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.
Their instance, their rules. Blahaj is explicitly a safe space for LGBT folks. That is their #1 duty to their user base.
Clearly not a power trip, just protecting their user space like they promised they will.
Ada‘s post contains no details or reasoning. Linking to the offending content would make this appear more deliberate.
The offending content was apparently this.
A woman is an adult female. A transwoman is an adult female who used to be male. It’s not difficult to grasp that they are different things. You can admit that and still believe that transwomen should be treated with dignity like anyone else.
Personally I don’t give a shit what bathroom people use or what they want to be referred to. I’ll go along with whatever… But a woman and a transwoman are different things, and it’s disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Always have been different things and always will be, no matter what the law states, now or in the future.
Kier’s words are still not transphobia. There is no fear, dislike, prejudice, discrimination, harassment, or violence in his statement. The scream of ‘transphobia’ is thrown around too much for anyone who disagrees with a narrow definition. Any disagreement is labelled as hate, and it’s silly.
Should a transwoman have the same rights and respect and opportunity as a woman (as per the legal definition)? Absolutely. Are they the same? No, they are not. Is that a hateful bigoted viewpoint worthy of scorn? I don’t believe so.
I don’t use the term cis. I use the term woman and you knew exactly what I meant. A blonde woman is a description of a woman’s hair colour and is a semantic-based response that is nothing to do with this point. You know this; it’s a foolish riposte that’s nothing at all to do with the clear and simple fact that a woman who used to be a man is not the same thing as a (cis) woman.
I can call it a woman who used to have a penis or a woman who used to be a man if you want me to be pedantic about it. Nothing to do with hair colour, or skin colour, or anything else except previously being a biological male and now identifying as a woman.
‘adult human female’ is not a dog whistle. It’s a legal and common-sense definition that you clearly understand but are trying to make out to be hate for some reason. I am not denying the legitimacy of transwomen; nor is Keir.
Transwomen and (cis) women are different things. And Transmen and (cis) men are different things. They have different names, which you yourself use for a reason. That reason being they are not the same thing. This is exactly the same as saying transwomen are not women, because they are not. They are transwomen.
It’s pretty simple.
This is exactly how they propagandize fence-sitters and convert them into extremists.
They start with a factual and level-headed stance that’s hard to argue against, here being that “Trans women are biologically different, but shouldn’t be treated any differently,” but then, by the end, they’re sprinkling dog whistles and covertly separating them, because once you can view them as something external, it’s easier to ignore or even support what happens to them later.
This is exactly the same as saying transwomen are not women, because they are not. They are transwomen.
Blatant transphobia wrapped in a level-headed blanket to covertly shift perspectives. I mean, even if you look over the first reply, having their actual intentions in mind, it becomes apparent that they were very careful not to imply that trans people are in any way the same as cis people, making sure to use more general terms like “deserve respect” in order to not contradict the idea that they’re a totally separate entity. If the admins of feddit[.]uk are okay with this, defedding them was the right move.
Someone saying transwomen exist and deserve equal rights to women is not exactly an extremely transphobic position to hold.
That’s a progressive view overall still. Take all the allies you can get. Competitions in ideological purity and playing political commissar only serve to divide.
We live in a time now where equal rights for transwomen and women are under attack.
Rights and identities are not the same thing or equally important.
What many people consider a „real woman“ or „real man“ varies and often excludes cisgender people.
That said, I totally understand that Blahaj defederated and has a more strict stance.
People are entitled to have their own opinions on a topic and should be free to discuss topics with out harassment from mods on other instances.
This line of reasoning is gestapo.
you are gonna talk as I told you or you won’t talk at all
🤡
Everyone has the right to be bigoted without being harassed for it!
Okay, bigot. Blocked.
I love the irony of my comments being deleted for calling out the weaponization of tribalism by the .blahaj community.
Dragonfucker is not a serious gender, grow up.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
That entire screed is a dogwhistle
If you’re concerned about implications, you need to be careful of your own, because you’re implying that I think the feddit.uk admins are transphobic, when I think no such thing. They actively pushed back against transphobia in their comments, and not in a half hearted manner. They are quite clearly not transphobic.
However, leaving transphobia visible, even whilst pushing back against it is against their own instance rules, and allows transphobes to know they can safely post more transphobia in the future, as long as they keep it civil. And that last part is the bit that initiated defederation.
Your actions show you think the feddit.uk admins are transphobic.
You weren’t allowed to control comments you wanted to and you used the power at your control to “punish” the people who wronged you.
This is the actions of an angry child who doesn’t get their way.
I stand by what I said.
The original post did not contain any of this information and did imply that feddit.uk admins were slow to react and did not see this as priority. The discussion around pushback to the comment was actually brought up by a feddit.uk admin who described your statement as mischaracterization.
did imply that feddit.uk admins were slow to react and did not see this as priority.
That’s an accurate summary of my claims. No part of that suggests transphobia however.
who described your statement as mischaracterization.
