this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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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.

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[–] millie@beehaw.org 99 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I spent way more time than was warranted digging into this completely petty drama.

Eris seems to have been widely blocked and defederated for using the word 'based' and for thinking ubuntu.buzz was about linux. I'm not sure what kind of perspective makes that a priority, but it certainly doesn't seem to be one based in compassion or world experience. Half the people I've met who use the word 'based' have nothing to do with 4chan, they're just young. The first time I heard it was in reference to Mark Bunker during the Scientology protests in 08. Which, while certainly connected to 4chan, I don't think can really be cast in the same light as all the Gamergate crap and everything that came after.

Defederation is an important feature, and people should be able to defederate from whoever they want. What isn't okay, though, is people going out of their way to propagate pettiness as much as humanly possible. Eris seems a little rough around the edges, but I also get the impression that the folks interacting with her in all the overly dramatic nonsense I just read are not acting in remotely good faith. They resemble a twitter mob looking for somebody to hate on, taking zero interest in understanding or nuance. No thanks.

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 58 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I thought the whole based/cringe thing was just zoomer slang?

[–] EnglishMobster@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Based started on 4chan. People stole memes from 4chan, where it spread and became Zoomer slang.

Cringe I think has a similar but slightly different etymology; I don't know if it necessarily came from 4chan or if it came from Reddit.

[–] beepnoise@beehaw.org 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure it started with Lil B "Thank You Based God".

Lil B was an underground rapper with... varying levels of quality (at least at the time). His thing was calling himself "Based God" as people were calling him "based" as a negative (presumably to mean he was dumb), but thanks to his music and understanding internet culture and turning it in his favour, he managed to turn "based" from something that was negative to a positive.

Then 4chan got ahold of it for Donald Trump's election and that word has never recovered.

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[–] bermuda@beehaw.org 42 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Half the people I’ve met who use the word ‘based’ have nothing to do with 4chan, they’re just young. The first time I heard it was in reference to Mark Bunker during the Scientology protests in 08. Which, while certainly connected to 4chan, I don’t think can really be cast in the same light as all the Gamergate crap and everything that came after.

Also probably important to note that even being connected to 4chan isn't always a bad thing. The web (particularly youtubers) have made 4chan as a whole to be some boogeyman website full of hackers and nazis, but it's a loosely connected web of forums (known as boards), many of which don't have anything to do with another apart from being anonymous. It's kind of like lemmy in that regard. I've browsed it in my time, and while it is definitely quite a toxic site, most if not all the toxicity originates from a select dozen-or-so boards, and only 3 or 4 of them are even popular (b, pol, r9k, x). Hell, if you go right now to /a/, you'll probably just see a bunch of weebs discussing anime like any other forum.

note: this isn't to say 4chan is safe like beehaw. The whole culture of the site is very archaic and a lot of people on there are still there saying slurs and being generally offensive, but when you stay away from hellholes like /b/ or /pol/, I've seen worse on reddit.

If some stranger on the street told me they used 4chan, without specifying what board, I mean I might be suspicious of which boards they're using (depending on context clues) but it's not a buzzword that translates to "white supremacist"

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[–] DrNeurohax@kbin.social 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (14 children)

I almost thought I had written your comment and completely forgot about it. No, I just almost made the exact comment and want that hour of my life back.

If there was some over the top racist rant, I sure didn't see it. And the admin pushing for the defederation sounds so bizarre. Bizarre is the best word I could come up with because "petty" makes me think it was like high school politics. This is closer to a grade school sandbox argument.

The worst I saw was "defedfags" and it was used in a way that was meant to highlight how they never said anything offensive. Like saying, "If you thought what I said before was offensive, let's see how you respond to something intended to be negative."

The crazy thing is that the decision is being made because the admin just liked a post. It's not even because of the post content - which has nothing controversial and appeared maybe 8 times in my Lemmy/kbin feed yesterday.

Editing to add that this is the article: https://kbin.social/search?q=wakeup+call

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[–] donuts@kbin.social 69 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is it just me or is mastodon.art the source of almost all of the drama on the fediverse?

[–] Ignacio@kbin.social 50 points 1 year ago

I think it's the admin of mastodon.art the source of almost all the drama. Even the admin of the server where I am had issues with that admin and blocked her.

[–] thingsiplay@kbin.social 47 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@donuts I recently had a short conversation with someone from mastodon.art. They denied the GIMP devs an account on their server, because GIMP is a slur word. And they made a public announcement of this fact. Looks like the moderation/administration people are assholes, if they act and communicate like that. This community is new to me and all I know is about this GIMP announcement and this new drama.

[–] shnizmuffin@lemmy.inbutts.lol 36 points 1 year ago (2 children)

For those who don't know: GNU Image Manipulation Program.

[–] thingsiplay@kbin.social 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

@shnizmuffin For those who know less/more, original name was General Image Manipulation Program, before it got renamed.

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[–] hascat@programming.dev 56 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There's an amazing amount of conversation about how this person is supposedly a racist with no evidence to support it. Am I missing something?

