We, the admin team, decry all forms of settler-colonialism, and we recognize that Zionism is a pro-settler-colonialist position.
Therefore we propose that should no longer be accepting of any Zionist accounts on our instances.
Please upvote for agree, downvote for disagree.
Note: we only count votes by instance members of dbzer0 and anarchist.nexus, plus a few vouched-for external users.
Hi mateys, I’ve kept things simple in the above text, for brevity, but in fact it took the admin team quite a while to get to this stage. We have discussed the policy change extensively, and a variety of different perspectives emerged. I will attempt to sum them up below as best I can:
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The “this isn’t that complicated” school of thought goes something like this: If someone is consistently posting comments that mirror Hasbara talking points (e.g. justifying the genocide in Gaza, consistently painting Palestinians as terrorists and Israel as the victim), then they should be instance banned. It’s just not acceptable for Zionists to be allowed on our instances.
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The “slippery slope” / “purity test” school of thought is that banning people for having an “unpopular” political opinion would potentially mean banning half the fediverse, if more and more of these policies were enacted over time. To attempt to mitigate this we are keeping the scope of this rule as narrow as possible, and I also don’t think many of our users will be affected. Also, we typically don’t have frequent policy changes, and I have no reason to expect that to change moving forward.
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Another important discussion point was “how do we decide whether someone is pro-Zionist or not?” We can’t always be 100% sure of someone’s true intentions, we can only go on what they have posted and that is subject to interpretation. I don’t feel there is an easy answer to this one, except to say that we would have to be pretty certain before issuing a perma-ban.
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The “geopolitics don’t matter” school of thought is that trying to be on the “correct” side of every issue is kind of pointless because nothing that happens in lemmy chat forums will ever make an ounce of difference in the real world. Don’t bother moderating users over political/ideological differences, just let people argue if they want. While I can totally empathize with this sentiment, I can also see the case for taking a clear stance on this topic in accordance with our values and the overwhelming support for the Palestinian cause among our users. Personally, I am advocating in favor of the resolution.
Please add your comments below if you want to provide your own thoughts on the topic, or have any questions.
expiry: 7
Acknowledged governance topic opened by https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/u/flatworm7591
This is a simple majority vote. The current tally is as follows:
- For: (5),
(3), 
(1), 
(1), (2), 
(2) - Against:
- Local Community: +2.1
- Outsider sentiment: Supportive
- Total: +14.1
- Percentage: 89.00%
This vote will complete in 1 days
Reminder that this is a pilot process and results of voting are not set in stone.
- For:
how do we decide whether someone is pro-Zionist or not
Pretty easy. If they support the existence of Israel they are a Zionist.
I want to focus on the structure of the proposal rather than on defending Israeli state policy, which I oppose in many respects.
As written, the proposal does not clearly define Zionism so much as treat a particular interpretation of it as self-evident, namely that Zionism is inherently a form of settler colonialism. That is a position many people hold, but it is also a contested one, and the policy depends on that premise without unpacking it.
If the core concern is behavior such as genocide denial, dehumanization of Palestinians, or the repetition of propaganda talking points, those are concrete harms and seem like appropriate moderation targets on their own. Framing the rule around an ideological label instead of specific conduct risks conflating belief, state policy, and online behavior, which are not always the same thing even when they overlap.
I also share some of the concern about how “pro-Zionist” would be determined in practice. When enforcement depends on interpreting intent or identity rather than observable actions, it increases the risk of inconsistency and misclassification, even with good faith moderation.
I am not arguing against taking a clear moral stance in support of Palestinians. I am suggesting that the policy would be stronger, clearer, and easier to defend if it focused explicitly on the behaviors and arguments that cause harm, rather than relying on a broad and disputed definition of Zionism to do that work.
“We’re a bunch of losers who got banned from reddit, so we will start our own forum to protect free speech!” “Yeah! Except for those people who believe things we don’t like!” this thread happens
zionism and anarchism are mutually exclusive idealogies. you cannot believe in solidarity for all mankind and also support an ethnocutural supremacist movement.
I support banning zionists from dbzer0 to match them being banned on Anarchist Nexus.
