@switchingsocial @jaywink
There are multiple types of policies. What we're talking about now are federation policies.

What I'm saying is, in our fear of neo-Nazis, the policies we implement might do far more damage than the neo-Nazis themselves, which is exactly their goal. They know that they themselves can't do much damage, but if they get us to tear ourselves apart, they've succeeded.

@switchingsocial @jaywink No, I'm talking about policies. People's fear of terrorism caused those government policies.

If we could *just* deny neo-Nazis an audience, great, but there are negative side affects to that, which cause more problems. Why do you think the US constitution allows free speech, even of the awful type?

@switchingsocial @jaywink Again, actions we take against neo-Nazis will harm us more than actual neo-Nazis in this case, playing exactly into their hand.

We've seen this before with anti-terrorism costing billions and destroying our right to privacy. Do we want to repeat that with anti-Nazism destroying the free and social web, pushing people back to simpler, centralized platforms that they can at least follow their friends on?

@switchingsocial @jaywink I respectfully disagree, it's not black and white.

Some instances, for example, might be for political debate. Blocking Gab there wouldn't make sense.

Another might have the goal of deconverting neo-Nazis. Members there would want to federate with Gab to convince them why they're wrong/

Also, an instance that isn't either of those could silence Gab, preventing them from recruiting, but still allowing their users to interact.

@jaywink Yeah, blocking Gab is of course reasonable, but the line of "you're with us or against us" will harm what we're trying to build here.

People's reactions to Gab joining the Fediverse has done, and will continue to do, far more damage to the communities here than Gab itself.

For example, many instances are blocking https://mstdn.io because they refuse to block Gab, separating people from their possible and actual friends on the network. This is harmful.

Defederating based off of who other instances federate with will harm adoption. When a user can't follow their friends on most nodes, they'll lose interest quickly.

@switchingsocial
If you start making political decisions, you have to start making lots of them. By deciding to not make political decisions at all, you alleviate yourself of the added draining responsibility.
@rugk @dublinux @mastalab