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
You can always take a devils advocate position, that’s why it’s called the devil’s advocate. In a room where everyone agrees on a conclusion someone has to argue the minutia of the argument in the spirit of debate. Without this the argument simply becomes a mutual appreciation society and is prone to logical fallacy, lazy arguments, and poor source review. Basically if no one calls out bad arguments because they say what you want to hear then your argument is no better than stupid conservatives watching Fox news.
Just because you are right doesn’t mean you can ignore logic, reason, research, or due diligence and you should be called out on it when you share bad sources of information or ignore reasonable sources without just cause. You might be morally correct in your belief, but if your rationale is based on a heresay argument or a logical fallacy then you’re only eroding the validity of your argument.
This is the spirit of Socratic debate.
EDIT: And yes, if large groups of people on this platform were sharing shitty sources that were pro-Ukraine then I would point that out as well.
People like you should be cast into hell with your devils advocate position
Your post is proving my point though. You vilify me because I said I often take a devil’s advocate stance to point out poor arguments, but clearly stated that I’m not pro-Zionist or pro-Settler. I stated the types of poor argument I dislike and my reason for pointing them out, but I haven’t said how I feel about any individual policy or action by Israel.
In the context of this thread you have no basis to attack me, but you have anyways and in the process of doing so you’re displaying the behaviors I criticized in my original post.
Can’t wait to see your name on the banlog, zio
Why would I be banned? I am not violating the current rules and I am not breaking the proposed rule. I haven’t said anything supporting Zionist or pro-settler-colonialist positions. The only thing about my political opinion which I have said is that I am not Zionist and not pro-Settler. The entire rest of this discussion has been about the quality and standards of posts and preventing an echo chamber similar to Fox News. You’re literally mad at nothing.
You seem to have missed the part where it’s about the devil’s advocate,…
No you can’t use devil advocate when it comes to oppose murder of civilians and settler colonialism.
I would like to see you be the devil advocate for Nazis
You edited this to add the Nazi’s portion after I responded, but if you took high school or college debate you would know that this is a common debate topic to weed out poor rhetorical arguments.
No college organize debates where people debate if it is morally wrong or right to kill innocent civilians or if it is morally ok to commit genocide or to do settler colonialism.
Yeah, you’re right, no college organizes debates where people debate if it is morally wrong or right to kill innocent civilians or if it is morally ok to commit genocide. It is common for college debate classes and clubs to have a party argue Nazism (which is more than just the holocaust) as a challenging debate topic. It’s a thought experiment where you must represent a side which you don’t agree with but must provide the best possible defense while also not allowing your debate opponent to rest their argument solely on the historical outcome.
Not what we talk about though, we are not talking about subjective matter to use the word agree/disagree . We are talking about being the devil advocate for people committing genocide .
If you’re going to quote me, please don’t add your own response into the quote as if I said it. Also, you’re now conflating two different things:
You don’t seem able to separate debate to ensure faithful argument from debate to be right. Just because I argue that you should eloquently represent yourself without devolving into logical fallacy or poor argument doesn’t mean I support genocide. Try to represent your opinion without the presumption that you are correct.
The only one who does logical fallacies is you. The case of school telling a side to defend nazirs was widely condemned and stopped doing it . You should not try to defend morally wrong stuffs end of the story . There is zero faithful argument to defend settler colonialism, killing innocent civilians and committing genocides.
I represent my opinions without the presumption that I am correct when it is a matter of opinion which it is not the case here
Point one out
Do you have any proof of that because it was a thing less than 10 years ago when I was in school, and here is an article about it in 2017.
So you lack the ability to properly represent your opinions without relying solely on what you feel is correct.
Why not? Support your statement.
Because settler colonialism is legally and morally always wrong
So because you believe the other side of your view is morally and legally wrong they don’t deserve representation and you shouldn’t have to be called out for having bad evidence or poor sources when opposing it?
How about if a guy goes and kills someone on camera, do you think they don’t deserve to be represented by an attorney in court?
they can have representation elsewhere. banning them here does not keep them from taking part in the fediverse.
But you’re not the fediverse, my whole argument has been that segregating yourself limits your internal feedback and ultimately reduces the standards of your content. The real question should be do you want to be an echo chamber?
an anarchist echo chamber? yes, please. I will not ever, at any time, under any circumstances, for any reason, for any person, even for a second, consider any ideology, opinion, or idea, that does not include solidarity for all mankind. I’m not interested in your “devils advocate”, or your debate, or your differing opinion. if it is not helping your fellow man and lifting people up, freeing them from oppression from religions and states, then I want nothing ever to do with it.
you cannot change my mind.
At the very least you have completely and totally expressed what it is you want for your community and completely expressed your expectations. I don’t know if your compatriots will agree, but it’s nice to have a definite response. Thank you!
Nice try. I said you can’t be a devil advocate for a state comiting genocide, killing innocent civilians and doing settler colonialism.
Do you really believe the morality of killing innocent civilian and stealing land is a matter of opinion?
It’s not about whether I believe it’s a matter of opinion or not, it’s about providing good arguments to support what you say. Saying things because everyone agrees they are true is one thing, sharing bad sources which support your argument is still a bad faith argument. Saying that people shouldn’t critique bad arguments because they are representing a bad thing is a fallacy of it’s own.
There is no good arguments for justifying settler colonialism, killing civilians and committing genocide