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.
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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.
I love you all and I’m obviously against transphobia or any kind of bigotry, but this is probably where I leave this instance.
Right? The admin here sees hexbears engaging in their typical bad faith spam-bullying tactics against someone who, unless there’s something really bad in that deleted comment, doesn’t seem to actually be a transphobe, for the crime of enjoying a popular mainstream video game, and the admin decides to defederate the victim of the bullying.
Yeah that game brings out the worst in the “woke” people. I haven’t played it, but its definitely good from all the reviews and this whole dogfighting behavior just harms the Trans people and their “allies” and makes them seem unreasonable and annoying, wich isn’t doing them good in a rightful fight against discrimination.
victim
ohh nooo boohoo that poor admin had it pointed out that he put his own enjoyment of a mid-tier video game over his respect for a marginalized community.
Grow up lmfao
To be fair, programming.dev is moderated pretty badly. This is looks like a slap fight that escalated beyond what is reasonable, but it’s a good indicator of how respectfully people over there are treated. That is, not at all.
I don’t know how fair that is, because things got just as bad over here when we were federated with Hexbear. They’re really active and really argumentative, so slap fights will happen and be hard to moderate.
Maybe things are bad in general over there, but this seems like a pretty poor indicator imo. It’s hard to have a respectful discussion when you’re being dogpiled by Hexbear users.
I’m not subscribed to any programming.dev communities, but I’ve seen programming.dev names pop up quite a bit in threads and they’ve been nothing but respectful.
Hey im the admin mainly in charge of the community over on programming.dev (+ the other lead admin). Can you point out a case of this happening and I can see if I need to handle it
We moderate things in our instance if its reported but if its not reported it cant really be found easily
(also for the main post, im chatting with your admin about it)
Idk i like “poor moderation” as in its allowed to say most things as long as they don’t cause legal trouble for the instance, one of the many upsides being free from reddit.
Yeah the treatment there isn’t good in the thread but i have seen worse from admins…
https://sh.itjust.works/comment/5160618
And just antik’s behavior all over that place (the lemmy.ee account belongs to the Lemmy.world admin) https://lemmy.ca/post/8810527
Like I don’t have the attention span to read everything the accused person wrote during that entire thread, and obviously I could have missed some important context or quote.
My take on it was that this person liked the Harry Potter game, realized that people were telling them the game was antisemitic and transphobic (which I agree, it is), and then it seems like they refused to believe the game was in fact antisemitic and transphobic. The person then doubled down and because everyone got heated (which I’m not judging folks for getting heated, I don’t know what you’re going through behind the screen), and kept digging a hole.
Like if the accused is actually a transphobic, fuck em right to hell I hope they learn they’re on the wrong side of history and get better. Else if it is someone who’s pro-trans and got caught being reactive and liking media that goes against their views, then I hope they look at that media with fresh eyes, and try to make amends with the people who were arguing in the thread.
Plenty of people like media that when looked at with a slightly critical eye might go against their views or punch down at the people they care for, but are ignorant to the fact it does that. I think that a lot of people have really visceral reactions when confronted with that fact, and try to get defensive rather than learn.
But I don’t know anything any of these people and I’m just trying to dissect why I think it’s also blown out of proportion.
It’s the best feature of the Fediverse - you have so many options! If one instance doesn’t work for you, there WILL be one that agrees with you better.
I’m not LGBT or Q but this is my instance because I whole heartedly support people and I appreciate that mods here do their best to separate from pure human garbage while retaining connection with like and different minded groups.
It gets really tiresome to have to hop instances multiple times, though…There’s scripts you can run for it but an official way to migrate would be nice.
It’s a great feature, but the “inter-instance politics” of it are exhausting. I’m a programmer by trade and by hobby so when creating my account I went with “the programming instance.” Now I’m hearing that because of a thread on a different instance (lemmy.ml) this instance is defederating with programming.dev.
I like browsing the communities here, I hadn’t seen the original post on the other instance before this thread, and if I had missed this thread this whole instance would just disappear seemingly randomly.
I get that you can migrate to another instance, but given how this is going how can I be sure this won’t happen again and I’d lose access to instances out of nowhere? It seems unsustainable to constantly check other instances for inter-instance conflicts just to see the communities I like
I agree with separating from different minded groups, but these are the words of one person who set up the instance who definitely doesn’t speak for the “programming group.” I feel like action could be taken against the individual without basically punishing the entire instance