Likely because said admin knew they were talking about it as a team and believed they were addressing my questions. They just neglected to tell me that part, and just stopped responding to me.
Wtf, this isn’t hate. This is someone stating their perspective with no harmful intent. If anything that comment is a great starter to a serious discussion on the topic.
If Ada doesn’t want such content on their instance they have the right to defederade and I fully support their right to it, no matter the reason (it is their instance after all).
I can understand why someone would disagree with that comment, but calling it transphobia or hate speech?
The part that becomes transphobic is the insistence that the definitions are “transwoman” and “woman”. A trans woman (note the space) is a type of woman, no one denies that. It’d be like using the term “blondewoman” and insisting that they are different from every other kind of “woman”, and not included in womanhood.
Ada also pretty clearly stated why she didn’t link to the offending content:
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/14101300 in that she didn’t want to start a brigade, which I honestly think is pretty upstanding behaviour on her part. As well, I don’t see where the actual content has been linked, so I think the commenter above you might be full of shit, unless they can give a source.I’m not going to participate further in this circus after this comment though.
The second I saw Ada’s post the other day, I knew there’d be a PTB post with people either ignorantly, or knowingly pushing transphobic viewpoints.(Edit: I actually amend my statement. This comment thread was right at the top for me, but upon further reading people here have been really chill. Genuinely, thanks all for understanding that Blahaj is first and foremost a place for trans people to feel safe above any other concerns) It’s the ignorance that gets to me honestly, as if we don’t live in a world today where the majority of people aren’t susceptible to the overt fascism of Mussolini and Hitler anymore. Fascists, and other bad actors, realised they had to become smarter and more subtle with the way they spread hatred. They sow plausible-sounding doubt about transgender healthcare, like saying trans “children” are put on hormones when that’s only ever offered at 16 or older, or that these same “children” are given surgeries at 16 when no healthcare systems allow under 18 year olds to get surgery, and in fact many block trans adults from those life-saving procedures. It’s designed to be “death by a thousand cuts” because straight up attacking trans folks right to exist will cause most people to push back against that.Let me just ask you (the general you, not the person I’m replying to) what exactly the need for defining trans women as not biologically female actually is? Is it to stop us from using the women’s bathroom? Well, if your goal is to reduce the amount of people sexually assaulted, that will surely fail, and I shouldn’t have to explain why. Is it so that cis women can get the medical care they need, that differs from trans women? That’s not a problem that exists, nor would most trans women deny that cis women have their own medical needs, when we obviously have our own too. Is it to stop trans women from going to DV shelters? Do you really think a woman that’s being terrorised to the level of leaving her home is going to purposefully harm other women?
What is the actual need for defining trans women separately then? Why are certain people so obsessed by this need? The best answer I’ve got is the fact that the US executive government has decided to define them separately, and under the cover of that, they not only have stopped issuing passports with trans folks chosen gender marker, but have stopped issuing them in their gender assigned at birth as well. Let me repeat for you, trans folks Are Not Able To Get A Passport At All Anymore In The United States thanks to this manufactured debate around biological sex. I shudder to think about what comes next after an act like that.
The part that becomes transphobic is the insistence that the definitions are “transwoman” and “woman”. A trans woman (note the space) is a type of woman, no one denies that. It’d be like using the term “blondewoman” and insisting that they are different from every other kind of “woman”, and not included in womanhood.
I see, I wasn’t aware of this perspective.
Ada also pretty clearly stated why she didn’t link to the offending content: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/14101300 in that she didn’t want to start a brigade, which I honestly think is pretty upstanding behaviour on her part.
Not trans specific, and not really related, but I disagree with this view. Brigades are bad, they are the internet version of a street brawl and produce nothing of value. What I dislike is that “stopping brigades” usually also prevents actual discourse.
Let me just ask you (the general you, not the person I’m replying to) what exactly the need for defining trans women as not biologically female actually is?
What is the actual need for defining trans women separately then? Why are certain people so obsessed by this need?
I can only speak for myself: Since forever when someone uses the word “woman” in a conversation it is implicitly understood that they are referring to a cis woman. What rubs me the wrong way is that it feels like someone is forcefully trying to change that implicit meaning to mean “cis woman or trans woman” which would then necessitate referring to a cis woman as a “cis woman” instead of simply a “woman”, which in turn feels like I’m being forced to change the way I speak. I personally don’t think this is the case, but it is what it feels like. To me trans women are women as in, included in womanhood, and when I say the word “woman” in a casual conversation I’m implicitly referring to a cis woman.
To me trans women are women as in, included in womanhood, and when I say the word “woman” in a casual conversation I’m implicitly referring to a cis woman.
These two statements are an oxymoron though, you can’t really have it both ways. So if it “feels like” you’re being forced, that’s merely because social conventions push us to be clear with our language choices. It really isn’t any different from situations where you might have to say a “straight woman” or a “white woman” because it’s expedient to distinguish that group separately.
