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"I will never suggest Lemmy to people" - 196 users on the Fediverse's harassment of women (lemmy.nz)
submitted 4 days ago by dragonfucker@lemmy.nz to c/fediverselore@lemmy.ca
114 comments fedilink hide all child comments

https://lemmy.nz/post/18610200/13255360

This user describes how most of the women-centered communities on Lemmy were shut down due to harassment of their members.

Another user adds "We need a safe space, but most of the women I know on here don’t have the time or energy to moderate it. And there’s so few of us, it feels like it’s not worth the effort anyway."

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[-] spujb@lemmy.cafe 3 points 2 days ago

Hey, starting over here:
You’re welcome in my corner, homie! I want to approach this with good faith, but I need to address some things because your earlier approach made me deeply uncomfortable. I hope we can work toward mutual understanding, but I also need to set a few boundaries going forward:

  1. Please don’t call someone sharing personal experiences “cherry picking.” I’m sharing my stories of sexual and gender-based harassment, which are deeply personal and reflect my lived reality. Using that term minimizes the seriousness of these experiences. Even if you didn’t mean it that way, it’s a loaded phrase—so let’s leave it behind.
  2. Respect someone’s boundaries when it comes to DMs. Messaging me directly after I’ve logged off or expressed discomfort felt invasive. Going forward, please keep the conversation to where it started unless I explicitly invite a DM.
  3. Avoid labeling someone as “lacking in empathy” because they’re uncomfortable engaging. It’s fine to feel hurt or frustrated, but projecting that onto me was unfair and added to my discomfort.

I’m doing my best to approach this with a blank slate and give you the benefit of the doubt. I don’t hold any ill will toward you, but I need these boundaries respected for us to move forward. If they’re crossed again, I’ll have to block and report. I hope it doesn’t come to that.

[-] anindefinitearticle@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Thank you for coming towards me and expressing boundaries. I'm going to come towards you now. To do so I will focus on the boundaries of our experience that you have outlined. I'll go in reverse order.

  1. I'm sorry for criticizing your lack of empathy earlier in this interaction. It was inappropriate. I understand that everyone has busy lives and only so much energy to devote to any given interaction. I understand that your lack of empathy was situational, and not intrinsic to you. It would have been more precise for me to say that from my perspective it appears that you lacked the bandwidth for empathy earlier in this interaction. Even so, it is probably inappropriate for me to have a default expectation of empathy from others. I understand how my wording could make you think that I was accusing you of being incapable of empathy altogether. I did not mean to "label" you as intrinsically lacking in empathy, just to point out the lack of it in this interaction. Your interpretation was not my intention and I apologize for my imprecision. I also want to take this moment to thank you for investing some empathy in your latest reply to me.

.

  1. I can avoid DMing you if that's something you are uncomfortable with. Thanks for letting me know. I was only trying to inform you that I had added an edit to try to better express my empathy to you. Although I don't understand why and would appreciate elaboration, I'll avoid reaching out to you directly in the future if it makes you uncomfortable. I now better understand some of your earlier comments: I thought you were talking about inappropriate DMs specifically (e.g. dick pics or harassment or insults or whatever), not that you apparently have a problem with DMs generally. Now I know; thank you for communicating.

.

  1. I need to push back here a little bit because this is a key point of our disagreement and I believe it's something that we need to discuss if we want to reach a common understanding. My use of the term "cherry picking", as I have repeatedly tried to explain in this conversation, does not in any way minimize your experiences. I am only trying to call a spade a spade and have an honest discussion about the data being presented. I am using a common term to describe a type of data collection and presentation that almost universally applies to anecdotal evidence, simply by the nature of human psychology (e.g. confirmation bias) relevant to the generation of anecdotes. If we cannot call cherry picked data by its name, we cannot have a serious discussion about how to respond to it. I repeat what I have said previously in this thread: your cherry-picked personal experiences are valid and ought to be taken seriously if we want to solve the problem of sexual and gender-based harassment. Please take mine seriously as well. You have refused to engage with or even acknowledge them, which is the crux of my stated perception of a lack of empathy.

At this point I would normally offer to move this conversation into DMs, but I understand that that would make you uncomfortable.

I see that you are trying, and I hope that you see that I am as well. Since DMs are out, how would you like to proceed?

EDITED to fix numbering

[-] Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago

Hi, new person in this conversation. I hope you don't mind if I drop my two cents here.

Cherry Picking is the practice of choosing evidence that supports your argument while ignoring evidence against it. It is also almost always intentional, or a result of ignorance, and the term carries negative connotations. Cherry picking is an accusation of bad faith arguing, and people will interpret it that way regardless of your intent.

For ones own experiences, which are inherently anecdotal, the ancedotal fallacy might be more applicable. But it's only a fallacy if that narrow view is used to make a broad claim. I don't think pointing out the existence of a certain kind of conversation is very broad, and in the context of this thread just a few instances can have a large effect.

I would even go so far as to argue that you are commiting an argument from ancedote when you dismiss the claim that harrassment exists with only your ancedotal evidence of not having seen it yourself. They brought sources, and you dismissed their experience as not good enough with no supporting evidence. If you really want to dismiss the notion that their evidence is significant, you could try seeing how many people interacted with those posts compared to average interactions for those communities, or checking how often you visit those communities to put your own experiences in context. Anything but dismissing them and refusing to engage with the intent of the message.

It's true that everyone is susceptible to confirmation bias and dozens of other faults of logic, and it's also true that recognizing those faults is important for improving, but being so aggressive in the specifics of data validation can be alienating and will likely miss the intended message.

Just my two cents, dismiss as you please. I do hope this ends up being useful to someone though.

[-] spujb@lemmy.cafe 3 points 1 day ago

Cherry picking is an accusation of bad faith arguing, and people will interpret it that way regardless of your intent.

yup. thank you.

[-] anindefinitearticle@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

Cherry Picking is the practice of choosing evidence that supports your argument while ignoring evidence against it.

I agree with this definition.

It is also almost always intentional, or a result of ignorance, and the term carries negative connotations. Cherry picking is an accusation of bad faith arguing,

I disagree with this part.

you dismiss the claim that harrassment exists with only your ancedotal evidence of not having seen it yourself.

Not what I'm trying to do, and I've tried to be very explicit about that. I'm not dismissing that it exists, just that it's severe or pervasive enough to be worth warning people away from this place. Minor incidents happen everywhere and should be dealt with accordingly. Title IX uses the metric of whether actions are "severe or pervasive", and I think that that's appropriate here as well. The problems pointed out by spujb are a problem that we should try to address, but are not a problem worth reacting to with slash and burn techniques advised.

If you really want to dismiss the notion that their evidence is significant,

I don't. I really, really don't. I'm trying to be as clear as possible that their evidence is valid and significant and ought to be taken seriously. I keep saying this. Please read my words.

Just my two cents, dismiss as you please

Thank you for sharing. Your thoughts are welcome.

[-] anindefinitearticle@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

I know that you haven't responded to my other post yet, and I'd usually put this aside into a DM, but I just wanted to thank you for being willing to use this medium to litigate the boundaries of our shared reality.

this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2025
189 points (100.0% liked)

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