cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/6853479

mastodon.art has decided to suspend firefish.social from their instance due to issues with its administrator. The administrator of firefish.social was found to be boosting posts from a known harasser on another instance. mastodon.art takes a firm stance against racism and suspending full instances in these situations is part of their policy as a safe space. The known harasser has a history of using slurs, harassment, and editing screenshots to spread misinformation. However, the administrator of firefish.social has now forged a screenshot to paint mastodon.art in a negative light.

  • @Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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    2311 months ago

    I don’t get it why tge commenters are upsetti of the way .art admin cleans their house.

    If they smell anything fishy, it’s their duty to protect their instance’s users. It’s what is promised for joining .art.

    There’s a reson it’s such a humongous instance. Because the admin is doing a stelar job.

    It’s not to my taste, that’s why I’m on another instance. But my lord, leave people be.

    If the admin is doing such a poor job, the instance will collapse, and people will simply migrate.

    To me it looks like fragile egos are all around, and somehow get “offended” when defederation happens.

    Also, GIMP is both a slur and a shitty graphics software. I’d personally block it as well.

    • alyaza [they/she]M
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      3111 months ago

      To me it looks like fragile egos are all around, and somehow get “offended” when defederation happens.

      i would imagine most people’s issue here is this seems to be more “extremely petty schoolhouse drama” than “actual thing worth defederating over”, especially when mastodon has better and more granular defederation tools at its disposal than lemmy or calckey

      • @Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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        711 months ago

        The way I see it (especially since regsitrations are “pls let me in”) .art is admin’s house.

        If they ask you not to wear shoes inside, you either abide or leave. Petty or not, that’s the rule.

        If they catch you or your friends with shoes inside, you and your friends are getting kicked out, since everybody else is barefoot/eating off the floor.

        There’s really nothing weird, petty or childish. You get a warning (suspension?) if you don’t fix the problem, you get defederated.

        “bUt mUh frEey speyCh” doesn’t work in a super-protective, highly moderated “safe space”.

        • alyaza [they/she]M
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          11 months ago

          There’s really nothing weird, petty or childish. You get a warning (suspension?) if you don’t fix the problem, you get defederated.

          the issue here is not that i’m telling them to not do things–i don’t care what they do or don’t do. what i’m pointing out here is that people probably find this really stupid because it has an identical structure to and is similarly frivolous looking to a 16-year-old making a 10 page callout post against an artist for drawing problematic height gap

          • @Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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            311 months ago

            Sure. But, reading the comments under the .art admins posts on .art, .art people don’t find it petty, nor stupid. You’d see that they are thankful. And they are the only people who are affected by the defederarion.

            I’m sorry to say, but it really does not matter what other people think. It’s like me, who has never been at your house, and never planning to be, thinking that your house rules are weird, arbitrary and petty. I’m also weirded out that you didn’t let that or this person in your house.

            Would you care about my opinion?

            • alyaza [they/she]M
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              1511 months ago

              I’m sorry to say, but it really does not matter what other people think. It’s like me, who has never been at your house, and never planning to be, thinking that your house rules are weird, arbitrary and petty. I’m also weirded out that you didn’t let that or this person in your house.

              in a federated system necessarily yes it kind of does regardless of if you think that’s fair. we get shit for what we believe (and maintain) are extremely valid and straightforward reasons for defederating with a handful of not-malicious instances and that can impact who comes here and why. if you were to create an image of being–for lack of better wording–a messy bitch with a catty and overdramatic attitude (as many people seem to read this as being) your instance will gain that reputation, it will influence who your users are, and it can go so far as to be negatively reflected onto completely innocent users.

              now, if the mastodon.art person doesn’t care about that then they don’t care, and i’m again not saying that i care either way–it’s their website, they can do what they want–but the presumption that this is in a vacuum or absent consequences is silly. it’s not!

              • @Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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                111 months ago

                a messy bitch with a catty and overdramatic attitude

                literally the opinion of a handful of people. If that was true, the instance would collapse.

                There will always be people unhappy with something. You can’t please everyone. The .art admin chose to please people of their instance, instead of maintaining a “look” that is expected from randos on the internet.

                I’m 100% with the admin, and I’m glad the admin isn’t peer-pressured into being whatever people need them to be. Again, there’s a reason why the instance is so popular.

            • @throwsbooks@lemmy.ca
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              1111 months ago

              I remember artist tumblr in the 00’s. Participated, then moved over to twitter in the 10’s before I got sick of it. This looks like another continuation of that same community.

              They can do what they like, but this reeks of the exact same kind of drama and mobs that, for example, drives fanartists to attempting suicide because they painted a character’s skin a shade too light. (Zamii070, if you’re curious.)

              These sorts of communities form an echo chamber that, frankly, can be absolutely horrible for kids. Yeah, they can do what they want in their house, but I’m staying far the fuck away.

