This has got to be the most milk toast take ever. The government says they have concrete justification to interfere with a political party in a democracy by performing aggressive surveillance on them, but says their justification is a secret. Then somebody comes along and says "Huh, I don't blindly trust the government so I'm not going to support this decision unless I'm told why and can judge it for myself." In fact, if in a democracy a party tries to attack another party through non-electoral means without saying why, there are only two reasonable responses:
This is bad, and calls into question the legitimacy of the government.
They better have a damn good reason, and should be public about it so that the people can judge for themselves.
I've long been critical of this really aggressive defederation, it breaks the network and I believe is the capstone in the list of reasons why the fediverse sputtered out and lost a supermajority of it's users. I think it's still got a chance as the big three protocols grow more interconnected and as big platforms
... show more
This has got to be the most milk toast take ever. The government says they have concrete justification to interfere with a political party in a democracy by performing aggressive surveillance on them, but says their justification is a secret. Then somebody comes along and says "Huh, I don't blindly trust the government so I'm not going to support this decision unless I'm told why and can judge it for myself." In fact, if in a democracy a party tries to attack another party through non-electoral means without saying why, there are only two reasonable responses:
This is bad, and calls into question the legitimacy of the government.
They better have a damn good reason, and should be public about it so that the people can judge for themselves.
I've long been critical of this really aggressive defederation, it breaks the network and I believe is the capstone in the list of reasons why the fediverse sputtered out and lost a supermajority of it's users. I think it's still got a chance as the big three protocols grow more interconnected and as big platforms have started adopting said protocols, but if it's got a chance to do so I believe the community needs to get this sort of stuff sorted out beforehand.
Extremist right-wing party. With substantial parts legally being called Nazis.
Even though nowhere in their rules it says anything about this even being any offence.
3: [...] Support for violent groups or events is prohibited.
Explains itself.
And which later turned out to be completely unsubstantial as many people suspected.
It's not. "Many people", aka. AfD supporters and the AfD themselves.
Oh, did he? He just stood there and claimed something. There was supposedly a great report with all the hard facts, but no one was allowed to see it. That's not much different from "Yes, I did my homework, but then she (sic) ate my dog."
(The original toot, translated from german) Thing is, all contents were openly collected and sorted by 3rd parties already. The report is as relevant to anyone aware of any politics as the Principia Mathematica's Section 54.43 is for thinking humans in order to prove that 1+1=2. The only usefulness lies in AfD supporters being unable to deny the obvious.
Das Landgericht Halle (Saale) hat den AfD-Politiker Höcke wegen des Verwendens von Kennzeichen verfassungswidriger Organisationen zu einer Geldstrafe in Höhe von insgesamt 13.000 Euro verurteilt.
That slogan was originally coined in 1848 by King Ludwig I. But as with many things, the nazis severely tainted it. (Even though it was used by the socialist party after WWII, too.)
These are quite some mental gymnastics going from my toot:
Oh, did he? He just stood there and claimed something. There was supposedly a great report with all the hard facts, but no one was allowed to see it. That’s not much different from “Yes, I did my homework, but then my dog ate it.”
(Correctly translated, btw.)
to:
3: […] Support for violent groups or events is prohibited.
Wow! Just wow! You should sign up as a moderator on mastodon.social. You'd fit right in.
Isn’t this the group whose leaders publicly stated “Germany was safer under Hitler,” then both invited and hosted Elon “Sieg Heil 2x” Musk at a campaign rally?
If you want a more complete list, check the mentioned "secret report" in readable form here, or in original form (hand scanned from paper as to be expected by an official german government body in 2025): part A and part B. The original leaker article is actually largely hidden behind a paywall (cicero.de/innenpolitik/cicero-…). And it's 02:00 CET so i'm not gonna search for the original direct links to the files.
Edit: first link being an old version, other two links being the recent version. Both reports being relevant though.
Cicero liegt das AfD-Geheimgutachten des Verfassungsschutzes vollständig vor. Weil wir daran glauben, dass Demokratie nicht ohne Transparenz und kritische Öffentlichkeit funktionieren kann, veröffentlichen wir es in Gänze.
Just for transparency: The first link is the "old" report from 2021 which was public IIRC. The partA/partB links seem to point to the newer one - clearly showing the "VS - NUR FÜR DEN DIENSTGEBRAUCH" ("Verschlusssache" - confidential, official use only) at the top.
So you're one of those bad faith actors who conveniently overhear all the good points and focus on something you might be able to at least call into question.
You definitely get a ban from my instance for this. What a disgusting stance.
"Someone on mastodon.social reported me for supposedly supporting the German right-wing party." [...] Even though nowhere in their rules it says anything about this even being any offence."
3: [...] Support for violent groups
They, openly for years, and now officially, are extrimists and their members systematically violent.
