You should be able to remove users from following.

@p suggestion

@thebitchisback @p if you block them, I think they can't follow you

@BradleySmall @p only weak fucks use mute and block.

@thebitchisback @BradleySmall @p Or peeps with very large accounts

@PepeMemes @p @thebitchisback I can come up with loads of good reasons to use the block. Much of the recommendations on curating your feed involves blocking individuals and instances that post things you are not interested in. Not sure how weak that makes you, but it sure makes reading the timelines much more enjoyable for a lot of people.

@BradleySmall @PepeMemes @p There is a very strange form of free speech extremism which defines spam as speech and any automated tools to filter what you personally read as censorship.

Hellthreads have many attributes of spam, filling your inbox/notifications with unwanted noise.

Who needs that?

@judgedread @BradleySmall @PepeMemes @p

There is a feature in stumbled on that says something like "only show replies directed to me".

You might wanna try that, but yes spam is free speech and no Plemora currently doesn't allow you free disassociate yourself from it.

@Prodigal @PepeMemes @judgedread @p spam is covered as free speech, but (and this will get me in trouble) what exactly is wrong with an instance deciding that they don't want to facilitate and take on the cost of distributing commercial advertisement for free at their own personal expense?

@Prodigal @PepeMemes @judgedread @p

What if an instance's adminsitration determines that they only want to handle traffic from other instances from their own state/country? It's their bat, and their ball don't they get to set the rules for how the game is played on their field?

@BradleySmall @Prodigal @PepeMemes @judgedread There are grounds to criticize this behavior regardless of whether they're within their rights to do so. If I want to drop deuces in my sink, "It's my sink, I can poop in it if I want!" is technically true, but it ignores the point that it's stupid to do it. Sure, you *can*, but is it a good idea?

@p @PepeMemes @Prodigal @judgedread That is merely a judgement call. If a person doesn't want others to associate them with a particular philosophy, such as White (Supremacy|Nationalism|Power) and they choose to block such things that might be a good idea, especially if they fear "guilt by association" or simply don't want to sift through the noise that it incurs. I just don't want a state actor telling that person that either <insert pronoun here> MUST or MUST NOT do so.

@BradleySmall @PepeMemes @Prodigal @judgedread I mean to say that it is within your rights to block an instance, but as the Corpus Juris Civilis said, "Non omne quod licet honestum est." That is, not all that is permitted is honest. They can do it if they want, but there is plenty of valid criticism for doing so. For one thing, they're creating silos.

> especially if they fear "guilt by association"

Sure; if you want to incentivize people that use guilt by association as a tactic, then feel free to kowtow. In 1911, would fear of guilt by association be a valid reason to avoid associating with suffragettes in your view?

If you're afraid of the crowd, you make yourself a soulless agent of the mob du jour, and I shiggy diggy.

A state actor using MUST or MUST NOT (I'd argue SHOULD NOT applies, too; incidentally, being habituated to RFCs, I jumped down and read that paragraph first) is intolerable. An instance operator doing so is not intolerable, but "I'm within my rights" is a valid defense against someone preventing it by force, not against someone criticizing it.

Further, whatever one claims authority over, they must also accept responsibility for.

@p @BradleySmall @PepeMemes @Prodigal @judgedread

>...would fear of guilt by association be a valid reason to avoid associating with suffragettes in your view?

[Looks around at 🤡🌍] It fucking should have been.

@TedTV @BradleySmall @PepeMemes @Prodigal @judgedread Look, I could come up with any example, the point isn't the suffragettes. Either side of the liquor prohibition, for example. The point is that fear of guilt by association is only a motivator for people that don't care about their own principles.

@p @PepeMemes @Prodigal @TedTV @judgedread forget fear of guilt by association and replace it with any other personal choice the administrator chooses his decisions on. For whatever reason, he doesn't want to be the one that is helping to distribute propaganda furthering an agenda with which he is in disagreement.

@BradleySmall @PepeMemes @Prodigal @TedTV @judgedread Then the administrator is obligated to take responsibility for the things that do come across.

What defines "helping", here? Should they bake the cake? An office supply store is helping out anyone that transacts there; should they take steps to prevent selling to anyone whose agenda they disagree with? I know plenty of gay people that like to eat at Chick-Fil-A. Would Chick-Fil-A be within their rights (certainly not legally, but say ethically) if they refused to sell chicken to the gays? Should restaurants stop selling burgers to nazis?

How pathetic is it to say "I refuse to allow things I disagree with from passing through this server, and I will ban the accounts of people I disagree with"?

If they do additional work to prevent the message, that's a different matter from declining to help.

@p @BradleySmall @PepeMemes @Prodigal @judgedread I dunno about the person you're arguing with but most of your audience is made up of unapologetic authoritarians.

@TedTV @BradleySmall @PepeMemes @Prodigal @judgedread Yeah, that's fine. I disagree with that idea, too. The principles in play for authoritarians would probably be the ends justifying the means. I'd consider that a fancy variant of "no principles".

@p @BradleySmall @PepeMemes @Prodigal @judgedread

"No principles" is "the means are not the ends". Confusing means and ends is a common libertarian problem.

@TedTV @BradleySmall @PepeMemes @Prodigal @judgedread Thinking that disregard for the means has no effect on the ends is a common authoritarian problem.

If you will sacrifice your principles to achieve your goals, your principles do not mean anything and your goal is not worth achieving. What society-level goal exists that does not involve advancing your principles? If you'll trade them for that goal, then you've advanced nothing and your principles are shit.

If you don't stick by your principles, you cannot be predicted, which means that you are dangerous to cooperate with, and you will have no allies except gullible idiots.

@p @BradleySmall @PepeMemes @Prodigal @judgedread

Even authoritarianism is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Choose the ends and the acceptable means become obvious. Not the practical ones, but acceptable. In meme form, Pinochet did nothing wrong.

@TedTV @BradleySmall @PepeMemes @Prodigal @judgedread

> authoritarianism is a means to an end

Oh, like how Mao always insisted he was an anarchist and that he was only doing what he did to advance that. China's super free, right?

Don't be naive.

@p @TedTV @BradleySmall @PepeMemes Make me dictator for a year and the US would be far more free. But I'm not a Marxist.

Francisco Franco's military rule assured that Spain was far freer than they ever would have been had the communists won the civil war.

@judgedread @PepeMemes @TedTV @p @BradleySmall What if the anarchists won?

@terryenglish @PepeMemes @TedTV @p @BradleySmall The authoritarian Marxists always beat anarchists.

@judgedread @terryenglish @BradleySmall @PepeMemes @TedTV That's how they killed Jefferson, right?

@p @BradleySmall @PepeMemes @TedTV @terryenglish That was before the development of cultural Marxism. Life is an arms race.

@judgedread @BradleySmall @PepeMemes @TedTV @terryenglish Oh, then it seems like you'd do better to create the thing that kills Cultural Marxism than to fight Cultural Marxism directly.

@p @BradleySmall @PepeMemes @TedTV @terryenglish Whatever works. Most right wingers want death squads. I am willing to offer them exile.

Conversion is impossible. This is bioleninism, these are self selected abominations of flesh.

@judgedread @BradleySmall @PepeMemes @TedTV @terryenglish I don't think you win like that, I don't think most right-wingers want death squads, and I was a communist when I was a yoof, so I am fairly certain that you can convert people away from communism.

@p @PepeMemes @TedTV @judgedread @BradleySmall @terryenglish Honest communists are better than conservatives