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Ada @lemmy.blahaj.zone

Updated - programming.dev defederation on hold

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.

======

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.

236 comments

  • This alone doesn't seem like something worth defederating over. It seems like they just got baited hard by Hexbear. Did the comment chain get censored? It doesn't seem like there's much active transphobia here, just ignorance of the issues at worst.

    From my cursory read, the only thing that reads as actually transphobic to me is when they say "And getting offended by it really isn’t helping your case here." in response to someone getting mad at being referred to as "they", and that itself was due to technical issues and not transphobia.

    Frankly, one angry snapback and a slap fight with Hexbear doesn't seem worth defederating over. I'm all for defederating bigots, but I don't want hapless allies getting caught in the crossfire.

    • Frankly, one angry snapback and a slap fight with Hexbear doesn’t seem worth defederating over.

      I have to agree.

      The bulk of Hexbear's userbase actively chooses to interact with others in the fediverse in antisocial ways, finding any excuse to be offended and generally make argumentative nuisances of themselves. This concerns us because they wrap themselves in trans-colored flags.

      I'm tired of Hexbear users stomping around Lemmy being jerks to everyone in the name of being trans. And I don't want us, or this instance, to suffer for it.

    • but I don't want hapless allies getting caught in the crossfire.

      Especially not for the sake of hexbear

      • But the admin here really likes Hexbear and has expressed the intention of federating with them the moment instance level blocking works

        Honestly this whole thing has me window shopping for another instance due to our admin again siding with Hexbear

    • Yeah I agree, this definately does seem like a knee jerk reaction which ultimately does more harm than good.

  • If I cut out everyone in my life that is 99% of the time a staunch ally, but still eats at Chick-Fil-A, my life would be very, very empty. No one is ever going to be a perfect ally / comrade, even queer people. I feel like it's especially telling that the person got so heated because they want to be an ally and don't want people to abandon them because they played a single stupid fucking game. Especially because there's no ethical consumption under capitalism, it's easy to death-of-the-author JKR without realizing the direct transphobia in the game. A lot of the direct transphobia in Hogwarts Legacy isn't obvious (like misgendering the token trans in the game files) and most people don't know about it. Does that suck? Yeah. But that doesn't mean those people are transphobes or bad faith actors.

    I get that we need to have a sharp eye to make sure bad faith actors don't fly under the radar, but false positives do a lot of harm too. I really feel like this came down more to Hexbear doing what Hexbear does and setting the entire thread on fire than it points to transphobia on the programming.dev admin's side. Of course people are going to get stupid when you're getting insulted, flamed, and spammed with stupid-ass emoji. If they're willing to defed from Hexbear and acknowledge the direct transphobia in the game, that would go a long way.

  • Copying a top level comment from @Poxlox@lemmy.world since I'm a blahaj user and 100% agree with what they're saying and the view won't get discarded.

    It seems many of the comments don’t agree that this issue is worth defederating. That whole thread was exhausting and filled with childish nonsense on both sides, fuck JKR fr but this is very silly. Please don’t defederate, and let people enjoy the game if they want to? Like, I’m pretty sure there are better fights to fight.

    • I appreciate the sentiment. I hope we don't defederate.

    • I am going to repost my comment here because it was removed with the top comment and I believe it is relevant to the discussion. I would also like to add to it as well.

      Here is my addition after I had a good night's sleep:

      I would prefer to federate with the larger lemmy community. However we are submitting ourselves to the standards and moderation practices of the larger lemmy community as part of that federation. In exchange, we should expect something in return, which should be a concrete goal.

      Getting other admins to agree that the things that are harmful to the trans community, such as transphobic video games that fund anti-trans causes, should be the low bar we ask of other lemmy communities. This is not a purity test, as others have suggested. This is a consensus that we should reach with lemmy communities about our shared reality.

      This consensus on our shared reality is desirable, because if the general lemmy community can agree on what is harmful to members of our community, then the larger lemmy community becomes a safer for place for members of our community. We are not asking the general lemmy community to stop playing the game or even to engage in a boycott, although we would of course appreciate that. We are specifically asking the general lemmy community to agree on what is harmful to trans people. This consensus on seemingly trivial issues establishes shared moderation practices that help us to achieve our goal of a safe place for trans and LGBTQ+ individuals on the internet. edit: typo

      Here is my original comment:

      This issue can seem insignificant and it can be tempting to want to brush it under the rug. I have personally have this urge to not to want to upset allies or potential allies. But Rowling as a famous, rich person does a lot of harm to trans people by contributing money to anti-trans causes. This game is the most recent piece of content that funds her ability to donate to those anti-trans causes. If this admin can understand that then we should be fine to stay federated.

