this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023

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Being banned with no accountability (feddit.uk)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Syldon@feddit.uk to c/lemmy_support@lemmy.ml

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I took a 2 month ban from worldnews@lemmy.ml

There was no message to say a ban had been applied. I messaged a mod to say I had trouble posting and asked if there was a ban applied. I got no response.

I eventually spotted there is a modlog, and low and behold it mentions I was banned for 2 months for antisemitism. I have to say I found this appalling.

When I dug further it turns out that I gave a reply to someone asking why the phrase "from the river to the sea" is considered antisemitic. I replied that is considered as referring to the genocide of the Jews in Israel. I gave a newspaper article link that showed a Labour MP who was removed from the party for using the quote.

The comment has been deleted, there was no information given regarding the ban, there is no point of reference to contest the ban. It is crass beyond belief. I am extremely insulted that someone gets to label me antisemitic for something that is very evidently not, and then hide behind an unbreakable barrier.

Edited to remove one sentence. It stated I would leave all Lemmy instances. Context in comments below.

Second edit: I finally got a moderator to respond to this.

from @OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml

You reported antizionism as antisemitism. You did an antisemitism.

Your source to support your claim also relies on antisemitism and the conflating of Jews and Israel.

I guess this is a community to ignore. Thank you for the responses. I will not respond to anymore here.

My response was:

Thank you for your response. Your community your rules. I made a post to try and get my head around this idiocy last night.

I will not use your community again.

EDIT: please update the ban log to reflect this. There is a huge difference between your reasoning and antisemitism.

top 16 comments

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[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If this is how Lemmy is ran then I will need to find another community

Lemmy is not ran in any particular way.

That's one community one one instance. On most instances, anyone can create a community and become the god of what is allowed there. That doesn't mean it's representative of the rest of that instance. But even if it is, you can post to other communities on other instances.

There is one mod on one community doing something dodgy (or just got a report about it being antisemitic and assumed they were right - after all, there's no training course for being a lemmy mod). This is certainly not the way "lemmy is ran" and thinking lemmy is run in any particular way is missing the core aspect of what lemmy is.

[–] Syldon@feddit.uk 8 points 1 year ago

Kind of annoyed right now, but I appreciate reality check and will delete that part.

[–] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Based on the original post of this thread, this comment, the modlog, and an "innocent until proved guilty" approach, I have no reason to distrust the OP.

As such, what I'm going to say might be wrong, and I'm ready to apologise if it is; but I do not think that it is wrong.

What the fuck, !worldnews@lemmy.ml mod team? If OP is being accurate, at least one of you is bloody irrational, to the point that the mod is unable to understand the difference between "here's why this discourse is bad" and support to said bad discourse.

I get that it's hard to recruit new mods in Lemmy, but remember - a bad mod is worse than no mod. In other words, IMO you guys should seriously consider to review each others' mod actions and perhaps expurging a mod or two.

OP: your mileage will vary when it comes to Lemmy moderation. Some communities are moderated by sensible people; some, well... you know. Sadly there's not much that you can do against this, except perhaps avoiding those comms. (inb4 Reddit is not an option in this regard; here, shitty mods are like stepping on shit, but there it's like drowning in it.)

I also think that mod actions need more transparency. I'm thankful to the developers for the modlog, but I do not think that it is enough. IMO the content being removed should be still visible, when not illegal, with a big (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST/COMMENT) in it.

Also, the current modlog should at least clarify which team was responsible for a mod action - the comm mods, the comm's instance admins, or the user's instance admins. And there should be a way for mods to report users upstream to the instance's admins.

[–] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml -5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hey, I'm the mod that banned them.

I've made it very clear that equating zionism with jewishness will not be tolerated.

It is antisemitic to equate an antizionist slogan with antisemitism, because equating jewishness with zionist settler colonialism is literally tied with the “jews are foreign agents” nazi bullshit.

[–] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Let's roll with your interpretation that the slogan is solely Antizionist. That would make the poster misinformed and incorrect; in this situation, the right thing to do is to talk with the poster, informing them, while checking their profile for potential Antisemitic activity. This also works great when the user is not rational (i.e. a bad faith agent) because it gives you better grounds for a ban.

Another issue that I see is ban length. A short ban is great as a warning, or to tell the user to cool their head; while permaban is great when you want to convey "we the mod team do not you here, fuck off". A two months ban is the worst of both worlds.

[+] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml -7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I talked to them and they doubled down, I believe my judgement based on their activity was correct.

Long bans because the massive amount of calls for genocide and antisemitic bs because of the escalation of genocide in gaza mean we don't want to have to deal with people immediately coming back. Give people time to cool off.

[–] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Sorry for the wall of text.

I honestly do not think that your judgment was accurate in this situation, and I think that you jumped the gun; the poster sounds genuinely clueless. However I'm fully aware that I don't have full access to all the info necessary to conclude shite here.

Large bans don't decrease your workload, they increase it.

Trolls and bad faith agents might wait for a short ban to expire, but they won't wait for a large ban - they'll evade it with an alt account and call it a day, and now you're playing whack-a-mole with them. With a permaban at least you're telling them to fuck off, even if they won't listen.

