this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
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I think this is an inconsistent move from the Blahaj team. They defederated feddit over one transphobic user who the admins wouldn't deal with. And I agree with that decision. They should make the same decision here. If lemmy.ml won't ban Nutomic, then it's clear they aren't interested in creating a safe environment for trans people.
Regardless of any funding question, I think every instance should be questioning federation with .ml over their acceptance of Nutomic. And that goes double for any instance committed to inclusivity, because they have a responsibility to their users to uphold the values those users expect.
Feddit.uk was defederated because they did not address transphobia on their instance and stopped responding when I asked for clarification of how they will handle similar incidents in the future in light of the transphobic legislation introduced in the UK. If it becomes clear they are acting on transphobia, we will refederate.
lemmy.ml does act on transphobia and despite their admins comments in DM, I have seen no indication that transphobic posts are allowed to remain on their instance from admins or users. If it becomes clear they're not acting on transphobia, we will defederate. Either way, Nutomic will remain banned.
Which is to say, neither scenario is really contingent on the actions of an individual, rather they're contingent on how the admins respond to transphobia.
I don't think it's inconsistent. My understanding is that the bad comments were in private messages and although they don't disown then or apologise for their views, they are not making transphobic comments in threads.
In the feddit case, transphobia discourse was active and unmoderated. I have no doubt that if that was the case for .ml, then blahaj would defederate.
There is no point in federation of you defederate from every instance with bad users. Ban the user, not the instance. In the case of an instance not moderating hateful content, ban the instance.
Just to clarify, the defederation from feddit.uk has more to do with the admins allowing transphobic comments to remain because of the EHRC ruling and then ghosting Ada when asked to clarify their policies around dealing with transphobia. It wasn't just one user.
I still agree with considering lemmy.ml for defederation.
This is a pretty blahaj-centric view of what happened. Their definition of “transphobia” includes “I feel like women with super high testosterone levels competing in women’s sports does get into kind of a legitimate gray area,” “I don’t think dragon is a gender and this person is clearly a malicious troll,” and “dude.”
I don’t think anyone on Lemmy is down with unambiguous transphobia, but blahaj likes to take sort-of-maybe-arguably transphobic or questionable comments and pretend they are Hitler-level hatefulness and then ban anyone who refuses to see it in their 100% un nuanced way.
When did this happen? I mean, they don’t really owe her an explanation, they can run their server the way they want just like she can hers.
If I went to Ada and started demanding she “clarify” her policies on dragon centered trolling she probably wouldn’t spend too much time giving me extensive clarifications on it. Nor should I be able to demand that she needs to.
Those are all quotes that can be used to hurt a trans person in the wrong context and have been used to hurt trans people on that server.
A trans woman has never won a gold medal in the Olympics, gender is inherently subjective and constructed, and people don't like being called some words. Those are all very unambiguous facts. When you start denying basic facts in pursuit of an agenda, people have a right to stop listening to you. You should say sorry if you want them to listen to you again.
Well, maybe, but the frying pan in my kitchen can be used to hurt a person in the wrong context, as can the knives, as can the bottle of olive oil for that matter. That doesn't mean I shouldn't be allowed to use them. What is relevant is whether they are being used to hurt in the context they are actually being used in.
This is my beef with blahaj's moderation. Everything that makes them in any way uncomfortable is a crime against humanity, and if you don't see it 100% the same way as them, then you are a crime against humanity and an awful person, and they'll start wild criticisms of you including trigger-word labels, applying things like "misgendering" to things that are not genders, "transphobia" to issues that have literally nothing to do with any trans person on any level, and so on.
I mean, they can do that if they want, but I think you summarized my reaction to it pretty well with:
Source? That's not what the feddit.uk admins said.
They dont act against transphobia and they literally ghosted ada Source
This is not true though. This was clarified by the feddit.uk admins.
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/42943344/18287800
As a feddit.nl user it would help if you included the TLD, there are several servers that call themselves feddit. 😊
I forgot which one it was
I can definitely understand how this may seem as an inconsistency on Ada's part. I've been critical of Ada in the past, but I see this as more of Ada taking a calculated, diplomatic approach.
With the Feddit situation, Feddit is just another random Lemmy instance, so there's no real loss in defederating. But ML is where Lemmy development is centered, and whether Blahaj users like it or not, they do have an intrinsic interest in the development of Lemmy's code. They want Blahaj to be a safe space, which requires moderation tools to be developed, and it's helpful to keep an open connection with the developers in that case so that Blahaj's input and contributions can be considered when these tools are built.
