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.
These are tough calls to make. On the one hand I applaud the step taken to protect the community hosted by this instance, on the other I also find that simply cuting ties and conversation only furthers the divide.
Sure we should not have to defend the validity of our existence, and also realise that most hate leaves little place for heathy discussions. But in avoiding their echo chambers I find we quiet ours too, we renounce our visibility for our comfort and theirs.
I guess I wish there were other ways to warn users about potentially triggering instances rather than outright defederating, but I do understand your main motives.
You are absolutely welcome to maintain an account on another instance and here if you want to have the option of having those discussions. And I don’t mean that in a “Well, there’s the door” way. What I’m trying to say is that if you don’t want to have the types of conversations you’re talking about, it’s currently very hard to find spaces that make that possible. That’s why lbz exists in the form it does. However, I completely understand that some people do want that opportunity. And if that’s you, you’re welcome to maintain multiple accounts. You’ll always have a space here, but you can also use instances that give you access to less protective spaces.
ada continues to be the realest MVP
Good riddance, fuck TERF island. If communities don’t like this change they can move to an instance that isn’t filled with and supported by transphobes.
Calm discussion doesn’t work, ridicule them and deplatform them.
They’ve only grown stronger because the neolibs want calm discussion between The people who want to exist and the bigots who hate them for existing.
Calm discussion doesn’t work, ridicule them and deplatform them.
They’ve tried calm discussion, it’s confirmed their position, so (while this decision doesn’t really affect me) I’d be satisfied that Ada’s not jumping to conclusions. It doesn’t matter how diplomatic or polite they are, they’re on their way to becoming a Nazi bar.
For those who weren’t here before the reddit API exodus last year, Lemmy used to have a sizable US Free Speech instance, Wolfballs, whose owner was more the anti-vax flavor than the bigoted kind and sincerely believed in the Libertarian/liberalist marketplace of ideas. Perhaps out of desperation for growing the platform (Lemmy was in the hundreds of users at that point and that owner was contributing software improvements), it took a while before the bans turned to full defederations. Their admin was diplomatic, they were polite, I believe they were sincere, their instance rules were neutral and open to everyone, and then after a couple of years they shut down their own instance when they realized the literal white supremacist neo-nazis they were platforming, who had scared anyone sane away, weren’t just doing a bit to troll the libs and actually did believe they ridiculous junk they spouted about shapeshifters and non-aryan marriages.
When someone creates a permissive instances which platforms bigotry, the people other instances reject will tend to flow there, whether the admin agrees with them or not.
They’ve only grown stronger because the neolibs want calm discussion between The people who want to exist and the bigots who hate them for existing.
Ah, the classic both-sides false equivalence - I’ve seen a few rare losers playing the “banning someone for their political choices and actions is the same as oppressing someone for having a body I don’t like!”, and it’s mindboggling that certain instances tolerate their fake-neutral chavanism.
Thanks ADA and I appreciate all the work that you’ve done. This is why I love Blahaj Lemmy, I dont want to deal with that nonsense.
Thank you Ada. I really appreciate having a safe space like this.
Damn. I don’t want to engage with them either now. Are there any better UK instances? I’m getting sick and tired of the Starmer apologetics and general meltery on there anyway.
Unfortunately, there is a sickness in heart of every British person that prevents us from creating anything better. Any attempt to do so will inevitably devolve into “It’s shit. It’s supposed to be shit. Don’t like it? There’s the door.”
Nonsense
Thank you Ada!
If instances aren’t willing to moderate themselves when it comes to transphobia they should get the boot. I hope more instances defederate feddit.uk over this. Might make them change course and rethink if they should maybe moderate better.
This is the way.
Transphobia has no place on anything I use. I may not be one of the folks on your instance, but I still appreciate the good work.
Thank you for taking real direct action on issues like this. It keeps our community safe.
hard mode: uk stop being transphobic for two seconds.
