I’m calling for https://lemmy.ml/u/[email protected], the most prolific user of the transgender comm here on lemmy.ml, to be immediately unbanned and nutomic to be removed as admin. It is good and correct to leak the DMs of transphobes.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @cypherphunks
edit: you can find more info from kristinas post here and beavers post here
edit 2: proof, also beaver was banned from the whole instance modlong
edit 3: For trans people looking for a safer instance, I suggest Hexbear. They have a very active trans user base and are extremely supportive.
Oh god … this happened?!
non-trans person sharing their perhaps invalid and uninformed opinions
As someone who was calling for easing up on dogpiling on nutomic in that thread, banning beaver here, and the instance, is IMO not ok, at all.
Nutomic, you were probably pissed off about the leaking, I think most would get that. But as an admin here and a core dev, I think you have to do way way better than use your admin rights here as a weapon against someone you no longer like and who posted on another instance. If you think there’s a situation to sort out, it’s gotta be done more openly than this.
Rule 1 of this instance (against transphobia) probably applies.
No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.
As in, this moderation action was likely against instance rules. How else is a minority community to combat their oppressors than post about what ever communication they receive? To punish them for that communication however inappropriate it would have been from a less oppressed person is therefore punishing them and then coming under rule 1.
There were plenty of other ways to handle this. Banning a user looks a lot like petty and unreliable admin-ing. Especially when the issue of whether you are a transphobe is on the table and instead of addressing that you’ve chosen use your power against the transgender community here.
I get that leaking personal chats is always a dodgy thing, but in this case, I really hope the lemmy ml admins sort this out.
It’s really bad to weaponise admin powers against an oppressed minority. Certainly makes me question my membership here and the admins values. And is a particularly bad look for an instance many are criticising for having power crazy admins, most of which is red scare crap but totally justified in this case I suspect.
[I’m neither transgender nor a tankie, but instead just a rando browsing “all” who has no dog in this fight (aside from a general preference toward egalitarianism and against bigotry). I’m only commenting because this appears to be starting to spill over into issues that are relevant to the Fediverse at large.]
Nutomic, you were probably pissed off about the leaking, I think most would get that.
Hell no, not even a little bit! There’s no such thing as “leaking” a PM* because the recipient has the right to publicize it! It’s fucking nuts to send a message to somebody – especially one that pisses them off – and then expect them to keep it secret for the sender’s benefit. If the sender doesn’t like it, his recourse is to not fucking send the message in the first place!
The notion that the recipient of a PM has any kind of obligation toward the sender is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve read on this site in a while, and that’s saying a lot since I’ve been reading about Trump and shit. Actually going so far as to ban somebody for a reason so pants-on-head moronic is absolutely beyond the pale.
By the way, I’m assuming that you (@maegal) are saying things like “I get that leaking personal chats is always a dodgy thing” because you’re trying to be charitable to better persuade Nutomic. If you actually believe that nonsense, then you need to get your head screwed on correctly, too.
(* unless somebody hacks the server to obtain PMs that he wasn’t a party to, which I assume is not what we’re talking about here.)
I don’t think we’re that far off from each other.
In saying “always a dodgy thing” I meant something closer to “always potentially” where obviously it depends with transphobic messages being a relevant example.
That being said, I think this is a scenario where people will naturally differ in their expectations. “Obligation” as you put it is a very strong word and nothing like what I was alluding to. But I think many would subscribe to the idea that direct messages are a relatively protected space. Some less so. All with exceptions and “lines” that probably differ too. I briefly asked someone I consider more ethical than me, and they were probably more inclined to think of DMs as protected than me. Obviously no excuse for abuse, but presumed private.
I also suspect that there are generational differences here too. Older people whose Internet lives precede facebook’s push toward merging real and online life might have a greater inclination toward expecting privacy online.
In this particular case, it was clearly devs/mods talking shop, so clearly less of a public discussion. But you never know. Maybe nutomic felt like they could share their more speculative “theories”without worrying about coming off as crazy. Dunno.
Personally, I’d like a culture where DMs are presumed protected and private. But maybe that’s just me.
Come over to hexbear. We also have the best emoji game and it’s not even close.
Hexbear is 100% the safest for trans people on the fediverse, I definitely suggest heading there if you want a safer place. Its admin’d by a lot of trans people and has an extremely active trans community with thousands of comments and messages per day
I’m on lemmy.ml because I like checking all trans spaces on the fediverse, but obviously with a transphobe in charge that makes that harder. Of course, that also means wading through a lot of horseshit, which I’m hoping to help with
I ventured out of hexbear once, just to see what other coms I was missing out on due to defederation. I quickly came back once I saw all of the “horseshit” as you mentioned. It just wasn’t worth it for my psychological health.
