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feddit.uk has been defederated (self.main)

submitted 2 days ago by ada to c/main

197 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[-] FirstMajesticComet 5 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

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.

[-] ToastedPlanet 1 points 4 hours ago

Thank you Ada!

[-] yuri@pawb.social 12 points 8 hours ago

ada continues to be the realest MVP

[-] ghen@sh.itjust.works 11 points 9 hours ago

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.

[-] comfy@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 hours ago

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.

[-] kittenzrulz123 9 points 9 hours ago

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.

[-] fishos@lemmy.world 14 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

[removed by mod]

[-] comfy@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 hours ago

you're making drama

projection, lol

[-] Snowpix@lemmy.ca 27 points 9 hours ago

Blahaj doesn't allow transphobia, period. It is a safe space for those who don't have anywhere else safe to go on the Fediverse. If an instance refuses to deal with its users being transphobic, then it gets defederated, simple as that. It's better to defederate from problematic instances than to allow Blahaj's userbase to have to deal with transphobia, both casual and direct. If its users wanted to be around that, they wouldn't be on Blahaj. It's pretty telling that 99% of Blahaj's vocal userbase is supportive of Ada's decision here.

The feddit.uk admins failed to remove transphobic nonsense from their instance and went silent when told how and why it was a problem by Ada including violating feddit.uk's rule 1. Hence, defederation until they get rid of that transphobic nonsense.

[-] Ava 10 points 9 hours ago

This instance (and I refer to the instance to intentionally be inclusive of both Ada and our community) takes issue with certain kinds of content, at least while we're on our local accounts.

Admins from another instance have taken the stance that this sort of content is not, by their own evaluation, harmful enough to be removed from their instance. That's a subjective choice about what they feel is right for their users, even if I disagree with the position.

Blahaj has decided that exposing the community to that sort of content, knowing it will not be removed by the remote instance, is not worth doing. However, in the interest of transparency and allowing users choice, has made sure its community is aware of the change.

Blahaj users who still wish to engage with the instance can easily still do so with accounts homed on other instances, should there be Communities or content that are of value to them.

What part of this do you have an issue with? This is how most people SHOULD be living their lives. If there's something that doesn't enrich your life, find ways of mitigating its impact. Don't like some vegetables? Find new recipes or supplement the nutrition otherwise. Uncle is kind of a douchebag? Stop going to holidays at his house. Friend holds political views you disagree with? Make sure your engagements with them are still something you enjoy.

Nobody is saying that there won't be aspects of life that are negative AND unavoidable. People have shitty jobs, terrible families, poor health. Why should that mean they should accept worse things in the parts of their life they do have discretion?

[-] GiantChickDicks@lemmy.ml 11 points 11 hours ago

Neat opinion. Bye.

[-] fadingembers 11 points 11 hours ago

Thank you Ada. I really appreciate having a safe space like this.

[-] UpperBroccoli 6 points 10 hours ago

This is the way.

[-] CapriciousDay@lemmy.ml 9 points 12 hours ago

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.

[-] svcg 1 points 8 hours ago

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."