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),
(2), 
(1), 
(1), (2), 
(2) - Against:
- Local Community: +2.0
- Outsider sentiment: Supportive
- Total: +13.0
- Percentage: 88.00%
This vote will complete in 1 days
Reminder that this is a pilot process and results of voting are not set in stone.
- For:
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.
Was there a specific incident(s) that led to this course of action?
dataprolet was brought up in the matrix chat the other day, and it was decided somebody should make a gov post about whether or not someone like them should be associated with the rest of us.
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.
Loving y’all’s instance more and more by the day.
I don’t know what this means bot. But I’m here for it!
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.
What discourse that could be misconstrued as pro-Zionist can potentially be lost and how valuable could that lost discourse be?
And then what discourse do bad faith actors get to push through from our misfiring on tolerance, and what are the consequences of that?
Above questions are admittedly rhetorical (or at least I have my own answers already), the ones below are genuine.
How do you reach a conclusion that the admin who posted the governance question should step back for some time, when the phrasing indicates discussion among the admin team and the presentation of multiple (even somewhat exclusive) points of view?
If we already have tools and policy for dealing with unacceptable content, what about codifying specifics for Zionism enables abuse of our existing tools? The proposal outlines that it aims to be narrowly scoped for that reason. If you consider Zionist content unacceptable, how would you need it defined?
i’m not from your instance but good.
fascists should bot be allowed anywhere.
What is a “Zionist” account? How can you tell?
promoting what israel is doing in gaza, and defending/gatekeeping talking points of israel and people who back israel, aka rich actors, supporting protests in america, university, basically any propaganda that is favourable to the current regime. or being labeled antisemtic for pointing out jewish backers of israel and abroad.
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?
To me, two important discriminating factors are genocide, and the volume and sophistication of propaganda supporting it.
Banning content has to be done carefully of course, especially here I’d argue, but these criteria warrant special treatment.
Identifying and banning “settler colonialist and or imperialist based accounts” in a broad sense seems like a much murkier challenge with murkier goals (don’t reproduce propaganda for this genocide vs. don’t reproduce imperialist propaganda).
Personally fuck any accounts like that too, just wanna be clear that I’m talking about opinions for instance governance, a subtle but important distinction easy to lose.
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.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.
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 not a part of your instance, but this popped up in my feed and I thought it was interesting.
I’m not pro-Zionist and I’m not pro-settler, but I often take devil’s advocate stances in Israel-Palestine arguments and am frequently mistaken as being a Zionist. In my opinion it isn’t pragmatic to approach this argument in a black and white manner. Too often people on Lemmy boil down geopolitical arguments into what is objectively morally right instead of what is pragmatically possible for the leaders of a country. People on Lemmy often also seem to expect immediate results for decades old issues because “It’s so simple to solve, just do X.” When you don’t immediately agree with these answers because they aren’t pragmatically possible you get labelled as a Zionist.
People on Lemmy also seem unable to critically assess sources or research and when it comes to Israel-Palestine news they are willing to accept Pro-Palestine media on it’s face while they dismiss any and all Pro-Israel evidence simply because of who it comes from. An independent journalist can write an article alleging something happened with nothing but a Twitter post as evidence, Al Jazeera will pick it up and copy the article almost verbatim with barely more than a credit to the original journalist, Haaretz will then pick it up saying Al Jazeera reported (again with almost no changes), and then it pops up on CBS. The next time you hear about it some guy on Lemmy is telling you that it’s well known that XYZ happened because CBS, Haaretz, and Al Jazeera all reported it when it was really one guy with a twitter post. On the other hand you present a 500 page Israeli report to the UN on the details of an event and it’s fake news because it came from Israel.
I get tired of people posting Israel-Palestine news that holds less journalist value than saying my friend’s brother’s ex-girlfriend said so. I get tired of people making arguments in bad faith because they care more about things aligning with their views rather than being true. Also, a lot of people on Lemmy don’t really know what they are talking about, and this applies even outside of Israel-Palestine arguments; just the other day I had a guy argue with me about what happened in my life because statistically it should be a different way.
At the end of the day many people on Lemmy say they left other places, like Reddit or Twitter, because of the behaviors that they witnessed there, but it feels more like they just want an echo chamber to circle jerk to. I don’t think you should ban accounts for engaging in civil debate so long as it is well sourced, researched, and seems to be in genuine good faith, but I would say that that should also go the other way. If all someone has to contribute to a discussion is a low effort and faithless argument, or just mudslinging, then they should be temp banned from posting (however that works) no matter which side the support.