This is a pretty reasonable opinion
I swear, petty and vindictive banning is far worse on Lemmy than it ever was on Reddit, and particularly on ML instances.
If I were to indulge in a bit of armchair psychology, I’d say it is a side effect of venerating authoritarianism.
Maybe it’s worse on ML instances. I honestly would start explaining it by looking at how much red-scare crap they go through.
But generally, I think you’re right … I’ve seen ban-happy mods too, and not on ML instances.
I’d say it’s people learning how to manage decentralisation/federation. It gives people a greater sense of ownership and power and so you get some power tripping and a new source of drama and identity politics (based on instances). Kinda sad actually.
Fair point – having power decentralized certainly makes it more common for individual actors to act unilaterally in this way. However, in my experience the most egregious examples have been users being banned from Lemmy.ml for simply expressing a contrary opinion in a non-aggressive manner.
For a community that is so actively political, the tolerance for an open exchange of views is surprisingly low.
For a community that is so actively political, the tolerance for an open exchange of views is surprisingly low.
I’m not over much of that activity, but I think the more accurate way to think about it is that they’re actively communist, and actively critical of the west and its imperialism/captialism. So they’re coming from a pretty different perspective than middle/centrist westerners and find some of the presumptions/beliefs of westerners outright awful lies. Whatever the truth is, they’re not trying to run a perfectly open forum to try to convince everyone of communism, when it comes to politics that is. So anything that starts with a critical view of China is immediately viewed suspiciously and likely to get moderated (depending I’d say). I understand how many would find that problematically censorial. Thing is though that they hold a minority position that tends to piss a lot of people off, so a good amount of defensiveness is just a natural consquence I’d say. In my experience, the worst part about their communist beliefs have been all of the loud anti-communists they’ve triggered.
Yeah, that would definitely explain the hypersensitivity when it comes to any criticism of China or the USSR, valid or otherwise.
It still strikes me as counter-productive, though, as there are many people on Lemmy who have capitalism-critical views who could be persuaded to shift further left or become more interested in socialist causes. Banning them, or censoring them, or labelling them as idiotic liberals, only serves to undermine that endeavor. Socialism is dying fast enough in the west as it is.
Removal as an admin isn’t far enough. Needs a non-negotiable permaban. Unambiguous transphobia simply shouldn’t be tolerated at all.
Preface: I’m a cis guy, so my opinion may be very well invalid
I don’t understand why there aren’t more people arguing for this. Why on earth does a leftist community not instaban someone spewing transphobia, especially so if they’re on a position of power?
It’s really frustrating how often in IRL leftist spaces there is often still quite a lot of (trans)misogyny, often more carefully presented but still kinda there. The whole rejecting pronoun tags for some contrived technical reason strikes me as in that same vein. Most non-leftist spaces are categorically worse, but it still sucks when your hometown communist party is routinely posting cringe about "bourgeois decadence’.
♫ EXCISE THE VULGAR MATERIALIST ♫
♫ FOR THE STRUGGLE OF THE CLASS ♫
♫ EXCISE THE VULGAR MATERIALIST ♫
♫ HE REFUSES TO CLEAN HIS ASS ♫
I’m just an occasional lurker here so I’m pretty out of the loop, but wouldn’t it make more sense to just migrate to an instance without an openly transphobic admin? Isn’t being able to do that supposed to be one of the big advantages of a federated service?
There’s also the issue of Nutomic being a core Lemmy dev. While something can be said about detaching the art from the artist, having alleged* bigots be involved in the long-term planning of a project raises question of whether they’ll let those opinions influence the direction of the project. For example, if somebody created a pull request to add pronouns to user profiles and it was rejected, would it be for a valid technical reason or bigotry with plausible deniability.
* I say this because I’m not looking to get instance banned at this time.
Unfortunately, there’s no friction-free way to migrate. On Mastodon, for example, you can migrate between instances by exchanging codes between your old and new accounts and, in time, your posts, comments, memberships, followers, etc will move across automatically. On Lemmy, however, that’s not an option and you start from fresh with on the new instance.
You can import/export settings (which includes which communities you follow). Although I’ve heard some instances have issues and it doesn’t include you posts/comments/etc.
but wouldn’t it make more sense to just migrate to an instance without an openly transphobic admin
That’s really just too passive for me at least, much prefer to occupy a space and make the transphobes leave.
Is that even possible in this case? Seems like you’re guaranteed to lose a fight with an admin unless you’ve got another admin on your side.
