Due to a (now former) admin of the instance anarchist.nexus calling for a member of our team, as well as anyone else they call a zionist, to be murdered, the instance has been defederated.

We’re currently discussing how we will proceed with this situation and whether it will affect lemmy.dbzer0.com, which is mostly run by the same admin team, notably excluding the person who used to be on the anarchist.nexus admin team.

We will share further updates once we have them.

Update 2026-04-22 23:25 UTC: anarchist.nexus federation has been reactivated.

We are still discussing this matter, but there is currently no point in keeping anarchist.nexus defederated while lemmy.dbzer0.com is federated.

    • Rimu@piefed.socialEnglish
      1918·
      6 days ago

      Why would you leave out the bit where they called MrKaplan a zionist?

      • Goferking0@ttrpg.network
        243·
        5 days ago

        Because Kaplan called themselves a zionist first?

        For someone so anti genocide it’s amazing how you are defending zionists 🤔

      • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
        252·
        6 days ago

        The username is the relevant part whereas now that user calling anyone a Zionist is a call for a slapping. I thought to add the link so anyone can just read from the horse’s mouth so to speak.

        • rainwall@piefed.socialEnglish
          344·
          6 days ago

          Okay, so still all inference, not a direct call for murder of a specific person.

          Seems like shitty behavior that justifies a ban, but defederation?

          • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
            23·
            6 days ago

            Yeah there’s been a whole recent wave of mass bannings from the FHF team. So I am guessing there’s a larger and more interpersonal issue going on between these users.

            • Unruffled [they/them]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              38·
              5 days ago

              ** Update: I was tired when I wrote this comment, and I got some of the details mixed up. Basically I had misremembered and thought it was Luminous in part 1, but that was actually Deceptichum. Sorry for any confusion. I only just became aware of the mistake since someone pointed it out to me. I don’t think it really makes the actions seem any more justifiable in either case. **

              There really hasn’t been any particular ongoing issue between our instances, until now, other than the usual mild frictions. Let me lay out the chain of events, as I understand it.

              1. Mr Kaplan made a post about the Fediverse Hosting Foundation taking over the running of lemmy-federate. This was the comment that raised the ire of Mr Kaplan (see pic below). At the time, Mr Kaplan complained to me in a DM he had been called a Nazi. I equivocated a little because I thought it was a stretch of the imagination to take it so personally. But in good faith, and because I could tell he was very angry, I chose to ask LuminousDeceptichum to remove the “ZioNazi” phrase from his post in order to calm the situation down. LuminousDeceptichum had also posted the FHF icon with a swastika on top to YPTB, and I asked him to remove that too. Yes, he’s a bit of a shit-stirrer. I thought that was the end of it.

              1. I believe that sometime after LuminousDeceptichum got banned by LW, heLuminous banned Mr Kaplan for being a Zionist.

              2. On Sunday, I got a message from Mr Kaplan claiming that anarchist.nexus was “calling for me to be murdered”. I could hardly believe it. But when I looked into it, it appears he had noticed some provocative slogans in Luminous’ user bio on Anarchist Nexus saying “Murder all Zionists”, “Murder all Nazis” or something along those lines. I don’t know how he noticed them, maybe because he got banned. There was absolutely nothing specifically naming Mr Kaplan afaik. It was just those slogans in his bio.

              Now do I agree that wording was way over the top for an instance admin? Yes. And it is obviously not something that would lead to good relations with the other instances with whom we federate. So it was bad judgment, agreed. Luminous agreed to step down from the role as a result.

              But for me, personally, I see stuff similar to that all the time on both leftist and mainstream instances, though usually in less edgy forms like “death to the idf” or “death to zionists”. I never imagined anyone would take something like that as a legitimate threat of anything, unless having a moral compass is a threat. Because the Zionists currently taking potshots at the testicles of Palestinian boys for ethnic cleansing purposes are the very people Luminous was wishing death upon in reality, not Mr Kaplan.

              If Mr Kaplan wants to make this all about him, that’s his prerogative. But it seems like a heck of a leap to go from an [admittedly provocatively worded] slogan to a claim anarchist.nexus wanted him personally murdered. Or otherwise it’s just a pretext for defederation, I’m not sure really what his motives or goals are in this.

