That post explicitly says it’s not a place for debate or participation from users of other instances.
I’d like to respect that but I think events like this need debate and discussion because it helps to develop and evolve the culture of lemmy and the fediverse in general.
The post says:
This post is “FYI only” for blahaj lemmy members. It is not a debate, and is not intended for non blahaj lemmy users to weigh in and offer opinions.
I recently received reports of a feddit.uk user espousing transphobia. Specifically, this was a feddit.uk user refusing to use the word cis, repeating the “adult human female” dog whistle, and claiming that trans women are not women. I approached a member of the feddit.uk admin team and raised my concerns and sought clarification of their stance on posts like this, where the transphobia is mostly dogwhistles, and “civil disagreement” on the validity of trans folk.
I was told by the feddit.uk admin that their preferred response is this kind of transphobia is to “sort it out through discussion and voting”. However, the comments in question are currently more upvoted than downvoted, and little “sorting out” has occurred. The posts remain in place.
At this point, the admin stopped responding to my messages despite being active elsewhere on lemmy. When it became clear they were ignoring my messages and had no intention of removing the posts in question, I made the decision to defederate the instance.
I know some folk agree with the feddit.uk admins approach of pushback through discussion and voting, but this instance is not designed to be that kind of space. Blahaj lemmy is meant to be a place where we can avoid the rampant transphobia universally visible on nearly every other social media platform, and where we can exist without needing to debate our right to do so.
Just a sense check here, are you asserting that Ada is a PTB for defederating from feddit.uk after their admins failed to take action?
Blajah Zone is specifically run as a safe space for trans folks, so it’s an emphatic YDI to feddit.uk from me.
Given that the UK Supreme Court recently ruled that the legal definition of a woman in the UK is based on biological sex, and the supposedly Labour PM Starmer is running with it (wtf Starmer???), it’s not surprising to me that TERFs and their supporters are coming out of the woodwork on feddit.uk.
Fuck TERFs and fuck Starmer for jumping on Trump’s anti-DEI bandwagon just to pander to transphobic voters.
OP seems pretty neutral and this is just a “here’s what’s going on in lemmy moderation/administration”.
Then why did they post about it in this community?
100%. If this was an information only style post, they wouldn’t be saying that it should’ve allowed debate… and we have a whole fediverse lore sub specifically for info.
They pointed elsewhere they didn’t understand the purpose of this comm.
Oh, hadn’t considered that it was a misunderstanding. Those seem so rare nowadays.
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I wasn’t sure how to take the post, so that’s why I wanted a sense check. But yeah, I assume you are correct.
I’m not asserting anything. My motivation was exactly what it says in the opening post. I think discussion about these things is important.
Sadly it seems I’ve made a mistake and that this sub might have been the wrong place to post. I didn’t realise this community did PTB / YDI style determinations and yes, I failed to read the side bar prior to posting.
Unfortunately it seems like there is some actual discussion happening so it feels wrong to just delete the post at this point. I was going to report my own post but it seems that’s not possible?
Yes, if you were just looking to report the news, the comm blaze pointed out might better. For the popcorn takes [email protected] might be more appropriate.
We have [email protected] for this kind of conversations
Yeah that’s what prompted my question really, because I wasn’t sure how it fitted the format. I guess if we explicitly make the subject whether the feddit admin(s) deserved the defederation, then I guess it kind of fits the format though. And it’s nice to see such a strong show of support for Ada and Blajah.
Thank you for facilitating discussions on this. Sorry for my ignorance, but what are PTB/YDI determinations? Not sure what I found on duckduckgo is relevant.
Power Tripping Bastard / You Deserve It
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That’s why I chose blahaj zone as my instance. It’s nice not having to justify my existence
Yeah, Ada’s modding may be seen as heavy-handed by some, but that’s largely because it’s a reaction to the fact basically nowhere is safe for people who are trans. Maintaining a truly trans-inclusive space requires active heavy-handed moderation, because going easy or remaining passive just leads to transphobes sneaking in.
She should go harder.
Good decision by Ada. I’m also quite pleased with how many instance mates stood up in here to defend blahaj’s decision.
PS: It occurs to me we might need a name for our peeps. I.e. like one talks about “lemmings” or “redditors”, we could use something for members of the divisions by zero. Edit
Dbzer0 users. Easiest way to use it for other instances as well
Yes but, counterpoint: Boring.
Some suggestions:
- NaNs
- Infinitesimals
- Zeroids
- ∞s
Mmm naan
Beezers.
Would users of PieFed become PieHeads? 😜
NaNcats
It occurs to me we might need a name for our peeps
DeBasers, zero.
dbUtaunts?
members of the divisions by zero
Wait, dbzer0 is “division by zero”‽ I always thought it was database 0…
I feel like this community serves a great purpose. And I’m a massive fan of drinking my tea and reading all the drama it attracts. But I am just beyond tired of the same handful of commenters popping up to always agree with whoever is opposed to blahaj.
I give this one a YDI. Anybody posting anything transphobic who gets caught by Ada is gonna be banned. Any instance with a mod or admin who makes transphobic posts or comments will get defederated. No one is entitled to having their content served on Ada’s servers, and the people who join blahaj know that, and seem to appreciate it.
Which is sort of why I always wind up agreeing with her. Her server has clear, concise beliefs, and clear, concise administration, and she has the clear-throated consent of her governed or they would leave.
The only server whose vibe I appreciate more is divide by zero. Shout-out to what I feel is the most neurospicy, nonconformist bunch of pirates I ever met.
Dawwww!
How are people still struggling with the basic concept that the person who runs Blahaj can do what they want with Blahaj?
All I get from this type of moaning is: “I joined a decentralised platform and now disagree with decentralisation in action.”
If this kind of action is what it takes for Blahajists to protect their necks then this is how it’s gonna be…
They’re not struggling at all, just supremely butthurt that they’re not being given a direct platform to abuse people.
Hit the nail right on the head here, they’re whining because the trans people won’t allow them to debate and strawman their existence. I’m happy that Blahaj challenges socially acceptable transphobia and I really wish more people would do it. These types of transphobes shouldn’t feel welcome anywhere
with trans peopleat all.Blahaj should do more like this.
That username though, </////<
Your username is kinkier.
