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Unfortunately the moderation tools just aren't there yet - ideally I'd love for users to set their own instance blocks and for us admin's to leave that up to users (unless in the case of illegal/CSAM content) and if those tools ever do become available, then we'd probably refederate as an instance and allow users to decide.

As that isn't the case currently we need to take broader steps towards moderation. If CSAM/illegal material makes its way on to this server, we're just as much on the hook for it which jeopardises the instance.

In terms of what counts as illegal, I personally live in the UK which has stricter laws around this than some other countries, i.e. the USA, which are summarised here. Specifically, it is an offence to host: web pages with pictures, videos or descriptions that glorify violence against anyone due to their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or because they are transgender.

EH has posted "memes" which could be argued violate this law. I also need to be mindful of the content held in other countries as part of hosting the site, i.e. in Germany, and their local laws.

While I'm very unlikely to have my front door kicked in over a meme, it does in the long term risk the instance if content like this continues to be produced by EH.

Unlike many other instances, we haven't defederated with anyone else (except threads) at all, instead allowing users to choose, but it does come to a point when I find myself asking the question about the risk vs the content, and then I feel it needs to go to the community to be involved in that decision.

Personally I don't feel they produce anything of importance that we'll miss by not being federated, but maybe I'm in a bubble, hence why we're asking the community!

While we could block individual users, they do have 7000 accounts over there (although admittedly a very small % of active users). If we block a user they can just keep creating new accounts, which just increases moderation time and doesn't resolve the issue, as we would still be open to unblocked users posting that sort of content.

Similarly we as an instance can't block a single community, so our instance moderation tools are only very broad in scope.

As I've said in another comment, I would prefer per-user instance blocking but that isn't a feature in Lemmy yet - that would be that the ultimate win-win in my opinion.

Our moderation policy is laid out here which came about as a result of this discussion. I'll also add that hate speech is defined as: abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice on the basis of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or similar grounds.

I'm loathe to link directly to content and drive traffic their way, but I'll link some content below from browsing their site for a couple of minutes that breaches the above definition:

These posts clearly breach the hate speech definition, and at least one of those posts is likely to be seen as a breach of UK laws which is against this instance's rules.

This isnt a decision we've taken lightly, rather its something we've been discussing for days and have feedback on before we announced the vote. If the community wishes to remain federated, then that is the communities decision, but it runs the risk of a couple of things:

• breaking the law and having the server shut down (although unlikely it is still a risk)
• having other communities defederate with us if we refuse to take action against bad actors