And I just noticed that, as so often with deepl, it first detected the german text as english, therefore translated (english)german to german, and malformed it, so in my working copy it read "meinen" instead of "mein". Should have double checked that, but >01:30 CET demands its tribute.
Because that's what it said in the report my instance has received. Somebody on the moderation team made the same mental gymnastics you did. Just because I've questioned the stated conclusion of a report that was kept secret from the public. Nothing else. Nowhere did I say that I support that party. I just don't like blindly trusting what politicians (and their government institutions) announce without giving any challengeable proof.
Their status as extremist as per that report mentioned in my toot has been revoked/put on hold until a proper court case: German news article
If it was as crystal clear as you make it out, why revoke it?
(These days, the constitutional courts of all the states try to get that status reinstated in their respective states. But that wasn't a thing back when I did this toot.)
Der Verfassungsschutz setzt die Einstufung der AfD als "gesichert rechtsextremistisch" vorerst aus. Hintergrund: Die Partei klagt gegen die Einstufung.
They say/write "they banned for X, but I didn't do X", instead of "they banned me for X, but X isn't even forbidden", even though it clearly is.
As I said, the report itself is just a compilation of publicly known and collected information. You'd be essentially distrusting that 1 + 1 = 2, because the 5 page mathematical proof is no open to the public. Of course, the actual proof that 1+1=2 is open, but you hopefully get the point.
The VS is completely independent. There are no politicians behind it. Otherwise, the whole thing wouldn't make sense. Even your source says so.
The status hasn't been revoked at all. That's a common misconception. It's not being taken back, obviously. They are just not calling them extremist openly, until there is a first decision in the lawsuit. Just as any other lawsuit for eg. defamation, no matter which side is on the right - you'll first be ordered to stop openly calling the other party a liar or similar, or stop doing that by yourself. Again, your source literally states this.
Die Bundesregierung kann, wenn ein Angriff auf die verfassungsmäßige Ordnung des Bundes erfolgt, den obersten Landesbehörden die für die Zusammenarbeit der Länder mit dem Bund auf dem Gebiete des Verfassungsschutzes erforderlichen Weisungen erteilen.
or in English:
The federal government can, if there is an attack on the constitutional order of the Federation, give necessary orders to the highest Federal State authorities for working together with the Federation in terms of protection of the constitution.
Maybe send the follow-up mail to the moderation team anyway, including full username. And maybe a explanation that you were just questioning the unavailabily of the report, not intending to endorse the wannabe nazi party. So they get what this is about.
How many days did you wait for an answer? Sometimes people are just very impatient and this week thursday to sunday might have been days off for some German people.
They claim "usually within 24 hours". 2 days later I still have no reply. But yeah, I might try the follow-up email... although I don't have much confidence that it'll do anything. It's more important that people get to know the risks of these huge monolithic instances.
Being limited isn't that big a deal. My instance has them limited because of their lax moderation and an excess of reply guys. All it means is that I get a notification saying "Someone you might know sent you a notification" and I get to review and accept or deny the notification depending. Plus they have to request permission to follow me so I get to check them out before accepting.
I still have tons of mutuals on .social and I get new ones all the time. While each person making the choice about whether to accept notifications or follows from a particular user is going to make their own choices, I don't think it's particularly inconvenient.
::: spoiler AfD sidebar For their lack of adequate moderation capacity / interest, .social has one topic they tend to over-react to. AfD sympathizing isn't that one thing. Not to suggest they're right here. I'd need the thread context and a better understanding of German to weigh in on that. Moderators are human and they're going to make a bad call eventually. I'm not in a position to guess whe
... show more
Being limited isn't that big a deal. My instance has them limited because of their lax moderation and an excess of reply guys. All it means is that I get a notification saying "Someone you might know sent you a notification" and I get to review and accept or deny the notification depending. Plus they have to request permission to follow me so I get to check them out before accepting.
I still have tons of mutuals on .social and I get new ones all the time. While each person making the choice about whether to accept notifications or follows from a particular user is going to make their own choices, I don't think it's particularly inconvenient.
::: spoiler AfD sidebar For their lack of adequate moderation capacity / interest, .social has one topic they tend to over-react to. AfD sympathizing isn't that one thing. Not to suggest they're right here. I'd need the thread context and a better understanding of German to weigh in on that. Moderators are human and they're going to make a bad call eventually. I'm not in a position to guess whether they made a bad call here. AfD aren't just some normal political party, though. :::
IMHO, it’s one thing if you want to limit everything from there on your instance and on your own will, but a completely different thing for them to basically secretly ban you from their whole instance just because one single person on there felt offended and reported you. There surely must be something in between doing nothing and this sitewide shadowban.
