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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Talking about IRL. Yeah, I see your point. But online, I can’t.
Ah yes, the evergreen ‘If you disagree, I’m going to imply that you’re transphobic/against trans people’ argument.
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 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.
Hey, how about you go swallow a hand grenade after pulling the pin?
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.
Ah.
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.
Found the transphobe.
Jesus christ is it that fucking hard to just leave trans people the fuck alone.
Unproductive comment.
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.