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Allero@lemmy.today 3 weeks agoPieFed (the software, so this relates to every instance) blocks links to certain websites, it is hardcoded and without a fork, you’d have to manually reallow them one-by-one (and there’s like 4000 of them).
A lot of them are blocked due to political motivations, and Rimu himself said software shouldn’t be politically neutral.
Kraiden@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Tankies. You mean tankies.
For anyone else reading, it’s not the same thing at all. There’s no subterfuge in what Rimu is doing. There’s a fucking admin interface to manage the list for a start, and the list itself is open source and categorized by reason for blocking
Suggesting that this is in any way the same thing as a secret hidden block list that contains specific users and has no way to be disabled is disingenuous at a minimum, but I’d go further and say it’s outright bullshit.
Allero@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
Should it matter? As the saying goes, “first they come for tankies…”. Moreover, the blocklist covers pretty much the entire political spectrum, except exactly Rimu’s beliefs (classic liberal, strongly pro-government). Like, I invite people to just follow the link you gracefully provided and explore for themselves. It’s not just Nazis or transphobes, it is all things left and right, WikiLeaks, and more.
Last time I checked, the interface doesn’t allow to just remove the whole blocklist in a click of a button. Removing 4000+ entries one by one is a very, very questionable endeavor. Moreover, such things must be opt-in, not opt-out. Does
MicrosoftRimu understand consent?Kraiden@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
I agree with you that people should take a look at the block list for themselves. Personally, I have no issue with anything on there being blocked by default. You obviously do. We are never going to agree on that.
That doesn’t matter. It’s still not the same thing, and it is NOT Rimu forcing his political views on unsuspecting users on the fediverse. You are ignoring the target of the two lists.
Tesseract: Targets unsuspecting users. List is hidden. It’s applied blindly to every user of every instance, in secret, and is truely not disableable. It was designed to be secret, which is why it presented as a network error, and was so heavily obfuscated.
Piefed: Targets instance admins. List is open source. Is applied ONCE when the instance is set up, and is EASILY disabled. I’m sorry but if your admin cannot run a simple SQL command
DELETE FROM domain, then they have no business managing a public facing instance. The same goes for them not checking the default values that are configured by set up scripts, which is ultimately all this is.When you pick an instance, you are accepting that instance’s political leanings whether you like it or not. Even if your admin decides nothing is taboo, everything is unblocked, go ham: 1st - that’s free speech absolutism, which is a political stance, 2nd - enjoy your cesspit. It should be part of your research when choosing an instance, as this is the point that you are opting-in
I chose piefed.social knowing that Rimu and I are largely politically aligned, and did so because I was tired of the shit that my old instance was allowing. You’re making it sound like he’s quietly silencing voices he doesn’t like, when in reality, all he’s doing is giving instance admins a jumping off point to cut out the worst of the extremism and propaganda from both ends of the political spectrum. I’ll say it again for the people in the back. There is nothing underhanded in what Rimu is doing, it is NOT AT ALL comparable to the Tesseract situation, and suggesting that it is, is disingenuous.
Allero@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Most people found out about the blocklists existence when shit has already hit the fan, and Rimu got to stand his ground. In this sense, it was the same rude awakening.
My point (and largely that of Lemmy) is not that filter lists are bad. Plenty of instances benefit from them, whether it’s a safe space or just something tailored to make your experience better. The point is, they must be applied on the instance and/or user level. Not some messiah dev who decides what all PieFed instances serve to their users, especially not when such dev simply uses it to project his political opinions on a larger part of the Fediverse. People manipulating public opinion and cutting their access to information is everything Fediverse stands against, and this is why it caused such a backlash.
PieFed already did offer user choice: I remember registering to one of the instances (piefed.zip if I recall correctly) and being offered, as a user, to remove things like Musk and Trump posts etc. This is a good approach, as it empowers the user to tailor their feed. But what choice does user have now, when major instances have this baked in list? None.
It’s also an absolutely unnecessary and unwelcome headache for admins. Instead of opting in to whatever admins deem essential, they have to clear the thing of whatever Rimu’s up to next. Standing up for this mess is like saying “Microsoft ain’t that bad, you can remove most of the telemetry and forced apps by clicking switches here, here, and here, and changing these registry keys”. You shouldn’t have to jump through these hoops in the first place, this is hostile development.
You aligning with Rimu politically contributes significantly to the tolerance of such behavior, because it doesn’t largely affect you…yet. But consider this: plenty of people who want to make this place and the world at large better are being shut up by the dev who thinks he knows better. He uses his position as a developer to make choices for all PieFed users. Instead of giving admins the choice, he hardcodes his personal choices (not only blocklists, but also vote limiting and other things that are not as easily removed) into software used by thousands of people, many of which disagree. Does this align with you?