cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/25042034

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.

    • Carrolade@lemmy.worldEnglish
      57·
      27 days ago

      Yeah, this is just the Fediverse operating as intended. Some instances are heavily federated, others are less so. This gives people options.

    • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
      18·
      27 days ago

      Moreover, it’s her instance, and she can do whatever she wants with it.

      Its users are free to leave whenever they wish, but I doubt many will as a result of this bc (a) Ada is awesome, and (b) the comments look strongly in her favor. Also © Ava’s policies are clearly explained at the outset, and firmly and fairly applied.

      Our approval outside of the situation does not matter in the slightest:-).

      (That said, if it did, I would want to see some additional context, bc wine that phrase can be used as a dog whistle, I believe it may also be legitimate as well. I would strongly hope that the additional context in this case provided the justification that I can’t fully see here. Which knowing Ada, seems highly likely. Edit: if this comment really is it, then nvm, I get it. Tbf that really does seem like a discussion that needs to be had among centrists, but I can totally see why Blåhaj doesn’t want to federate that content and thereby host it on its own servers. So without prejudicial judgement either for or against the original comment, I definitely support Ada’s call here. As I always end up doing when I dig deeply enough to see what’s going on in each situation. I am not saying that I would have done it - perhaps a community block or other reduced feature could have been applied, but for her server, it’s her right.)

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
    48·
    27 days ago

    While the underlying issue swirling around the UK courts’ confusion of gender vs. sex, male vs. female is just as confusing to me and I have no clear answers for that, the Blahaj admin’s move is I think the right one.

    That instance prides itself as being a safe-space for LGBTQ+ folks, so explicitly allowing behaviour that does not recognize its users’ identities, is reasonable grounds for defederation.

  • MemmingenFan@feddit.orgEnglish
    44·
    27 days ago

    Defederate an instance because of a single problematic user doesn’t feel right.

    But also defederate an instance because their admins don’t comply their own rules doesn’t feel wrong.

    • flicker@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      72·
      27 days ago

      I’d argue it wasn’t defederated because of one user, it was defederating because of a fundamental disagreement in moderation policies.

      The one user could’ve been saying anything people could find deplorable. It was that the admin chose to be hands-off about it that pulled the trigger.

      Which is a good thing, in that servers are allowed to decide how they want to handle moderation, and other server owners are allowed to decide if they accept that, or if they expect the moderation will lead to continued problems of the same vein down the road. The fediverse working as intended.

      • Dragonstaff@leminal.spaceEnglish
        17·
        26 days ago

        Well said. It’s curious how marginalized people’s decisions to protect themselves are always up for debate. If someone doesn’t agree with this moderation decision, cool, don’t use Blahaj.

      • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
        16·
        26 days ago

        This is hardly transphobia.

        Depends - many people would say that not including transwomen in the category of “women” (without qualifier) is transphobia, and the comment literally says:

        This is exactly the same as saying transwomen are not women, because they are not. They are transwomen.

        So the comment is basically arguing that “women” should only be used to mean “cis women”, which some might (perhaps rightfully) consider transphobia.

        • Skiluros@sh.itjust.worksBannedEnglish
          2·
          25 days ago

          Where does it say that? Please cite the exact part that calls for “separate” approach.

          Be clear and specific.

      • spooky2092English
        8·
        26 days ago

        One of the responses in that thread had the right idea

        Well, they’re right that it is pretty simple. Here’s a fun experiment for anyone who thinks this isn’t transphobic: try reading it again, but substitute black for trans. Totally reasonable they should have to use another bathroom, right?

        If you read the message that way and substitute the gender component for racial equivalents, I’d love for you to explain how the message isn’t racist. And I’m sure there would be plenty of “moderate whites” that would have gladly explained it to me back then too.

        • Skiluros@sh.itjust.worksBannedEnglish
          2·
          25 days ago

          The end result of your line of thinking is that one cannot recognize their own ethnicity as that would be racist.

          It would be like you telling an ethnic Lemkos that it’s racist for them to claim they are not white.

          • spooky2092English
            4·
            25 days ago

            Except this is someone else talking about a group they’re not a part of. Your comment is not related to the comment question, given the context.

            Edit: and no explanation of how the original statement wasn’t transphobic/racist after being aubstituted…

      • Dragonstaff@leminal.spaceEnglish
        5·
        26 days ago

        Funnily enough, nobody cares about your opinion. You’re welcome to make whatever decisions you want, just like the people on Blahaj can say that is transphobia.

  • limer@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    37·
    27 days ago

    I think it’s healthy for admins to defederate, for whatever reason, from their choice of other instances.

    If this is not done enough, then we will end up with few instances dominating the ebb and flow of discussion and content. And making it difficult for voices to be heard.

    If done too much, and there are many tiny clusters of communities, there are social forces that will make many of these network closer.

    If we did this more, it will break the monopoly of the large instances we see today, and better things can grow

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
    14·
    26 days ago

    I’m coming to this specific post late.

    But I do wanna say that I’ve had interactions with the .uk admins over the last year or so. Their user histories exist.

    I think it important to note that the individual admins have been public in their support of trans issues. While the slow response is definitely an issue, try not to villainize them without something concrete to back that up. Any of us that disagree with the delay in particular (and please note the inclusive plural), remember that someone can make a bad choice and still be an ally.

    Yeah, the optimum response would have been immediate action via comment removals, with debate to follow and reinstatement if merited after debate; combined with prompt communication (within a realistic range of prompt for someone not glued to their instance 24/7). But optimum isn’t always going to happen. My grumpy, cantankerous old ass is not often optimum, so I sure can’t hold delays and iffy reasoning against anyone else, as long as they get there eventually.

    • DacoTaco@lemmy.world
      8·
      26 days ago

      As a .world user id be sad if it got defederated. I like my content to have all kind of point of views (if discussions are civil).
      I have yet to see any large influx of transphobia comments, but will say i haven’t read much comments in general.

      I wonder if lemmy has a system to ban users from an instance without defederating? It should only be a last resort…

      • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
        9·
        26 days ago

        You sure know a lot about .world for an 8 hour old account. Actually, wait… Relentless attacks against Americans? Bitching about .world? Lemmy.cafe instance? Hi Antiyanks! Nice seeing you again on your over 150th account by now.