I, it is?
If I was a princess, my family would marry me off to a French duke ten years older than me for political favours. I’m basically being sold, like an object. He’s probably rough in bed. Maybe after a hard day’s work ruling the duchy, he likes to come home and hit me until I bleed. And it would be un-christian for me to complain or ask for a divorce, so I just get raped and beaten by Daddy every night like a good little girl. 🤤❤️
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terfs fuck off.
Borderline YDI.
Reasoning for that is that the decision to defederate is one that is in line with the stated goals of blahaj. They have made it clear that they will defederate, ban, or otherwise use the available lemmy tool to allow blahaj to serve as a safe, sheltered place for people that are under siege by the world at large.
Ergo, this can’t be a power trip as it isn’t arbitrary, or outside of stated goals. Were I a blahaj admin, I would have taken similar steps to maintain the instance as intended, even though I tend to look on defederation as a last ditch tool in general. You can’t maintain a truly safe space without aggressive defenses.
If blahaj was established as a general purpose instance, this would be power tripping. But it wasn’t, and isn’t a general instance. It’s like beehaw was; they’re using lemmy as the underpinning software, but the instance has a different goal than the typical ones. The federation status is one that’s nice but not necessary for the instance to achieve its primary goal.
This is more equivalent to a forum blocking links to breitbart, only at a bigger scale; curation rather than control for control’s sake.
However, I want to make it clear that .uk didn’t do anything wrong as an instance. That’s why it’s “borderline” YDI. It’s only YDI in the sense that the instance policy is incompatible with the instance goals of blahaj. The decision to aggressively moderate dog whistles is a difficult one, as dog whistles change over time, and are not always something every admin is going to hate resources to do.
Now, once you’re aware of a dog whistle, you have a few choices. One is to hide your head in the sand and pretend it isn’t anything at all. Another is to remove that specific occurrence, and do nothing else. You can delay a decision until you have time to verify that it is a dog whistle (you don’t have to just accept someone’s word that it is, no matter who is saying it). You can choose to not give a fuck. You can even agree with the dog whistle and directly support it. You’d be an asshole if you chose that option, but it is an option.
And there’s in betweens of all those.
The .uk admin decided to refer to their standing policy and take no action. Since it is a standing policy, it isn’t a direct support for the bigotry, only an expression of some factor that leads them to choose not to tale actions outside of instance policy. That factor may be something unpleasant, but that’s not the same as being something like bigotry, or even apathy. We don’t have anything at the time I’m writing this book from a .uk admin giving further insight. In other words, while I don’t agree with their choice, they didn’t do anything wrong either, unless there’s some evidence of bigotry on their end. And no, just not agreeing to remove a single comment or post is not enough evidence to determine that.
From my end of things, though I won’t go far into it because I don’t believe in derailing the main goal of this community, dog whistles are so common now, and have been so effective that they get picked up by people that aren’t expressly bigoted, they should be as aggressively monitored as possible. But nobody can keep up with all of them, even just one targeted branch of the practice. I try to keep track of the ones that are most relevant to my personal areas of militancy, and I keep running into new ones because the people creating them change them so frequently. But, when reported, they should be taken seriously, and after confirmation, be treated just the same as slurs and other hate speech. I also recognize that nobody is obligated to act before confirmation, and that it may not always be possible to confirm that a newish dogwhistle is one. It takes time for such knowledge to circulate.
There is only one part I don’t agree with…
.uk didn’t do anything wrong as an instance.
Inaction is also an action. I read that inaction as implicit support, regardless of any statements otherwise.
Fair enough.
If I may, allow me to explain why I think it was a not wrong decision. Now, notice how I phrased it this time, please. It is definitely different in implication from my original phrasing, and that does represent some thought that has occurred since the time of the comment.
.uk is run by multiple admins. It is run as something between a collective and something akin to a democracy within the admin team. When it comes to making a decision for the instance that would require a change to policy, or a deviation from policy, a single admin making the decision without consulting the others would be a bet difficult choice.
It would require that admin to explain their decision going against established policy, possibly creating a big problem, one that could result in long term instability for the instance, possibly even the breaking of an instance.
A single admin holding to policy means that the instance is running as intended. The policies may need changing, but it isn’t a decision that is an emergency. There’s plenty of time for admins to discuss things, debate, weigh possibilities, come up with a plan, verify the plan would be effective, maybe even explore the possibilities publicly.
A delay is not a bad thing, when the issue is one that requires a change to policy. Since the admins have stated that they are discussing it, and that their reason for delay isn’t support for the comments in question, their decision to move slowly is not wrong as an instance. To the contrary, with it not being an emergency, it’s the smart decision.
Now, I’ll also say that the specific admin Ada contacted has publicly stated that they’re concerned about running afoul of UK regulations, and thus are weighing that in as part of any decisions regarding policies on dogwhistles as a form of transphobia, I’ll add that the specific admin did not make a wrong decision either.
However! As an individual admin, they did do something wrong, but not about the decision itself. Poor communication about internal matters when dealing with a credible issue reported by a reliable and known member of the fediverse that is also an admin and would understand even the most barebones explanation was a bad decision. I hesitate to call it wrong, but it fits that word well enough in this context for it to be acceptable, imo.
So, o would amend my previous opinion “didn’t do anything wrong as an instance” to “didn’t make a wrong decision as an instance”, as it more accurately reflects both the events as known to me at this time, and my opinion on those events. I hope it obvious that if more information comes to light, that opinion could, and almost certainly would, change if the new information was relevant to the previous events.
I say it that way because if .uk decided to just allow dogwhistles to go unchallenged and to stay up because of that, it would be wrong, in my opinion; but it wouldn’t change whether or not previous actions were appropriate or not unless there was an indication that was the intent all along.
Now, I also have to say that inaction being implicit support isn’t true in all cases all the time, and that statements do matter (or should) in coming to the conclusion that that is what’s occuring, but I don’t think anyone has to agree with me on those two subjects. They’re tangential to the issue here, in c/ptb to begin with, and I do believe that when the issue is dogwhistles, it does hold true with certain criteria met, so I agree in this case anyway.
It would require that admin to explain their decision going against established policy
The first rule:
No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia or xenophobia
It would be entirely under that first rule to remove it. There is nothing to explain other than “Rule 1”.
