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Ada @lemmy.blahaj.zone

feddit.uk has been defederated

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.

197 comments

  • 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.

  • 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.

    • 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.

  • 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.

  • Oh man, that's truly disheartening to see, especially how I noticed a lot more people that are being just unnecessarily mean 😟

    Thank you for taking the appropriate steps to deal with this 😄

  • If instances aren't willing to moderate themselves when it comes to transphobia they should get the boot. I hope more instances defederate feddit.uk over this. Might make them change course and rethink if they should maybe moderate better.

  • I'm coming from a small brazillian instance and we're also getting attacks on the brazillian trans community, on our case is the medical association, dictating that doctors couldn't treat trans kids.

    I asked my admin to support you and to de federate them until they change their policy, hope other instances join too.

  • Blahaj user and former Brit here ... well done Ada for consistency and transparency regarding this.

    The whole "let it play out" attitude really says it all, it shows cowardice and a lack of leadership ... kind of like the current prime minister.

  • I'm not a blåhaj user, but I really hope the feddit.uk mindset on this doesn't spread to other instances.

    Why do divisive people have to care so much about letting people do what they want if it doesn't affect them? What someone wants to do with their body does NOT affect you, but your open derogatory statements about them DOES affect them!

    • The real answer is:

      They are too dense to realize haven't realized that what they're doing IS bigoted BECAUSE they've been so deeply in that culture for so long that it's a much deeper question than they realize, and then get caught in the insidious (oh god I'm about to use the term 😭) neo liberal mindset of letting all the hatred and blatant manipulation fly free, unable to consider the problems or times in which they would not allow that stance to themselves, likely because they've never had to and may never have to experience anything like it.

      Or, they literally are just bigoted and being shitty bigots.

    • Some people will endlessly bicker about the most stupid shit. Like, who the fuck even cares if someone wants to be a woman or a man? That's like the least problematic thing nowadays.

      • Unfortunately even moreso in our region of origin, buddy.

        The assumption that enforcing these viewpoints on everyone is "for the greater good" is a flawed one, as people who do not share their beliefs WILL NOT share the "greater good" to begin with. I will not enforce my beliefs on anyone else without their willingness.

    • This has always been my stance. If it doesn't affect me, then I am always on the side of people's rights. Automatically. Even if it does affect me, I'm still more likely to be in favor of people's rights. Especially if the people in question are losing rights. I simply don't understand people who think loss of rights stops at people they don't like. It just doesn't work that way. A loss of ANY right against ANYONE is a personal loss of rights.

      For instance, I'm not LGBTQ+. But I will fight like hell for their rights. Not just because it's the right thing to do, but because I know what happens when the LGBTQ+ people are gone. These are innocent people who just want to live their life and are under constant threat from physical and legal harm. The fact that Christians get so up in arms about even seeing two men kiss, or holding hands pisses me off on a level I can't describe. Especially when you consider the huge proportion of child molestation in the church. And it is very common that that child molestation was against a child of the same sex as the adult.

      I'm not saying there's a causation there, but there's definitely correlation. And that correlation isn't homosexuality of the abuser. The correlation is power. Teaching, clergy, Hollywood, right wing, left wing, it happens on both sides, on all levels, and of moderates as well. But the one thing that always unifies EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. is power. 100%, every single time.

      However, Republicans tend to have power/Dom fantasies at a FAR higher rate than Democrats. And again, I'm not saying that's a causation, but it is a correlation.

      Power fantasies are insanely dangerous, even if the person is a "lowly" cook. It's potentially civilization ending if the person has the power of the US military. And I've yet to ever hear a Democrat fantasize about being president. Honestly even thinking about it... Fuck that. I can't handle that kind of responsibility. But I guess if trump "can" do it, then I could as well.

      • I agree 100% about the dangers of the power tripping fantasy. The best leaders are the ones who were picked to be in a position of power for their views on the world, not for the power they wanted to be granted to begin with.

        Take Pope Francis (RIP): he came from a less wealthy part of the world, had an extremely open mindset on letting people of all varieties be whomever they wanted to be, and ended up being a genuinely good role model for people to follow (and I'm not even Christian lol).

        And you have power tripping assholes, many of whom are Catholics, who hate being inclusive and refuse to follow their religion's literal leader

  • Thanks Ada!

    I hope the feddit.uk admins reconsider their approach to moderating transphobia, but in the mean time I appreciate your protective stance. 💗

197 comments