Today, i couldnt upvote a post from anarchymemes@anarchist.nexus so i decided to check it out on my pc. i noticed that i was banned from the com even though i havent posted anything on the com nor the instance. i guess the reason for the ban is that i posted a meme to different comm a while ago. The meme is homophobic but i didnt know it when i was posting it. After finding out it was homophonic, i added a disclaimer to my post.
i dont think i deserved the ban, and i want to hear your thoughts.
Calling that homophobic is such a stretch it should be a yoga pose.
It is not blatantly homophobic but I find the meme distasteful.
PTB. It’s not even homophobic. In no way does the meme imply anything negative about homosexuality to begin with; it’s a play on words with a twist ending.
PTB. The joke is a “secret lover”, nothing about sex or gender.
Sometimes actions have consequences. And getting banned in one of dozens of anarchist communities on the Fediverse is really not a big consequence.
Small tip: If you truly believe that what you did was homophobic, dont put “homophobia” in quotes. This makes it seem like you are not actually using your own words and are actually not meaning it.
Maybe dont post stuff where the butt of the “joke” is homosexuality.
That’s… A really gray area to be declaring homophobia and a lifetime ban, imo. One of those instances where talking it out and education would probably have been the better response, but it’s not way over the line either.
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FYI the joke isn’t necessarily homophobic. It’s a pun on “Big Beautiful Bill” sounding like both the federal statute Trump signed and a nickname he has for Bill Clinton who he allegedly had sex with.
It becomes obvious when you realise the joke still works if Trump is a woman who had a secret affair with Bill and signed a bill. Of course, if people are laughing at Trump supposedly being gay/bi, that is homophobic. But the joke technically isn’t.
I understand why it annoyed you, but I think the joke simply went over your head, and you assumed it was laughing at Trump/Clinton being gay/bi. You’re certainly not alone in this, given some of the comments here and in the original thread.
I assume you didn’t just ban based on this meme and actually looked at the user’s history to judge intent.
Then you block them if you truly believe in freedom of association, not ban them from the comms you moderate. I gotta say, Trump and Bill are the punchline of that joke because Trump is the homophobe and that image probably sends him into a rage. It may be tempting to think, but the punchline is definitely not “tehehe gay”. It really seems you’d have to intentionally misconstrue the meme to interprete it that way in our current political climate and the context of the platform in which it was posted to.
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Your own personal rights are not central to your acting as a moderator.
As a moderator, you represent the interests of the community.
I understand your position, but not everyone considers the matter to be equally unambiguous.
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I was responding to your explanation as presented.
My own feeling is that not giving anyone a chance to take responsibility works against our interests of fostering inclusivity and responsibility. It is essential to keep open space for discussion with those who may be misguided or unthoughtful but are otherwise generally reasonable.
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Even if all of it is true, as you say, preemptively banning users who never posted feels very abrasive, even aggressive. I am afraid it may tend to engender negative sentiments about movements, by creating an impression that anarchists or leftists generally tend to be unwelcoming or uncompromising, just as might be actually the case for tankies. We want to maintain the appearance as a group of being open to discussion.
The question arises of whether preemptive banning is constructive, considering the power remains to ban someone later, as actually needed, as well as to remove objectionable content if submitted.
Idk it seems like you are deiciding for me if you’re banning people from comms.
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So you would be happy to share an instance with Nazis as long as you blocked them? Kinda sus.
Also by OPs own admission: “ I added disclaimer because other people explained to me why it was homophobic” seems enough other people felt the same.
OPs response when learning it was homophobic was not to remove the offending content but to add a pissweak disclaimer?
What pissweak disclaimer? I added it so that other people would know about it. When I learned the meme was homophobic the post stopped gaining traction, and users already saw it. i think acting aggressive like that wont help anyone. Kindness goes a long way.
If enough people told you it was homophobic, why keep it up at all?
By that stage you were clearly informed it was problematic and your response was to continue to do so but add a “disclaimer” as if that makes the behaviour now okay?
If you want acts of kindness don’t continue to keep up homophobic content, because all that will do is get you hostility from the victims of homophobia.
It seems to me that the significant majority of people here in this thread at least, do not think the joke is innately/inherently homophobic, and that that is more or less a way that you can read it, if you choose to, but it still works as a joke without a homophobic reading.
And … that includes me, someone who has been … at least somewhat, depending on your criteria, victimized by actual homophobia.
Its not as cut and dry as you seem to think, to at least personally judge them in the way you are…
… sure, many people may have expressed their feelings one way, but many here have expressed them the other way…
… and it seems like a considerable mod/admin overreach to ban them for it.