[–] DrNeurohax@kbin.social 43 points 1 year ago

I got around 5 links deep for each of the links in the admin's post, and fuck if I know. There was an argumentative user, but they were articulate and thoughtful. Not dropping slurs or wasting space nonsense, but still bordering on "edgy". The person pushing the defederation appeared to be bullying them and on a power trip.

It was embarrassing. That's all I took away. (My opinion can change if someone digs through the shitpiles of nothingness to pull up some actual naughty posts, but that's not going to be me.)

[–] RoboRay@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

Irrational people behaving irrationally.

[–] poo@kbin.social 45 points 1 year ago

The admin of mastodon.art is terrible and a huge, huge troll - just ignore them and move on lol

[–] Rinnarrae@beehaw.org 42 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

What other art focused Masto instances do people recommend? .art seems to get involved in a lot of drama and I'm getting tired of it.

[–] influence1123@psychedelia.ink 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I would also like to know.

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[–] trashhalo@beehaw.org 42 points 1 year ago (4 children)
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[–] Arotrios@kbin.social 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow - bit overblown all in all. While it sounds like the quinoa guy is kinda a jerk, I'm not seeing any proof of racism on his part. He just boosted a legitimate news article (the Fediverse servers being seized that popped up yesterday) posted by this Eris character, who had been flagged as a racist troll in the past. This isn't confirmed or denied in the various posts aside from a profile link on thebadplace.com - which has no information aside from a few racist tags on that profile (can't tell who the profile is for).

This sounds more like the admins got snippy at each other in off-site discord drama and decided to take their toys and go home. Interesting for the /popcorn, but hey, if mastodon.art doesn't wanna play with firefish, that's their decision, regardless of the reasoning, end of story.

[–] bilb@lem.monster 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is why I prefer using my own instance- I don't want these federation choices made for me by people like this.

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[–] Prandom_returns@lemm.ee 25 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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@beehaw.org 34 points 1 year ago (9 children)

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

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[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

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.

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[–] nyakojiru@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Defederation is one of the big issues fediverse social media will face, now is getting more population and will be more in the future

[–] davehtaylor@beehaw.org 54 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's not an issue, it's an intentional and important feature.

Don't want to be defederated? Don't let chuds and bigots on your instance. It's pretty simple.

[–] Gaywallet@beehaw.org 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Don’t want to be defederated? Don’t let chuds and bigots on your instance. It’s pretty simple.

While this is the main reason for defederation, I think it's important to recognize that humans are going to human and as of such you're going to have defederation over extremely petty issues. In human history we've literally started wars over petty issues, costing countless lives - defederating is small stakes in comparison.

With that being said I agree with other posters that defederation is a tool. Just like any other tool it will be used in ways not everyone expects. A hammer can be used as a can opener if you really want. Or as art. Or in an elaborate machine. Tools may be designed for a purpose, but humans are creative and you can't enforce that tools are only used in certain ways.

[–] FelipeFelop@feddit.uk 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The point is that as a user I have no control who else is on the instance but could get defederated anyway.

From the posts I’ve seen several admins have clear mental health issues. Silly rivalries and imagined upsets cause whole instances to be defederated. It’s sad in a way as most federations have councils or independent regulators to step in so that members don’t lose out by the actions of others. But not the fediverse.

[–] Gaywallet@beehaw.org 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would advise against armchair hypothesizing about the mental health state of individuals based on how they post online.

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Hehe, the irony of this... is that's a good rule for this instance... but the whole kerfuffle seems to be based on armchair hypothesizing about individuals not just by how they post online, but by how someone who they might be two or three times removed from by online association, may have posted online at some point.

Guess it goes to show what happens without that rule.

[–] Gaywallet@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago

Yes and it's already been discussed whether this post should be removed. There's no quick and easy answer to a question like this, so much as there is a lot of shades of gray. There can be valuable discussion here so long as we take into consideration how to do so in good faith in a public forum.

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[–] zephyrvs@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 year ago

I think the current discussion is a good example showing that it's not as black and white, and definitely not easy, as you make it out to be.

[–] phi1997@kbin.social 32 points 1 year ago

Defederation is an important tool to protect communities. It helps prevent the Fediverse from being overrun with bad actors.

[–] dan@upvote.au 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Defederation is a feature, not an issue. Bigots, racists, etc can be confined to servers that allow that behaviour without polluting friendly servers with their content.

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[–] SmoochyPit@beehaw.org 19 points 1 year ago

I do think defederation is an important tool for the many pedophile, harassment or extremism oriented instances there are because of the fediverse’s decentralized nature. But it is an extreme action, and I don’t see it as a good immediate recourse when there’s issues with an admin or some users.

[–] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How is it an issue to be faced? It's an advantage of how the fediverse is built.

[–] SlowNPC@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago (11 children)

It can force those who disagree with defederating to find a new instance that has access to all the communities they want. It also makes onboarding new people significantly more complicated, as their choice of instance will drastically influence their feed.

To be clear, I'm not arguing against defederation, just pointing out that it causes issues that need dealt with.

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[–] freamon@endlesstalk.org 13 points 1 year ago

Mastodon.art has 29k users, so it's not nothing, I suppose

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