So I will firmly disagree. This was not only a communication problem, but a complete lack of moderation by their own rules. There is no way to allow the comment without them changing the rule.
Leaving that comment up is and was implicit support for the comment by saying it was not against the rules.
I went back through the two main threads just now, and see no updates.
With that in mind, I do believe that if the comments haven’t been removed, at least temporarily, the matter has gone on too long. It has been long enough to verify the dogwhistle is in common enough use that even if the person using it didn’t know what it means, a moderator or admin should know and have taken action.
Even with the shitty state of search engines nowadays, it is possible to find out that a specific dogwhistle is known and in use within a few hours. Since it was something that I ran into months ago, it’s easy to confirm with A Wikipedia search
Since the recent UK court ruling is absolutely not applicable to this situation, and they’ve given no other reasoning for a decision being delayed on this matter, I don’t feel it would be reasonable for the comments to still be up. I don’t know if they are. Nobody has linked to them and shouldn’t have because brigading sucks even for this kind of thing, so I don’t know if the comments are still there.
Which, I think that brings us into complete agreement at this time. Rule 1 should have been applied already. If it hasn’t been, then it is implicit support for the comments.
Since the recent UK court ruling is absolutely not applicable to this situation, and they’ve given no other reasoning for a decision being delayed on this matter, I don’t feel it would be reasonable for the comments to still be up.
100% agreed.
Which is a valid viewpoint, obviously.
However, dogwhistles are a difficult thing to moderate. You first have to be aware that they exist (they are), then you have to be aware that a specific phrase is one (they do now), you’d have to verify that the report is one (still up in the air), and then decide what to do about it (still in the air).
Moderation does not have to be instant. Even if you have dozens of moderators or admins, expecting action even within an hour isn’t something to reasonably expect. Now, I haven’t gone back through and checked to see what they’ve decided at this point, if anything, but you and I are still talking about the principle itself, so I don’t know if that matters for this part of this particular discussion. As in, was the delay at the time of the post reasonable.
I agree with you that a comment using that dogwhistle needs to be removed. I agree that if it isn’t, then there’s a problem. The only point I see that we don’t agree on so far is how quickly an admin is expected to step in on a moderation case.
By this point, I would expect at least an update on the matter, some kind of “this is where we are in the process”. But, at the time of the post and the start of this particular conversation, I believe that they were still well within the range of an acceptable time frame for a policy decision on an unfamiliar dogwhistle.
Again, I’m still talking about events as of the time we started this chain. If you want to shift to what would be an acceptable state now we can, but I’ll need to go through both of the posts I’m aware of and update.
You first have to be aware that they exist (they are)
Agreed
then you have to be aware that a specific phrase is one
They were informed, yes. Whether they knew before or not isn’t known, but also irrelevant at this point.
you’d have to verify that the report is one
Negative. They are aware the phrase is a dogwhistle. The user realizing that or not is no longer relevant. Remove and notify of the reason.
and then decide what to do about it
Adhere to rule 1 of their instance.
Moderation does not have to be instant.
When the admin is on, available, responds, then stops responding but continues to make comments/posts… Question answered. They decided against moderating.
I don’t believe anyone said anything about “instant”. What was said was they went unresponsive.
I agree with you that a comment using that dogwhistle needs to be removed
It IS a dogwhistle.
Whether a user realizes that or not is irrelevant to moderation.
As in, was the delay at the time of the post reasonable.
Not remotely relevant at this point.
- Admins were aware
- Admins understand and agree its a dogwhistle
- Admins chose not to address and stopped communicating while continuing to do other things on the instance.
Not “We’re figuring it out”, just… Radio silence.
No, sorry, not relevant at all.
I believe that they were still well within the range of an acceptable time frame for a policy decision on an unfamiliar dogwhistle.
Not without saying as much. And that has nothing to do with their reasoning - they agree its a dog whistle.
A reasoned and balanced analysis. Bravo.
TDI (they deserved it) unless Feddit admins pop in with some extravagant response
They chimed in elsewhere, sounds like they want consensus amongst the admin group and they are worried about the recent (frankly transphobic) UK Supreme Court ruling. They also expressed understanding that blahaj wanted to move faster and defederate.
Edit: Source I was referencing. Not advocating for or against, but there at least appears to be a bit more nuance than straight up support of or apathy about transphobia.
I’m not sure there is any nuance there.
Rule 1 for feddit.uk is explicitly against transphobia. The comment was transphobic and against the rules and should have been removed.
The UK Supreme Court ruling is, as you said, blatantly transphobic.
So they have two options:
- Adhere to their own rules
- Drop rule #1 and be OK with transphobic comments.
Regardless of the excuse (and I will not call it “reason”, because it is just an excuse at best IMO) the only option for blahaj would be to defederate. Feddit.uk has, in their lack of moderation of transphobic comments, chosen option 2.
At present, feddit.uk is totally cool with transphobia.
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Defederating an entire instance over the actions of a single user instead of simply banning that user along with creating a post to bring it up but not actually discuss it is just the kind of extreme reaction I expect from Ada.
Not a user, the admin.
It looks like a reaction to the user on the surface, but it’s the lack of communication and the policies that drove the decision, based on the post in question.
Unless you’re saying you don’t believe the reason given, which is a different issue, and totally your right
They want to dictate to the admins of other instances which user they should ban as if they’re the sole arbiters of what is or is not ‘transphobic’. That’s the entire issue.
The Blahj admins have been doing this behind the scenes for a while. Go and get banned from a Blahj instance and you’ll a large number of other seemingly random communities will automatically ban you as well (see my post history for a modlog link showing the effect). That’s because these little behind the scenes conversations about ‘transphobia’ happen all the time and many admins or community moderators just give in to the demands because it’s exhausting to have a conversation with these people.
They’re not attempting to solve an issue with a user. They’re trying to throw their weight around and bully admins and moderators into accepting their ban lists.
Well, I disagree, obviously.
This isn’t the appropriate community for a debate about what is and isn’t necessary for the struggle to minimize bigotry, so I won’t say much beyond the fact that trans people get killed all across the world, regularly, for no reason other than being trans. With that ugly fact in existence, I can not object to anyone working against the hatred towards them.