I have had broadly positive interactions with dessalines in the past, and I don’t envy him the situation he is now placed in.
I prefer to possibly lose a fight than give up before it starts.
Would Nutomic say something back?
Apologies, I just woke and can’t quite sort all the details. But I’m on the side of anyone who promotes acceptance. I’m against anyone who is a bigot. I support safe and welcoming communities.
good vibe 💗
As someone that was there for Nutopic’s defense of loli/CSAM I am disappointed this person is still an admin. No amount of bigotry should be tolerated just because the bigot is a “good” dev.
I say good in quotations because we have seen time and again how bias on the side of developers influences the way a platform developes wrt the concerns of oppressed groups. A prime example is one of the Mastadon devs failing to provide POC and other minority groups effective tools to combat bigotry and track offenders.
oh i had no idea about this, yikes. and you’re absolutely right re: mastodon
When I think of the Lemmy dev team, I’m always reminded of Mao’s Combat Liberalism. They should really give that a good read.
God damn, I agree with Marcie.
Nutomic should self-crit and step back
💖
I just think it’s sort of interesting that this particular event is what has clued some people into the fact that a not insignificant portion of the online leftist community views LGBT issues in the context of this geopolitical campism. These are the same attitudes which cause some in the community to routinely look past other notable anti-LGBT groups on the international stage, simply because they stand in opposition to bigger bads. These attitudes have never been hidden, and I have always thought they were expressed and supported with a startling lack of nuance and consideration for the people who are actually injured by them.
I think you are close to getting it but not quite.
the online leftist community views LGBT issues in the context of this geopolitical campism
Most of the online left oppose, say, Russia’s LGBT laws. Do we think its grounds for invading Russia? No, bombs do not discriminate against queers, transgender people will be drafted and forced to detransition, supply lines for necessary medicine for trans people are disrupted, etc.
Nutomic and ilk like him are ultimately not very ideological and not very well read. They like a corner of a pretty picture but do not see the whole, these people should not be given any position over others.
I think I know what you’re trying to point to, but I do not think this is an honest portrayal.
I saw episode one of a docuseries called Deaf And… earlier today, the episode is titled “Deaf Identity”. And one of the interviewees, Dr. Aaron Kelstone, professor of performing arts at NTID, said something that I find relevant to this topic.
People come here [to NTID] and find out what a Deaf identity is, then come to realize, “Oh, that’s not the only thing I am.” For your entire life, the focus is on your hearing. But now you can explore– “I’m also straight,” or “I’m gay,” or “I’m…” There is so much more to who you are. You discover so much more in your identity, whereas before you felt so limited. Everything is about “I can’t hear.” But now, it’s not just that anymore– you are Deaf and all those other things.
Or in other words, it is audism, just this constant background oppression that pervades the lives of the Deaf people who are denied the opportunity to spend time in spaces around fellow Deaf people, that prevents many of them from forming a strong and cohesive identity outside of just being the “Deaf Island” in the “Sea of Hearies”. So these Deaf people need to solve the most pressing issue(s) in their lives, before they can solve the other issues that they face. And for myself it has been similar, from the “I’m not a bisexual trans girl, it’s just not possible, I’m just confused because I’m autistic and fatherless” of my teen years to the “consumption of animal products is profoundly wrong, but I cannot stop doing it until I can reliably buy and prepare my own meals” of today.
And I think on some level if we “personify” different countries, we can say a very similar thing about LGBT+ life in these countries that are being plundered by imperialism. That because of this constant deprivation that these countries face, that the actual infrastructure needed for a successful LGBT+ rights movement cannot form in these countries. This does not mean that their bigotry should be excused or left entirely unopposed, but that it should be seen in its proper context. And the proper context for Lemmy is that this is a FOSS Reddit clone and Nutomic could simply stop being an ass whenever he wants. And as long as he continues to be an ass, his actions should have consequences.
I would largely agree with your premise if I believed that Nutomic will face any consequences at all. I will be happy to be proven wrong about this apparent double standard.
Don’t mind me just enjoying the drama hehehehehhe
It is not good and illegal (at least in EU) to leak any kind of private messages to the public. If you think other person commited a crime than you should report it to the authorities.
Also I don’t see anything transphobic in the Nutomic’s message. This looks like a typical outrage made simply to satisfy hate brigades on the internet. And I see a lot of these hate groups recently, especially in open-source community.