      Unfortunately the nature of discourse in the post obfuscated this issue. Simply explaining the error in the admin’s argument backed up with sources should have been sufficient. The personal attacks do not add to the discussion and make it harder to arrive at any understanding. I think the conflict and ‘finding a win’ is sort of the goal with the tactics displayed in the thread, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about the issue seriously.

      The error in the admin’s argument is that the content of the game is not important when the profits of the game go to causes that undermine the well being of trans people.

      https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/hogwarts-legacy-release-brings-transphobia-harry-potter-franchise-rcna69628

      Again, I understand the nature of discourse made the topic seem childish. However, this is the fight we are fighting. There is no other hill for us to die on. We can only choose how we defend it, not who else is on the hill with us.

  • This article does a good job at explaining that Hogwarts Legacy is transphobic because some of the profits will be donated to anti-trans causes.

    https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/hogwarts-legacy-release-brings-transphobia-harry-potter-franchise-rcna69628

    Rowling herself has implied that her royalty checks are indirect indicators of the popularity of her views on trans rights. She will be profiting off Hogwart’s Legacy, and at least part of that profit will likely go directly into the hands of those responsible for pushing the fight to roll back trans rights, causes Rowling has implied she donates to.

    This article explains the antisemitic blood libel conspiracy theory that is a core part of the game's plot.

    https://www.gamepur.com/guides/hogwarts-legacys-goblin-uprising-anti-semitic-plot-controversy-explained

    Players can choose to align themselves with Ranrok, but the game explicitly paints this as an evil decision, aligning those players with the Dark wizard faction. On top of that, Ranrok and his Dark wizard allies in the Rookwood Gang have a plan to harness the power of this forbidden magic by abducting the player character (who is a teenager) and extracting and using their blood. This latter detail hews uncomfortably close to “blood libel” conspiracy theories which have been leveled at Jewish communities across the world for centuries, in which Jewish people were accused of abducting and murdering Christian children in order to use their blood in sacrilegious rituals.

    I spent some time watching videos on the game's plot. I couldn't find a specific line in a cut scene where the villain explicitly says he wants to harvest the protagonist's blood. But he does explicitly set some guys after the protagonist to try to kidnap them. They need the protagonist because they are the only one who can interface with the MacGuffins, ie plot devices. This MacGuffin interfacing seems to be hereditary in nature. Also, the villain's powers, specifically the graphics, definitely seemed blood themed to me.

    The game is transphobic and antisemitic. Arguing the game is not those things is transphobic and antisemitic. Whether or not the admin in question knew that is irrelevant.

    No one is mandated to educate people about any minority group that they are a part of.

    That being said, I wholeheartedly believe that it is in our interest as an LGBTQ+ community to educate people when an opportunity arises. So much hate and bigotry is derived from ignorance. The more we can do to educate people about transphobia the safer we and the people we care about will be irl.

    Ada is going out of her way to talk to the admin in question which she does not need to do, but I am glad that she is. She would be perfectly justified in defederating the instance without further discussion. Making a safe space for trans people means defederating from instances that espouse transphobia. By defederating, users on blåhaj zone will not see what this admin's posts or comments, regardless of where the posts or comments are made.

    This is what the post in question looks like if your lemmy account is on blåhaj.

    https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7199610

    Most of the comments are not visible because we are defederated from Hexbear.

    I'm really not a fan of how Hexbear users handled this. I am also not a fan of blåhaj being the admin's trans best friend. Despite that, I think this comment from the admin is relevant so I'm linking it here.

    https://programming.dev/comment/6173847

    I get the sense that this admin is engaging in transphobia and antisemitism because of their ignorance involving the game. I hope that in talking to the admin, Ada will be able to explain the error in the admin's position. Hopefully the admin will correct their position going forward and we can continue to federate with their instance. But I think that in the absence of that hypothetical success it makes sense to defederate.

    It took me a bit to think about it, but it's good that we take a proactive position on combating transphobia. Tolerating intolerance for the convenience it might bring, in not having to make multiple accounts or having more perceived allies, really doesn't do us any favors in the long run. If we don't stand up for ourselves we are only giving cover for transphobes to maneuver covertly in our online space. Rowling is a terf. Hogwarts Legacy funds her terf causes. We don't need blåhaj to be connected to instances that fail to understand that. The point is to have an instance that is a safe space for trans people and more broadly LGBTQ+ people.

    I'm adding this at the end, because this shouldn't matter, but I think some people think it does. I am trans. I am ethnically jewish.

  • A shame. It reads (particularly at the top of that thread) like an ignorant Admin and a typical Hexbear user(s).

