Intro
We would like to address some of the points that have been raised by some of our users (and by one of our communities here on Lemmy.World) on /c/vegan regarding a recent post concerning vegan diets for cats. We understand that the vegan community here on Lemmy.World is rightfully upset with what has happened. In the following paragraphs we will do our best to respond to the major points that we’ve gleaned from the threads linked here.
Links
Actions in question
Admin removing comments discussing vegan cat food in a community they did not moderate.
The comments have been restored.
The comments were removed for violating our instance rule against animal abuse (https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#11-attacks-on-users). Rooki is a cat owner himself and he was convinced that it was scientific consensus that cats cannot survive on a vegan diet. This originally justified the removal.
Even if one of our admins does not agree with what is posted, unless the content violates instance rules it should not be removed. This was the original justification for action.
Removing some moderators of the vegan community
Removed moderators have been reinstated.
This was in the first place a failure of communication. It should have been clearly communicated towards the moderators why a certain action was taken (instance rules) and that the reversal of that action would not be considered (during the original incident).
The correct way forward in this case would have been an appeal to the admin team, which would have been handled by someone other than the admin initially acting on this.
We generally discuss high impact actions among team before acting on them. This should especially be the case when there is no strong urgency on the act performed. Since this was only a moderator removal and not a ban, this should have been discussed among the team prior to action.
Going forward we have agreed, as a team, to discuss such actions first, to help prevent future conflict
Posting their own opposing comment and elevating its visibility
Moderators’ and admins’ comments are flagged with flare, which is okay and by design on Lemmy. But their comments are not forced above the comments of other users for the purpose of arguing a point.
These comments were not elevated to appear before any other users comments.
In addition, Rooki has since revised his comments to be more subjective and less reactive.
Community Responses
The removed comments presented balanced views on vegan cat food, citing scientific research supporting its feasibility if done properly.
Presenting scientifically backed peer reviewed studies is 100% allowed, and encouraged. While we understand anyone can cherry pick studies, if a individual can find a large amount of evidence for their case, then by all accounts they are (in theory) technically correct.
That being said, using facts to bully others is not in good faith either. For example flooding threads with JSTOR links.
The topic is controversial but not clearly prohibited by site rules.
That is correct, at the time there was no violation of site wide rules.
Rooki’s actions appear to prioritize his personal disagreement over following established moderation guidelines.
Please see the above regarding addressing moderator policy.
Conclusions
Regarding moderator actions
We will not be removing Rooki from his position as moderator, as we believe that this is a disproportionate response for a heat-of-the-moment response.
Everybody makes mistakes, and while we do try and hold the site admin staff to a higher standard, calling for folks resignation from volunteer positions over it would not fair to them. Rooki has given up 100’s of hours of his free time to help both Lemmy.World, FHF and the Fediverse as a whole grown in far reaching ways. You don’t immediately fire your staff when they make a bad judgment call.
While we understand that this may not be good enough for some users, we hope that they can be understanding that everyone, no matter the position, can make mistakes.
We’ve also added a new by-laws section detailing the course of action users should ideally take, when conflict arises. In the event that a user needs to go above the admin team, we’ve provided a secure link to the operations team (who the admin’s report to, ultimately). See https://legal.lemmy.world/bylaws/#12-site-admin-issues-for-community-moderators for details.
TL;DR In the event of an admin action that is deemed unfair or overstepping, moderators can raise this with our operations team for an appeal/review.
Regarding censorship claims
Regarding the alleged censorship, comments were removed without a proper reason. This was out of line, and we will do our best to make sure that this does not happen again. We have updated our legal policy to reflect the new rules in place that bind both our user AND our moderation staff regarding removing comments and content. We WANT users to hold us accountable to the rules we’ve ALL agreed to follow, going forward. If members of the community find any of the rules we’ve set forth unreasonable, we promise to listen and adjust these rules where we can. Our terms of service is very much a living document, as any proper binding governing document should be.
Controversial topics can and should be discussed, as long as they are not causing risk of imminent physical harm. We are firm believers in the hippocratic oath of “do no harm”.
