The community c/libertyhub@lemmy.blahaj.zone states in the sidebar it’s a community for leftists and post leftists, but if you actually look at the posts the mods are making, it’s almost nothing but trolling and telling people not to vote in the general election.

This rhetoric is especially dangerous to trans people, who this instance is supposed to be a safe space for, and West Bank Palestinians. If the USA elects a fascist president, there is guaranteed to be multiple genocides of society’s most vulnerable groups, in addition to what the US is already doing in Gaza.

The mods on Liberty Hub openly troll their users and ban people for advocating left wing or harm reducing positions. The only action that is allowed on the sub is advocating political inaction in the face of genocide, taking a centrist position with regards to open fascism.

This community has absolutely no place on Blahaj Zone and should be removed by the admins.

  •  Ada   ( @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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    555 months ago

    I’m not going to remove a community for pushing back against a system that forces them to vote for genocide.

    I don’t think that not voting is the answer, but I also don’t think that me telling people they’re not allowed to feel differently is the answer. The majority of the people in that community will be forced to live with the consequences of their votes. They will be directly targeted by Trump. And if they still feel that pushing back against genocide in Palestine is more important than the consequences of Trump on their very own personal safety, I’m not going to stand in the way of that.

    This isn’t outside trolls and agitators. This is a community of folk, directly in the line of fire, choosing to stand there for a cause they see as important. As long as their intentions are genuine (which I believe they are), It’s not my place to tell them that they’re not allowed to take that stand.

    That being said, I am going to reach out to the staff there, and address the insults and the like being thrown at other users. It’s against both the community rules, and against the Blahaj Zone Community Guidelines.

        • Quickly going through the modlog of that community I’ve found these three comments that were removed for no other reason than they didn’t align with what some mod thinks, along with a lot of people who were banned with the reason “liberal”.

          I don’t even agree with these comments, but that doesn’t matter. You’re willing to host that community to give them a voice, while the mods stifle dissent and ban anyone who disagrees.

          • I am not willing to exclude trans and queer folk over a difference of opinion, when those opinions are genuinely held, and on issues that directly impact them.

            I am not going to tell queer folk that there is a right or a wrong way to deal with the rising tide of bigotry, racism and intolerance we are all facing.

            As long as the their community rules live up to the instance community guidelines, they’re allowed to moderate on their own terms.

            I get that you see me as “giving them a voice”, and I guess, ultimately it is. But that’s because the goal of blahaj zone is to create a space for trans and queer voices. And that’s what those voices are.

              • As long as they’re not ignoring the instance guidelines, I’m not going to get involved in issues regarding moderation of individual communities. If people are unhappy with the mods, they will just go elsewhere. I’m not in the business of telling moderators how to run communities they’re more connected to than I am.

                If the community or its mods are ignoring the instance community guidelines though, then I want to know about it, because that will get dealt with.

                • I worry this leaves the door wide open for troll communities to operate with near impunity as long as they all lie consistently enough about their intentions

  • Have you tried blocking the community instead of interacting with it? There’s plenty of communities I block because I think they’re dumb and annoying, or because the moderation team is a train wreck.

    “It’s transphobic to think Joe Biden is a genocide enabling asshole because that means you support not voting for him which means you support Trump getting elected which means you support transphobic policies and this should be banned from Blahaj” is a series of assumptions built on assumptions, most of which are bad faith and work backwards from wanting the community banned. Demanding a trans admin ban them for transphobia when what you want them banned for is bad politics is tasteless at best, and comes off as manipulative.

    Before anyone gets a bug up their ass about if I vote blue enough, I live in a large city in California. We are more likely to see the sun explode than for my elector to vote for anyone other than a Democrat, which I think is ultimately the least bad option that is likely to happen between now and November (but is still a bad system because we need ranked choice).

      • Memes from someone whose takes you don’t like isn’t the same thing as propaganda and it certainly doesn’t make the community transphobic. If you can’t live with seeing it, block it. There is real, honest to god, paid for with billionaire cash political propaganda targeting trans people out there, and that community ain’t it.

        • propaganda noun

          1 : a congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions 2: the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person 3: ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause also : a public action having such an effect

          Idead spread for the purpose of furthering a cause. I think Liberty Hub’s anti-voting posts meet both definition 2 and definition 3. (Merriam Webster)

  • I’ve been in that community pushing to reluctantly vote for Biden and I haven’t been banned! In fact, I don’t see a ton of “don’t vote for Biden” stuff, mostly just “Biden sucks” stuff. Perhaps you’re dividing things into sides to aggressively.

    I agree they’re a little trolly and definitely inflame, which I don’t like, but calling it transphobic requires quite the leap of logic.

  • Oh yeah, that community is horrible. I saw a ton of their posts popping up on my feed and made a comment on there before blocking it (some question about the heavy advocacy for voter apathy) and was immediately banned.

  •  MindTraveller   ( @MindTraveller@lemmy.ca ) OP
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    5 months ago

    @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone I’ve been banned from Liberty Hub as of 9 hours ago. My only interaction with the sub lately is this post here and the comment I left in the linked thread. The ban reason is “off topic”, which is not a Liberty Hub or Blahaj rule. 9 hours ago is also when the thread I linked seems to have been deleted by the Liberty Hub mods, and was replaced with another thread with a near-identical image and near-identical title. The only motivation for the ban I can see is for criticising the community, and the only motivation for deleting the post I can see is to hide evidence of the behaviour I describe in the post.

    Liberty Hub’s 8th rule is that open discussion should be encouraged and bad faith attacks should be prevented. I believe a moderator is breaking their own community’s rules in their moderator actions, while banning users for reasons that have nothing to do with the community rules. If Liberty Hub’s stated rules have nothing to do with the actions taken by moderators, then there can be no oversight from the admin team to prevent instance rule violations. I believe the guideline of empathy has already been broken, and has been broken on an ongoing basis for months. The moderators of this community have gone rogue. They are not respecting the instance or even their own community’s values.

  •  megopie   ( @megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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    5 months ago

    Eh, maybe not ban, but like, remind them that this a community space, and that they should moderate and remove commenters/posters who are being actively toxic or harassing people for disagreeing.

    Like, I’m not fan of Biden or the neoliberal order, but what is going on there isn’t doing anything constructive. Even if they don’t intend it, the way that space is moderated, it’s a potential harbor for bad faith trolls.

    It is all spite, no solutions or discussions of means of action. Just “we sure do hate this particular side of the two ruling parties.”

  • The community is not made up of transphobes or accelerationists so there is no problem. I don’t post or comment there because I don’t see the point in taking the time to write or make something for an echo chamber that will just remove my comment or post. But just because I don’t agree with every take in that community doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value.