EDIT: I’m the fire starter
See, but your one example related to this precise issue is bad, the 500 page Israeli report cannot be assumed to have any value and should only be assumed to have negative value when you understand that regime, their goals, their actions, and the consequences of it all.
Of course bad info is going to be available, but your example of one that should be granted any trust at all is awful and indicates either your poor understanding of Israel the state, or the facts of the ongoing genocide.
This question is not about general Lemmy behavior. This question is about specific moderation on a specific topic for our instance.
Your take is bad, your frustration experienced elsewhere is not our problem or related to our governance decision here, and genocide accompanied by modern high-tech armies of propaganda whitewashing it does justify some REASONABLE defensive action on our own instance.
This is actually a good argument, and I’ll give you props for it. Both examples, the 500 page report and the singular independent journalist are arguments I have run into which I cannot effectively share to a credible point in this discussion. Both were debates I had on Lemmy with people and without sharing 50 messages (exaggeration for effect as I am not going to go back and count the actual number) of context.
Both examples are anecdotal, but they are only that… examples. You can choose to believe whether my anecdotal experience has any merit and I won’t try to prove that it does, but I’m providing my experience to this question as a data point.
I will point out that you have effectively proved a certain portion of my argument though.
but your example of one that should be granted any trust at all is awful and indicates either your poor understanding of Israel the state, or the facts of the ongoing genocide.
You have no context for what was discussed or debated, but because I have said the source came from Israel you have already dismissed any legitimacy it might have simply because of who it came from.
It’s hard for me to imagine an official document coming from the state of Israel on any topic that I would place any inherent trust in, I would say I can’t believe anything out of that government (any branch) that can’t be verified in some other way, and I think that’s the correct position to take given what I’ve learned.
Anything that state produces has negative legitimacy to me by default, not no legitimacy, and that’s an intentional position I take based on observation. Note that doesn’t mean it can’t have true information in any case on any topic, just that it carries negative legitimacy or expectation of truth by default, a lot of it, and needs more backup than even something unsubstantiated that sounds broadly likely from an unknown source.
So it sounds like we fundamentally disagree on that. I don’t feel the need to bicker about it if you don’t, and I appreciate the measured reply.
I mean, do you believe Israel’s own reporting that that have an over 80% civilian kill rate versus actually enemy combatants? Because that’s where that number comes from.
I feel like that’s a fair conclusion, we cannot agree on this topic because on a fundamental level there is some information you cannot accept (and that’s ok so long as you recognize it). This is your instance, not mine, and the whole point in my comments was to raise the opposing point for you and the instance admins to see the whole argument and what would be missed by banning alternate opinions.
I appreciate your debate and discussion as well as your time and consideration. If it’s any consolation I don’t agree with what Israel has and is doing, but I am more unsure on how I feel the world should handle the situation. I don’t have the confidence in my own knowledge to be as absolutist as you are.
Well, let us know if you feel more sure, should you ever come to grips with the devastation being delivered to the people of Palestine.
You’re certainly right that there is “some information” I cannot accept. Again you make it general, again I maintain it’s specifically “information” coming out of a technologically ~peerless, unapologetically (but certainly deceptively) genocidal state.
There are indeed few things I’m absolutist on, even more crucially toward what other people should be allowed to do. Look at the instance I’m on and it’s very well-stated principles.
This issue is so beyond the pale. The further you go making this argument “but it’s about accepting information and allowing discussion”, the further you dig a hole shaped like “bad faith”. It’s a fuckin genocide. Brutal and despicable beyond all description. With armies of tech propagandizing. The argument that Israel as a state deserves any benefit of the doubt for some principle of fairness, or that “open discussion” is the crucial issue on this ongoing tragedy - that is absolutism, the ugly kind. Enough.
, the 500 page Israeli report cannot be assumed to have any value and should only be assumed to have negative value when you understand that regime, their goals, their actions, and the consequences of it all.
Meh. The literal Nazis released reports on smoking being bad for you. They were correct to suggest there was a link between smoking and lung cancer. They weren’t correct to suggest the introduction of tobacco was a Jewish plot to weaken the master race.
It’s the whole argumentum ad hominem /argumentum ad auctoritas fallacy thing.
Just because the source of a report is the Israeli government, doesn’t necessarily mean it is entirely fallacious.
Because if it was, by that logic if the Israeli government releases a report where they do admit doing something wrong, that’s a lie because it’s an Israeli report, and they did nothing wrong.
Obviously, you should double check, etc. Especially when something comes from a questionable source or when it’s about a contentious subject.
