Vegans being banned and comments being deleted from !vegan@lemmy.world for being fake vegans.
From my perspective, the comments were in no way insulting and just part of completely normal interaction. If this decision reflects the general opinion of the mod team, then from my perspective, the biggest vegan community on Lemmy wants to be an elitist cycle of hardcore vegans only, not allowing any slightly different opinion. Which would be very unfortunate.
PS: In contrast to the name of this community, I don’t want to insult anyone here being a ‘bastard’. I just want to post this somewhere on neutral ground. I would really appreciate an open discussion without bashing anyone.
PPS: Some instances or clients seem to compress the screenshots in a way they’re unreadable. Find the full resolution here: https://imgur.com/a/8XdexTm
Linking the affected users and mods: @Cypher@lemmy.world @gaael@lemmy.world @gredo@lemmy.world @iiGxC@slrpnk.net @veganpizza69@lemmy.world @veganpizza69@lemmy.vg @jerkface@lemmy.ca @TheTechnician27@lemmy.world @Sunshine@lemmy.ca @Aqua@lemmy.vg
Lol, I got my vegan card revoked (declared “a carnist”) and handed my first fedi ban by the “Real Vegans™” too, for daring to call out their bullshit and ableist militant gatekeeping.
Good luck to them and the toxic cesspit they’re so adamant on maintaining, the last thing anyone should be seeking is these people’s approval, especially not on being a “good” or “real” vegan, since they make it crystal clear that their top priority is and always will be their own egos. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m so sorry! I’ve had that happen to me as well. It’s not only toxic but just makes me feel bad
It looks to me the mods there are fake vegans, trying to make as much damage to the cause as possible.
Generally very radical vegans also have a right to their own community, however I also think there should be spaces for less radical veganism as well. It seems that currently there’s none of those available, or maybe the general hostility of social media against vegans makes any of their more tolerant spaces eventually close ranks to protect their sanity. Unfortunately vegan spaces are constantly brigaded by trolls so it’s understandable they have a very short fuse, and a lot of people get caught in the cross-fire.
I think the only solution here would be for a new vegan community with a focus on debate with non-vegans. However it will be tricky to find the right moderators for it who either won’t be non-vegans themselves and therefore support a flood of concern-trolls and bad faith arguments, or be vegans that won’t get immediately burnt out.
So, last time people were mad that vegans were mean to them this community got created:
https://lemmy.world/c/plantbased
Edit: I should finish my coffee before posting, the only post there literally points to this more active com lol: https://lemmy.world/c/plantbased@lemmy.dbzer0.com
See: https://lemmy.world/post/23634881
We all know r/vegan exists and is a cesspit of carnists, but there doesn’t seem to be an actual demand for a ‘plant based’ space. I’m not sure why people would post about something they are kind of meh and not committed to?
If people are interested in just the food, there are communities for that:
I really don’t think the rules there are onerous. Just don’t talk about abusing animals and don’t be a jerk to the other posters and you’re good?
Hey, I didn’t make plantbased to be a less committed version to veganism. I made it because from reddit to lemmy every vegan community I’ve encountered has power tripping toxic mods and I wanted to provide an alternative space.
I’m fully committed to my veganism. But I also wanted people who aren’t to be able to discuss it without being attacked.
After I wrote this I see you’re writing from a vegan instance. I have less experience with there versus vegan communities around here.
The hardcore/toxic crowd do nothing except alienate and turn people against the cause and make people think being vegan means being surrounded by assholes.
It’s people like you that welcome everyone into the discussion that inspire more people to try it out; you’re bringing about the real change.
That’s so extremely nice of you to say :)
Lol, every vegan I know which includes a chunk of my own family went vegan because of militant vegans.
I see lots of carnists with no intention of going vegan talk about how militant vegans are bad but I have never actually met someone who is vegan and stays vegan that found wishy washy people motivating or inspiring.
You can be committed and firm on your issue without being a raging asshole about it at the same time. Most of the vegan communities I’ve come across don’t even talk about being vegan, it’s just finding more ways to shit on non vegans.
I’m not even a vegetarian but I am slowly trending y’all’s direction. Finding good recipes or product recommendations is key to getting my family to come along with me.
I appreciate being, if not welcomed, at least quietly tolerated!
I view that as a net positive :) trying to force people to change in one moment will never succeed.
You’re more than welcome! I view it as a space to learn and explore, not to be judged by what level vegan you are lol
The only thing I’ve moderated recently is people pushing meat in the community or being rude.
pushing meat
Tee hee
vegantheoryclub has both a home cooking (beware the rules re recipes), and a recipes community. There is also a discord linked with lots of pinned and extremely yummy recipes.