Sure, people can not like it all they want, downvote, explain why they think its bad… but… banning for this seems extreme, needlessly censorious.
And shaming them and demanding an apology thus also to me seems wholly unwarranted.
Lol no. Block CSAM and Nazis. But a meme laughing at a hypocrit? Idk
anarchism depends on the freedom of association
Didn’t you just remove that freedom from this user, though?
Freedom of association is always a two way street. If one party removes their consent, than there is no free and consensual association possible.
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The community decided that, or the mod team did? Is the whole community a part of that Matrix chat?
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Note quokka is not part of the flotilla as they voted down the suggestion
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They exercised self-determination in deciding against joining, but you deem it appropriate to disregard that and group them with something they chose not to become part of?
Wait what.
I’m queer… … this counts as homophobic?
Like… yeah I guess you could interperet it that way, as if a candid photo of two men in bed (yes I know its not real) is just, de facto embarassing, which makes it homophobic…
But its also just a silly pun, on Bill Clinton’s name.
I guess you could… say its technically body shaming or objectifies men as well, by setting up the implied juxtaposition of ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ to Trump’s tiny … hands.
But like… the joke does not require a homophobic interpretation to work as a joke. There are a number of other ways in which it is a joke.
Thus, its not inherently a homophobic joke.
Like, if I say that the people who did think this joke are homophobic, well they’re just butthurt… is that also homophobic?
(Lemme tell ya’, I’ve been butthurt before… but not from a joke!)
The meta joke is that this would presumably trigger extremely insecure, performative hetero male magas (and I guess hetero female magas?)… but… thats mostly just by way of implying that Trump could have done some gay stuff with Bill.
Which… in my mind, only reads as offensive… if you, the viewer, are homophobic.
So… its just trolling those people, because other people generally are considerably less likely innately disgusted by the simple idea of a gay relationship.
But also: Magas hate Bill Clinton, thanks to decades of dittohead conditioning from Rush Limbaugh, so more than it just being ‘gay’, its… well, sleeping with the enemy.
So it trolls magas in that way as well. Its not just that its ‘gay sex bad’, its the particular two participants given the uh, context of their political existences.
Otherwise, its just funny, mostly just due to innate absurdity of the idea that a former and future President would have had a gay sexual encounter of at least some kind.
(Its like, a fan fiction level plot, but apparently, not entirely divorced from reality.)
This joke works in so many different ways other than ‘the joke is that gay relationships are bad and gross’.
If the only way to read it as a joke was the homophobia angle, then yes it’d be homophobic.
But uh… yeah, I see many ways in which this is funny… the homophobia angle for this one didn’t even occur to me, and I’m a person who has been bullied quite a lot for my sexuality, I’ve heard a lot of the jokes.
PTB if this is indeed the only homophobic thing you posted. IMO the disclaimer pretty much covers it, and a permaban isn’t warranted if that is truly all you did
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I didnt even know I was banned during that time, I added disclaimer because other people explained to me why it was homophobic instead of calling me to be instance banned.
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Important context, not particularly PT, a tiny bit perhaps
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Looks like you learned not to joke about straight people being gay like it’s something to make fun of. Probaby should have just deleted. Still, PTB — a forever ban is a bit much, especially when you tried to use it as a teaching moment.
And yes, part of the joke is a play on Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. Part of the joke is also about being gay.
The mods of the comm are @Deceptichum@quokk.au and @_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus (_cryptagion has a comment in that post). Have you contacted them? A permaban in this case, when you have edited the post explaining that it was homophobic and why, seems excessive.
Edit: correcting mods links
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I’ve been a mod there for less than 24 hours, so I’ve no idea about any of this.
But looking at it, a disclaimer is a weak arse response to learning you’re posting something homophobic. You should have outright removed it at that stage yourself and the same goes for the copy you posted in whatever other community it was.
Admins seem pretty gay. Post seems slightly gay. Source am 50%gay.
Fuck off
How homophobic
Sorry, I wanted serious answers.
I did answer seriously I didn’t think it was ban worthy. If you can’t understand basic humor, that’s not my fault.
Yeah, it flew over my head.
Did you contact the mods and told them your viewpoint?
One of the mods _cryptagion was on my post calling me to be instance banned instead of explaining. So I avoided them.
Sorry, I am just seeing their behaviour. This is straight up Power Tripping Reddit Mod Bullshit. You did right to avoid them, they sound perpetually upset.
Ban is excessive and probably you should have just had a chance to learn how it’s not very funny to be like “Haha X is gay, hilarious”
- a fruit
