Bluesky just verified ICE
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Does a verification equate to an endorsement now? I'm strongly against ICE, but as long as ICE exists, then it makes sense to verify their official account. That's all verification is to me at least, just something to let you know it's the real _ account rather than an imposter.
Yes, platforming Nazis is a bad idea. The correct response would be to ban the account and any similar accounts.
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And miss out on all the juicy trolling opportunities?
Yes, driving Nazis from society is more important than including them so you can then performatively dunk on them.
I honestly cannot believe anyone here would struggle to understand that. Come on ffs
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No, you're not understanding what I'm saying. I'm not the person you were replying to.
Mastodon is a piece of software. It has a license, just like bluesky or any other. You can put a clause in the license saying the software cannot be used for the dissemination of hate speech. The open source community has discussed this and decided it goes against the principles of free software and open source.If you're mad at one and not the other, you're applying different standards because being part of the fediverse weighs more.
Personally I hold platforms to a different standard and so I'm neither mad at mastodon nor bluesky. I just think it's hypocritical to be mad at someone for publishing a fascists letter but not be mad at the person who gave the same fascist a printing press.
You can put a clause in the license saying the software cannot be used for the dissemination of hate speech. The open source community has discussed this and decided it goes against the principles of free software and open source.
Says who? How can you authoritatively say the open source community has decided something collectively on this subject? That categorically doesn't make sense on multiple different dimensions.
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The thing is that I kinda dont like the idea of stopping people from freely expressing themselves, but I do agree to the fact that allowing them to be verified might be another small piece of legitimizaiton. We shoudl all be defending democracy, but when does tollerating intollerants become harmfui? A tolerant society shouldn't tolerate intolerant people
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You haven't been on the Internet very long, huh?
What ICE is doing is way worse than what happens on the internet...? Most of the stuff on the internet is words, ICE is actually kidnapping, killing and deporting people.
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Echo chamber in different words. I grew up with a lot of conservatives. Hard second amendment people. They listen if you listen
They listen if you listen
In a fantasy world version of the US, conservatives do that, in the real world US the minute you start doing that you have abandoned what it means to be a conservative.
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Does a verification equate to an endorsement now? I'm strongly against ICE, but as long as ICE exists, then it makes sense to verify their official account. That's all verification is to me at least, just something to let you know it's the real _ account rather than an imposter.
Does a verification equate to an endorsement now?
Never been the case, tho many do interpret it to be that way.
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What ICE is doing is way worse than what happens on the internet...? Most of the stuff on the internet is words, ICE is actually kidnapping, killing and deporting people.
I see what you mean now; your wording was ambiguous, specifically "do".
anyone impersonating gestapo would post anything worse than they already do
sounds like you're saying 'would post anything worse than they already post'.
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The thing is that I kinda dont like the idea of stopping people from freely expressing themselves, but I do agree to the fact that allowing them to be verified might be another small piece of legitimizaiton. We shoudl all be defending democracy, but when does tollerating intollerants become harmfui? A tolerant society shouldn't tolerate intolerant people
People can freely express themselves. Giving a domestic terror organization run by the government extra legitimacy by “verifying” them has nothing to do with free speech. It amplifies their message over the speech of actual people.
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Yes, platforming Nazis is a bad idea. The correct response would be to ban the account and any similar accounts.
Normally I'd agree, but ICE is a government organization and since people get their news on social media these days, it makes sense that ICE doesn't get banned as long as they follow ToS.
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So the mastodon service supports Nazis.
nobody owns it and anyone can run it
They could have chosen a license that forbid usage for spreading hate. They put "free software" and "open source" above blocking hate speech.
They're providing software to Nazis, and I don't really see how that makes them better than providing a place to post.I do see your point and I'll actually upvote you here. But I do think there's a meaningful difference.
Software is just an idea written down rigorously. Various societies created various conventions and social contracts to control dissemination and usage of ideas, both in their pure and written down forms. Capitalist societies generally defer to the author of the idea for how they want it handled (at least for the first few decades), so that the author can earn some money from it (of course, even ideas are monetized under capitalism) - this is patent and copyright law.
The free software movement is just a novel application of the copyright law. By sharing ideas freely but with a license that forces everyone using the idea to share their derivative ideas freely as well, it is attempting to destroy the spirit of copyright law by using the letter of copyright law.
With all this in mind, let's examine what it would mean to add the "don't be evil" clause to an otherwise FOSS license.
- In ideal circumstances, a society's system of laws and social norms should incorporate "don't be evil" in it already. Hate speech and nazism should be prohibited and punished, so the clause would be superfluous.
- In "ordinary circumstances" of neoliberal capitalism, there are agencies that will be acting in bad faith but will stand above any laws, be it geneva conventions, hate speech laws or (boring) copyright law. You won't be able to enforce a "don't be evil" clause against the CIA or ICE or the Rockefeller. They can just take your software and use it, so the clause would be of little use typically. This is partially applicable to our current situation.
- In extraordinary circumstances, such as capitalism in advanced decay a.k.a fascism, the law will be ignored by most evil actors anyways. Law is just a social contract and fascism is deliberately breaking all social contracts. Nobody will enforce copyright law in favor of an individual FOSS developer, especially against someone who's on the side of the regime. So the clause is completely useless. This is also applicable to our situation.
There is some edge-cases in the middle where a "don't be evil" clause might make a bit of sense. If the contract law (which includes copyright law) is still well-respected, but the social contract itself is falling apart around it, it might be used to prevent some nazis somewhere from using your software for a short while, but that situation is always unstable and does not last. In any case nazis are known for ignoring all social contracts, including court orders, so even this is questionable.