You are absolutely welcome to have a look, and you will not run into moderation issues unless you promote carnism. For example: wow that looks great, I’m going to have it with lamb" is as welcome as pissing in someone’s face, but asking for recommendations, tips, or suggestions is completely fine.
I’ll take a look, thanks.
I should clarify: when I refer to people who aren’t committed to veganism I am referring to the same people you are referring to when you say “people who aren’t”, i.e. the non vegans discussing veganism.
Isn’t !vegan@lemmy.world less radical than !vegan@vegantheoryclub.org ?
Probably? I don’t know. It started with the same mod team, didn’t it?
Vegan Theory Club is more radical and different in scope. It is definitely not a place to debate veganism. I let them come to my instance after some nonsense about lemmy.world and we’re not federated with lemmy.world. Vegan Theory Club is social media for vegans specifically.
It is definitely not a place to debate veganism
What we see in this post seems to be a debate among vegans about what kinds of places are best to support. Surely that should be welcome in a place called “vegan theory”? It’s a form of “debating veganism”, just not one between vegans and omnivores.
If I understand my history correctly, Vegan Theory Club is a theory club for vegans, not a club for vegan theory specifically.
There is a discord server of the same name which is way more active for the discussion of leftist theory. Members of the instance can make communities - it’s just no one has created one specifically to talk about vegan theory.
Hamid was respond to a suggestion for communities for vegans to debate carnists which db0 correctly identified as draining.
I’m not sure what debate between vegans would be. Debating our interpretation of texts? There is a book club community that’s perfect for that.
I’m not sure what debate between vegans would be
Literally what I just said. “Is it better for one restaurant to succeed with 100% vegan food while most other restaurants entirely lack vegan options, or for every restaurant to have a couple of good vegan options?”
Your instance admin seems to have established (in the comments of this thread) a pretty clear strong opinion on that topic, but a less obnoxious community could have debates like that among themselves and create fruitful results. Which is what it seems was happening in the thread this post is about, until the mods of the LW vegan community put a stop to it.
I really don’t know why carnists have such strong opinions on vegan spaces.
There is no debating on the side of allowing a restaurant to serve meat on a vegan messaging board. Debating this is missing the point of veganism entirely and my user community understands this and is why they created an account on a small instance like Vegan Theory Club. We are of a similar mind and the club is for people to find people on the same page as them. It works, we have off lemmy resources and an active discord. Veganism isn’t a diet, it is a social justice movement to end the human exploitation of Animals, debating that serving meat is ok would get you banned on my instance as well. Personally I would have shut down a vegan restaurant before introducing meat and reopened as something else.
I don’t personally eat at non vegan restaurants ever. I almost never go to restaurants at all frankly and prefer potlucks and cooking at our homes when I hang out with my friends. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-prole-info-abolish-restaurants
There is no debating on the side of allowing a restaurant to serve meat on a vegan messaging board.
In an ideal world I’d love to have only vegan restaurants and everyone being vegan globally. As this is not within my power, I am looking for a way that benefits veganism the most.
I think the easier it gets to be vegan, the more people will get on board. If you get vegan options only in specialized places in big cities, that will make it hard for anyone not living close to that or being part of social cycles not 100% vegan.
If a purely vegan restaurant survives economically, I am more than happy. But if they don’t, I definitely prefer them to add a few omnivore dishes rather than closing completely and getting replaced by another steakhouse.
I don’t think having this opinion makes me any kind of bad vegan or fake vegan but I’m happy to hear your points if you think otherwise.
I think the piece of information that is being missed is that VTC is inherently anti capitalist and therefore the concept of “supporting businesses” so that they can survive doesn’t really make sense in that context. (See link Hamid posted)
Just in the context of trying to get a work group to go to lunch, finding a place that fits everyone’s diets is tough, so if a place exists that is one, and only one, diet type then big groups wont be able to go there for business events or catering. Depending on the location, that could be a huge revenue source missed.