You call it bullying, I call it activism and struggling for protection.
I don’t think I would be able to change your view on the matter, and I know you can’t change mine because I’ve seen the violence and hate first hand. So I don’t have anything else to say here.
Ok, if we disregard all of the hyperbole, then it’s very simple.
The admins have the ability to ban the problem user from their communities. If their goal is to protect their communities, then they can ban the user with 3 clicks.
There is zero reason to contact another instance’s admins and even less of a reason to treat being brushed off as an excuse to ban thousands of people on that instance via defederation.
Banning the user would be justified, banning the entire instance is power tripping.
I think we have a fundamental difference in understanding in what defederation is, as a tool for admins to use.
While it should be the last tool to pull out, the entire point of it is to limit the spread of problematic content on an instance level.
This means that, if an instance is allowing things to stay up, other instances can defederate all at once instead of planning playing whack-a-mole with individual users.
While we’re currently talking about a situation involving dogwhistles, let’s step to the side and look at the concept itself.
There’s a list of instances recommended for defederation that can be a default. That list includes places that allow kiddie porn, places run by, or catering to nazis and their ilk, and even lemmygrad as an extremist instance.
Why not just block all those users individually instead of defederating?
I hope it’s obvious why not, that it would be a never ending moderation nightmare. The more a given instance is prone to a given kind of situation, regardless of what that might be, the more you have to consider defederation instead of individual bans.
Bringing that back to this situation, the question becomes one of thresholds. What is the right amount of transphobic dogwhistles to allow into an instance that’s by and for trans people?
In this case, Ada has set the threshold low. This has always been the case, so it isn’t something out of the blue.
When an instance is meant to be heavily curated in terms of screening out types of content, an admin is limited in their choices. If the instance has the means to have a big enough team, you can have people actively looking for content that isn’t acceptable and banning users. Or you can use defederation to screen out instances that are prone to the unwanted content.
Since there aren’t any instances with the kind of funding necessary to have a team of full time, 24/7 moderators screening the entirety of lemmy, defederation is the more realistic choice. It is something an admin team can deploy temporarily or permanently as the situation shifts.
So, I think it comes down to thresholds. Blahaj is set up as, and maintained as, a trans first space, a shelter for trans people online. They have a very low threshold because that’s the only way to meet that goal with the resources available to their instance. It seems you believe their threshold to be too low. Fair enough, we’re all allowed to have an opinion on the matter.
I would, however, point you to this very community, and suggest you go back through older posts. Blahaj is brought up frequently for banning users for this very thing. So, if they’re power tripping when they apply preemptive bans to users, and they’re power tripping when they defederate, what tools are they supposed to use? There aren’t any other tools at this point in lemmy development. There’s not even an automod to handle removing content on the fly, before it gets seen.
Iirc, the only filter that lemmy has for that is limited to a small range of slurs, and isn’t editable by admins. My memory may be faulty in that regard; if it is editable, and it can work on content from other instances, then that would be the better tool to use. But, afaik, it can’t do either. Last time I saw an explanation of how it works, it would only stop things on the individual instance, not federated content. Again, unless I misunderstood.
Then you run into the crowd that hates the idea of automod, so let’s be honest here, the blahaj team would be accused of power tripping if they did use something like that.
When it comes down to it, no matter what the blahaj team does, they’re going to catch hell. But the consequences of doing nothing are much worse. And, I’m going to be blunt as fuck here, 90% of the pissiness about blahaj’s rules and decisions catch hell that they either wouldn’t catch, or wouldn’t be as severe, because it’s a trans focused instance.
Do you remember beehaw at all? They completely defederated, and there was less venom towards them than for the selective defederation blahaj does. Admittedly, lemmy was smaller then, and there was venom, but not at the same scale.
Defederation isn’t the tool for this. It’s a low level tool to prevent bad instances, like spam or illegal content, from infecting the rest of the network.
Admins and moderators already have the tools they need to moderate their communities. Instance members who want to stay inside the bubble of increased moderation also have that choice, if a Blahj user clicks ‘Local’ then they will only see communities that are completely under the control and moderation of their local admins. If a user, like the one in the OP, behaves badly then their ban will remove them.
It isn’t the role of an instance admin to moderate all of federated social media. A user can block a community or instance on their own. They do not require an admin to do that for them.
Federation isn’t a moderation tool.
You don’t consider bigotry to be worthy of defederation?
Or is it that you don’t consider dogwhistles a form of bigotry?
Because that’s what Ada was coming to .uk admins about. And, it’s what they say they’re working on a decision about.
I would say it is absolutely the role of every admin to actively moderate bigotry, period. Now, while I definitely consider dogwhistles just as actionable as direct slurs and hate speech, I can’t really expect everyone to agree, but that’s what the issue is about, it isn’t some random thing like discussing football rules. It goes right to the heat of a major social issue.
I would say that issues of bigotry are more important, and more admin attention worthy than spam, since spam is only going to hurt the instances in any realistic scenario. Dogwhistles hurt people, in the real world.
Like, if it’s your opinion that that’s not the case, that’s whatever, but I hope you understand that it is an issue that is a “low level” problem to a lot of people.
Go and get banned from a Blahj instance and you’ll a large number of other seemingly random communities will automatically ban you as well (see my post history for a modlog link showing the effect).
For the record in all the cases of this happening that I can count in recent history on one hand, the people who received these bans received them for the exposure of what they did, not because they were banned from blahaj. Lemmy is large majority a leftist, trans-supportive platform. So transphobia isn’t going to be popular here and will get you booted from communities if and when mods find out about it. Which is what happened to you.
It’s honestly surprising you didn’t get an instance ban since lemmy.world does ban people for transphobia these days. I guess @[email protected] just didn’t notice it.
It’s honestly surprising you didn’t get an instance ban since lemmy.world does ban people for transphobia these days. I guess @[email protected] just didn’t notice it.
I welcome the administrator (@[email protected]) to read my comments. There is nothing transphobic about anything I said.
Accusing a person of bigotry rather than addressing them like a person is a well worn Internet argument tactic. Which was the entire point of the post and my comment that spawned it.
Are you for real? Trying to ping an admin in attempt to get a user banned because they are not it in complete alignment with your views?