There are also downsides in any "don't be evil" clause, because it requires you to rigorously define what you mean by "evil". This is actually really hard to do well without relying on existing laws (which ruins the point), and will usually either leave nazis leeway to get away with using it, or harm legitimate users, or both - especially because legitimate users are less likely to try pushing the boundaries.
This is explicitly different from what Bluesky is doing. They are hosting known nazis. Nothing is stopping them from banning ICE and making it into a point of pride, it is really easy. There is no downside, no legitimate user hurt. It's as easy of a decision as one can make.
To reiterate,
So the mastodon service supports Nazis.
Mastodon-the-service doesn't really exist (unless you count mastodon.social). But the fediverse in general is not supporting nazis. Nazis are banned and defederated.
Mastodon-the-software may "support" nazis in the same way as the idea of a printing press (from your other comment) supported nazis.
They’re providing software to Nazis, and I don’t really see how that makes them better than providing a place to post.
Bluesky is categorically worse because it doesn't have the "don't be evil" clause in the software licenses either, and it is hosting nazis directly on the platform they run.
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I get why this would bug people.
It's a small act of legitimizing the domestic Gestapo, but we've already seen that the corporate social media is a-okay with platforming terrorists, Nazis, and the worst.
That's why we're on Lemmy instead.
I mean they are a legitimate government office. Trump didn't found them, they've existed for over two decades. It's only their outrageous gestaponess that's recent.
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You don't get it: I am and will remain the only user of my instance...
Do you even now how Lemmy works? Did I say I was going to let ICE people create users on my instance? I only said I don't defederate any instance.
If you turned off registration then you are not allowing ICE on your platform so problem solved?
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You can put a clause in the license saying the software cannot be used for the dissemination of hate speech. The open source community has discussed this and decided it goes against the principles of free software and open source.
Says who? How can you authoritatively say the open source community has decided something collectively on this subject? That categorically doesn't make sense on multiple different dimensions.
Says the fact that it's come up multiple times amongst a wide swath of the open source community, and look about you. Those licenses aren't used. One or two exist and have a vanishingly small usage level and a couple more I have been "in progress" for years.
The people who write most of the open source licenses have explanations for why it's not compatible.Group behavior is a collective decision and a reflection of the group.
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They listen if you listen
In a fantasy world version of the US, conservatives do that, in the real world US the minute you start doing that you have abandoned what it means to be a conservative.
https://www.streetepistemology.com/
Check this out. I used to do things like this with hard core right wing (trump flags, cleaning their guns everyday).
My goal wasn't to convince them, but get them to think critically and feel safe around liberals. The ones I talked to were usually convinced leftists were out to get them. I was a leftist who would literally just listen to them, watch Fox news with them and then we'd get burritos and hang out.
I want them to think of me and other friends, when they see videos of ICE beating up people. I'll never convince them to vote blue, but maybe I can convince them that we can disagree about politics, but still be friends
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Yes, platforming Nazis is a bad idea. The correct response would be to ban the account and any similar accounts.
The only thing I love more than government censoring my internet is corporations censoring my internet 🥰
(You, apparently)
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On one hand I see your point. On t'other, we've tried complete neutrality and it failed, maybe it's time for a communications platform where we hold people to a standard?
Who's we? You think you or I get to decide what will be censored and silenced?
Unless the protocol is 100% open source, decentralised, user controlled by default, and resistant to unwanted censorship and propaganda, the oligarchs and corporations will ALWAYS be able to seize control and use it against us.
If you genuinely think the solution is yet another billionaire controlled closed for-profit platform, propaganda-promoting algos, and a bunch of bootlicking gatekeepers to censor and moderate it — that can be sold, transferred, and monetised in any way, to anyone, at any time — whelp, the world must be an absolute enigma to you.
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The claim that Bluesky "verifies Nazis" because ICE got a blue check is peak absurdity—it's a government agency enforcing immigration law, not goose-stepping brownshirts.
Verification confirms identity/authenticity (anti-impersonation), not endorsement, letting users freely mute/block ICE while spotting fakes (pro/anti-ICE sock puppets).
To the history blind people comparing ICE to Nazis, If ICE were "Nazis," 2025 inauguration riots get crushed Day 1 with tanks, not due process.
Reality: routine deportations ≠ death camps.
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Nah balls to that. This is simple paradox of tolerance shit, anti-social ideology doesn't get a platform in the marketplace of ideas.
simple paradox of tolerance shit
Nah, misinterpretation.
Censorship doesn't stop shit.
Suppression of intolerance means stopping it through coercion or criminalization.we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force
we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal
Moreover, intolerance doesn't mean the baby-brained notion on the internet of espousing offensive, exclusionary views.
The nonviolent & noncoercive are still tolerant.
Intolerance means rejection of rational discourse through appeal to force: coercive/violent action or incitement of it to overthrow a tolerant society.for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols
Karl Popper opposed censorship/argued for free inquiry & open discourse.
I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.
Censorship (or willfully blinding ourselves to information) plays no part in suppressing authoritarianism, and it's extremely moronic to pretend it does.
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The claim that Bluesky "verifies Nazis" because ICE got a blue check is peak absurdity—it's a government agency enforcing immigration law, not goose-stepping brownshirts.
Verification confirms identity/authenticity (anti-impersonation), not endorsement, letting users freely mute/block ICE while spotting fakes (pro/anti-ICE sock puppets).
To the history blind people comparing ICE to Nazis, If ICE were "Nazis," 2025 inauguration riots get crushed Day 1 with tanks, not due process.
Reality: routine deportations ≠ death camps.
Cool story what do you think about Elon Musk