Veganism is in its core a boycott, so that is the default take. I don’t live in a big city so I don’t go to restaurants. If you read the link I posted, I think there are a lot of problems with restaurants that go beyond veganism and they are offensive to me as an anarchist. I strongly dislike businesses, business owners and I like to do things for myself. To that end the more I lean on a life of compromise the less I feel is being done. By organizing pot lucks, friends dinners, participating in my local Food Not Bombs and promoting home cooking I am building an alternative to the carnist structures in our world that is more meaningful than making an individual decision to go to a carnist business and give them money that they then invest in more carnist businesses. This is also why I don’t really like buying products labeled “vegan” from meat companies or buying impossible burgers from Burger King, we aren’t convincing them to switch, we are participating in horizontal segmentation where they carve out two markets from one that don’t cannibalize each other. I used to have the meeting notes from an shareholder meeting at Burger King where the CEO explains this but I lost it in my international move a few years ago among all my boxes of computer stuff. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/horizontalmarket.asp
I think adding meat dishes to a vegan restaurant and still calling it vegan is offensive and anti-vegan. If you want to go to restaurants then I guess that is a compromise you have to make for your own reasons but I don’t think that it is vegan decision in scope. I don’t attack people online or in person for it but I don’t think you’d be a good fit for a community of radical vegans and anti capitalists. I probably wouldn’t remove your comments from a message board like he lemmy.world one which is basically a vegan news community and appeals to beginners and transitioners but I would remove it from my instance. There is no requirement to go to restaurants in this world and my life got more interesting when I stopped going to places like that.
I think the easier it gets to be vegan, the more people will get on board.
But if they are not participating in the vegan boycott, are they on board? I’ve been a vegan for a long time and understand people are at different places, that said the biggest problem is recidivism. The longer you go as a vegan making compromises the less likely that you’re going to stick with it. For me this meant that at one point I needed to actually change my life and social groups to align with what I believe instead of forcing what I believe into a world that doesn’t agree and is hostile. For me this was a good decision, I made new friends, I have new things to do and I’m far more socially active as a mid 40s vegan in my vegan world than most of my old friends and coworkers are.
Thanks for clarifying
I think you go way to lean on the mods. I don’t think its anything but power tripping for a few mods to decide who gets to be a “real vegan” and who is a “fake vegan” if they don’t actually consume animal based products.
A lot of “their own community” types can keep themselves to themselves.
Dear everybody: if your posts appear to the public, the public’s gonna show up and talk to you. No popular website is your unquestioned megaphone. Be prepared to argue if you target people who disagree. That is what it means, for them to disagree.
That’s not how it works. Just because someone is letting you listen in doesn’t mean you deserve a platform in their spaces
Spamming propaganda and erasing all criticism isn’t “letting” you do anything. It’s shouting in your ear and slapping you for backsass.
When the enforced opinions of a space are all that space is about… that’s a circlejerk. It’s nothing like a knitting community with a ‘no racism’ policy, despite identical mechanisms. It exists solely to push an agenda. They don’t want federation. They demand a docile audience.
You have to admit it’s kind of funny that Lemmy’s clearest example of this is militant vegans.
Nobody is forcing you to go into the spaces where they’re “spamming propaganda”. Nobody forces you to subscribe to those comms and nothing is preventing your from blocking them altogether. You still don’t deserve a platform in those comms.
Well I didn’t invite it and yet here it is in my feed. They didn’t put it there for gentle outreach. It’s all posts by [thing]lover@[thing].org, in the [thing]ism@[thing].org community, to exclusively talk about [thing] by promoting exactly one opinion about [thing]. Spam spam spam spam and absolutely no eggs.
If you’re going to /all, you’re going to see posts in all comms. Still is not a permissions or invite to a platform in every comm without respecting their rules. You’re being deliberately obtuse.
Maybe if everyone who wanders into a public-facing hot-take factory goes away scorned, that place is not compatible with being public-facing.
Surely the central point of this community is acknowledging that moderators can fuck up. Sometimes, having a very public forum in the first place is fucking up. The freedom-of-association to say ‘well they’re allowed to set the rules’ doesn’t fix how some rules will cause problems. Some rules are a misery engine. For freshly-slapped users, for burned-out moderators, or for everyone involved.
If your community federates all over the place, you’re going to get users of all stripes. They didn’t sneak in. You did in fact invite everyone. That’s not carte blanche for all behavior - but if the behavior you exclude seems reasonable to nearly everyone else, you’re gonna have a bad time. Maybe the space itself should opt out.
Maybe it shouldn’t be on every individual user to identify the broken stairs.
I (a vegan) got banned from there for finding the love of cows cloying. I said we shouldn’t have to pretend cows are cute to convince others not to kill and eat them.
It really isn’t a place for even back and forth amongst friends, “no conversation - only agreement”
I think cows are adorable (in a positive manner :D) but yes, completely agree. Being a vegan shouldn’t require that you passionately love being in contact with all kinds of species. I mean - despite them playing a role in the ecosystem - who loves ticks or mosquitoes?
