Update: In light of the programming.dev update here https://programming.dev/post/8399272, the defederation is no longer going ahead.
However, something more needs to be said. Even here on Blahaj, some of our users took issue with the choice to defederate over this issue.
So I would like to give some background and context.
Blahaj Zone exists, because both Kaity and I left mainstream social media to escape transphobia. Reddit, with its lackluster approach to fighting transphobia, and twitter, with its outright celebration of transphobia pushed us here, to the fediverse, and to create Blahaj Zone and Blahaj Lemmy.
To that end, we will continue to treat transphobia seriously. Our goal is to create a space where gender diverse folk can exist and let our defenses down a little, where we don’t have to worry about getting dragged in to an argument with a transphobe, or a bad faith actor “just asking questions”.
If you are looking for a more reddit like experience, where in the interest of increased engagement, we let low level transphobia slide, and push responsibility for dealing with it on to community mods and individual users, then you will likely not be happy with blahaj going forward. If you choose to stay here, understand that we may defederate again in the future over similar issues.
The choice is yours.
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It has recently been brought to my attention that the lead admin of programming.dev is engaging in ongoing transphobia.
You can see the conversation in question here https://programming.dev/comment/6131539
For that reason we will be defederating from programming.dev in 48 hours.
There are only three communities on that instance used by small number of our users, so this won’t have a big impact, but if you are one of those users, you will need to use an alt account on another instance if you wish to access the communities.
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Right? The admin here sees hexbears engaging in their typical bad faith spam-bullying tactics against someone who, unless there’s something really bad in that deleted comment, doesn’t seem to actually be a transphobe, for the crime of enjoying a popular mainstream video game, and the admin decides to defederate the victim of the bullying.
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With good reason. Nobody has just picked a game at random and said ‘everyone must hate this game now for no reason whatsoever’.
But, as I said, in a previous comment, there is a difference between ignorance and wilful ignorance. Up until a couple of years ago I was totally unaware of JKR’s transphobia. This was because I read the first HP book when it first came out, thought it was shit and dismissed it and her from my mind. I’ve never had a twitter account and I don’t read the ‘celebrity’ bits of news websites so I knew nothing of the whole situation. As a result, when a trans friend of mine started talking about it, I responded out of ignorance. Thankfully, they realised it was ignorance not malice and took me through the whole thing.
My point being, it’s impossible to tell from just this quoted exchange if the PD Admin is being ignorant or willfully ignorant. If it’s the former I hope they come to realise their error and how it affects people. If it’s the latter, they can do one.
The problem with that thread was that the admin kept arguing and trying to educate trans people on transphobia. If they didn’t know about JKR’s transphobia then they shouldn’t have kept on arguing as long as they have.
I absolutely agree with that too. I’m not suggesting their subsequent statements were not transphobic as they clearly were. That’s why I fully support @Ada’s decision to defed.
My point was really that, the flashpoint seems (to me) to be the two sentences I quoted. The one from the Admin seemed ignorant rather than openly malicious, the one from the Hexbear user was just accusative. That, in my opinion, was an opportunity to address the Admin’s ignorance.
Everything after that, the Admin has no excuse over.
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The only thing this comment gets right is the scare quotes around “allies”.
ohh nooo boohoo that poor admin had it pointed out that he put his own enjoyment of a mid-tier video game over his respect for a marginalized community.
Grow up lmfao
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That user is a hexbear - their handle here is an alt. Which isn’t surprising given the nature of their engagement in this thread.
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Transphobia isn’t a ‘different opinion’ numbnuts.
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This is my main account actually, but go off.
Where did I say solely enjoying the wizard game makes you a transphobe? Talk about a fuckin stretch lmao
To be fair, programming.dev is moderated pretty badly. This is looks like a slap fight that escalated beyond what is reasonable, but it’s a good indicator of how respectfully people over there are treated. That is, not at all.
I don’t know how fair that is, because things got just as bad over here when we were federated with Hexbear. They’re really active and really argumentative, so slap fights will happen and be hard to moderate.
Maybe things are bad in general over there, but this seems like a pretty poor indicator imo. It’s hard to have a respectful discussion when you’re being dogpiled by Hexbear users.