Honestly, just get out of .Ml and let it fade the way hexbear has
I wouldn’t call hexbear faded in the slightest. You may have them hidden/blocked/whatever to that effect
MAUs is a decent measure, but last I know (admittedly old data) Hexbear had quite the outsized post/comment rate for their users compared to other instances. I don’t know if the higher MAU count on the other instances counterbalance that at this point, but I think that’s at least worth something in determining the size of their presence on the fediverse
Yeah the data is interesting. Each individual in hexbear posts a lot more than your standard user, but they almost exclusively post to hexbear. Other instances bleed more into the broader fediverse and interact with each other more frequently.
Fading away is when they’re still the big lemmy boogyman and are one of the most active instances
It is not them who should fade away
It is ye
Yer ilk has single-handedly redditized the spirit of true Lemmy, you {redacted}, may you burn in hell!
Hexbear hasn’t really faded, their trans megathread hits 2-3k comments regularly, so it is very relevant to trans affairs on lemmy. They have an extremely active trans community and are very supportive of them, going so far as defederating from problematic instances that have a lot of people that harass trans people on them.
Its a more strict community that doesn’t fuck with the wider fediverse on purpose, they care about their queer users. And 66% of hexbear is queer, by the way, and about half are trans.
Wasn’t there a whole drama with hexbear, like tankies brigading and such? Or am I mixing this all up with some other instance?
If you mean trans people telling transphobes and racists to fuck off, I mean yeah they did that a lot
That’s awesome, but wasnt there a whole debacle with lots of instances defederating from hexbear? If it was so, I never heard it was a trans positiv community (I hope I’m wrong). I always heard beehaw was the trans 💖. Please enlighten me!
I missed most of it myself, but I remember reading about it when it happened. World made a statement about it back then. https://lemmy.world/post/2498330
Thanks! I knew there was something rotten in that instance. Wanting to dismantle the west, indeed, a very pro LGBT stance they have. Good luck being LGBT in one of the fine dictatorships like Russia (where trans is seen as a mental disease, probably the most lenient of those dictatorships, in Iran it’s a death sentence).
Yeah I’ll keep myself at beehaw and leave hexbear to the pro dictator fachos.
where trans is seen as a mental disease
Until extremely recently that was also the case in the states, as in, before informed consent became a thing I couldn’t get HRT without a doctors note saying I’m mentally ill and fuckable enough, and even then it was sterilization first and having to pay out of pocket for tons of shit.
Also Iran post islamic revolution was one of the few places you can get a binary transition- it’s still pretty fucked up, but not a death sentence by any measure.
I wish that Russia was less shitty about being trans so I could visit family more safely, it’s not been made better by having my identity turned into a cultural wedge issue.
Lol yeah the west is so pro LGBT. Just ignore the hundreds of proposed anti-trans bills in the USA, or the mass incarceration/prison violence towards trans people, or the widespread medical gatekeeping, or the fact that being LGBT (especially T) makes you way more likely to be homeless, or how even the supposedly left Labour Party has taken a huge rightward swing under Queer Harmer. If you actually think there’s any hope of freedom for LGBT people in the western world you are a fucking idiot. Go read a book and you might yet be able to pull the worms out of your brain. Rainbow Solidarity in Defense of Cuba by Leslie Feinberg is a great one if you want to see what a country actually trying to improve the lives of LGBT people looks like.
Preemptively defederated as a “last resort”, lmao
I will say, I have had a .ml account because I like to engage with the broader lemmy even if it is often very transphobic. Hexbear has the best trans environment from what I’ve seen, I think it’s worth emulating. The red scare fearmongering was a bit over the top from the other lemmies, people responding to your posts from instances you’re federated with is not brigading
I have heard similar. Also hexbear is based on lemmy but not a part of the same fediverse, you might not be able to visit much else from it.
I have no clue about their stance on lgbt+ though, to what i understood the main moral conflict seems to be wether or not you support russian/chinese state-socialism and left-authoritarianism. Allegedly theirs also censorship of criticism.
lmao
man “leaked private messages” is such a weak fucking excuse in the face of transphobia. @[email protected] you realize you’re just alienating a huge fucking number of comrades? not just trans people, but all those that rightfully stand with us too.
Agreeing with you here, I’m wondering if this can spawn a broader project to try to alter the relationship between the admins, mods and users.
More and better feedback loops and grassroots organisation and less “admins and mods own this, take it or leave it” culture.
In the end, I think this comes down to poor admin/mod practice and poor community leadership where many of the users here would just like to make sure things are better.
I suggest lemm.ee. Extremely chill, no politics (on an instance level anyways), few blocked instances except the troll ones, stable, ^also ^no ^stupid ^hexbear ^emojis.
It’s just great.
How on earth is “Leaked private messages” a reason for banning. Absolutely an abuse of power and Streisand Effect is doing it’s thing.