Ticks and mosquitoes aren’t vegan either, are they? That has nothing to do with liking them, it just suddenly occurred to me.
I’m not sure if there’s any species other than humans that would be considered ‘vegan’. My feeling is that it requires some kind of explicit choice to explicitly go plant-based only despite being able to digest all kind of food. An animal that’s 100% plant-based would be probably rather called herbivore than vegan. But maybe there are also some species or individuals that are exactly like that and we as humans just don’t know about it.
Purity gatekeeping, and purity competitions, are the bane of any movement. Sorry that happened to you. FWIW I thought your comments were reasonable
Another day, another
dietvegan/carnivore dramafyi the normal diet people eat is omnivorous, not carnivorous.
That looked like vegan/vegan drama
I didn’t see any anti-vegan comment
A few days ago there was a carnivore drama in this community
Indeed. This is not like that.
Ed after reading the earlier one
That was about a diet community banning users who were blanket down voting
This is a diet community banning users who were participating in relevant conversation about the subject because they weren’t sufficiently spiteful
Veganism isn’t a diet, it is a social justice movement for animal rights.
It can be. I know a lot of the loudest vegans insist this is the only acceptable definition. But that’s not how language works. A vegan is someone who abstains from all animal food products, and usually all/most other animal products. Their reason for doing so is not an essential part of the definition.
This is the kind of nonsense we have to deal with.
Not quite sure what you mean, sorry.
Carnists having a good ol’ game of “muddy the waters, then play coy”.
Oh, my comment was the alleged nonsense? In that case I disagree strenuously. The nonsense is one quite extremist vegan using their powers to silence other vegans from having respectful conversation.
You are simply not correct and there isn’t much more to discuss. There is an actual agreed on definition of veganism by vegans, created by the vegan society who created veganism and coined the term vegan to describe themselves. They created the word vegan for this specific reason, it didn’t exist before and you can’t redefine it because you don’t like it. The reason for doing so is absolutely an essential part of the definition. If they are not doing it for this reason then they are plant based and not vegan.
“Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”
There is an actual agreed on definition of veganism by vegans, created by the vegan society who created veganism and coined the term vegan to describe themselves
Sorry, but that is just not how language works. One group does not get to define a term and insist everyone else uses it in the precise way they do. Words’ meanings are defined by how they are used. And the term vegan is used in the way I described all the time.
A word’s meaning can also change over time. Even if you were correct that the term was coined to be an ethical standpoint, that would not preclude it later evolving to have the broader meaning it does in today’s society. That would be the etymological fallacy. But in fact you are not correct about that either. The term was coined by Donald Watson and Dorothy Morgan, because they wanted a more concise term for non-dairy vegetarians. The first time the term had caught on in the wider public enough to make it into a dictionary, the agreed meaning of vegan was “a vegetarian who eats no butter, eggs, cheese, or milk”. You can thus talk about ethical veganism (which seems to be the only subtype of veganism your definition would accept), environmental veganism, or dietary veganism.
I made exactly the same point to the university when I wanted to open a quantum research lab studying really big distances (see quantum leap) but they said it would be confusing and stupid to accept ignorant people’s definition of technical terms.
If you don’t know the difference between a scientific term in scientific research and a casual term used informally, I don’t know how to help you. But I suspect in this case, rather than ignorant, you are acting in bad faith.
But anyway, I don’t view the casual meaning of quantum leap as being that different from its scientific meaning anyway. Quantum leap in physics doesn’t mean “really small leap”, it means a leap that is very sudden and does not pass through any point in between. It seems quite reasonable, by analogy, to use it to refer to any paradigm shift.
blah blah blah, I am dumber for having heard from you
Hey look it’s the problem
Edited
deleted by creator
This is why plantbased was made recently
Yup!
And it’s a great community too. I don’t participate because it isn’t for me, but so far it has been a breath of fresh air how chill it is
The vegan Community is actually quite shit. They don’t hesitate to delete your comment just because you aren’t a vegan, even if you agree with them in certain points.
There’s a word that describes communities like that, echochambers.
Love the user name. Ruminant revolution!
Its a fact. Also cows are much cooler than horses, because unlike them they are actually useful. Also I cows are very chill so you can cuddle with them a lot.
can cows be ridden?
They can.
obviously the value of an organism comes from its utility to humans
Even apart from being more useful cows are still the superior animal.
okay, modulo the carnist thinking, it remains pure vachauvanism. (I hope you enjoy my punmanteu.)