We encourage users to also list pros and cons regarding controversial viewpoints to foster better discussion. Listing the cons of your viewpoint does not mean you are wrong or at fault, just that you are able to look at the issue from another perspective and aware of potential points of criticism.
While we want to allow our users to express themselves on our platform, we also do not want users to spread mis-information that risks causing direct physical harm to another individual, origination or property owned by the before mentioned. To echo the previous statement “do no harm”.
To this end, we have updated our legal page to make this more clear. We already have provisions for attacking groups, threatening individuals and animal harm, this is a logical extension of this to both protect our users and to protect our staff from legal recourse and make it more clear to everyone. We feel this is a very reasonable compromise, and take these additional very seriously.
Sincerely,
FHF / LemmyWorld Operations Team
EDIT: Added org operations contact info
Wow. I have no involvement in the original issue and I’m definitely not as familiar with the circumstances and details as others. There may be a lot missing here.
But this feels like a very mature, logical, empathetic, well-intentioned response and the kind of thing I like to see.
We’re just trying to do the best we can to consider everyone involved and what we can do better going forward. We’re all just volunteers trying to keep things positive and stable. 🙏 ❤️
Thanks!
Fucking vegan cat killer assholes
The comments were removed for violating our instance rule against animal abuse (https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#11-attacks-on-users).
That’s not true at all. The reason given by Rooki for the actions at the time was “missinformation” [sic]. The ToS had no rules on misinformation at the time.
But their comments are not forced above the comments of other users for the purpose of arguing a point.
These comments were not elevated to appear before any other users comments.
That’s also untrue. Rooki specifically distinguished that comment (the shield icon) in addition to having the [A] (admin) icon next to their name.
We will not be removing Rooki from his position as moderator
In your post, you accept that the vegan comments were valid, thus Rooki was in the wrong. Why does an instance moderator get to interfere (and impact what the readers see for days) with absolute impunity and new rules created to back their talking points? Rooki was not even asked to pause their activity while you looked into the conduct. There was no punishment to discourage those acts at all. Where in the world does one side admit to being at fault but the remedy still favors that side only?
Edit: post->comment
The ToS had no rules on misinformation at the time.
it still had rules about animal abuse, which this misinformation, had it actually been misinformation, would have lead to. while the removal reason could have been more clear, the justification was still covered by our ToS.
new rules created to back their talking points
the additional rules provided more clarification on what we intend to achieve with them, but they would not be required. based on what we know today the removal was neither justified by the original ToS nor by the updated ones.
That’s also untrue. Rooki specifically distinguished that post (the shield icon) in addition to having the [A] (admin) icon next to their name.
Damn, I thought it was the case but couldn’t remember.
We should call out the shield icon as a deliberate act but afaik admins or moderators always have a tag if they are part of said groups next to their name in the default lemmy UI, so if that’s a concern it should be raised with the lemmy dev team, not specifically lemmy.world
Edit: specifically the mod/admin tag thing has already been an open issue for over a year, so it’s certainly a lemmy UI dev discussion
There was no punishment to discourage those acts at all.
It’s weird to me that you are indicating the only way to address someone making a mistake or not doing the best thing is “punishment”.
I think they addressed what they’re changing and the thoughts behind what you’re talking about very specifically and clearly.
That’s also untrue. Rooki specifically distinguished that comment
Unless i’m mistaken, the comment you’re saying is “untrue” is specifically about ordering it over others; as one would see based on up/downvotes. You seem to be talking about something else.
@lwadmin For full disclosure I agree with rooki on this topic.
I may have missed it in the write up but I think the vegan mods needlessly escalated the situation by trying to ban and remove comments from an admin.
I am not saying I always agree with rooki but I respect his job as an admin.
The mods of vegan treated him disrespectfully in his capacity as an admin by deleting and banning him.
You should cover this in your terms of service.
The comments were removed for violating our instance rule against animal abuse
I really don’t get this point. With the same logic, you can remove any person giving meat to their cat, or more generally, eating meat themselves. No matter how much most people try to ignore it and not think about it, the absolute overwhelming majority of meat is produced in absolutely cruel and gruesome circumstances, which every pet owner would consider torture.
