this post was submitted on 12 May 2025

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128

Ada will not defederate lemmy.ml at present (lemmy.zip)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (9 children)

I find that trashing on all of Lemmy development and lemmy.ml from nutomic's one questionable stance to be a little idiotic, but that's just my opinion. Those things are the work of more than just one person. Dessalines is a heavy lifter in moderation and development, and they're pretty decent. Various contributors have provided code/features, translations, apps and interfaces to Lemmy. Moderators of all server types have their own opinions on stuff.

But to an extent we all have to put that aside, because face it, perfectly sanitized opinions have nothing to do with code quality. We all have a couple shitty opinions, but what makes someone a decent human being and not a bigot is recognizing where their actions and opinions cause harm unto others and try to minimize that. This harm reduction can include changing actions and opinions, but it can also be keeping harmful actions and opinions away from people it would harm. This is where Ada probably sees banning nutomic from the instance as sufficient rather than all of .ml

Yeah, the whole China/Russia can do no wrong sort of thing is a pervasive problem on Lemmy.ml, but likewise they keep moderation of that to within the confines of their instance. The running costs of a server are virtually nothing compared to cost of working full-time to maintain software, so most donations don't really go to hosting the .ml server itself but rather to development. I don't personally agree with the .ml admins on many things, but I'll defend them for allowing others to run online communities how they want in return for letting every one of us do the same. I've likewise defended Ada's decisions on how they want to root out transphobia from their server, that's their choice, and so far it seems to have served Blahaj users well.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Personally the sooner we rip off that bandaid, the better. .ml is far from the only activity pub project out there, but they are absolutely one of the most toxic forces on the fediverse and seriously harm the on boarding experience for new users. Nutomic is a bigot and a liar and Dessalines is a cringe keyboard warrior and nobody would put up with them if they weren't writing code. But if Lemmy is no longer the only mature option for federated social media, why should we continue to tolerate their shit?

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (6 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 weeks ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (21 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Nutomic is banned from blahaj anyway.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

That alone isn’t exactly hard to have happen.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago

Well said. Ada's stance is reasonable, and whoever keeps bringing this up should consider taking a trip to their account settings and blocking users, communities and instances to their hearts' desire instead of pressing others to do it for them.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (14 children)

Ada makes the wrong decisions literally every time she has a moderation choice.

A coin would have a better track record.

She frequently gives in to trolls over users and bans anyone who dares criticize her

I can't beleive I used to want to participate in that space.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I was banned from all of Bahaj for using “dude” then questioning if dude was the word someone was taking offense of and as the word I misgendered them with.

Meta-pronouns was already a bridge too far.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

They're incredibly sensitive people.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Feddit.uk gets defederated for not responding to a single user's transphobia fast enough, while Lemmy.ml gets transphobic admins and no defederation.

Almost like it's petty Church Study Group power politics instead of principles driving this.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Seems like Blahaj has no issue with ML supporting russian genocidal imperialism and the way russia treats LGBT folks. It seems their concern about trans folks rights doesn't include Ukrainian trans folks (and Ukrainian LGBT folks more broadly) who were forced to leave the territories occupied by russia.

Compare that to the decision to defederate over a single post (that explicitly stated that everyone should be treated equally and not discriminated against) on feddit.uk.

For some reason the term orientalism comes to mind.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

For some reason I've always gotten a very white vibe from blahaj.zone. I can't explain it, but I just don't feel that nonwhite people are exactly as welcome there. I've felt that way in a lot of trans spaces in the past that were very centered on a white view of transness. The racism is never overt, there's just a vibe hanging over those kinds of spaces. I don't have the language to say how I feel that vibe is there, but a lot of people have written about it

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I’ve gotten a “youth” vibe from there.

That sort of militant mindset kids tend to have about the thing they’re passionate about.

There is no room for discussion OR nuance and any perceived slight is not allowed to be corrected.

Just militant follow my rules and my view or gtfo, similar to the tanker triad in that regard tbh.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

In this case, it's not even a white thing. Purely a cultural thing, a lack concern about LGBT communities that don't speak English.

Btw, this is not mere observation from the sidelines. I live in Ukraine and have a modicum of exposure to the local LGBT community.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

I think I can remember Ada saying in the past that her intention with blahaj.zone is to create a safe space for trans people. Not to support trans people outside that space. And I think that's wrong. Trans inclusivity needs to be explicitly political. There is no safety for trans people in a community disconnected from the global trans struggle.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

Blahaj is a shit place, so no surprise. You can support the biggest warmongers and dictators on planet earth, but as long as you dont't have some mild criticism of the lgbtq community, you're good to go.

Pathetic instance with a really fucked up moral compass.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago

mild criticism

You misspelled “totally innocent unrelated comment which stepped on some kind of weird and arbitrary rule which they will swear is hateful and proof you are a bad person on purpose, BAN!”