              • @Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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                111 months ago

                What the hell is this comparison. Yeah, moderation = death, people. That’s why I’m on twitter, sorry, ex-twitter, where they respect muh free speech, that has never hurt anyone! /s

                • @throwsbooks@lemmy.ca
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                  911 months ago

                  Sorry, rereading it and I think I was unclear. I’m saying that this community moved from tumblr, to twitter, and now to mastodon. I quit this community at the twitter stage when it became too detrimental to my mental health.

                  But this community uses moderation as one tool to enforce cliques, rather than to actually prevent abuse. Or, you could say, this community has a history of using moderation as a form of abuse.

                  Alongside that, this community has a history of inciting witch hunts over the most petty things. And they will be happy about what the moderators are doing within their own clique.

              • @Rinnarrae@beehaw.org
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                11 months ago

                I know you didn’t mean anything bad by it, but the person you mentioned in that fanartist example doesn’t like being associated with that as she doesn’t want it to be her legacy.

    • Justin
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      11 months ago

      How are people starting drama over a FOSS program that has been around for 25 years? Gimp is free, open-source, and good software. People starting drama over that are looking for trouble.

      • @Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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        411 months ago

        Why is everyone calling it drama. How difficult it is to understand a dumb rule that says “no slurs”?

        “Gimp” is literally a slur. The makers were aware of it and did for the lulz. Now they’re denied an account in an incredibly moderated instance because the name is a slur and everyone’s “why the drama11??11”

        • Justin
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          1611 months ago

          I think you have a different view on the project from reality. According to Wikipedia, the name “The Gimp” is a Pulp Fiction reference. The people who came up with the name “The Gimp” don’t even work on Gimp anymore. They’re CEO and CTO of the company developing CockroachDB. To imply that the volunteers running Gimp’s social media are some slur-crazy edgelords is counter productive.

          I don’t think any people think of the slur when talking about the project, and I think this is a bunch of Twitter drama nonsense. If you want to change it, then join the project and change it, don’t harass volunteers.

          • @Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            A slur is a slur, no matter how you dress it.

            If I made a program named “Fag*ot”, I’m sure, nobody cared about my story how it’s just a bunch of sticks.

            If you want to change it, then join the project and change it

            That’s not how it works. But there’s an effort to fork the program and rename it.

            don’t harass volunteers

            The ‘harassment’: “can we join your instance?” - “no, your program name is a slur”.

    • @haxe11@beehaw.org
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      1711 months ago

      I’m personally a bit upset because, as a user on firefish.social, I am getting punished for doing nothing wrong. Now I won’t be able to interact with mastodon.art users, for what? I spent a bit of time digging, and the evidence this is all based on is weak at best. A person trolled (not even clearly in a racist way, sorry), and the Firefish dev/firefish.social admin happened to boost a news article posted by the once-troll, and now all the rest of the users of the Firefish instance are defederated? What kind of logic is that? It absolutely is offensive.

      Plus, how she went about it is just wrong. Rather than reaching out to the Firefish dev, she publicly shames him and announces the defederation. The result was so much drama.

      Look, sure, the .art admin can run their instance how they want, and they’re absolutely free to go about that in a way that offends people, but don’t tell me I can’t or shouldn’t be offended.

      • @Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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        511 months ago

        A person trolled (not even clearly in a racist way, sorry), and the Firefish dev/firefish.social admin happened to boost a news article posted by the once-troll

        1. Not for you to decide what’s racist and what’s not.
        2. If I was running an instance, that’s would be a red flag for me as well.

        Don’t like to be associated with Firefish dev or want to contact people on .art? Migrate. Or contact the admin and ask for stricter moderation. Don’t want to migrate? Stay. But accept that not everybody want to share their toys with children from a sandbox that’s misbehaving.

        Honestly, I really do not get what the fuss is.

        • @haxe11@beehaw.org
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          11 months ago

          Not for you to decide what’s racist and what’s not.

          It’s not for you to decide what I can decide. I am just as much within my right to judge as she is. It’s her that made the initial judgment, and it’s her that’s abusing power punishing people 2 layers removed from the party in question (edit), not me.

          But accept that not everybody want to share their toys with children from a sandbox that’s misbehaving.

          Get outta here. Not everyone in the instance is misbehaving.___

          • @Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            No, I mean it’s literally not up to you to decide what’s racist, from the .art point of view. If the admin smells racist dogwhistles, or even uses intuition, they’re free to use their judgement to act as they please.

            Not everyone in the instance is misbehaving.

            “Not everyone” works for everything in life. Shit argument. If your contra argument is to deal with this on a “per-user” basis, I’m pretty sure that would require a medium-sized team to do that for all users on the Fediverse.

            “Abusing power” LOL. I mean, this is just pure petulance and entitlement.