8mo ago

feddit.uk has been defederated from lemmy.blahaj.zone

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.

145 comments

I think it seems justified. Ava's moderation approach may seem heavy handed, but she hasn't done anything unjustified.
- Yeah, this is just the Fediverse operating as intended. Some instances are heavily federated, others are less so. This gives people options.
- 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 (c) 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.)
  
  Most of the people who aren't in favor of it are not even on blahaj.
- You wanna bet?

For anyone who's curious about the actual messages, I think these are them:
A woman is an adult female. A transwoman is an adult female who used to be male. It’s not difficult to grasp that they are different things. You can admit that and still believe that transwomen should be treated with dignity like anyone else.
Personally I don’t give a shit what bathroom people use or what they want to be referred to. I’ll go along with whatever… But a woman and a transwoman are different things, and it’s disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Always have been different things and always will be, no matter what the law states, now or in the future.
Kier’s words are still not transphobia. There is no fear, dislike, prejudice, discrimination, harassment, or violence in his statement. The scream of ‘transphobia’ is thrown around too much for anyone who disagrees with a narrow definition. Any disagreement is labelled as hate, and it’s silly.
Should a transwoman have the same rights and respect and opportunity as a woman (as per the legal definition)? Absolutely. Are they the same? No, they are not. Is that a hateful bigoted viewpoint worthy of scorn? I don’t believe so.
I don’t use the term cis. I use the term woman and you knew exactly what I meant. A blonde woman is a description of a woman’s hair colour and is a semantic-based response that is nothing to do with this point. You know this; it’s a foolish riposte that’s nothing at all to do with the clear and simple fact that a woman who used to be a man is not the same thing as a (cis) woman.
I can call it a woman who used to have a penis or a woman who used to be a man if you want me to be pedantic about it. Nothing to do with hair colour, or skin colour, or anything else except previously being a biological male and now identifying as a woman.
‘adult human female’ is not a dog whistle. It’s a legal and common-sense definition that you clearly understand but are trying to make out to be hate for some reason. I am not denying the legitimacy of transwomen; nor is Keir.
Transwomen and (cis) women are different things. And Transmen and (cis) men are different things. They have different names, which you yourself use for a reason. That reason being they are not the same thing. This is exactly the same as saying transwomen are not women, because they are not. They are transwomen.
It’s pretty simple.
- That’s actually not nearly as extreme as I was expecting
  
  Just because it's have a cordial tone, but it's pretty tranphobic all around the place. Master class on sealioning.
  
  It's worse imo, because it's the sneaky "reasonable" tactic that tries to pretend disconnection from its agenda. It's a filthy lying hat full of shit that doesn't even have the balls to present itself in truth.
  And it works, because when people see straight through it and call it out for what it is, we end up with "concerned" and well meaning groups gathering themselves together discussing in depth whether or not it was reallly that bad and the overton window shifts further rightward.
  
  Blahaj admins trumping up something minor into a crisis so they can claim they're being discriminated against and enact a wild overreactive response?
  I'm shocked. Shocked, I say. Well... not that shocked.
  I mean in fairness, the original messages are a little bit ignorant yes. Mostly I was just trying to quote the accurate background material so people could see the primary source information.
- Thank you for posting it. Good to know that Blahaj made the right choice for its users, which really wasn't obvious otherwise.
- I'm so annoyed by these pseudointellectuals who can't seem to grasp the relatively simple difference between "sex" and "gender".
  
  I don't understand what this has to do with the difference between sex and gender. Is "woman" a sex or a gender?
- I disagree with this, and I'd downvote it, but it sounds like they're just repeating what the supreme court said. I don't think it deserves a ban.
  Completely defederating with us over this is insane
- 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?
  
  Did you even read the text?
- Wow, de-federation (and trying to imply feddit.uk is transphobic) over this?
  This is definitely acting in bad faith.

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.
- 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.
  
  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.
- But also defederate an instance because their admins don’t comply their own rules doesn’t feel wrong.
  Read the "offending" text:
  https://sh.itjust.works/post/36737764/18213591
  This is hardly transphobia.
  
  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.
  
  Seperate but equal, ey buddy?
  
  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.
  
  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.

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.
- prides itself as being a safe-space for LGBTQ+ folks
  I wish that were true. They're banning people over the stupidest shit regardless if you're queer yourself. 😂 Fuck that place, that's not my community.
  
  Lotta people whining on that front...and in every case i've seen it's because they've been an outright transphobic dick, or doubled down and continued to spout harmful rhetoric after being warned they're doing so.
  An instance full of trans people does not owe their abusers a voice.

Hi, Feddit UK admin here, I'd just like to add a bit more context. We're currently discussing these comments in an admin chat, though this was apparently not communicated to Ada so she got the impression inaction was our position. Our position is not inaction, but these specific comments have become wrapped up in a policy discussion on how we facilitate discussion of our state's increasing hostile actions without allowing transphobia to propagate. I hope we can rectify the situation soon, but doing things by committee is never swift.
- Ada has said that she defederated because of a lack of response, not the content itself.
  Extra context is helpful, thanks.
- So it's been 2 weeks, what's happened? Cause it still feels like nothing but inaction, unless there was a followup I missed.
  
  The comments in question were removed last week and our internal position has been clarified, that there's no need to change our working definition of transphobia, albeit with some new considerations to allow people to talk about the transphobic actions of the British state. We want to make a statement, but the others seem busy with things outside of Lemmy.
  I'm currently working on some guidelines for c/uk_politics to help potentially less informed users navigate the current situation without inadvertently being transphobic.

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

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.

Another thread on !fediverse@piefed.social
https://lemmyverse.link/lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/42943344?scrollToComments=true

I asked the admin of my instance to defederate as well in a show of solidarity.
- From blahaj or .uk?
  
  Lmao, from feddit.uk.
- You should let the admins read the text for themselves first and make a decision.
- It seems like the feddit.uk admins are currently reviewing this and thats why they didn't respond. They should've said they were reviewing it instead of saying nothing but let them issue their statement before defederating as well. Maybe you don't follow communities from .uk that much but others would miss out on stuff. I think its wrong to label .uk as entirely transphobic bc of this

Transphobia? In the United Kingdom, you say?
I am dumbstruck.

World next. They do just as little about their transphobia
- 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..
- Agreed, if world was defederated little of value would be lost

145 comments