Since the New Year is here, what better way to ring it in than with a new Flotilla member and a drink o' rum?

Over the past couple of days, Qk from Quokk.au reached out to us about the possibility of joining up with the Fediverse Anarchist Flotilla. This was really cool news for all of us, and imo they will be a great addition!

What's the Fediverse Anarchist Flotilla and isn't it a bit of a mouthful?

Yes it is, let's call it FAF for short. Lol.

For the full deets of what that means exactly, check out db0's original post on the topic Announcing anarchist.nexus and the launch of the Fediverse Anarchist Flotilla.

But in short, it means:

• Same rules - Quokk.au will adopt AN/dbzer0's existing rules and policies.
• Same staff - We'll have common Matrix rooms for admin discussions and user appeals, and provide mutual aid to other instances as required (e.g. if someone needs a break).
• Common governance - Likewise, we will share a common federation/defederation list and ban-list. Notably for Quokk.au that also means enabling federation with places like Hexbear.net and Feddit.org, unless as a flotilla we decide that this should change.

Fire away if anyone has any questions, but make sure you read the FAF announcement post first, because it explains a lot!

Voting instructions

• Upvote this post to welcome Quokk.au to the Flotilla
• Downvote this post to fire the cannons

N.B. Quokk.au will be holding its own vote on joining the flotilla at the same time as ours. I'll add the linked post once they are both posted.

Edit: here's the Quokk.au post

Happy New Year mateys!

We, the admin team, decry all forms of settler-colonialism, and we recognize that Zionism is a pro-settler-colonialist position.

Therefore we propose that should no longer be accepting of any Zionist accounts on our instances.

Please upvote for agree, downvote for disagree.

Note: we only count votes by instance members of dbzer0 and anarchist.nexus, plus a few vouched-for external users.

Hi mateys, I've kept things simple in the above text, for brevity, but in fact it took the admin team quite a while to get to this stage. We have discussed the policy change extensively, and a variety of different perspectives emerged. I will attempt to sum them up below as best I can:

• The "this isn't that complicated" school of thought goes something like this: If someone is consistently posting comments that mirror Hasbara talking points (e.g. justifying the genocide in Gaza, consistently painting Palestinians as terrorists and Israel as the victim), then they should be instance banned. It's just not acceptable for Zionists to be allowed on our instances.

• The "slippery slope" / "purity test" school of thought is that banning people for having an "unpopular" political opinion would potentially mean banning half the fediverse, if more and more of these policies were enacted over time. To attempt to mitigate this we are keeping the scope of this rule as narrow as possible, and I also don't think many of our users will be affected. Also, we typically don't have frequent policy changes, and I have no reason to expect that to change moving forward.

• Another important discussion point was "how do we decide whether someone is pro-Zionist or not?" We can't always be 100% sure of someone's true intentions, we can only go on what they have posted and that is subject to interpretation. I don't feel there is an easy answer to this one, except to say that we would have to be pretty certain before issuing a perma-ban.

• The "geopolitics don't matter" school of thought is that trying to be on the "correct" side of every issue is kind of pointless because nothing that happens in lemmy chat forums will ever make an ounce of difference in the real world. Don't bother moderating users over political/ideological differences, just let people argue if they want. While I can totally empathize with this sentiment, I can also see the case for taking a clear stance on this topic in accordance with our values and the overwhelming support for the Palestinian cause among our users. Personally, I am advocating in favor of the resolution.

Please add your comments below if you want to provide your own thoughts on the topic, or have any questions.

expiry: 7

Re-posted since LW removed it...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.org/post/2610169

Jared Birchall is Elon Musk's right hand man. He controls Elon Musk's family foundation and is in charge of hiring bodyguards to protect Elon. He is one of the very few people that Elon Musk trusts.

With his wife Laura, he lives in Austin, Texas.

According to public documents, they are located at 16715, Destiny Cove, Austin, TX 78738-7421.

[Original image of family removed]

Donald Trump falsely said migrant families living in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing pets and eating cats and dogs.