Having a definition of Zionist would probably help?
I think Israel is committing war crimes in Palestine, Netenyahu should be tried by the ICC, and that what is happening in Palestine at present is in fact genocide.
But also, I think Israel should contiue to exist, and should - given the crimes committed against their citizens by Hamas - be entitled to demand that Hamas play no part in governance of a future Palestinian state.
Uncertain whether that counts as a zionist position, or not.
What is a Zionist?
Loving y’all’s instance more and more by the day.
Ban the motherfuckers, I’m tired of seeing Zios post their apologia and propaganda all over the internet anyways. People hand wringing about it in the comments need to shut the fuck up and read the god damn code of conduct.
One thing I’ll say is that this’ll probably put more load on the admins, so I hope y’all have factored that in. It’ll be well worth the effort in my opinion, both to protect our m@teys (did that ever take off?) at large as well as our Muslim, Arab, and Levantine friends.
Was there a specific incident(s) that led to this course of action?
i’m not from your instance but good.
fascists should bot be allowed anywhere.
Dead set against.
To expand on that statement, I wholly agree that certain points of view have no place here or anywhere else for that matter. What I am opposed to is codifying what seems to me to be a weak definition of a term. That is a recipe for creating an oppressive tool that can be used to crush discourse.
Do we not already have ample policy in place to deal with the offensive parties without the need for further rules that are primed for misuse?
Additionally, your opening sentences read as very hierarchical and your initial decision to set a short expiry comes across as an attempt to sneak in a change under the radar.
I personally feel that you should take at least a short break as an admin of the instance.
Generally support this rule, but I’m a bit wary as a Jew
who’s been accused of being zionist (I’m not) solely for reminding people that ‘globalize the intifada’ means calling for a global genocide against Jews and shouldn’t be used in support of Palestinians(I was misinformed about the meaning of intifada). A lot of people, especially on the internet, don’t seem to understand that not all Jews support zionism/the Israeli government. As long as there’s a reasonable attempt to ensure that we’re not just promoting anti-semitism (not to be confused with calling out zionist propaganda), I’m for this rule in the same way I support a rule blocking any sort of bigotry.It’s a Zionist talking point to claim anti zionism is the same as anti semitism.
I believe they’re not the same. There are many Jews who says the Jews from other countries going ban to Israel en masse is defying God’s punishment.
They’re not the same, which is why I specifically called out that I’m not talking about Zionist propaganda. I am absolutely not conflating anti-zionism with anti-semitism.
I think it’s great you updated your POV with new info and left the original comment. That’s the kinda people I want to interact with and I think a good representation of our instance in general.
A lot of people hate Jews completely irrespective of Israel’s actions. I’m sorry that that’s the case, but the rest of us need to be faithful to ourselves in rejecting racism regardless.
deleted by creator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intifada
No where does that mention shit about global genocide against Jews, stop spreading hasbara propaganda.
it’s a call for global resistance, which is what’s needed because they cannot achieve it on their own.
I was misinformed, thank you for the clarification
We can only try our best to be even handed. We just banned someone for antisemitism a few days ago, in fact. No matter what the current Israeli government does, there is no justification for antisemitism as far as I’m concerned.
That is not what “globalize the intifada” means! Globalize the intifada is the recognition that Pissrael is the vassal state of seppoland. That it’s funded, armed and politically covered by other countries that need to be fought as well since they will not relent on the oppression of palestine especially, and the global south generally, of their own accord.
And I have yet to meet an antizionist on lemmy who buys the hasbara that pissrael represents jews. Usually its the zionists or those on the fence still.
I’m 💯 for this.
Now I’m going to play Devil’s advocate for a second here. Are we planning to ban other settler colonialist and or imperialist based accounts?
Deeply mixed. Pileons online happen for stupid reasons, tone and nuance is hard to convey, purity tests are common, and education is often sidelined in favour of berating.
Otoh lemmy is kinda dogshit and riddled with fucking freaks repeating straight up genocide denial. Opposing state backed mass murder is like a baseline requirement for admission into human civilisation so…