This is childish behaviour.
The Blahj instance takes everything you hate about Reddit power mods and elevates them to federation level. Extreme overreaction, self-righteousness, the ‘If you disagree with me, you’re transphobic’ bullshit and the complete inability to have a conversation with people who disagree with them.
Then they go an make a demand of another instance’s admins, fail to get the result they’re looking for and, lacking the ability to handle conflict resolution or disagreement like an adult, simply defederate the entire instance.
Expecting the entire fediverse to follow their direction on bans for ‘transphobia’ is beyond absurd given how freely they apply that label.
The admins at Blahj are not ‘creating a safe space’, they’re cultivating an echo chamber of toxic behaviors. Being a member of a minority group does not excuse toxic behaviors.
complete inability to have a conversation with people who disagree with them
I’ve seen Ada talk to people who were 90% a troll in an effort to educate someone. You can DM her and ask questions if you want.
they’re cultivating an echo chamber of toxic behaviors
aka not having to fight to justify your existence. If another instance makes people fight to justify their existence then it doesn’t fit blahaj’s goals and defederation is the solution.
I’ve seen Ada talk to people who were 90% a troll in an effort to educate someone. You can DM her and ask questions if you want.
No thanks, I’ve participated in a thread (see my post in this community) on a topic that the Blahj community decided that I wasn’t educated in. There was a lot more attacks than good faith efforts to have a conversation.
aka not having to fight to justify your existence.
No, I mean such as having people who think it is acceptable to put words in another person’s mouth.
If another instance makes people fight to justify their existence then it doesn’t fit blahaj’s goals and defederation is the solution.
Defederation isn’t the solution. Users can block instances if they want. No instance is sending their content to Blahj, Blahj users are requesting that content.
Go and look in The Agora on your own instance and look at the discussion thread about defederation. TheDude weighs in on the topic as well if I recall.
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This wasn’t defederation over the actions of a single user, it was over the (seemingly intentional) inaction of the moderators
If feddit was truly that opaque and lacking in response I’d be scared too.
Bad look for a furry, dude. Come on.
Agreed. Yikes.
KOLANAKI
I find it absolutely crazy that they de-federated over 1 user, when a block would suffice.
I don’t agree with transphobia (of course), but Blåhaj can’t demand that their rules be enforced in other instances.
I think this take is a bit disingenuous. From what I can tell, LBZ defederated because the admins ignored requests from ada to reign in transphobia/clarify rules around dealing with transphobic comments or posts.
Defederation is the opposite of enforcing one instance’s rules on another instance. Both sets of instance rules are still intact. LBZ has chosen to stop federation because of their own instance rules. If changes are made and the instance rules and enforcement no longer break LBZ’s instance rules, I’m willing to bet ada and LBZ would be open to federate again.
Extremely disingenuous given the whole chain failed for an instance serving a geographic zone literally nicknamed “TERF island” that recently made an extremely transphobic ruling in parliament
Context reaaaaaaaaally fuckin’ matters
but Blåhaj can’t demand that their rules be enforced in other instances.
They can and they did.
I think most instances have a baseline of what is not acceptable, even on other instances. This is one of those baseline rules.
but Blåhaj can’t demand that their rules be enforced in other instances.
They can, or choose not to interoperate with servers that don’t have their best interests at heart. That’s the whole point of defederation and people honestly need to understand that. I know in the beginning the Fediverse propaganda painted this place as a free speech safe-haven. That is a lie, this place has rules and servers expect you to follow them. They aren’t obligated to tolerate bullshit. Blahaj.zone isn’t obligated to tolerate or listen to transphobia.
Also one important fact here is that feddit.uk themselves has rules against transphobia. It’s not even about following blahaj’s rules, it’s about them not following their own rules now.
but Blåhaj can’t demand that their rules be enforced in other instances.
Didn’t ask them to, nor have I asked any other instances to defederate from feddit.uk. What I asked for is clarification of how they implement their own rules, in order for me to decide whether or not LBZ stays federated with them.
The truth is, transphobia is now legal in the UK. UK instance admins are in a hard spot, because removing transphobia that is institutionally protected in their own country is now a lot more complex.
However, it’s not more complex for blahaj zone. We don’t allow transphobia. End of story. And if the difficult situation feddit.uk finds themselves in means they will allow transphobia that aligns with the UKs legislation, I’m not going to tell them they should do otherwise. I would hope they do otherwise, but ultimately, it’s their call. However, if the call they make is to allow legal transphobia, we will remain defederated to minimise the transphobia that reaches the blahaj zone community.
And you won’t see me telling any other admins they have to make the same choice we do.
The power of federation is that people have the choice. If people, trans or not, are happy to wade in to debate with transphobes, there are options for them to do that. Or, there are instances like blahaj zone, where they don’t have to play whack a mole with every new transphobe that appears.
So some feddit.uk user posting some stuff an Blahaj admin didn’t like. So the Blahaj admin want to a feddit.uk admin about it. The feddit.uk admin said, “Let the users sort it out.”. People liked what as being said. This made the Blahaj admin so mad. They defederated from feddit.uk because over it.
Jesus, Blahaj always been full of crazy people. But this takes the cake. The feddit.uk admin did nothing wrong.
EDIT If you see a post/comment you don’t like. You don’t ban or defederate. You write an counter to them to get people to be on your side of it.
Apparently the UK user was pairing transphobic stuff. Transphobia is against the reddit.uk rules. The blahaj admin asked for the admin to uphold their rules. They did not and then ignored further messages.
It’s not about posts they didn’t like. It’s about harmful posts that are bigotry. Other bigots agreeing does not make it better, not make the rules change.
The feddit UK admin did nothing. They didn’t uphold their rules but remained hands off and ignored further messages. They are now posting that the admins are in further discussion after recent UK court rulings. Smells like BS to me.
It goes to the old adage. What happens when a non Nazi sits at a table with 9 Nazis for discussion? There are 10 Nazis having a discussion.
I agree with you, but:
What happens when a non Nazi sits at a table with 9 Nazis for discussion? There are 20 Nazis having a discussion.
Who are the other 10?
Everyone that can hear the discussion and doesn’t start shooting.