At least, that's just my speculation as to why there's an inconsistency.
I think it would be better for Lemmy's development if everyone defederated lemmy.ml. If Dessalines weren't so busy banning users on other instances for pointing out the Uyghur genocide, he'd have a lot more time to write code.
lemmy. ml currently has a significant number of users and, as far as I can tell the main complaint about it is relating to communist economic beliefs and authoritarian political beliefs.
the devs of lemmy are already working on it full time. they're not the ones who do most of the moderation work.
the thing i've always hated about most people outside ml is that they always make assumptions, not even wondering if what they're saying might be false. if you're gonna be prissy about something, at least get your facts straight.
edit: sorry about the last paragraph. i just supposed that you were making stuff up because i couldn't find the modlog, but didn't know any better.
Dessalines does a ton of the moderation on .ml. He and davel are, as far as I can tell, the main moderators for the whole server and all its communities.
I’m not subscribed to most of their stuff, so it’s hard to check for hard numbers or verify that, but I see him all the time on the “let’s complain about Lemmy.ml moderation” subs. Doing a quick spot-check in the modlog for !fediverse@lemmy.ml, which I am subscribed to, I see:
That’s extremely consistent with what I have observed from the rest of the communities on the server.
Why do I hear Alanis Morissette in the distance?
I wonder how many times I personally have over most servers
been misgendered, intentionally or not
seen the b word
seen the c word
And complained about it for myself?
Guess where I haven't seen it happen very often.
Eta: I looked through modlog here last night and saw a LOT of unexplained actions that were obscure and twice as many that were self explanatory. All I can say is, be glad you weren't kids in late 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. I'm not sure how many would have made it through now. That's isn't * a dig either, I'm noting the difference. And managing emotions needs to be a thing because what were facing globally is going to take us backwards, socially.
Funny, why is it so common to see the lead dev in the modlog, then?
the lemmy.ml modlog is obfuscated. it only says "mod" when you look at who did the moding. plus, the last time the lead devs were appointed as mods was at least 3 years ago, for both dessalines and nutomic, during the reddit exodus.
unless there is information i somehow missed, you're just proving my point
The lemmy.ml modlog is not obfuscated for admins on other servers.
You ignored my message where I talked about this, and checked and did the math to verify the assertion, and instead you wrote this comment, continuing to pretend that the facts were unknowable and saying "unless there is information I somehow missed."
I didn't ignore your message. I saw it while getting to class, and didn't want to get late just because I'm arguing online. I'll just put what I think about what you said in here at the same time since I'm on break anyways.
I'm not pretending, I genuinly can't find it. I remember it being accessible at some point, but only for other instances, not ml. I go to the modlog and only see "mod" as well, not a specific user. Shit on me for not knowing how to use lemmy well, sure, but stop acting as if everything I say is disengenuous. This is what I was saying I was frustrated by on lemmy: acting as if everything an ml user does is donne for some nefarious reason.
I don't think percentages are a good representation of mod activity. Something like mod actions per day would be better. I was also basing my statement on the fact that modding is a volunteer job and is usually done alongside your actual job, and that dessalines affirms that he works on lemmy in full time. I think the other devs would also be upset if he just freeloaded off of them just to spend his time modding. Unless you think anyone would have a reason to let that slide?
I'm not saying anything at all about .ml users in general. I'm not even sure where you got that. I'm saying that you seem to be failing to understand the simple explanation I'm giving you for why you don't see names in the modlog, but other people do. I'm also saying some specific things about dessalines. Nothing about lemmy.ml in general is the reason for anything I am saying in this exchange.
Maybe it was unfair for me to accuse you of "pretending" not to see my message. I guess maybe it is genuinely an issue of reading comprehension / attention level, and not of anything "pretending." I do think it's fair to point out when I explain to you why you don't see names in the modlog, and you simply move on with the conversation as if that exchange hadn't happened, and you still don't understand why you don't see names in the modlog or how anyone else would be able to therefore. That's weird. Why do you do that? I guess... thinking that correct answers only come from you? No point in reading other people's messages to find correct answers in them, because you already know, and you can just skim the message quick and then get back to accusing people of weird things they didn't say?
