Recent events over at lemmy.world have got me thinking, and I wanted to see what the community here are reddthat.com thinks.
Most details are available at the lw admin team’s latest post. TLDR A discussion about whether a vegan cat diet was viable started at c/vegan. An admin banned some comments and removed a moderator of the community. LW updated their TOS with a section about misinformation. The admin actions were reversed.
(Probably, I am misrepresenting the situation, read the link before taking up arms)
While, I prefer to enter my own opinions in a comment, I would like to add some questions to frame the discussion:
- What do you the new section about misinformatiom? Do you think reddthat needs one?
- What do you think about how the situation was handled by the LW admin team?
- Given that LW is the biggest lemmy instance, how do you think these changes will influence smaller instances like reddthat?
- Do you have any other take aways from this? Or any other questions?
- (bonus) Isn’t it hilarious that lemmy has its own tea (=gen z for drama)?
It’s one step closer towards degenerating into every other social media platform.
Purported misinformation should be met with community criticism, belittling, and self-policing. Not some impotent blanket ban.
My main issue would be that that’s the kind of thing that can be taken as advice that lands you in legal hot water. Classifying it as misinformation is maybe a step in the wrong direction, but I think the spirit behind it is to prevent people from glomming onto untested and anecdotal “evidence.”
There’s no veterinary medical professional that would currently recommend such a thing, and allowing that kind of “advice” to proliferate, however well-intentioned, could potentially land the instance operators in court (“Your Honor, I was just following the advice I saw on Lemmy. I wasn’t trying to hurt my cat.”).
I wouldn’t mind if Reddthat had a policy against offering medical advice, including untested veterinary advice.
I saw the original post, and I was a bit skeptical myself. But I believe they might have actually cracked the formula/recipe for truly vegan and nutrition complete cat food.
I don’t blame the user for posting that at all. If it actually checks out, that’s a good thing in my book.
But if it doesn’t check out as nutritionally complete, then the company making the food should be called out, not the user that posted the article.
I want all the kitties, puppies and other critters to be as healthy as possible, just like any other caring person.
The bizzare thing about the whole drama is that while this started being about cat food, some summary posts I saw in my feed from other vegan communities finish their retelling by claiming the admin completely denied that vegan lifestyle is healthy, for anyone. When it was at all times always just about cat food. This whole thing just got super confusing very fast.
Honestly, I’m in complete agreement with you.
I used to be 100% in the camp of, “cats are obligate carnivores and cannot have a plant-based diet.” But IF, and it’s a big if, they can get a truly nutritional complete feed with all the taurine and B-whatever they need… Then that’s not animal abuse.
My main gripe is the admin, Rooki, enforcing their will on the community.
I might get lambasted for this but I think Rogan has a good take on censorship. To summarize his point, the best way to combat wrong information is to challenge it, engage it, and provide good information. Let the correct consensus rise to he top with discussion and evidence. Don’t create an echo-chamber that stifles conversation and allows only GoodThink.
admin removed as mod by mods
admin re-adds self as mod
admin removes other modsReddit behavior
What do you the new section about misinformatiom? Do you think reddthat needs one?
When considering misinformation clauses I like the Wikipedia example. Intentionally or not, a core strategy wikipedia followed from early on is “don’t give a platform to the trolls”. Some believe that constructive critism is not effective against an attention seeking troll, it’s much more efficient for everyone to ban them early.
That said, freedom of speech is equally important and it’s important to differentiate between hard to discuss topics and misinformation. Hard to discuss topics are important because they help us explore new ideas, and grow as people and society.
All in all, I don’t like LW’s misinformation section, but I do think one is necessary. While, I cannot make a complete suggestion, I would definitely consider updating the clauses about peer reviewed research. Publications can be a reliable source of information, but gatekeeping knowledge into academic institutions is an issue IMO (especially if you consider that being a researcher is an socioeconomic privilege).
What do you think about how the situation was handled by the LW admin team?
It was a roller coaster to watch the controversy unveil, but I think the situation was handled well by the LW team. An admin made a few mistakes, which is understandable, the mistakes were acknowledged and fixed.
Given that LW is the biggest lemmy instance, how do you think these changes will influence smaller instances like reddthat?
While, I am sure of the influence LW holds over other lemmy instances, I try to remember that in the scope of the fediverse LW is relatively small.
We have already seen a few smaller instances move away from lemmy.world and that is good for diversity in the Fediverse.
As for the action of the particular admin, I do think the action of demodding the user was the wrong step. As the admin post said, the topic is controversial so I am not going to touch it.
Ideally, an instance admin shouldn’t be commenting with an admin account. A seperation of admin and daily user account should exist but I realise that it may be cumbersome.