Lol, typo. Thanks. It would actually make sense with the correct number, 10, so I’ll edit.
Are you seriously so dense that you can’t see how a trans person could want a forum where they don’t have to see people actively hating them?
I think they can and they’re just upset about it because they want to come into trans spaces and persecute trans people with questions and thinly-veiled transphobic talking points and trans people just aren’t having it.
Found the transphobe.
Jesus christ is it that fucking hard to just leave trans people the fuck alone.
Unproductive comment.
That’s not how it works.
Moderating means filtering out content that is unwelcome or even harmful to your users.
Sure, you can get into it and have a talk, try to modify the persons behaviour. But you don’t moderate for the offenders sake. You moderate for your users sake.
So, as a user, you can dive in and talk counterarguments. As a mod, you get rid of that shit ASAP before any of your users suffer the misfortune of having to see it.
Where that line is, depends on who you are, and who your users are. That’s the whole beaty of the fediverse. People with different needs can sign up on different instances, with different rules and standards.
Admins can’t control the content of other instances, so when another instance refuses to work with you to uphold a given standard, defederation is the only, and correct, recourse.
The whole point of blahaj, is that they go the extra mile to protect vulnerable users, so they can engage with social media on their own terms.
If someone wants unfiltered content, and to engage this stuff directly by “writing counters”, they can go create accounts somewhere else. Blahaj isn’t for that. It’s for people who don’t want to, or might not even have the energy, to justify their basic right to exist.
And that’s before pointing out that no-one should have to do that in the first place.
If someone wants unfiltered content, and to engage this stuff directly by “writing counters”, they can go create accounts somewhere else. Blahaj isn’t for that. It’s for people who don’t want to, or might not even have the energy, to justify their basic right to exist.
Okay, how can you get more to join your side. If you don’t have discussions with other people? You can’t. Have fun in your echo chamber.
“How can you get people to stop stabbing you, if you don’t let them into the room so you can explain why they should stop?”
We can’t all be soldiers. You can’t expect everyone to take the knife over and over until the world gets better.
Good thing is, we can do both. You and me, we can have a talk about this. I’m ready and willing. Maybe I’ll even convince you.
And it doesn’t require exposing everyone over on blahaj to your bigoted bullshit.
Echo chambers are only a problem if there are no people who move between them. And trust me, vulnerable people can only protect themselves so much. They’ll get shit thrown their way no matter what, the world is still far too fucked to prevent that. All you need to do to see that, is look up the suicide rate among trans people.
That’s why every word with scorn behind it, counts. The less of them a person has to deal with to begin with, the more likely they are to be alive tomorrow.
your bigoted bullshit.
Maybe I’ll even convince you.
You’re doing a great job.
I am.
I have you pointing out my strong language, instead of dismantling my logic.
If you want to convince someone to join your side. Don’t call them a bigot.
Fair. But the things you are saying are bigoted.
Doesn’t mean you are one, just that you need to re-evaluate your views.
And, failing to counter my point, already takes you halfway to realizing I might be saying something worth listening to.
Think about it some more. If I’m wrong, all it’ll do is allow you to figure out how wrong. If I’m not, then by changing your mind you’ll just end up being more right.
Also, how is “countering and getting people to your side” working for you?
Good. Because my point is to get people to discussions with other people.
Also when did I say I was against trans people?
You didn’t.
The opinion you are presenting, is against their safety, though.
Usually when two people are fighting, if a third person comments against one of them, it’s pretty safe to assume they’re on the side of the guy they aren’t commenting against.
Sometimes being able to have discussions is a privilege. A lot of people just want to exist safely in a space without having to justify this or that. Blahaj seems to be such a space and there are other spaces for people to go if they do want debate and discussion
I hope you fall into a pit of used syringes covered in shit. Actually, if you were standing next to such a pit, I would push you into it. Go join a Nazi instance if you’re gonna talk like one.
Ah, I see you’ve taken the moral highground.
Stand among a people who get murdered and erased left and right and tell me if honor or morality matter
Nothing says you’re against murder and erasure like gleefully explaining how you would kill somebody.
I’m not against murder or erasure of fascist, homophobic, bigoted dipshits. I’m against the murder and erasure of vulnerable minorities who have historically been oppressed by the aforementioned bigoted dipshits. In fact, as an egoistic anarchist, I condone murder of fascists, homophobes, and bigoted dipshits. Bash back, motherfucker!
Also, odd choice to defend some dude JAQing off about if transgender people have the right to exist in their own space free of harassment.
Hey, how about you go swallow a hand grenade after pulling the pin?
Okay, how can you get more to join your side. If you don’t have discussions with other people? You can’t. Have fun in your echo chamber.
I am actually on your side with respect to full on defederation being too much in this case, but this is a comically naive take.
There are many situations were “debate club” is not an efficient way forward.
It might be worth leaving your own regional echo chamber and getting more real world experience.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if other instances start considering defederating from feddit.uk over this. If folks want to chat with racists and transphobes then stay on Xitter ffs. Hopefully their admin team do the right thing here, after talking it over.
I think @[email protected] totally should publish a censure on fediseer if she didn’t already with details so people can decide if defederating feddit.uk would be best.
What does a censure imply? Would it also include the offending comment (a possible copy of which has already been shared).
Surely you can’t just call for broad defederation (if that’s what censure implies) without actually providing hard evidence?
Fediseer censure is a message they post to the Fediseer it includes a custom message and is a warning to other instances to maybe not federate with that instance. Whether instances choose to defederate based on that it entirely up to them.
Listen, Blahaj.zone doesn’t tolerate transphobia, no matter how polite or benign it seems. Refusing to stick up for trans people or enforce policies on transphobia is transphobic in and of itself. A lot of the BBC style transphobic people who ask “Is it offensive to say a trans woman doesn’t have a cervix”, and the “moderate conservatives” who make similar statements of non-support or bad faith accusations get very upset when people won’t play along or will moderate the hell out of them (banning them from spaces or defederating) but guess what. Trans people don’t owe you explanations or debates, they don’t need to or want to answer your disgusting questions, they see right through the mask of fake politeness.
exactly. “I’m just asking questions” mate, I’m fucking cis and know where those “questions” lead and fuck that garden path I hope you get thorns up the jacksie when you go down it.