Sucks for you but, such is the fediverse working as intended. Moderators can't be expected to have a deep conversation with every moderation decision.
I will agree that Mastodon is not as decentralized as it should be but I'm also not sure how it could be improved. Ideologically there would be a round robin style sign up for approved instances but I'm not sure if that's technologically feasible.
Nate
in reply to mbirth 🇬🇧 • •This has got to be the most milk toast take ever. The government says they have concrete justification to interfere with a political party in a democracy by performing aggressive surveillance on them, but says their justification is a secret. Then somebody comes along and says "Huh, I don't blindly trust the government so I'm not going to support this decision unless I'm told why and can judge it for myself." In fact, if in a democracy a party tries to attack another party through non-electoral means without saying why, there are only two reasonable responses:
I've long been critical of this really aggressive defederation, it breaks the network and I believe is the capstone in the list of reasons why the fediverse sputtered out and lost a supermajority of it's users. I think it's still got a chance as the big three protocols grow more interconnected and as big platforms
... show moreThis has got to be the most milk toast take ever. The government says they have concrete justification to interfere with a political party in a democracy by performing aggressive surveillance on them, but says their justification is a secret. Then somebody comes along and says "Huh, I don't blindly trust the government so I'm not going to support this decision unless I'm told why and can judge it for myself." In fact, if in a democracy a party tries to attack another party through non-electoral means without saying why, there are only two reasonable responses:
I've long been critical of this really aggressive defederation, it breaks the network and I believe is the capstone in the list of reasons why the fediverse sputtered out and lost a supermajority of it's users. I think it's still got a chance as the big three protocols grow more interconnected and as big platforms have started adopting said protocols, but if it's got a chance to do so I believe the community needs to get this sort of stuff sorted out beforehand.
/end rant
Fediverse reshared this.
Lucy :3
in reply to mbirth 🇬🇧 • • •Extremist right-wing party. With substantial parts legally being called Nazis.
Explains itself.
It's not. "Many people", aka. AfD supporters and the AfD themselves.
(The original toot, translated from german)
Thing is, all contents were openly collected and sorted by 3rd parties already. The report is as relevant to anyone aware of any politics as the Principia Mathematica's Section 54.43 is for thinking humans in order to prove that 1+1=2. The only usefulness lies in AfD supporters being unable to deny the obvious.
Jake Farm
in reply to Lucy :3 • • •like this
melroy and miniwoodchuck like this.
Lucy :3
in reply to Jake Farm • • •AfD-Politiker Höcke wegen NS-Parole zu Geldstrafe verurteilt
tagesschau.deJake Farm
in reply to Lucy :3 • • •Lucy :3
in reply to Jake Farm • • •Jup.
mbirth 🇬🇧
in reply to Lucy :3 • • •That slogan was originally coined in 1848 by King Ludwig I. But as with many things, the nazis severely tainted it. (Even though it was used by the socialist party after WWII, too.)
There’s a whole German Wikipedia article about this.
Parole, hauptsächlich bekannt durch ihre Verwendung der Sturmabteilung (SA)
Autoren der Wikimedia-Projekte (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)like this
miniwoodchuck likes this.
mbirth 🇬🇧
in reply to Lucy :3 • • •These are quite some mental gymnastics going from my toot:
(Correctly translated, btw.)
to:
Wow! Just wow! You should sign up as a moderator on mastodon.social. You'd fit right in.
like this
miniwoodchuck likes this.
InfiniteHench
in reply to mbirth 🇬🇧 • • •Lucy :3
in reply to InfiniteHench • • •If you want a more complete list, check the mentioned "secret report" in readable form here, or in original form (hand scanned from paper as to be expected by an official german government body in 2025): part A and part B. The original leaker article is actually largely hidden behind a paywall (cicero.de/innenpolitik/cicero-…). And it's 02:00 CET so i'm not gonna search for the original direct links to the files.
Edit: first link being an old version, other two links being the recent version. Both reports being relevant though.
Cicero veröffentlicht das gesamte Geheimgutachten des Verfassungsschutzes zur AfD | Cicero Online
Mathias Brodkorb (Cicero Online)mbirth 🇬🇧
in reply to Lucy :3 • • •miniwoodchuck likes this.
haui
in reply to mbirth 🇬🇧 • • •So you're one of those bad faith actors who conveniently overhear all the good points and focus on something you might be able to at least call into question.
You definitely get a ban from my instance for this. What a disgusting stance.
Lucy :3
in reply to mbirth 🇬🇧 • • •I should've included more context:
They, openly for years, and now officially, are extrimists and their members systematically violent.
