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
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.
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.
that was an attempt at clever wordplay that means absolutely nothing. you’re not good at this.
nobody who is a zionist is “functionally the same as” anarchists. the two ideologies are diametrically opposed and cannot function together.
no zionist agrees with my ideals, or they would no be a zionist. you cannot agree with my ideals and support a racist genocidal apartheid regime.
anarchists voluntarily associate into communities of like-minded individuals. this is a right that cannot be infringed upon. likewise, the right to disassociate from people who are not like-minded is also a right that cannot be infringed. they are a foundation of anarchist thought. any zionist is free to form their own associations of like-minded individuals. banning zioonism from our community does not infringe on their rights, nor impede them in any way from speech.
So, let me ask clearly, do you think I am a Zionist?
I do not care if you are. you’re not on our instance. we’re not being forced to associate with you. you probably thought you had some sort of “got you!” argument lined up. but I’m not concerned with whether or not some random .worlder supports genocide. this time tomorrow, I’ll have forgotten you exist.
the only thing I’m doing here is making sure anyone else who wanders by does not see your absolutely wrong position and think being a zionist and an anarchist are anything but mutually exclusive ideologies.
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.
that isn’t what authoritarianism is. do not use words you heard online without knowing what they mean. nobody is having their speech limited, they are being told that we do not wish to associate with them if they engage in that speech. they can do so elsewhere.
I hate to break it to you, but that is exactly what authoritarianism is.
no, it is not.
As long as it isn’t in defense of zionism, you’re fine.
It really shouldn’t be this difficult.
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.
I’m not 100% certain, but I’m pretty sure this qualifies as Reducto Ad Absurdom
Says the zionist-supporting troll hiding under the guise of “devils advocate” who annoys entire threads relentlessly.
Mudslinging and not contributing to discussion, just like I said in my original comment.
I dont think you even realize that you’re the bane of every thread you run your shtick on. You make everyone miserable and hijack topics to be all about your trolling.