Clearly not a power trip, just protecting their user space like they promised they will.
fair for both sides, I don’t see a PTB here.
I’ve composed a little ditty for my barbershop quartet:
“Hell Yeah!”
I’m afraid it loses something in text.
PTB
Blahj is a problem instance.
The important distinction here is that they’re not simply trying to moderate their communities. They’re free to moderate their communities for their users. They want to push their rules on other instances.
They’re not free to dictate to the greater social media space the acceptable policies on discourse. Their admins are constantly trying to enforce their ban lists on other servers and communities (or else, you see what happened to feddit.uk).
To see this, go make a new account and get banned from Blahj (you don’t even have to post in their communities, see my PTB post as an example) and you’ll see that 40+ other completely unrelated communities will also automatically ban you. This is the result of their backroom bullying and toxic behavior towards other admins/mods.
It’s easier for an admin or moderator to simply accept their bans than to deal with admins who will take extreme measures, like defederate your entire instance (and lobby others to defederate you) if you don’t accept their dictates.
If their goal is to create an instance with communities for trans people then banning users from their communities would serve their goals.
But, that isn’t what they’re trying to do. This isn’t about creating a safe space, they have all of the tools that they need to make Blahj safe. Blahj users in Blahj communities could have been protected from this problem user by the user being banned.
There’s no need to contact the admins of other instances to ban a user from your instance or from your communities. Trying to bully other instances or communities isn’t required and it is incredibly toxic. Even the moderator here, in this community, has received pressure from Blahj admins about suppressing topics related to Blahj.
To be honest we were just getting sick of all the posts complaining about Blajah’s policy of banning folks who they consider to be transphobic from their instance. No pressure was applied from Blajah, we just felt it was the right thing to do. Your whole narrative is bullshit tbh.
In reality, the fediverse is (mostly) quite left wing compared to most other social media spaces, so obviously the majority of instances are gonna be supportive of Blajah’s attempt to create a safe space for those folks who need or want that. While we don’t run dbzer0 as a safe space, I think it’s great that those spaces exist. And they only exist at all because Ada and her team go to a lot of effort to keep it that way.
And by way of comparison, we recently had a vote in our governance community about defederating from another instance because their admin initially didn’t want to take action against some right wing communities, and we felt it was becoming a nazi bar situation. The whole point of having the vote was to apply pressure on the admin to deal with it. And there was a positive outcome because the admin did deal with it and so we didn’t defederate. I mean sure, the admin didn’t like being pressured, but it got the job done.
Hopefully feddit.uk will change their policy to explicitly ban anti-trans dogwhistles, and the fediverse will be better for it imo. Freeze peach instances all become nazi-bars before long.
To be honest we were just getting sick of all the posts complaining about Blajah’s policy of banning folks who they consider to be transphobic from their instance. No pressure was applied from Blajah, we just felt it was the right thing to do. Your whole narrative is bullshit tbh.
You’re running the ‘Are these people are power tripping?’ community in the Fediverse, a community of majority left wing people, and you get a lot of people posting about a single instance, so much so that it dominates the posts to the point that requires moderation intervention.
You can read that in a lot of ways.
One of the ways to read it is that the instance’s admins are power tripping. That doesn’t mean that they’re not trying to create a safe space or that there are not some transphobes. All of these things can be true at once. Some people get caught up in the righteousness of their cause and fail to consider how their actions affect others.
Hey, I’m a dbzer0 member (I even contribute financially to keep it running) and I’m one of the people who complained about how salty suckers like you come in all the goddamned time to complain about blahaj.
It’s not because Ada is doing anything wrong, it’s because enough of you don’t like what she’s doing that you whine and complain every chance you get. And you don’t even have the decency to complain about different things!
Waaaah! Ada banned me! But I feel like I wasn’t transphobic/I wasn’t on blahaj when I said that/but what about free speech/but what about my feelings?
And so it’s the same post, over and over. And the community rules the same way, over and over. Surprise! Ada made a safe space for blahaj members! They love what she’s doing and thank her for it! No one over there is sad that you’re gone! The fediverse is working as intended!
Not only that, every time one of you makes the same tired, self-centered post, it doesn’t matter if you’re downvoted to oblivion. It doesn’t matter if the community hands your ass to you. You linger. And the next prick shows up and complains. And the community gives them the finger. But the first asshole is here still, and he tells the second asshole that they’re right! And Ada is a monster! And the community is wrong!
So they linger. And the next prick comes along. And the community tells them to fuck right off. But now two assholes tell them that the community is wrong. Ada is a power tripper. Free speech. You weren’t actually transphobic. You’re right. Everyone else is wrong.
And now, in this very thread, we have like five assholes who all made posts to YPTB, complaining about Ada. And you’re finding each other and you’re turning our community into enough assholes that you’ll eventually have enough to turn every. Goddamn. Post. Into your little butt-hurt pow-wow.
So not only are you posting the same tired bullshit over and over and over, even though the community has made it clear what they think- you’re also using these posts to build a shitbird coalition. So. Why the ruck would anyone intentionally allow that to continue? These “Ada was mean to me” posts add nothing of value, and they empower a removed element.
Ada and I have never exchanged words (that I remember, fediverse is a big place) and zero blahaj members have ever asked me to complain about people constantly having the same goddamn problem with blahaj. So let me just nip this in the bud right now- dbzer0 is a self-governing instance, and if enough of us think you’re being a whiny removed, no one has to come and try to dictate what is and isn’t allowed in our community.
TL;DR I know you feel empowered with your handful of transphobic asshole friends here to upvote you and back you up, but you have been told, over and over, that Ada isn’t doing anything wrong. And when dbzer0 community members like me complained that the blahaj posts were the same fucking post over and over, our team fixed it. I get that you don’t like that, but this is the fediverse. Make your own instance to removed about Ada and kindly fuck off.
It’s not because Ada is doing anything wrong
Banning people who were never active on your instance and applying pressure on other instances to ban users is nothing wrong?
I am all for trans rights (see my recent post about nonsensical UK supreme Court judgement) and this is not the way to support these.
You keep saying it over and over but the downvotes and the vast majority of replies every single time you complain disagree.
