Hey all,
In light of recent events concerning one of our communities (/c/vegan), we (as a team) have spent the last week working on how to address better some concerns that had arisen between the moderators of that community and the site admin team. We always strive to find a balance between the free expression of communities hosted here and protecting users from potentially harmful content.
We as a team try to stick to a general rule of respect and consideration for the physical and mental well-being of our users when drafting new rules and revising existing ones. Furthermore, we’ve done our best to try to codify these core beliefs into the additions to the ToS and a new by-laws section.
ToS Additions
That being said, we will be adding a new section to our “terms of service” concerning misinformation. While we do try to be as exact as reasonably able, we also understand that rules can be up to interpretation as well. This is a living document, and users are free to respectfully disagree. We as site admins will do our best to consider the recommendations of all users regarding potentially revising any rules.
Regarding misinformation, we’ve tried our best to capture these main ideas, which we believe are very reasonable:
- Users are encouraged to post information they believe is true and helpful.
- We recommend users conduct thorough research using reputable scientific sources.
- When in doubt, a policy of “Do No Harm”, based on the Hippocratic Oath, is a good compass on what is okay to post.
- Health-related information should ideally be from peer-reviewed, reproducible scientific studies.
- Single studies may be valid, but often provide inadequate sample sizes for health-related advice.
- Non-peer-reviewed studies by individuals are not considered safe for health matters.
We reserve the right to remove information that could cause imminent physical harm to any living being. This includes topics like conversion therapy, unhealthy diets, and dangerous medical procedures. Information that could result in imminent physical harm to property or other living beings may also be removed.
We know some folks who are free speech absolutists may disagree with this stance, but we need to look out for both the individuals who use this site and for the site itself.
By-laws Addition
We’ve also added a new by-laws section as well as a result of this incident. This new section is to better codify the course of action that should be taken by site and community moderators when resolving conflict on the site, and also how to deal with dormant communities.
This new section provides also provides a course of action for resolving conflict with site admin staff, should it arise. We want both the users and moderators here to feel like they have a voice that is heard, and essentially a contact point that they can feel safe going to, to “talk to the manager” type situation, more or less a new Lemmy.World HR department that we’ve created as a result of what has happened over the last week.
Please feel free to raise any questions in this thread. We encourage everyone to please take the time to read over these new additions detailing YOUR rights and how we hope to better protect everyone here.
https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#80-misinformation
https://legal.lemmy.world/bylaws/
Sincerely,
FHF / LemmyWorld Operations Team
EDIT:
We will be releasing a separate post regarding the moderation incident in the next 24-48 hours, just getting final approval from the team.
EDIT 2 (2024-08-31):
We’ve posted a response, sorry for the delay.
👉 https://lemmy.world/post/19264848 👈
I love the strong emotional takes on what is animal abuse from all the meat eaters in here.
My goodness.
I didn’t consider admins any more qualified in parsing medical journals than mods are. I’ve got letters behind my name and am not supremely confident in that. That said, anything like a pro-ana community should be quickly purged.
I’ve got no idea about the context of the vegan drama though.
I’ve got letters behind my name and am not supremely confident in that.
The more you know about academic research, the less you trust something just because it’s academic research.
Like, even after peer review, it’s not uncommon to find out the peers who first reviewed it missed something or just flat out don’t know what they were reading.
It’s like my stats professor said:
Anyone can produce stats to show what they want, the hard part is getting clean stats and interrupting them without any bias.
I am also interested in learning more about vegan drama
probably could have used a less loaded term than purging in relation to the pro-ana problem. lmao.
Well that would be pro-mia.
Technically, sure. But never let a technicality get in the way of a laugh.
We’ll be posting a response to that in the next 24-48 hours, just finishing reviewing with the team.
Okay, specifically ignoring fediaf language because they’re a vet nutritionist with strong understanding of amino acid profiles I take it https://europeanpetfood.org/pet-food-facts/fact-sheets/nutrition/vegetarian-diets/
You keep posting this but it doesn’t back up your stance at all really
If you read what the vegans said, they pretty much echoed exactly what was on that site. “It’s hard, it’s likely not worth it, it requires cooperation with your vet, it’s possible.”
Reading the website, the message is pretty clearly “don’t fucking do this but if you do you have to go to a professional.”