(Edit: And for the record, I’m not even vegan myself (and also don’t own a cat), just calling out the hypocrisy.)
Speaking of mod power abuse, some days ago one of your mods deleted my (very mildly) snarky comment for “mod harassment”, which I didnt even know they were until that point. I suggested they should be a little less petty and argumentative in random comment chains.
I did not report that bs at the time because I honestly dont give two fucks about the guy and have since blocked him, but I’m sure you can find it in the mod logs.
The comments were removed for violating our instance rule against animal abuse
The comments have been restored
What… So the rules don’t matter if enough people get angry, I see
he was convinced that it was scientific consensus that cats cannot survive on a vegan diet
10/10 vets understand the science behind the consensus.
But anyway, let’s hear what the accountant and physicist think, since that’s going to be relevant.
To be totally honest you have nothing to apologize for. Dogs and cats are metabolically different to humans and cannot survive on a vegan diet unlike us. Forcing obligate carnivore pets on vegan diets is certainly animal abuse.
I remember when there was a growing campaign to ban r/nonewnormal on Reddit due to it being a hub of medical disinformation and conspiracy theories surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and that this led to a blackout much like the later API protests.
Rather than read the room and introduce a new rule banning medical disinformation, Reddit’s Tintin-looking moron of a CEO instead threw out tonnes of BS statistics on brigading likely plucked out of his own sphincter, and banned the subreddit because their activity exceeded this arbitrary percentage he made up.
And before you tell me this guy’s figures were legit, aren’t we forgetting that he pathologically lied about his interactions with the Sync developer? Spez is a snake.
Good to know admins wont ever face any consequences
Will your next statement address the existence of a bot that lets community moderators site-ban and IP blacklist accounts without any appeal process?
Between the MediaBiasFactCheck and this bot how much power does Rooki have over the instance?
So… just to check my understanding, what you’re saying is that whether or not cats can survive on a vegan diet, it doesn’t matter? Right? You’re saying that you decided the admins overstepped and you regret approaching ambiguity the way you did? I suppose that seems reasonable. There’s plenty of misinfo all over Lemmy as is, and as such there’s gotta be various ways we can handle it - from top-down bans to trusting the readers.
As for the diet stuff, what, are they using lab-grown meat? Is that the TLDR here?
EDIT: Guys I am just checking my understanding - maybe check your own if you think such a comment does not contribute to the discussion.
As for the diet stuff, what, are they using lab-grown meat?
No, the food is plant based and has all the essential nutrients, either inherently or added (like synthetic Taurin for example).
Edit: People who downvote this are disagreeing with objective reality. Anti-Vegans are way more obnoxious than any vegan I ever met. Weird people.
Lol i was expecting to get a lot of downvotes for asking clarifying questions without having any opinions formed. The internet doesn’t like that. ME SMASH!!
I am not a vegan, but I do try to make food choices that are as ethical and healthy as I can… or at least as far as I can afford.
Cats are carnivores. Fact. This is not debatable. But I think you could also meet or exceed a cats nutritional needs from other sources. Whether those sources are readily available and whether a person is sufficiently meeting those needs… that’s another can of worms.
Generally, I’d argue that if you are hell-bent on a vegan diet, then you should not own carnivorous pets. No matter how well meaning you are, there is a significant chance that you will inflict harm on your pet, and that is unacceptable.
deleted by creator
They actually said that they could have handled it better and made some procedural changes.
That’s…the opposite of what was said here.
I’m glad you’re sticking to your guns on this. At the end of the day, it should NOT be up to the admin team who are not subject matter experts to determine what is and is not considered “truth” especially in cases where there is still active research on the topic.
I also can totally see how this topic can elicit a knee jerk reaction, because people have been known to put animals on vegan diets irresponsibly, but we don’t block people from posting “chonkers” or obese cats which is literally the same thing where people will often intentionally overfeed their cats for this aesthetic which is also clearly abuse in the exact same vein.
I also think its a good thing you reinstated the admin after some reflection and a well thought out response and statement. It doesn’t seem like they are on some crazy power trip either.
good response. love knowing there are adults in the room turning pissing contests in to practical policy.