And I just noticed that, as so often with deepl, it first detected the german text as english, therefore translated (english)german to german, and malformed it, so in my working copy it read "meinen" instead of "mein". Should have double checked that, but >01:30 CET demands its tribute.
mbirth 🇬🇧
in reply to Lucy :3 • • •Keyword: supposedly
Because that's what it said in the report my instance has received. Somebody on the moderation team made the same mental gymnastics you did. Just because I've questioned the stated conclusion of a report that was kept secret from the public. Nothing else. Nowhere did I say that I support that party. I just don't like blindly trusting what politicians (and their government institutions) announce without giving any challengeable proof.
Their status as extremist as per that report mentioned in my toot has been revoked/put on hold until a proper court case: German news article
If it was as crystal clear as you make it out, why revoke it?
(These days, the constitutional courts of all the states try to get that status reinstated in their respective states. But that wasn't a thing back when I did this toot.)
Verfassungsschutz setzt AfD-Einstufung vorerst aus
Christoph Ullrich (wdr.de)like this
miniwoodchuck likes this.
Lucy :3
in reply to mbirth 🇬🇧 • • •They say/write "they banned for X, but I didn't do X", instead of "they banned me for X, but X isn't even forbidden", even though it clearly is.
As I said, the report itself is just a compilation of publicly known and collected information. You'd be essentially distrusting that 1 + 1 = 2, because the 5 page mathematical proof is no open to the public. Of course, the actual proof that 1+1=2 is open, but you hopefully get the point.
The VS is completely independent. There are no politicians behind it. Otherwise, the whole thing wouldn't make sense. Even your source says so.
The status hasn't been revoked at all. That's a common misconception. It's not being taken back, obviously. They are just not calling them extremist openly, until there is a first decision in the lawsuit. Just as any other lawsuit for eg. defamation, no matter which side is on the right - you'll first be ordered to stop openly calling the other party a liar or similar, or stop doing that by yourself. Again, your source literally states this.
mbirth 🇬🇧
in reply to Lucy :3 • • •§7 BVerfSchG:
or in English:
miniwoodchuck likes this.
hendrik
in reply to mbirth 🇬🇧 • • •Maybe send the follow-up mail to the moderation team anyway, including full username. And maybe a explanation that you were just questioning the unavailabily of the report, not intending to endorse the wannabe nazi party. So they get what this is about.
How many days did you wait for an answer? Sometimes people are just very impatient and this week thursday to sunday might have been days off for some German people.
like this
miniwoodchuck likes this.
mbirth 🇬🇧
in reply to hendrik • • •like this
miniwoodchuck likes this.
Nanook
in reply to mbirth 🇬🇧 • • •ikt
in reply to mbirth 🇬🇧 • • •like this
miniwoodchuck likes this.
Paid_in_cheese
in reply to mbirth 🇬🇧 • • •Being limited isn't that big a deal. My instance has them limited because of their lax moderation and an excess of reply guys. All it means is that I get a notification saying "Someone you might know sent you a notification" and I get to review and accept or deny the notification depending. Plus they have to request permission to follow me so I get to check them out before accepting.
I still have tons of mutuals on
.socialand I get new ones all the time. While each person making the choice about whether to accept notifications or follows from a particular user is going to make their own choices, I don't think it's particularly inconvenient.::: spoiler AfD sidebar
... show moreFor their lack of adequate moderation capacity / interest,
.socialhas one topic they tend to over-react to. AfD sympathizing isn't that one thing. Not to suggest they're right here. I'd need the thread context and a better understanding of German to weigh in on that. Moderators are human and they're going to make a bad call eventually. I'm not in a position to guess wheBeing limited isn't that big a deal. My instance has them limited because of their lax moderation and an excess of reply guys. All it means is that I get a notification saying "Someone you might know sent you a notification" and I get to review and accept or deny the notification depending. Plus they have to request permission to follow me so I get to check them out before accepting.
I still have tons of mutuals on
.socialand I get new ones all the time. While each person making the choice about whether to accept notifications or follows from a particular user is going to make their own choices, I don't think it's particularly inconvenient.::: spoiler AfD sidebar
For their lack of adequate moderation capacity / interest,
.socialhas one topic they tend to over-react to. AfD sympathizing isn't that one thing. Not to suggest they're right here. I'd need the thread context and a better understanding of German to weigh in on that. Moderators are human and they're going to make a bad call eventually. I'm not in a position to guess whether they made a bad call here. AfD aren't just some normal political party, though.:::
mbirth 🇬🇧
in reply to Paid_in_cheese • • •Ulrich
in reply to mbirth 🇬🇧 • • •Sucks for you but, such is the fediverse working as intended. Moderators can't be expected to have a deep conversation with every moderation decision.
I will agree that Mastodon is not as decentralized as it should be but I'm also not sure how it could be improved. Ideologically there would be a round robin style sign up for approved instances but I'm not sure if that's technologically feasible.