. We are a very small instance. But seeing my defense of not immediately banning realcaseyrollins and the community list a db0 admin then moved to open this thread.

As realcaseyrollins was the only point of discussion so far, I made a comment saying that the issue presented thus far were not worthy of defederation talk. After some more discussion it was pointed out to me that there were two videos posted to my instance which were very much explicit neo-nazi propaganda. I had not seen these posts because they were made to the very much dead (no more than a dozen posts in it’s six month history) because they garnered basically no votes, no comments, and had not been reported to me until now. I also would not have known by the title of the videos without looking into it further. The posts were made by an outside user.

What I have done to address it.

I do not tolerate nazis or their ilk, nor will I ever. The moment I was made aware of this the two posts were promptly removed and the user banned.

Furthermore I had discovered one user of my instance - @marathon - who had been posting things that weren’t so explicitly awful but trending that way. After careful inspections of their posts and comments I discovered that they were ban evading from other instances and upvoting their own posts with alts. They were also banned and all of their communities were removed.

After further consideration of some of the commentary here by users and admins I decided that I could not be host to any communities that were conservative/right wing. Even if they did not reach the level of neo-nazi. I am very much a leftist. I was never comfortable with these communities but I did not create The Lemmy Club to be a partisan instance. I had not removed them to date because they were small and dead and was hoping they’d amount to nothing rather than having to foray into actively moderating on an ideological basis. Some of that is definitely naivety on my part. In theory I don’t have too much of a problem with communities that aren’t politically aligned with my personal views existing on my instance (to a point, of course). I made The Lemmy Club as a general instance. But I now realize, as sole admin of the site, that I can’t effectively moderate any such community centered around politics that differ from my own to that extent. I can’t be hands off in case it becomes more extremist either. So I have implemented a new site-wide rule: “Users or communities that, in the view of the admin team, jeopardize the good standing of The Lemmy Club with other instances may be removed.”. This allows me broader, more generic power than a rule explicitly banning “right-wing” communities, and entirely avoids the debate of what constitutes “too right wing” while accomplishing the same thing. After implementing this rule I moved to remove all communities that are themed around these kinds of politics.

In addition, after seeing this thread - and with no prompting from me - realcaseyrollins has decided to voluntarily close /c/[email protected], /c/[email protected], and /c/[email protected].

I hope this addresses any concerns that you might have.

A few comments on the situation.

I started this instance because I was excited by the fediverse and wanted to contribute. I pay, personally, hundreds of dollars a year to run this site and provide space to some users in the fediverse. With the generosity of a few of my users half of my costs are now covered by them. This is something I think both the db0 team and I share, though their operation and contribution to the fediverse have been far larger than mine, which I commend. We are a very small instance. We are not pushing for growth for growths sake. I think with this in mind and the interactions you’ve had with me thus far have shown that I’m a reasonable person who is more than willing to engage in dialogue.

With that said I really am not fond of the way this whole situation came about. I would have very much appreciated a PM or message on Element before taking such a drastic step. I don’t think that this strongarming was at all necessary. I believe such actions should follow an escalation process. The scope of the issue should be taken into account in this as well, as far as actual neo-nazi posts we’re talking about two, to a dead comm, that got no interaction. A quick report and I would have immediately banned the user and removed the posts, and probably have just went ahead and removed the community as well. Or we could’ve continued discussion on /c/yepowertrippinbastards. Not that I have an issue addressing issues publicly, but the title of this thread will make it seem to many users (and let’s face it, we’re mostly ex-redditors here. Most of us read way too much into headlines and don’t read further) that The Lemmy Club is some right-wing instance full of unsavory crap. I mean the governance comm on db0 has only ever had seven total posts and this is one. Gotta be pretty bad right? And that impression will not go away very easy. Just the suggestion that db0 should defederate would signal to most people that the instance is toxic and the problem quite serious and that the admins had probably already attempted dialogue that went nowhere. And that upsets me because that is not the case at all, and does actively harm this small little project that I’ve put in a lot of time and personal effort into. We all want to help build the fediverse. Let’s work together in a constructive manner, that’s all I ask.

Thanks for reading,

@bdonvr, sole admin of thelemmy.club

Pro temporary defederation. They seem to have removed the ‘Right Wing Videos’ community, though?

Where exactly am I seeing the Nazis? Are we just lumping in right wing with Nazi like they do left wing with commie?

Voting against, as I don’t believe that jumping directly to talk of defederation is the best option. This stance by OP, along with their suggested method of handling the recent blahaj-related posts to YPTB, gives me pause with regards to their admin status. They have not crossed the line into authoritarian behavior or admin abuse, but it does feel that they are toeing that line.

It is good and justified to spotlight these issues and bring them up for discussion and consensus, which is what OP has done in both cases, but I question the extreme suggestions made in each circumstance.

Defederation means censorship. If I, as an individual, have a problem with communities, I can block them. I like to keep that choice under my own control. So I vote for: No Defederation.

I’m in vote of a temporary defederation, until they address the problem. This shit is not okay, and is not a matter of just “different opinions”.

I would have preferred a vote first to see if we should just ban those comms, or defederate. If we ban those comms and the right-wingers, we can take a more “surgical” approach. Personally I will vote against, in favour or B&B (block & ban). But I am open to be convinced otherwise if the problem is worse than I thought.

Edit: After the revelation that there’s literal neonazis posting neonazi videos in there already, I switch my vote to defed.