    Please note when I say that that I am not suggesting or implying that the Admin was not in the wrong, but that when the Admin said:

    It’s literally the opposite of transphobic. It’s like they tried as hard as they could to negate everything bad JKR has ever said…

    That seems more like something someone ignorant of a lot of things would say and not necessarily what someone intent on being awful would say. The response to them, also from a Hexbear user, was:

    You’re a transphobic clown that cares more about your Harry Potter treats than trans people. Stop pretending otherwise.

    Maybe that's true and maybe it's not. Certainly in the remainder of that thread, the Admin falls pretty short of decent behaviour. However, I think if that first response to the Admin's response had not been so judgemental and had maybe seen it as ignorance rather than malice and level headedly gone on to explain why the Admin is wrong without the (i think we can all agree) standard Hexbear method of engagement, maybe (not definitely, but maybe) the outcome might have been an ally rather than a defederation.

    I suspect that I'm going to get responses to that paragraph stating it's not a trans persons responsibility to educate others. I do see that and understand it as I am part of a minority group that has been marginalised, persecuted and wished out of existence for hundreds if not thousands of years. I understand exactly how annoying and exhausting it is to feel like you have to continually explain why it's OK you exist.

    But I've also come to realise the difference between ignorance and wilful ignorance and that it's always worth making at least one try with someone. 99% of the time it gets you nowhere, but sometimes it gets you an ally.

    I understand the defederation decision and it doesn't affect my choice to be on Blahaj at all. I guess my hope is that the two Admin's can talk it out and that refederation is an available option but that if that doesn't happen, the PD Admin at least learns how they behaved is transphobic and they change their ways.

  • I'm torn about this. Although I agree that the admin of that instance is being pretty transphobic and abrasive, I don't know if it's bad enough to defederate. In addition, I really like some of the communities there (especially the Godot community) and this might be the thing to push me off blahaj.zone...

    It's a hard balance to strike, protecting vulnerable people from potentially harmful instances with bad policies, while at the same time, providing a valuable instance that people will want to use. Unfortunately, this will probably push me and some other individuals onto other instances that may have worse moderation and will likely expose us to a lot more bigotry. It's a tough situation, and I honestly don't know what the best option is.

    • on that note, does anyone have recommendations for a neutral and controversy free instance but that also isn't so quick to defederate?

      I understand instances like this wanting to defederate on principle and I'm sure it helps to curate a better experience for the people looking for that. Personally I'd rather make the choice myself to block communities I don't like and leave defederation on an instance level to just blocking illegal content and poor moderation and the like.

      • There typically will always be some form of controversy, tends to be just how the admins handle that

        I try to keep this instance federated with instances as much as reasonable (the only lemmy instances we really defederate with are burggit and rqd2 since their instance rules break our instance rules, lolicon+DMCA ignoring for the first and very questionable communities in the second (zoophilia, MAP)) and were dealing with the situation in this post internally currently to solve the situation here with blahaj. Should make a post in meta probably tomorrow

        I can give some recommendations of some instances with admins ive had positive experiences with (im one of the programming.dev leads though if that affects my stances on this)

        • startrek.website - I dont talk with these admins much but the instance tends to be pretty positively viewed across lemmy
        • slrpnk.net - one of the other niche instances. Admins seem relatively chill and I dont have anything negative regarding them. Active in helping stop spam accounts (defeds with hexbear + lemmygrad)
        • lemmings.world - has been pretty active in making tooling to help out a bunch of admins + the fediverse in general. Made uptime badges that some instances use, a linking system so you can link to something that sends people to the copy of it on their own instance, and a gui for fediseer which a bunch of admins use to keep track of defederations + endorsements (defeds with hexbear + rqd2)

      • I chose lemm.ee because of how rarely it defederates, and I'm not aware of any major controversy with it. Blahaj is still federated, as is hexbear, lemmygrad, and beehaw. For those who want to curate their own instance experience, I'm not currently aware of a better home (though if anyone knows of one, definitely let me know, of course!).

    • Unfortunately the best option will probably be to see if the defederation takes place then if it does move instances.

      It's a tough call but it's starting to really seem like the right one.

      The problem will be finding a new instance, I think the solar punk one might be a good place but I have to see who they're federated with first.

      Edit: Spleling

    • You can always make another account (on another instance) to view content from defederated instances.

      I'm not all that sad to see them go, honestly. I think proactively taking action against instances who tolerate or perpetuate transphobia is a good thing for an instance made to be safe for trans people.

      The admin could just as easily respond to all of this, there's no way he isn't aware, but he has thus far chosen not to.

      Edit: misunderstood that there was only one lead admin of the programming.dev instance.

  • Isn't Ategon the lead admin? And maybe I'm mistaken but I also thought she was trans?

    • The way the instance is set up theres multiple lead admins

      snowe tends to be in charge of infrastructure side of things while I do development and community management. snowe is listed first in the admin list but I basically have the exact same access to the site resources

      Not trans, just use any/all pronouns

236 comments