Elon Musk amplified these lies on X.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/18/media/elon-musk-trump-rally-bomb-election-misinformation

As a result, these families received thousands death threats.

https://www.npr.org/2024/09/19/nx-s1-5114047/springfield-ohio-haitian-migrants-trump-safety-concerns

Jared Birchall laughed about it. He absolutely loved it. His lovely wife Laura Birchall thought this was very funny.

Jared is obsessed about his privacy. He doesn't want anyone to know who he is.

"Why are you posting their picture?"

Free speech absolutism baby.

I don't owe them shit.

Hi mateys,

We are currently recruiting for people who are able to volunteer some of their time each day to help out with site admin tasks. You don't need to have any special skills or technical qualifications, but there are a few other requirements listed below. We'd also prefer applicants who are active posters, and/or who have actively participated in our Matrix channels.

This recruitment drive is to ensure we maintain a good level of admin coverage throughout the day, so that reports and applications can be dealt with quickly.

I would also totally understand if you prefer to apply privately, so you always have the option of sending me or one of the other admins a PM.

I'm re-using db0's previous admin application text below, with just a few edits where needed:

If you are interested, these are the full requirements:

Requirements

• You must be an anarchist, and enthusiastically endorse the instance policies and our anarchist code of conduct. For example this means we also expect you to also be pro-piracy and not hostile to GenAI.
• You must have been on this instance for at least 3 months, to ensure you understand our culture. Hopefully you've been a lemmy poster as well as we expect our admins to dogfood our service. If you were already a comm admin, even better!
• We are still prioritizing women and/or PoC to reinforce our team's diverse perspectives. So please apply if you are even if you think you might not qualify.
• At this point we are prioritizing timezones and countries outside of Europe and the USA to help us get better coverage and better perspectives.
• You must be willing to use matrix as this is where we organize our instance and our real-time admin chat.
• You must be willing to keep an eye on reports and applications throughout the day.

What is expected of you

• We have a fairly chill community around this place, so it's not too demanding. The time requirements are not too large and we will keep expanding the team to ensure the load per individual admin remains low. So long as using this instance is your primary social media, the "workload", such as it is, shouldn't even be noticable.
• Initiative is encouraged. It's cool enough for people to just want to help us keep this place tidy, but if you have ideas, you will be free to put them into action directly without asking permission all the time, so long as we can rollback easily.
• You should have a anarchist democratic mindframe. We don't need a voting decision on everything (just do direct action), but you should be willing to be judged on your decisions and roll them back if they are unpopular.
• Remember that while we're anarchist-flavored, we're not just for anarchists. So we understand that many of our users might be liberals or otherwise misguided. On top of that, we make a point of welcoming neurodivergent people who don't always understand social norms and might phrase things in a way that looks really bad when interpreted uncharitably. As such, we want to help people match our values, without turning a misunderstanding into a hostile experience through heavy-handed actions. So a softer hand and charitability is encouraged, while at the same time being firmly against clearly reactionary takes.

Applying

• You can leave your comments here, which can allow other members of this comm to vouch for you.
• Please mention your "credentials" and why you think you would make a good member of the team.
• If you don't feel comfortable with sharing info, you can reach out to me on matrix or PMs (or another admin you feel more comfortable with).

Spectating

If you're just watching this governance thread, feel free to upvote applications you feel are worthy, and/or comment on people you want to vouch for. If you're a supporter, remember you can also vouch for people directly through a threativore PM.

• governance type: sense check
• show all flair

@earthman@lemmy.world, @BoozeOrWater@lemmy.dbzer0.com, @threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works, @threelonmusketeers@lemmy.dbzer0.com

Hi y'all just wanted to let you know your community icon and banner seem to be broken.

Cheers, Unruffled.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6218255

https://xcancel.com/DropSiteNews/status/1970256528532754771#m

https://xcancel.com/RapidResponse47/status/1970250137193644374#m

https://archive.is/S5OS7 (whitehouse gov)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/22/trump-executive-order-antifa-terrorist-organization