PTB. vegans deserve better representation in their leaders than this i hope we can get an alternative community that can allow discussion without weird purity purges.
so true! plants are based
Dang, an actual PTB!
Defining removing the comments was already borderline PTB, though one can argue that since vegans tend to insist on dealt strict policies in vegan C/s, that it is within bounds to remove comments and posts as needed to maintain their space.
But holy shit, the “you aren’t a real vegan” went right off the rails. And then bans for it. That’s not even crossing the line in this specific case, it’s kicking the line and spitting on its grave.
Mind you, sometimes it’s necessary to ban people that aren’t an actual part of the specific group a forum/community is for. It is case specific whether or not someone is power tripping.
But this case is soooo far into power tripping it’s almost a parody
Definitely PTB.
Vegan restaurant
Adds meat to its menu
What
*Former Vegan Resturant
Is Sunshine Beaver’s alt? If so then yeah i could understand why this happen.
I don’t know about this and I also don’t know if she is the one who deleted the comments and triggered the bans. In general, I appreciate her content. She is posting lots of interesting articles (not only in the vegan community) and I guess Lemmy needs people like her providing content to debate about.
Just if debate is not desireable, then I don’t think it makes sense to post it to a social platform. Social platforms without interaction and different opinions are just dead link lists. Then I can also just set up a RSS reader on the news sites I’d like to follow.
No dispute here, i’m just saying this sorta remind me of the controversy beaver kick off 4 months ago in the vegan community, behaviour-wise it’s very similar.
then I don’t think it makes sense to post it to a social platform
This is a fundamental problem with much of Lemmy TBH. There is zero room for discussion on any contentious topic. Period. You’re either on the side the mods believe in, or are in a race to get moderated. It’s a fundamental flaw with the federation concept. Because it is impossible to permanently purge legit trolls any semblance of it gets harshly dealt with because that’s the only way to stem the tide of BS. Unfortunately this creates a huge chasm between any 2 viewpoints preventing any legitimate argumentation and fosters echo chambers.
Trump getting voted in is my go to example. Judging by all the posts, comments, and voting patterns it looked like that guy had zero policies anyone would vote for. It was a sure thing Harris was going to win. That whole fiasco proves how out of touch Lemmy is with the real world because it isn’t treated as a forum for discussion.
Trump getting voted in is my go to example. Judging by all the posts, comments, and voting patterns it looked like that guy had zero policies anyone would vote for. It was a sure thing Harris was going to win. That whole fiasco proves how out of touch Lemmy is with the real world because it isn’t treated as a forum for discussion.
Isn’t Reddit the same? Looking at Reddit quickly, it seemed to be a sure Harris win
Isn’t Reddit the same?
No, as it is not federated the underlying problems are different. There is less stress on moderators and dialogue is naturally constrained by the possibility of permanent banishment from the platform. I haven’t been there in months but in my decade of using it previously I was never banned presumably because moderators aren’t on a hair trigger or have oversight focused on the preservation of the platform above all else.
Is there stupidity and over-moderation on Reddit? Ofc. But, it is not the Wild West that Lemmy is.
Edit: FTR I’m not pro-Reddit either.
I haven’t been there in months
You can have a look at !reddit@lemmy.world, moderation there has changed quite a bit in the last months
Also
I was thinking exactly that, she is certainly behaving very similarly to how Beaver did back in the day and is absolutely power-tripping now. If banning people who criticize the mod’s posts in any way is power-tripping, then accusing people of being fake vegans for disagreeing is absolutely power tripping.
PTB for sure, they’re removing comments not 100% in support of them which is iffy, but now they are trying to decide that people aren’t real vegans because they don’t agree with the mods, WTF?!?
Also is it just me or does this mod seem like they might be an Alt of Beaver (a previous mod of the Vegan community who was removed from the community for power-tripping) was known for making alts and trying to sneak herself back in as mod a few times with her alts, as well as fostering ill will towards the mod who removed her using her alt accounts. She ultimately deleted her accounts after being called out for the behavior and when these tactics weren’t working.
@TheTechnician27@lemmy.world Maybe you might want to look into this, it’s very possible the person who was power-tripping before was somehow able to get back in as a mod on an alt account without you or other mods knowing it was them.
I mean what level of vegan are you? Do you eat anything that casts a shadow?
Last time I walked through a field. I’m pretty sure the wheat barley and corn all casted shadows.
in a simpsons episode lisa meets a vegan who says he is a level 5 vegan and does not eat anything that casts a shadow.