Don’t know if I understood you wrong. Maybe I’m just clarifying.
The literal Nazis released reports on smoking being bad for you.
The Nazis could have been reporting on the fucking weather - doesn’t make them a trustworthy source for anything, let alone matters relating specifically to the defense of their existence.
I think we’re saying similar things. My point regarding credibility is that any document coming from the state of Israel:
- certainly gets no bonus points on credibility (500 pages to the UN or however many characters to Xitter)
- gets an extreme burden of proof and accompanying scrutiny for any statement in it to be taken seriously
This is exactly as true for anything that came out of Nazi Germany as it is anything coming out of modern Israel, for exactly the same reasons.
Sounds like we’re roughly on the same page, or close enough.
If only there were journalists on the ground that could report impartially so we didn’t need to both-sides this issue. Oh right, Israel killed them all.
This isn’t really about constructing lines of defense for specific acts committed or not committed by Israel or Palestine. The perspective being expressed by this poll is about whether there is any justification for supporting a settler-colonial apartheid state from an anarchist or marxist perspective, and the answer is resoundingly no.
There are plenty of people on the internet claiming to be the ‘devil’s advocate’ - especially on reddit, especially on .world. You can have those places to test lines of defense for the state of Israel - but on an anarchist sub, it’s reasonable to ban them because they are incompatible with anarchism. Generalist forums like reddit are cesspools for nazis for exactly this reason, and it’s why I am in full support of the motion at hand - even for people ‘just playing devil’s advocate’.
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 about whether there is any justification for supporting a settler-colonial apartheid state from an anarchist or marxist perspective, and the answer is resoundingly no.
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.
The perspective being expressed by this poll is whether you can have dissenting opinions to posts about a settler-colonial apartheid state.
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.
There is a difference between supporting a settler-colonial apartheid state and demanding a higher level of quality for posts
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.
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
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?
Zionism isn’t valid and isn’t based on logic or truth - nothing of value will be lost.
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.
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?
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?
The soul of anarchism is freedom from oppression.
no, their opinion is the same as mine. freedom from oppression is no different than solidarity for all people.
The soul of Anarchy is free expression
The soul of anarchism is freedom from oppression. You cannot have freedom from oppression while tolerating speech defending it.
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
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.
The soul of anarchism is freedom from oppression. You cannot have freedom from oppression while tolerating speech defending it.
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.
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.
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.
deleted by creator
If I’m not mistaken your post was something along the lines that it’s the “devil’s advocate.”
I went back to find your post only to find it deleted. Here is the definition of the “Devil’s Advocate” from the Oxford Language Group used by Google.
“a person who expresses a contentious opinion in order to provoke debate or test the strength of the opposing arguments.”
You can’t take devil advocate for a settler colonial power. Would you do the same when it comes to Russian invasion of Ukraine?
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.
You can always take a devils advocate position, that’s why it’s called the devil’s advocate
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.
It is common for college debate classes and clubs to have a party argue Nazism That’s pure bullshit
It’s a thought experiment where you must represent a side which you don’t agree with
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 .
No you can’t use devil advocate when it comes to oppose murder of civilians and settler colonialism
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?
So because you believe the other side of your view is morally and legally wrong they don’t deserve representation
they can have representation elsewhere. banning them here does not keep them from taking part in the fediverse.
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?
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…
I support:
- banning Zionist DB0 accounts
- banning Zionist users being a nuisance here
- wide admin & mod discretion on what counts as a violation
- clearly disambiguating Zionism from Judaism
- transparency about such bans (maybe even a wall of shame with all known info about each banned acct, were it low effort to implement)
I do not support:
- excessive hand-wringing over potential collateral damage (we do not need to platform ideas that “walk and quack like a duck” - the entire rest of the Internet and meatspace already provide such)
- burdening admin & mod team with significant new ongoing effort
- shaping what DB0 users see and interact with more broadly (e.g. defederation, other decisions based on activity on other instances, etc.)
(Any of that is subject to change over time of course and is only valid for present conditions re: instance leadership quality, communication, etc.)
It’s absolutely worth running the experiment, if nothing else.
I would caution against banning accounts for having a particular stance, as that could be a slippery slope.
Forums have a decades-long running history of banning content, possibly for that reason. Having instance rules that forbid pro-zionist content, propaganda, or news with a zionist spin, makes a lot more sense IMO. From there, it’s easy to ban accounts for repeated rules violations, which may be more palatable for both users to report and admins to enforce.
This seems like a reasonable take.