Remind me, how did that post of yours here go? Was it… -18? Were the comments overwhelmingly telling you to stuff it? Sure seems that way.
And yet all you do is continue to say the same garbage over and over. You’re allowed to say that this isn’t how you support trans people. But the people of blahaj disagree. You can complain that this is power tripping. But the people of YPTB disagree. You can whine that legitimate complaints are being silenced on YPTB. But the people of dbzer0 disagree. Which is why we asked to put a stop to the “waaa I was banned by Ada” posts.
But the people of YPTB disagree.
That’s not true. The first post by HAL-5700X is at +29 / - 56, so about a third agree.
Kolanaki’s following statement:
Defederating an entire instance over the actions of a single user instead of simply banning that user along with creating a post to bring it up but not actually discuss it is just the kind of extreme reaction I expect from Ada.
is at +33 / -29 and that’s without the text that prompted the defederation being revealed in this thread.
https://sh.itjust.works/post/36737764/18213591
If the text was available, chances are the reaction might have been very different.
Even FauxLiving’s post stating the following (exert, not the full post) is at +18 / - 30.
Blahj is a problem instance.
The important distinction here is that they’re not simply trying to moderate their communities. They’re free to moderate their communities for their users. They want to push their rules on other instances.
They’re not free to dictate to the greater social media space the acceptable policies on discourse. Their admins are constantly trying to enforce their ban lists on other servers and communities (or else, you see what happened to feddit.uk).
A large minority of YPTB aren’t aligned with your opinion.
🔥
Also, just want to mark it down that we can still rely on up vote down vote numbers. Enjoy it while it lasts once threat actors arrive, it is gonna be reddit astroturf
I can cherry pick shit too!
Like db0 saying “Good decision by Ada” which is up 61, down 2! Or Noel_Skum, “How are people still struggling with the basic concept that the person who runs Blahaj can do what they want with Blahaj?” Up 54, down 1! Or pixeltree, “That’s why I chose blahaj zone as my instance. It’s nice not having to justify my existence” Or southsamurai! Or LWD! Or me!
Fuck off out of here with that disingenuous garbage.
You keep saying it over and over but the downvotes and the vast majority of replies every single time you complain disagree.
Say what now?
Some people get caught up in the righteousness of their cause and fail to consider how their actions affect others.
Seems to me that’s exactly what you are doing right now.
Possibly, but I’m just a user so my failings only affect me, and not the greater social media community.
They wouldn’t understand. Jpeg
You can read that in a lot of ways
True, but context and content matters, and when the posters are all deemed YDI then we start to look like the place people come to whinge when their actions have consequences.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
It is content censorship… No feddit.UK rules were broken is my understanding
They proceeded to have a melt down over another admin not doing as they got told…
Enough with this shite, these people are not mature enough to be federated to gen pop
It is content censorship
Yes, exactly, it’s censoring transphobic content. That’s the whole point.
Removed by mod
… what
What I said in the above comment ;)
It is content censorship
Exactly.
People treating this like it is justified seem to misunderstand how the federated social media space works.
If the Blahj admins felt that the user wasn’t welcome in their communities then they could ban them. That’s the end of that user.
There is zero reason to contact the admins of another instance.
The reason they’re doing this is because they want to pressure the admins to change their content moderation policy to something that the Blahj admins (I mean Ada) approve of. If the admins feel that it is too onerous to do so, well then they can just apply the Blahj supplied user ban list to automate the process.
So now if Blahj bans you, you’ll get banned by every other instance that they’ve managed to bully and cajole into their censorship network. (This is easy to see, make a new account and get banned from Blahj. Look at your modlog and you’ll see pages of other non-Blahj communities that automatically ban you within seconds).
They don’t want the ability to ban users from Blahj, they want the ability to dictate to other instances which users should be banned. It has nothing to do with creating safe communities, they have all of the tools that they need to do that.
This is the very essence of power tripping.
I couldn’t have said better
Spot on.
All social media has these clowns but at least on fedi we can see them operate in the open. It turns out there is a lot more common sense out there if it ain’t getting its accounts banned all the time like on corpo socials.
To a certain extent similar instances with similar rules should share bans. It makes no sense for them to individually ban the same user for the same reason as they trudge through communities.
It is absolutely worth talking to admins on different instances to see what their rules are to deffedirate from any instance that is bound to be the nazi bar. With ought talking to the admins they have no idea if content is allowed or just hasn’t been removed yet.
The idea that they are a big powerful bully group is insane. Other instance admins can simply ignore them and suffer no meaningful consequences. The worst they can do is deffedirate.
Ideally everyone would be filtered in their space on an individual basis. This however is utterly impractical and filtering out problematic instances completely makes sense. It makes no sense for volunteers to give themselves more work to allow users from instances where they don’t want to deal with say 90% of their user base
To a certain extent similar instances with similar rules should share bans. It makes no sense for them to individually ban the same user for the same reason as they trudge through communities.
The problem with sharing ban lists is that it is ripe for abuse and only multiplies the damage done to a user by a wrongful ban.
I agree that the admins and moderation teams should be in contact with one another (and, in my experience they are) to handle issues like spamming or connection issues. But, in the end, responsibilities and obligations are pretty clear cut: Each instance handles its own moderation. The user was not in Blahj’s communities, was not a Blahj user and so an outside moderator or Admin has zero say in how that user is handled.
An administrator can ask another administrator to do something but they are under no obligation to do so. This includes things like banning a user or changing policy.
In this case, an administrator from another instance came to Feddit.uk and asked the administrators to ban a single user. The administrators investigated and determined that the user didn’t violate their policies. The administrator wasn’t happy with this, tried to argue and was ignored, they noticed that the admins were active elsewhere. Once they thought they were being ignored then they defederated the instance.
Notice how they don’t mention any disruption to their communities on their servers, they don’t say that the Feddit.uk instance was responsible for an unusual amount of banned users or any other reason that would lead to the conclusion that they needed to defederate.
My read of it is: the admin asked for a ban, was brushed off and then they were angry at being ignored so they defederated the instance and posted a justification loaded with emotional terms and light on facts and reasons.
This is, at best, an interpersonal problem between Admins, not a moderation issue like it is being framed. So, PTB
similar instances with similar rules should share bans.
Welcome to Reddit.