And your cat will still feel like shit
Another fun note, the only sources for that article are over 20 years old with the exception of one in like 2013 titled:
‘Homemade dog food recipes can be a risky business, study finds’ (15 July 2013)
…yyyeeeeaaaahhhh
Uh huh. Here’s a literature review from a vegan.
“But what about this biased source!”
Nah…. I did skim it though, and the conclusion doesn’t actually provide anything solid other than “regular commercial food also bad”
Really my take away from all of this to is to stop buying cat food and start bringing home rodents and birds for them to chow down on.
Apparently that organization in your link has no issue advising its possible to have a healthy vegan/vegetarian diet. Guess they aren’t afraid people will kill their cats over it.
A panel of experts providing data driven advice, who knew.
People will go to any lengths to justify their bad behaviour to themselves.
All you need to do is not interfere in communities where you have no idea what you’re talking about, stop assuming you know better than everyone else just because you have some power over a meaningless message board. This isn’t an anti-vax community we’re talking about here and you’ve totally blown this way out of proportion to prevent admitting that the moderator was out of line.
You, the mod/admin exist to stop spam and hate speech and to empower users with tools and features that they want and find useful. Otherwise, just stay the fuck out of the way. Do not impose your will on your little petty fiefdoms, that is unwanted and unhelpful.
You, the mod/admin exist to stop spam and hate speech and to empower users with tools and features that they want and find useful. Otherwise, just stay the fuck out of the way.
Yeah, and the post in question was about someone hating on their cat in an abusive way. Reason to remove it.
Also, you don’t get to decide what the admins exist for, it’s their instance, they do. Make your own instance if you want to decide what the admin (i.e.: you) exist for.
No, it wasn’t. You’re lying through your teeth. I’m not going to get into the details because they’re frankly not very relevant.
I get to share my opinion. They can do what they want with it. If you don’t like that, go make your own thread.
We reserve the right to remove information that could cause imminent physical harm to any living being. This includes topics like conversion therapy, unhealthy diets, and dangerous medical procedures. Information that could result in imminent physical harm to property or other living beings may also be removed.
And people pointing out the Democrats are complicit in Genocide apparently.
You’re backing yourself into a corner where you’ll have to respond to every shitbird that comes crying some content hurt their feelings. Removing illegal material is the only thing that’s expected, moderating people’s opinions because they might make someone put glue on pizza is solved by a “nothing on this instance should be considered a fact” banner. It seems petty and the optics only get worse as you slowly burn out and stop being consistent in censoring shit. Because that’s what it is. A cat might not be too stoked with its carefully balanced plant-based slop, but it’d be alive. Hope you’ll go into kink communities and censor the shit out of risky sexual practices.
A cat might not be too stoked with its carefully balanced plant-based slop, but it’d be alive.
No, it wouldn’t, that’s the point.
Cats are obligate carnivores, they’ll die if they don’t eat food containing certain amino acids which aren’t present in plants.
That said, advocating animal abuse, even if it didn’t lead to the animal’s death (which in this case, again, it would), should be a bannable offense.
Hope you’ll go into kink communities and censor the shit out of risky sexual practices.
Those are consensual.
A cat being fed the feline equivalent of poison can’t consent.
This is misinformation. Please add a source for the study.
So I understand this, vegans promoting vegan cat diets need scientifically proved reproducible peer reviewed studies backing their claims, while the “feed cats whatever garbage is in these cans as long as its meat™” crowd can just say it with their chest, right?
Oh my drama.
Cats need a meat
As a former site admin, I will say right now that leaving any kind of rule “open to interpretation” is the WORST thing you could do. The only interpretation of the rules of your site should be the your interpretation. That’s it. Rules should be easy to understand and easily convey the correct interpretation.
Leaving the rules open to interpretation only leads to disagreements and arguments. It is better for users to have concrete rules with a reliably consistent correct interpretation than for everyone to complain because their interpretation of a rule lets them do whatever they want. Just my two cents on that.
As a former site admin, I will say right now that leaving any kind of rule “open to interpretation” is the WORST thing you could do. The only interpretation of the rules of your site should be the your interpretation. That’s it. Rules should be easy to understand and easily convey the correct interpretation.
This might be a language-barrier thing, but that’s the meaning of “open for interpretation”.
It means that the admins and moderators are judging it on a per-case basis instead of a hard delineation that anybody could use to decide whether something is against the rules or not (and hence use technicalities to skirt the rules, naturally).
They are literally saying the opposite.