I’m not subscribed to any programming.dev communities, but I’ve seen programming.dev names pop up quite a bit in threads and they’ve been nothing but respectful.
That’s a very fair point.
When we federated with hexbear I was on team “let’s give them the benefit of the doubt”. That lasted 12 hours.
In the time we were federated with Hexbear I blocked more people then I had in years
Hexbear showed their character and they should stay defederated and more instances should defederate them for their continued poor behavior as a community
I’m just sitting here really confused at the choice to defederate based on a single chat.
Most folks at programming.dev, myself included, are there because it’s related to their profession. That’s what drew us there.
It baffles me to think that the entire instance has been judged and deemed unworthy because of a single comment chain that had disagreements.
You can block users you don’t want to interact with. Some instances breed a potentially nasty sentiment or attitude, and when there are too many users from that instance to block, that’s when I’d consider defederation. But a single conversation thread, involving a single person?
I’ve got no say in how another instance is ran. Just makes me a little sad about a much more fragmented future of Lemmy.
Fellow programming.dev user here,
I think it’s worth checking out her comments here. I don’t think you understand why Ada made the decision. The decision is not about deeming our instance unworthy. It is about not wanting to be federated with instances with transphobic admins. It’s very different than somethingike thinking everyone on our instance is transphobic.
I haven’t seen the removed comments so I can’t judge for myself whether they’re transphobic (and it’s not relevant to the talk you and I are having).
I might be missing something, but I believe an admin being potentially transphobic only matters if they do not moderate transphobic content that leaks out to other instances. I don’t think I’ve seen transphobic content leak out of programming.dev.
That said, I’ve read some of Adas comments on the intention behind defederation, and blahaj. What I’ve learned is that Blahaj wans set up as a safe space, so 0 tolerance is understandable, and is well within their rights to establish and enforce.
Coming from someone who is just looking to Lemmy as a reddit alternative, it’s simultaneously cool that communities can do this, and a little unfortunate that with Lemmy being as small as it is (compared to reddit), we are defederating over single comment threads. Again, blahaj was intended to be a safe space and has no obligation to be a part of the “reddit replacement” I’m looking for, so if they deem it necessary then good on them.
Agreed. I hope our two instances can find a way to stay federated but I hold no anger if we can’t.
Hey im the admin mainly in charge of the community over on programming.dev (+ the other lead admin). Can you point out a case of this happening and I can see if I need to handle it
We moderate things in our instance if its reported but if its not reported it cant really be found easily
(also for the main post, im chatting with your admin about it)
It would be nice not having to defederate. The users on programming.dev are pretty nice from what I’ve seen.
Thanks!
If we do defederate, which would be a massive shame, I’m willing to act like a massive dick to make you feel better about the whole thing
Reminder that federation is directional. This post is about them defederating with us.
In either direction, it’s a severing of trust and degradation of user experience. That’s what I want to avoid. When I say “we defederate” I mean “our two instances become not mutually federated,” not “we [programming.dev] choose to defederate [from blahaj].”
I gotcha, just letting you know there’s a technical difference. 😎👍
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Like I don’t have the attention span to read everything the accused person wrote during that entire thread, and obviously I could have missed some important context or quote.
My take on it was that this person liked the Harry Potter game, realized that people were telling them the game was antisemitic and transphobic (which I agree, it is), and then it seems like they refused to believe the game was in fact antisemitic and transphobic. The person then doubled down and because everyone got heated (which I’m not judging folks for getting heated, I don’t know what you’re going through behind the screen), and kept digging a hole.
Like if the accused is actually a transphobic, fuck em right to hell I hope they learn they’re on the wrong side of history and get better. Else if it is someone who’s pro-trans and got caught being reactive and liking media that goes against their views, then I hope they look at that media with fresh eyes, and try to make amends with the people who were arguing in the thread.
Plenty of people like media that when looked at with a slightly critical eye might go against their views or punch down at the people they care for, but are ignorant to the fact it does that. I think that a lot of people have really visceral reactions when confronted with that fact, and try to get defensive rather than learn.
But I don’t know anything any of these people and I’m just trying to dissect why I think it’s also blown out of proportion.
This is a good take. I don’t think we should defederate immediately when someone has a bad take once, even if they’re an admin.