Today, after careful consideration and evaluation of recent events, we have decided to defederate from Lemmygrad.
Regrettably, we have observed a significant increase in hate speech and calls to violence originating from the Lemmygrad instance. Due to the severity of the posts and comments, we are not waiting for the next Lemmy update that will allow users to block instances.
At Lemmy.world, we have always strived to foster an inclusive and welcoming user environment. However, recent posts and comments from Lemmygrad have clearly violated our server rules and, more importantly, our core values. We firmly believe that hate speech and incitement of violence have no place in our community, regardless of personal beliefs or affiliations.
As always, we encourage all users to report any content they deem inappropriate or harmful. No matter one's stance in any conflict, Lemmy.world will always take immediate action to remove and ban any posts or comments that incite violence or propagate hatred.
We encourage everyone to continue engaging in discussions within the boundaries of respect and understanding. As we move forward with this decision, we remain committed to providing all community members with a safe and welcoming space. We appreciate your continued support and cooperation in upholding our shared principles.
But everyone could sign up for other instances that are federated. They can even have multiple accounts across different instances. I don't see this as the beginning of the slide down a slippery slope.
Lemmy's "the onus on moderation is on the instance" was always going to result in this. You can have an instance with really good content, and a really strong community, but none of that means shit if the instance owners decide that a certain brand of hate speech is ok. Now you have two options as an instance owner: Either blanket ban the entire instance, or expose your users to shit even reddit would have acted on.
Mastodon for all its flaws has a way better system for this: The instance owner AND the federated instance both get reports and can act on them as such. That way even if the federated instance refuses to moderate a post which breaks your instance's rules, you can still deal with it. If an instance is consistently bad faith and the moderators are sick of dealing with them, that's when you defederate.