We didn’t cover that in ESL, because open to interpretation means open to interpretation. If what you’re trying to say in your comment was the admins intention then the language should’ve been: “Admin’s interpretation of the rules is the last word and will be judged in a case by case basis”. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s how laws and court systems work. Anyone can interpret laws as they see fit (see sov citizens) but when push come to shove, judges have the last word and the courts interpretation is the only valid interpretation of the law. Hence debate based trials, checks and balances. When rules are open to interpretation, they become useless as a tool for defining truth.
because open to interpretation means open to interpretation
And most people understands when a company says that. They mean:
“Admin’s interpretation of the rules is the last word and will be judged in a case by case basis”.
It’s just understood that a company always means “we can do what we want, deal with it”.
But this is not a company. What are you talking about?
But in a real sense, yes, the admins can do whatever they want. We as users have no power or recourse. They could just turn off the server tomorrow and that’s that.
But this is not a company.
I think we’re still have language issues
Yes, indeed we are still in have language issues is.
removed
So there was a hostile takeover of the vegan community and you’ve learned the wrong lesson and updated the rules to make this ok? Get over yourselves. Stop defending flagrant abuse of power.
This is so dumb of course it’s a controversy about veganism. It’s so obvious that no imminent harm is coming from a community literally founded on the idea of reducing suffering. Probably switching instances sometimes soon
I’m not vegan so I won’t take sides in this particular debate (to me it seems like a trolley problem whether risking the harm of a pet is worth reducing the systematic harm of animals at-large), nor do I have any specific comments on the new rules…
I will say though, that these incidents are opportunity for growth and learning for both users and admins when it comes to running a grassroots online community. Whether people agree with the new rules or not, I think all of Lemmy is better for it if we have examples of how large instances can be run and how conflicts can be addressed cordially.
Thank you, the team is trying our best to learn and grow.
Don’t feel there are many people who actually use the phrase “free speech absolutist” these days, as a forward self-identification, who have much personal integrity or actual understanding of what that phrase might mean.
What value it may have had as an identifier was destroyed by Musk IMO.
free speech absolutism is the same as any other absolutism, it’s silly and likely not going to work very well.
Free speech absolutists just think that being an asshole harassing people and lying is socially acceptable if they so desired.
I’m a free speech absolutist, but only for “Free as in free beer”, and “speech as in Oscar acceptance speech”. Don’t let people charge to hear what they have to say, and start loudly playing music over them if they go on too long
It means they want the right to spew misinformation knowingly or otherwise and not get in trouble for it.
I’m of the opinion that people attempting ‘legitimate’ claims on unsourced dangerous posts should be stamped out with impunity regardless of a forum being more free speech.
It’s one thing to say you believe this despite insufficient evidence. It’s another thing to willingly present near universally incorrect information as truth just because one study might call it into question.
We learned a near decade ago now that deplatforming hate speech, dangerous rhetoric, and misinformation stops it in it’s tracks.
If you want to share your bullshit with other people you know in your heart of hearts is wrong, go to Signal lol.
No disrespect to Signal. They have a place as a secure messaging that’s mostly by invite only for those groups. Not publicly viewable forums.
I agree, and also of the opinion that a significant portion of people who yell the loudest about “freedom of speech” are only doing so because they want to force others to listen to what is essentially bullshit, and any attempts to call them out is somehow impinging on a non-existent right to free speech. And I do hope it’s understood that there is no right to free speech other than pertaining to the government; mods and site operators are free to edit, block, delete or silence as they see fit no matter what we think. However, I do agree there is some form of social contract to at least enforce a perceived right to free speech in society.
Personally, I have become intolerant of intolerance - especially of the kind that believes it has the right to spew what is objectively bullshit.
Personally, I have become intolerant of intolerance - especially of the kind that believes it has the right to spew what is objectively bullshit.
that makes sense, given the pardox of tolerant societies exists.
You have to be intolerant of some level of intolerance otherwise your society is no longer tolerant, it’s that simple.
We learned a near decade ago now that deplatforming hate speech, dangerous rhetoric, and misinformation stops it in it’s tracks.
Uh … source? Really not sure what world you’re living in, but I’m living in one with covid conspiracy theories.
And now the incident’s “debate” is here.
The biggest issue with Reddit and Facebook was that they let stuff like this stick around it and eventually consume it.
It’s a good policy imho, and I’m happy to see it
Science should prevail