              I’ll also note that he made the defederation decision himself with no consultation with his own admin team, or with our admin team. We were given no heads up and no time to act or assess the situation. There was also no consultation with the LW community. So that was, in my opinion a bit of a PTB move for the admin of Lemmy’s biggest instance to take in response. It also felt wildly disproportionate to me over one user, even if it was an admin.

              I get that he felt personally attacked by Luminous, but was he really, or is that just the worst possible interpretation that could be made about what is, in fact, a fairly common sentiment on lemmy? And the fact that one admin running the largest Lemmy instance can make kneejerk decisions like this that impact thousands of users with no accountability and no checks and balances is kind of worrying. Remember spez?

              Whatever y’all think of dbzer0 and AN, and I know we have our haters (hi!), one thing I hope we can agree we do well is that our whole instance gets to vote whether we decide to defederate another instance. It’s never up to any one person. It takes all the drama and kneejerk respones out of the process.

              Anyway, I’m not going to post anything else here, just wanted to put our side across where you could all see it so we could get a chance at a fair hearing in this forum. As far as I’m concerned if LW reverts the defederation and puts some better processes in place for these types of situations then we are all good. Will they drag it out for weeks and then double down, as they nearly always do? Or will they reverse course? Stay tuned folks, I have no fucking idea, and that sucks.

                • Snoopy@tarte.nuage-libre.frFrançais
                  2·
                  5 days ago

                  We already talked about it between admins, Rimu included. There were a long debate.

                  AN just wanted to share their side of story and bring you more complete info. u.u

              • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
                27·
                5 days ago

                I am having trouble squaring the various conflicting portions of your statement.

                Luminous had also posted the FHF icon with a swastika on top to YPTB

                Because the Zionists currently taking potshots at the testicles of Palestinian boys for ethnic cleansing purposes are the very people Luminous was wishing death upon in reality, not Mr Kaplan.

                Correct me if I am wrong, but I would expect very few of the testicle potshotters to be using the FHF icon?

                You are trying to put words into the mouth of Luminous that they never said - they very clearly levied accusations against specifically the FHF, and as the picture that Rimu showed, specifically named MrKaplan as both a Zionist and a genocide apologist.

                Don’t forget how Luminous even outright stated that they “preemptively banned” Mr. Kaplan - i.e. not waiting for a specific event but going ahead of any such in order to enact their agenda - which now seems to be what you are claiming that Mr. Kaplan did, but both the data and the very own words of Luminous state clearly how Luminous was the instigator here.

                I banned MrKaplan preemptively from !anarchymemes@anarchist.nexus, as I do anyone who displays zionist tendencies. the ban reason was for “zionism, genocide apologia”.

                It is no wonder that Mr. Kaplan felt “called out”, when Luminous very explicitly did such a calling out!!

                But now, throughout this thread, I mostly see people blaming Mr. Kaplan, citing how he went out ahead of any specific event and preemptively enacted an action - yet rarely or only briefly acknowledging the actions of Luminous that lead directly to Mr. Kaplan’s response.

                i.e. Luminous of AN started a witch hunt, calling Mr. Kaplan a witch, and got defederated in return. Although, if AN truly wants to keep anything that has even remotely touched upon Zionism away from itself, then isn’t being defederated from LW a good thing? Or maybe, just maybe, Luminous did not think through the full ramifications of their decision, before they unilaterally took preemptive action against several mods and even admins of other instances?

                • Grail@multiverse.soulism.netEnglish
                  39·
                  5 days ago

                  Yeah, I had a very negative experience with Flatworm recently. They made a grudge post calling for a vote to defederate My instance, which, fair enough, democracy is cool. But then they accused Me of being an alt of a bunch of other people with no evidence, and “defended” Me with an insanity defence I didn’t consent to, in a way that increased people’s stigma. I think the “defence” was just an excuse to tell everyone about My disabilities.

            • rainwall@piefed.socialEnglish
              11·
              6 days ago

              Yes, I would say this is looking looking like an interpersonal fued more than level headed moderating decisions.

              Welp, this is the nature of federation. Some folks will buckle up, others will eject. I’m glad that the network will survive either way.