RotundLadSloopUnion [they/them, love/loves] @hexbear.net

1d ago

Defederation from feddit.uk - info enclosed and feedback requested

Due to recent concerns surrounding feddit.uk's enforcement (or lack thereof) of policies against transphobia, and lemmy.blahaj.zone's unilateral defederation of that instance, it's clear we need to take action in order to protect our users.

For context, please see the following threads:

feddit.uk has been defederated (via blahaj)

Emperor (feddit.uk admin)'s response

Hexbear thread with further context and discussion

Seeing as the feddit moderation team's policies clearly do not align with our own stances on transphobia, bigotry, and reactionary rhetoric generally, we are considering two different options, with feedback requested for whichever route you would prefer (NOTE: we are primarily concerned with how trans users and other marginalized groups feel):

- Unilaterally defederate from feddit.uk due to lax enforcement of rules against transphobia and their admin citing the recent UK anti-trans court ruling as one of the reasons for this

- Remain federated with the instance at large while banning their admins, mods and any transphobic users, along with those who violate Hexbear CoC generally (the same way we handled issues with dbzero a while back)

We want to communicate these discussions we've been having behind the scenes to the userbase at large and allow those most impacted to give their input on how to proceed. Please give any feedback below.

99 comments

I'm trans; I say fuck 'em

If I'm reading the feddit.uk comments correctly, UK passed some transphobic law defining "woman" and that somehow affects how they moderate their UK based internet forum.
From burgerland this is absurdly inconceivable, but the UK is know for not having any sort of free speech laws.
Whether its for feddit.uk or the UK as a whole

I'm not voting, but I just wanna say, in a reasonable society, opposing someone's rights would get you beat up

No tolerance. Feddit.uk can oust their mods and admins themselves or move to different servers.

:ukkk:
(i'm trans fyi)

transfemme here.

As much as it would be nice to have around for the few posts that are relevent to me I'm gonna hae to go with
just because of the excuse. Not only does the court case change nothing, but even if it did they should be enforcing their current anti-transphobia rules until they've reached a decision on how to implement it. They aren't, and are holding up an irrelevent court case as an excuse.

Fuck a Nazi TERF instance. And that user in question with the “adult human female” dog whistle bullshit can face the fucking wall.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Shitty ass rule that just means transphobia and other bigotry is acceptable as long as it's a ”subtle” dogwhistle.

All white english to be banned, all goes according to plan

There are only two other instances worth being federated with, and this site should always prioritize bring a safe space for marginalized people.

I say try
but
the first sign of it not working.

ukkk is yuk

Big

We should 100% detach from any instance that harbors transphobes.

Not voting either way here. But I'm further of the opinion that we are still attempting to compromise by having two mutually exclusive goals in one instance - Propagandising libs and having a safe space for our comrades. Achieving both on the same site doesn't really seem possible.
- I do all my propagandizing on Lemmy.ml, Hexbear is useful for those we can manage to bring over here but is more valuable as a safe space for our comrades than for agitprop.
- I don’t think hexbear should have outreach as goal (and I’m not sure it even does). Hexbears policies are not perfect but it’s the only space on the internet I know of where I’m not constantly confronted with bigotry and where most concerns of marginalised groups are actually taken seriously. There are plenty of spaces (even other lemmy instances) where you can educate libs if you want to.

The admin's response is just very strange. Why does British law matter here? No one expects or wants forum rules to have a formal legal basis. It's something you make and enforce based on what kind of community you want to have, and if they're fine with transphobia because it's legal to be a transphobe, they clearly don't want the kind of community we do and we should defederate.
- Why does British law matter here?
  It doesn't, they're just insufferable reddit-tier losers

I just like seeing the British flag burn. Tiocfaidh ár lá.

defed gang keeps winning uphold socialism in one lenmy thought

We defeded from blahaj.zone for the same reason. It would be pretty hypocritical to stay federated with them, especially since the transphobia
is even worse. There’s just no excuse for not banning someone who calls trans women "it".

No one in the world should ever have to speak to a British person

I think users can hide/block comms/posts they don't like.
Heh heh CoC

if they defederate from us for being pro-trans, that looks worse for them than us preemptively defederating. Now we know to agitate around that specific issue and it's a good time to confront britishers in their home threads. I'm fine either way but think we could do something funny which makes them show their ass+hair more.

Every nation/country-specific instance can go, tbh. They always have the worst users.

first to make their admins seethe

24 hours later because it's the right thing to do for our users
- I like this it is fun
  
  we should not dunk at the expense of our own users, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take

too much extra work just to keep around a few users who might be able to hang with us. if the instance allows transphobia, that's just more transphobia for us to potentially see an clean up ourselves, with no real way of addressing the root cause of it if it does end up becoming a problem. save yourselves the headache and ban it

but trans women are the ones getting the vast majority of abuse and if the ladies wanna tussle i'm down to tussle

if they aren't good enough for shark site they're not good enough for bear site
- When are you going to leave the park with the sharks and come into the lair with the bears?

is better bait

I don't think I've ever seen one of them on our local comms so I don't really care to weigh in one way or another.

I will say having someone in a position of authority with the name "Emperor" is incredibly sauceless. If you're in control of something online your name should either be like "Dave" or "Weepo Gleepo"

The situation for my trans siblings in the UK is absolutely dire rn. When the courts and the governments are out to strip them off their rights, they need solidarity, not backstabbing. Reacting to these developments by an internal discussion if transphobia should now be allowed on the instance means the admins have already chosen barbarism.
- Yeah, absolutely despicable shit from the feddit.uk admins.
  It should go without saying that there was no need for a discussion for our instance. Hexbear admins were already in unilateral agreement that transphobic content isn't acceptable.
- Reacting to these developments by an internal discussion if transphobia should now be allowed on the instance means the admins have already chosen barbarism.
  My vote is also
  and quite frankly I see this problem in the other option.
  As the old saying goes, if there's ten people dining with a Nazi at the table, there are eleven Nazis at the table. If you're choosing to say on the transphobia instance...

'ate transphobes
'ate the UK
'ate blood sauage
love my comrades
Simple as

I think maintaining the ability for people here to agitate there is important.

I dont think we should be taking into account whatever blahaj does before making our own deciaions, but i also dont think we need to discuss defederating from an instance chock full of loosely moderated reactionaries

No more half measures, walter

i refuse to be outflanked by blahaj lmao. have we acquired the nuclear warheads yet? britannia delenda est

::: spoiler Deeper Thoughts I, personally, prefer
, because I think opportunities to educate are good and, when they fail, bullying is fun. And, the less of the fediverse we connect with, the more bigotry is allowed to fester.
But,
is probably the healthy direction for our corner of the fediverse. I want my comrades to feel safe and supported. I think that "we gotta consider how to interpret blatant government transphobia" is a disgusting response from the mods, and that attitude is rapidly gonna turn feddit into another nazi bar. While we can engage and oppose bigots, we cannot change another site's culture when it's being poisoned from the top. The dbzero move was funny, and correct, because that instance has an anarchist tendency, and their userbase's interests overlap with the hexbear mission. A site with an identity based on geographic happenstance does not share that overlap.
::: spoiler Deeper spicy problematic thoughts Honestly, props to
. I kinda want to refederate with them; give us a fresh batch of libs to spar with, encourage them to chase the chasers out, show their trans and anarchist users what real (as in honest, not as in world) solidarity can look and feel like. They like giving tankies shit, we like giving libs shit; but I think given the political realities of the world today it might be time for a slightly bigger tent.