Just want to share this here because I think it’s kinda funny.
I joined the iiSU (emulation frontend) discord server a while ago, but never really interacted there. A big controversy popped up yesterday about some nazi imagery and transphobic content, followed with an apology that’s read a bit like a deflection really.
Ever since the server has been freaking out in all directions in the text channels, me and other users are calling for better moderation and for the channels to just be locked til they figure things out.
There’s a bunch of transphobes, zionists and nazis there, with basically no action being taken.
A nazi fucker starts using antisemitic emotes and language, I call for their ban for being a nazi, they don’t deny and then accuse me of being a communist and laughs at it, I tell them to follow their leader, I get immediately banned lmao.
The dude posted multiple antisemitic comments, but I guess telling a nazi to follow their leader is too much lol.
Edit: Looks like more stuff happened to the project in the meantime. The Memory Core just posted reporting that the head of the project, Usagi, stepped down, among other news regarding the project.
Edit 2: There’s grooming allegations you can find on this megathread, fucking hell.
I was following iiSU to try them out… Anyway, We can start a community based on emulation in here comrade. ‘Cause I don’t wanna support Nazis unintentionally.
Having an emulation comm here would be super cool! I’m not usually that knowledgeable on it, but being able to see more discussions here would be great. I was following iiSU because it genuinely looks amazing.
Also, looks like there have been some developments on the whole situation. I just received a newsletter from The Memory Core talking about it and saying that Usagi just stepped down from the project, the scope on the social features are getting cut back a bit and that the new leadership is more open to making the project Open Source.
I haven’t been in the server since yesterday because of the ban, but I didn’t expect things to go this direction. Tbh Usagi didn’t seem like a bad person, more like someone that got put on the spot and didn’t know how to properly operate under that pressure. His apology was lackluster but was nothing that couldn’t be easily fixed if he genuinely put a little bit of effort into understanding why it was bad.
The meme of discord mods being fascists and pedophiles exists for a reason. Expecting a discord mode from basically any large community (that’s not communist/socialist in nature) to do anything about fascists is gonna go over about as well as expecting a cop to stop a an ice agent.
Probably will be unpopular to say this because of who it was directed toward in this context, but I don’t think telling people to end themselves is something we should be doing, no matter who they are. It feels like in the ball park of using ableist language against somebody terrible, as if the fact that they are terrible excuses the ableism. The norm is that people who even have those kind of thoughts have them because of mental health issues, not because they’re a cornered genocidal leader of a fascist regime who is about to be caught. For some it can take them to a dark place just for the subject to be brought up at all, no matter who it’s directed toward. So, what does it accomplish to go in that direction and is it even going to hurt the intended target or more just trivialize issues that regular people struggle with? Another way to consider it is, if you believe a person has a conscience, why not try to reach them on that level? And if you believe they don’t and that what they’re saying implies they can’t even empathize with others, then why would such a statement toward them have any impact?
I get what you’re saying and I generally agree. That’s something I have been worrying about because I kinda of just said it automatically and I got worried it could cause distress on someone else unrelated that might struggle with such self-harm thoughts.
On the other hand, I would never, ever, direct this kind of thing towards anyone with any shred of humanity in them, and it should never have come to the point where transphobes, zionists and nazis just infected the place and the mods did jack shit for hours, there were a ton of LGBT people in that space being harassed, there were also a bunch of Pissrael supporters and even settlers in the server, while also having Jewish people being mocked and harassed by that nazi by just sending the shit he was sending there. I wish I had screenshots to show here, but the fucker was just emitting hitler particles.
To quote Sartre: “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
Yeah, in case it’s not clear, I’m not saying you should have “debated” the nazi or something. I’m not sure what would be the best approach in terms of direct confrontation when you can’t deal with them physically. Some of it may depend on what outcome you want and in the heat of the moment, seeing people say horrible shit and harass others, it may be whatever first thought comes to mind is what gets said (I know I have those moments myself). Something that does come to mind for me is that discord’s own community guidelines has a line about hate speech: https://discord.com/guidelines/
- Do not use hate speech or engage in other hateful conduct. This includes the use of hate symbols, imagery, and claims that deny the history of mass human atrocities.
We consider hate speech to be any form of expression that either attacks other people or promotes hatred or violence against them based on their protected characteristics. (See our Hateful Conduct Policy Explainer for more.)
I fully expect discord to wield it in a liberal “both sidesism” corporate kind of way, but nevertheless, the reason I bring it up is you might have been able to report them straight to discord and gotten something to happen, while continuing to try to push back against the nazi garbage. Might still be able to now. And/or reminding the mods that their server is violating discord guidelines and could get banned for that reason.
Though I haven’t seen it directly happen, I have heard stories of discord servers get axed by discord moderation just for having the wrong kind of content on it and getting reported to discord. So going that route is not something I’d do lightly, but if you believe they’re just letting it fester as a hotbed of that shit, it might be worth trying.
In general, I think there are times it’s worth shamelessly tapping into liberal institutions to deplatform these fuckers, where possible. So long as there are institutions that at least pretend to care, might as well rather than having to carry out the whole fight ourselves when we’re not always well organized for it.
Either way, thank you for pushing back against it. We do need people who are doing that where they can.
I fully expect discord to wield it in a liberal “both sidesism” corporate kind of way
Oh it would be even worse than that, there’s full on abhorrent stuff being hosted on Discord servers. Discord is not encrypted, so they know full well the kind of shit they host from people and they do nothing about it unless trouble comes knocking at their door. I doubt Discord would enact any of the shit they have in their guidelines without pressure to do so. I did report the nazi just in case before I even typed anything at them in chat.
In general, I think there are times it’s worth shamelessly tapping into liberal institutions to deplatform these fuckers, where possible. So long as there are institutions that at least pretend to care, might as well rather than having to carry out the whole fight ourselves when we’re not always well organized for it.
I agree 100%. I just don’t think there’s much that can be done in this case.
Also in this particular case, shit hit the fan and people online on other communities are already talking about the shitshow on that server, I posted links in the original post with updates I found online, and it doesn’t look good.
I’m glad I don’t use Discord
Also Nazis should kill themselves lol
Discord increasingly gatekeeps and disappears a lot of the mods/indie games/discussion forums. I DESPISE its pushed everywhere and information/links are so obscure not really searchable.
Discord got enshittified years ago and it really does blow that none of the alternatives are that popular. Even Skype wasn’t relevant for this long.
Holy shit. Thats some fucked up westoidism.
No way. I was actually looking forward to iiSU
Yeah, that sucks. To be fair this is all very recent, so it’s best to wait a couple of days to see what happens next, there are queer people in the development team after all.
Honestly, my biggest concerns outside what I just talked here is that the project won’t be FLOSS, which is a death sentence if problems happen, and that I doubt they will be able to properly implement all the features they recently showed up in their showcase. If they can’t even do basic moderation of a discord server, how the hell are they gonna handle all the social features promised?