Also though, I wonder what situations you’re even referring to? If you start talking about women that can get pregnant (and just say “women”), as a matter of course I’m not going to scold you for not defining it as “non-menopausal women that haven’t had a hysterectomy”, nor would most people. So, have you been scolded for something similar where you meant cis women? If not, this feels like it’s just a strawman, a situation that doesn’t really come up, but is easy to try and win arguments over.
Ada also pretty clearly stated why she didn’t link to the offending content: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/14101300 in that she didn’t want to start a brigade, which I honestly think is pretty upstanding behaviour on her part. As well, I don’t see where the actual content has been linked, so I think the commenter above you might be full of shit, unless they can give a source.
How do you know the poster is full of shit? You didn’t even ask for the source.
Also defederating from an instance while not including the actual offending content is not very transparent.
Well, transparency only matters on blahaj.
And making a post warning users of blahaj is transparency. It’s coming to users and saying : here is an administrative decision being made, here is the rationale behind that decision.
There’s no need to link, copy, or otherwise bring up the original comment when the decision is based on the choices of other instances. It would be nice yeah, but not mandatory for transparency.
An instance can do what they want. That doesn’t change the fact that accusing admins of another instance of supporting transphobia (that was de facto the claimed reason for defederation) without proof is not appropriate.
Get fucked 😀
Thank you for confirming the following:
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.
Courtesy of FauxLiving (an excellent point I must add).
How do you know the poster is full of shit? You didn’t even ask for the source.
Because no one, not even the admins of feddit.uk, has stated the offending comment directly. It would be weird for a user of a different instance to be the only one in the know.
Also defederating from an instance while not including the actual offending content is not very transparent.
In this case, transparency has taken a backseat to preventing brigading, which I accept as a perfectly valid reason not to disclose. Considering I’m a user of the instance, my opinion here is actually important, because it’s not her job to be transparent with users elsewhere. Not even feddit.uk’s users, the admins there have the context and if they decide to share it is up to them.
But you didn’t ask the user how he got it! Surely before claiming that he is full of shit, you could have spent ~10 seconds typing out, “what is your source?” I didn’t see you do that in piefed thread.
Not even feddit.uk’s users, the admins there have the context and if they decide to share it is up to them.
BLZ can do whatever, but others are also allowed to make their own conclusions about the possible reasons for the lack of transparency.
They’re the only person in this thread trying to sow division and call the Blahaj admins decision into question, besides you of course. I don’t need to assume the best intentions in that case, and can draw my own conclusions. As a trans person, if I gave everyone the benefit of the doubt all of the time, I’d expose myself to far too much hatred.
If you want to choose to believe the reason is anything other than “to prevent brigading” than that’s up to you. feddit.uk admins seem to know the context, like I said before, so I don’t see how Ada could be lying here…
You’re welcome to assume bad faith or not bother, it’s your right.
The fact remains, you don’t know whether Pondercat is full of shit or not. You don’t have any evidence and you are not interested in interacting with Pondercat.
"Prevent brigading” is irrelevant at this point, the text is out, so you cannot prevent brigading if it’s real. So the question about transparency remains.
Pointing out clear lapses in logic is not “sowing division”.
makes sense to me, that is what blahaj is for 😒 besides people that agree with that user don’t want to interact with blahaj. And those that do could do it elsewhere
literally the fediverse working exactly as intended… blahaj clearly states its purpose and lives by it. on any other instance it might be ptb, but on blahaj thats just good instance administration
Seems fair, I don’t think this is PTB
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.
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?
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.
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!
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.
terfs fuck off.
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.
I’ve composed a little ditty for my barbershop quartet:
“Hell Yeah!”
I’m afraid it loses something in text.
That’s crazy. I mean it’s their instance and I don’t think it was out of the realm for blahaj to do but over the post of one guy is crazy.
but over the post of one guy is crazy
Not the post of one guy. The response of the admins to that post. Refusing to remove the transphobia (because of, if we take them at their word, a misinterpretation of an unjust court ruling). Refusing to communicate with the blahaj admins.
The controversy is that Blahaj admins don’t get to decide the content of other instances.
And defederating from evey instance that has a transphobic comment on it means they would need to defederate from every instance including their own.
This Ada doing what she feels like again, without the guise of there being any community input allowed this time because she has learned she doesn’t like the answers when she asks for opinions on moderation decisions.
Think I blocked most of their communities anyway… Most of them seemed to be trans memes I had no interest in.
It’s totally reasonable for them to enforce their level of anti-bigotry protections to protect their safe space instance. It’s not power tripping. Besides feddit.uk is full of full time labour centrist true believers and/or probable astroturfers and is is largely low value subreddit copy paste for their most substantial communities.
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.
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.
Bad look for a furry, dude. Come on.
Agreed. Yikes.
If feddit was truly that opaque and lacking in response I’d be scared too.
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.
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 @MrKaplan@lemmy.world 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 @MrKaplan@lemmy.world just didn’t notice it.
I welcome the administrator (@MrKaplan@lemmy.world) 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.
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.