For more sensible users, the large ban is unfair, and conveys "we still want you here... but we're too lazy to deal with you thing right now, so shoo". Other users are not blind, they will notice that the mods overreact to rule infractions and they will avoid reporting things, except for petty reasons. Now you're bound to fine-comb threads manually to enforce the rules because nobody is reporting shite.

Either way, you're doing more work than you would otherwise.

A better approach here would be to contain content prone to trigger rule-breaking comments. Megathreads work like a charm for that; they allow you to fine-comb a single thread instead of the whole community. It also helps to bring up the content diversity of the community.

Another thing. I do agree with you that automatically tying that chant to Antisemitism is itself Antisemitic; however you're taking for granted that all users are on the same page when it comes to that, and both of us know that the media is spamming them with misinformation that conflates Israel with Jewish people. In those situations it's better to issue an official statement, explaining what will be considered Antisemitism for the sake of rule enforcement. (It helps to inform other users too.)

[–] InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

From the modlog:

Removed Comment https://feddit.uk/comment/4314248
[Because it is a known antisemitic chant to murder all jews from the river Jordan to the sea.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/from-the-river-to-the-sea-where-does-the-slogan-come-from-and-what-does-it-mean-israel-palestine)
by @Syldon@feddit.uk
reason: Antisemitism

Idk seems the opposite to me but maybe I'm dumb

[–] Syldon@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It is used two different ways. One is the call to murder Jews, the other is a solo effort to be closer to god. I only know this because it is in the UK media of late. The sad part people are using on the pro-Palestinians marches knowing full well it will insight a violent reaction.

EDIT: others are throwing in different meanings in this post. It seems it has many variations. Not being Jewish or Muslim shows I do not have enough of a vested interest to understand all of the context surrounding this.

[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Context matters.

Most people who use "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" use it as a plea for peace - not violence. But ignorant and hateful politicians just ignore the context as it doesn't fit their narrative.

You probably were banned due to linking the article that had the quote that called for peace in the first line.

“We won’t rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty,” said Andy McDonald, a Labour MP, at a protest in London organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Like I said, peace doesn't fit most people's narrative.

Israel has their own phrase "between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty" which can have different meanings depending on the context, yet nobody has a problem with that.

[–] Syldon@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not really antisemitic though is it?

[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 year ago

Not to a sane person. But the majority of the western world sees calling for peace as antisemitic.

[–] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml -5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lol you made a thread about it.

It is antisemitic to equate an antizionist slogan with antisemitism, because equating jewishness with zionist settler colonialism is literally tied with the "jews are foreign agents" nazi bullshit.

It is especially appalling that this is being done in response to an anti-apartheid slogan.

[–] Syldon@feddit.uk -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The slogan can be construed that way as I said in my post. It actually has many variations as I am led to believe.

I was giving an answer to a question that some one asked how the slogan was antisemitic. I was not using the slogan myself. In fact in hindsight I don't think I even used the slogan even in the description. The article I linked had it embedded in its title. The article referred to the slogan as a slur and explained why an MP was evicted from the Labour party in the UK.

In response to your PM

@OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml

Lmao no.

Also are you Jewish? Because I had family who literally survived a nazi death camp and I’m telling you, youre being antisemitic as shit. Maybe listen.

Again I did not use the slogan. I gave an explanation to its reference and why it is considered an insult by some.

Since you ask, I am not Jewish or any other religion. I was baptised RC, but now find all religion superstitious nonsense. However, if you want to place all your faith in that superstitious nonsense, then have it. I simply do not care enough to dissuade anyone from it. I do recognise the dangers of religion though. As can be viewed by the actions of Hamas and the IDF in current events.

And that war where your family survived, well my father helped in that. My father took part in the D-day landings and then on into Germany. We still hold the medals in the family to prove it.

[–] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml -5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I was not using the slogan myself. In fact in hindsight I don’t think I even used the slogan even in the description.

You're still responding to

"It is antisemitic to call an anti-zionist slogan antisemitic"

With

I DIDNT EVEN SAY THE SLOGAN GODDDD

Since you ask, I am not Jewish or any other religion. I was baptised RC, but now find all religion superstitious nonsense. However, if you want to place all your faith in that superstitious nonsense, then have it.

You're not beating the antisemitism allegations. Being Jewish isn't just following a religion.

And that war where your family survived, well my father helped in that. My father took part in the D-day landings and then on into Germany. We still hold the medals in the family to prove it.

Your dad helped the western allies take west Germany and prevent denazification there. Not his fault, but also "you should be grateful my dad helped" is bullshit. The Soviets knew how to treat nazis, the British government treated them with kids gloves.

[–] Syldon@feddit.uk 0 points 1 year ago

I am actually just getting a grip on your meaning now. It has taken me this long because it is so ridiculous.

You actually think that confusing antisemitic and antizionist statement is worthy of a two month ban. I said it is considered antisemitic because it involves people suggesting killing all Jews between two points in Palestine/Israel that this is a mistake that is worthy of a two month ban.

You sir are a clown.

I wont respond to your baiting over the war comment. My point was that many suffered during the war. Not only Jews which was 6m, 50m others died, many more injured. There is no higher ground on who suffered the most. It is a pathetic stance to take.