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
I will agree that this isn’t about constructing line of defense for specific acts committed or not committed by Israel or Palestine, but I disagree with the second part of your argument:
The perspective being expressed by this poll is whether you can have dissenting opinions to posts about a settler-colonial apartheid state. There is a difference between supporting a settler-colonial apartheid state and demanding a higher level of quality for posts. Without allowing dissenting opinions people are prone to make poor quality arguments. We’ve seen the same thing occur with Republicans in the USA. They stay in their own circles, they share memes as if they are fact, and they believe what they are told because no one in their circle questions what is posted. By removing opinions which question the status quo you will remove Zionists, but you’ll also remove those who ground the community in logic and truth.
Kindly, that’s not at all what is being discussed. This is an anarchist instance - anarchism is openly and proudly hostile toward colonialism in all forms, which is why it’s being discussed here. It’s not a straw poll about if anyone is allowed to have a dissenting opinion, it’s about if that type of perspective is allowed to be expressed on this instance.
You can demand a higher quality for posts all you like, just not on grounds relating to zionist positions or justifications. I’ll leave it to the mod’s discretion on what counts, but I think you’re already treading on shaky ground.
Zionism isn’t valid and isn’t based on logic or truth - nothing of value will be lost.
The soul of Anarchy is free expression, how can you champion Anarchy while also promoting the limiting of speech and ideas? The two should be anathema to each other?
But that’s not what I said… I said that you will remove Zionists and you will also remove those who ground your community, they aren’t the same. The problem is that if you remove people who protest an issue you will remove the people you disagree with, but you will also remove people who agree with you, but won’t excuse poor arguments and discussion.
By removing the second group you hurdle yourself into an echo chamber no better than what many conservative americans are trapped in.
no, the soul of anarchism is solidarity for all people. anything that goes against that is anathema to anarchism and cannot be tolerated.
I’m sorry, but I’ve already done a preliminary research of Anarchism, someone else disagreed and told me what they believed anarchism is, and now you’re telling me a third opinion of what anarchism is. So far I’ve encountered three interpretations of anarchism and none of them are the same. Why is yours correct?
no, their opinion is the same as mine. freedom from oppression is no different than solidarity for all people.
The soul of anarchism is freedom from oppression. You cannot have freedom from oppression while tolerating speech defending it.
Talking in hypotheticals is a challenge. All i’d say is - zionism is illogical and oppressive on its face. If you’re defending (or challenging) something along zionist grounds, it’s almost by definition not lending itself to better argumentation or discussion.
I’m sorry, but that’s just your opinion. Emma Goldman represented anarchism as human expressionism and you can’t have freedom from oppression while limiting the speech of others.
Well OK, I guess going by knightfox’s logic we’re going to need a revenge porn instance and a pedophilia one too. Also a child murder instance. So we can meet that pure definition of ‘free expression’. They’ll fit right in next to the israeli war crimes instances-- they’re not too different after all. I nominate knightfox to be the mod of all of those. Then I say we defederalize from those and cut knightfox loose to float in the ether till law enforcement can do whats needed.
nobody is limiting anyone’s speech. there is no barrier to entry for lemmy, people who would be banned can continue their speech literally anywhere else. another core requirement of anarchism is freedom of association, and that means the freedom to disassociate with people.
So because they can speak elsewhere within Lemmy they still have freedom of speech but they can’t have freedom of speech here? You walk a tight line by saying people can’t associate here, but they are allowed to associate elsewhere so it’s ok to prohibit them within your circle.
That sure sounds like anti-persons of color talk in the 1960’s. Can I drink at the same water fountain as you?EDIT: I’ll retract my statement without hiding what I said because I think the statement was unfair.
I imagine you thought this was a pretty clever argument. unfortunately, you are not very clever. calling us racist because we don’t want to associate with supporters of a racist genocidal apartheid regime is a nice touch. it’s very MAGA of you. how oppressed you are that we don’t want oppressors among us. you’ll find such arguments carry no weight here, and nobody is impressed.
you have no idea what you’re talking about, and you’ve wrapped yourself in a blanket of ignorance to comfort yourself. the rest of us can see that the blanket is covered in shit though.
Except I didn’t call you racist, I implied you followed the same ideology of racists. You see people who are functionally the same as you as if they are different when they aren’t. You’ve taken someone who agrees with your ideals but not your methods and ostracized them for not saying things the way you want.
Emma Goldman (and just about any anarchist) defended the right to express dissent against oppression, not the freedom to express a defense of it. She openly advocated for theft and violence - she was a true revolutionary. She would have been the first person to tell you that there is no room in anarchism for the defense of any state, let alone a neo-colonial apartheid one.
So it’s gated expression not freedom of expression. I can say what I want so long as you approve of it? Also, I can’t voice objection to poor arguments because it opposes the desired narrative? That doesn’t sound like anarchy… that sounds like authoritarianism.
You can express yourself however you like, but you might not be welcomed back to do it again if it’s in defense of neo-colonial apartheid.
This isnt a libertarian instance, it’s an anarchists one.
On the contrary, it sounds more like getting your shit kicked in for showing up to a mosh pit in a nazi officer’s uniform.
Except what I have stated isn’t in defense of a neo-colonial apartheid, it’s a criticism of poor journalism and criticism of support for poor rhetorical standards. When you attack the people on your side for not stepping in line with your exact opinions you are an authoritarian not an anarchist.