Go back and read the message instead of searching again in the Lemmy UI. I explained the issue to you. It's literally the first sentence, all on a line on its own, it's not like buried deep in some kind of abstract discussion where I am going into minutiae or anything. I'm not trying to get in an argument or asking you to. There's nothing to argue about. What I explained is how Lemmy works. Read, understand. Or choose not to, up to you.
IDK what you're on about that percentages are not a good representation. If you take the busy-ness level of a main active instance, and say that one person is doing almost half the moderation, that's a significant moderation load (even if they were not being additionally extra in what level of comment they feel like needs moderation). In my opinion.
Anyway, in the last 3 days, I see on my instance 12 moderation actions by dessalines (more than half the ones I can even see on lemmy.ml as a whole). I am subscribed to barely anything on lemmy.ml, so I don't know what factor you want to multiply that by to arrive at how much he is doing that doesn't get federated to me or how big a part of his day it is. And of course he's free to do whatever he wants with his time. But, regardless, just going by what I can see and what gets federated to me, it looks like he spends a not insignificant amount of time moderating lemmy.ml personally.
Wait. You write all that to this user about reading comprehension when they explained that's what it looked like to them, then say
You know what I see in this thread? A lot of pots and kettles, and supposedly grown children.
I
Dude I spent an entirely unreasonable amount of time shitposting on Lemmy. Full acknowledge. But, at least I am not spending it deleting other people's comments when they threaten my narrative, and then expecting them to they pay me for it.
I'm saying this with respect, because I do have respect for you, despite disagreements. When I first joined kbin.social, I was much the same, if not worse. Life events were happening around that time that forced me to face myself. I stopped drinking entirely for months, now have an occasional beer. I stopped smokinng but after a month picked up vaping. I stopped smoking weed and still don't. I didn't have access to therapy, I did have access to the Internet. I got serious about being able to self-regulate. I started digging. I discovered shadow work. I learned what bugs me the most in other people exists in me, past/present/how I could see myself doing/saying/thinking if it seemed a type of way. In short I looked in the mirror. Not that anyone forced me, led by emotions, we're manipulable. Yes, you and me. If something triggers or stings, guess who I need to look at and here's a hint: not who triggered me.
That means there's a wound that needs attention, with love and forgiveness. That means I confront anger/guilt/pain/shame with love and forgiveness. I learn to ask what triggered me and why? What wound was touched or festers that needs healing? And I do the work. Not always when I want, when I am able, considering time, setting, personal ability at the moment I have time. I did it and I do it.
Life is still living, ups and downs. The difference is, I've got me. I stopped abandoning myself to run from myself. Because at the end of the day, I don't have to lay myself down or live with you or .ml or anyone else. I do live with and lay me down with me. When I'm focusing on your behavior, rather than observing it, guess who I'm not focusing on and cheating out of the care I deserve...my inner child deserves a loving, caring, ~~friend~~ firm, healthy parent. Loving myself enough to say yes is easy. Loving myself enough to say no is hard. I'm worth it. And I think you are, too
Yeah, probably so. Things are getting better for me, too, it's a good thing I think.
That's great. I won't wish you luck, just remind you you have the ability and tools to handle this. Skills, as you know, will come in due time. The more you practice, the faster they come, the more like reflex it becomes. It's so much better than you can imagine, right now. You've got this.
Sorry I meant to say I can't see them despite being subscribed. I'm subscribed to a bunch of ml communities for a really long time, but the modlog is just filled with "mod" for these communities no matter how far I scroll. for example:
Or do you mean subscribing to the modlogs themselves? I'm not sure any of my clients support that.
What does the top line of this message say, please? And how does it relate to this conversation?
https://ponder.cat/post/2823497/3110989
geez my bad
All good. I only really reacted the way I did because you came in throwing insults around, insisting that everyone was getting basic facts wrong and just making stuff up, and et cetera.
Anyway, hooray we got to the bottom of it I guess.
fair. i assumed that they just assumed that. if they think that they're doing too much mod jobs based on that I'm not gonna try to argue otherwise
I see user names. I had a post pulled in the last two days, bc I realized I'd posted in the wrong mag, and apologize and asked them to do so. I've had posts on several servers pulled, sometimes because I forget which rules are which, sometimes it's a mystery. I've asked a handful of times in a respectful manner and gotten answers maybe half those times. I'm not starting threads about it seeking external validation of unmanaged emotions managing me for it and making wild accusations. I generally try to not go to people's spaces and generally disrespect the rules. It does happen, we're all human. What's wild is mods parenting what are supposed to be grown users.
Ha.