Oh man, that’s truly disheartening to see, especially how I noticed a lot more people that are being just unnecessarily mean 😟
Thank you for taking the appropriate steps to deal with this 😄
Obviously I’m not on blahaj, but I think the decision is pretty on point for the goals of blahaj.
It also makes me disappointed in feddit.uk. “Leave it to discussion/votes” is bullshit and just support for the behavior.
Edit: The admin responded elsewhere with “we want to make sure we comply with the law”.
My comment remains unchanged. Allowing this is support. Fuck your bullshit law. You’re explicitly supporting this bullshit by your inaction.
“we want to make sure we comply with the law”
on here?
…Christ, why? lmao
They must think they’re the main character of lemmy or someshit.
Just as bad as Lemmy.world with their admins being totally pro lawyers who just haven’t taken the bar, they’d totally pass though.
Maybe worse, we’ll see.
Right? Imagine if you said that about the rights for like black women or something? Like, come ON. It’s 2025, we KNOW these behaviors are bigoted, rules are way too chill with letting shit like that fly, and is part of the reason it’s so prolific now - it’s not being treated like the hate speech that it is, and people in power in certain places are like “no I’m not sure we need to discuss it again”. It’s just gross and horrible and makes me feel so fucking helpless sometimes when a space is dominated with shitties like that.
100%.
It’s nothing short of support for the behavior. Its why I constantly comment of Lemmy.world being trash, and why I say 196 mods are garbage and don’t belong on blahaj, long live !onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone.
Even suggesting that sort of vile nonsense is worth discussing/voting on makes them bigoted morons.
Edit: Sorry I sound cranky about it, but this “tEaCh tHe CoNtRoVeRsY” garbage puts me in a cranky mood.
lemmy.world is basically the fediverse version of Reddit from what I’ve experienced in terms of overall culture.
Eewww
I still think that’s their tagline/site motto
I’m not on here often enough to be in the loop, what’s the 196 community drama?
The mods from 196 tried to forcibly move everyone to 196 on Lemmy.world because they personally disagreed with Ada’s approach.
They locked the comm and pinned a post about it.
So during that time (while they continued arguing that “let the discussion happen” and “teach the controversy” but “we still totally support queer folks despite trying to move to an instance where shitty behavior is acceptable, and briefly had an admin level rule they are ‘reworking’ where it would explicitly be against terms to delete that hateful content”…
!onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone then opened up as a new comm.
196 on blahaj was reopened, and unfortunately many folks still land there because of the name.
Personally I refuse to trust any of the mods on 196 (.world or on blahaj) because:
- The move was forced
- There was no discussion prior
- They only backtracked when onehundredninetysix took off
- Their entire reasoning for the move was based off “we dont have accounts on blahaj and reporting is complicated” and “we want to moderate differently than what’s permitted on blahaj”.
Sorry that was kind of a long-winded summary.
Edit: there are threads at both!fediverselore@lemmy.ca and !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com iirc that will show the whole story.
There was no discussion prior
I’ve been involved in a lot of communities, some alright and some which nosedived, and it’s always amazing how out-of-touch most moderator cliques become if discussion isn’t ingrained in their culture. I also haven’t kept up with 196 comms, not my style, but I hope the community has enough consciousness to tell the mods where to shove that crap and become independent.
“meh, those things sound like work”
– feddit.uk admin
They had the time to make a new rule about no generative AI content but couldn’t work this out? Stuff em.
i tried to tell them it sounded more like cowardice than laziness but they just wouldnt hear it.
It’s pretty fucked up a court ruling that’s shit sees such quick implementation.
Agreed, fuck 'em.
If the users of feddit.uk want to engage with us, they’re totally welcome to do so on our terms by making an account somewhere that holds their users to a better standard. I hope they do. As far as I’m concerned, the users are cool, but we don’t have to coddle somebody else’s bigotry or put up with hatred.
