🎓 Dr. Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@social.cleverlibre.org

@lupyuen If you were you would know.. its a licensed thing that allows you to operate on certain frequencies the general public can not.

@VictorVenema I literally just explicitly stated three times that I do not think you are a biggot, in no uncertain terms... and you respond to that with "Thank you for admitting that you were attacking me as a bigot."? ummm ok, whatever

I agree though, time to disengage. At this point your literally just making up shit tight in front of everyones eyes and unable to justify your accusations and then accuse others of making accusations they never made... good sign this is where the conversation should end.

If others want to discuss in the thread I will respond, but I see no reason for us to directly exchange any more comments. Feel free to respond to others as well if you so wish.

@lupyuen You a ham radio operator by chance too? Or this all public domain frequencies?

@VictorVenema That does not equate to you being a biggot. to be a biggot you would have to be doing those things specifically because you have a dislike or hate for the LGBT community. Nothing in what i said suggested that was your motivation.

But our instance clearly states we are an "inclusive (read pro-LGBT, pro-minority) free speech instance"

So yes if you are against free-speech for LGBT and minority individuals, as you clearly are based on your objection, so be it. That doesnt make you a biggot, though it does mean you are acting against the best interest of the LGBT community in my opinion. But none of that, I dont think, is out of any hatred for challenged minorities per se. At least I hope not, it isnt entierly clear what your reasons are. But no I dont think its out of hate.

For some strange reason you just dont want LGBT and minorities to have an uncensored voice or to be granted the freedom of reading content that may express risks to their community... thats all I really know, and that is all I was conveying.

It probably just sounds biggoted because, well, it is directly harmful to the community to take that stance. So yea it might sound a bit biggoted, but again, to be explicit, no I dont think you are a biggot, just acting in a way harmful to minorities unintentionally.

@VictorVenema

I am not suggesting you are a biggot and frankly have no idea how you got that idea. Where are you coming up with this stuff.

@realcaseyrollins

@VictorVenema

> There are many more Fascist spaces that do not federate at all where LGBT+ people could be doxxed.

When GAB came on the scene it was mostly about GAB. However you are right there are other spaces where they could be doxxed, and we also dont block those spaces for the exact same reason, the safety of our LGBT community.

> I do not think a bigot would take the term "inclusive" on a free speech server seriously. It is not as if they like free speech.

Perhaps not. But in the end the fact is we get very few bigots signing up, and what few bigots that do sign up get blocked almost immediately.

All of this what if ism is fine.. but at the end isnt it more important that our server doesnt have a single biggot on it, nor has there been a single incident worthy of a ban that didnt get a ban... arent those things more important than the "what if ism" of what a biggot might or might not think?

The fact is we **are** an inclusive (read care deeply about all races, creeds, and orientation) free speech instance. Are you really so scared of LGBT and minorities having a voice and the freedom not to be told what they can or cant read, in a safe environment?

You point to no problems or incidents of any kind.. so it really is just a contrived attempt to justify being against a pro-LGBT community where we put the safety of our LGBT members above policy or above censoring what they are allowed to read.

Frankly, if thats the hill you want to die on I cant stop you. But I think it is a horrible and dangerous approach to take.

@realcaseyrollins

@stux Always glad to be of assistance :)

@rlamacraft Me too.. only reason i dont is because anything i write eventually would need to be digitized and old typewriters make that hard.

@stux This is a Mallard. They are known to dive in an attempt to find food. While I'm sure the babies are learning from mom just watching her, in all likelihood the momma bird is just diving as they usually do in search for food (and in this case not finding any).

@VictorVenema

We get about 30 - 50 new users per week. Of that we might get, at most, one nazi a year in the 5+ years we have existed. That's 1 in 2080 users that turn out to be nazis. I'd say thats a pretty good track record, especially when we are quick to block them so they never cause a problem.

The incident I speak of with the scholar instance was from the days before gab was even on the fediverse, it was some years back. But it was the start of it all. I will try to explain what happened.

The scholar instance had started blocking many of its LGBT users largely for frivilous reasons. Things revolving around personal opinions between its admin and the users. Many of them started flocking to QOTO as a result and there was a short lived movement on the server of users protesting their admin and suggesting the users come to QOTO. This was all before GAB was on the scene, so we are talking a long time now.

This caused the QOTO community to have a significant LGBT lean, which I was very happy to see in its own right. However it wasnt a huge movement, I think QOTO's numbers were well below 10% of what they are today at this point. Then came the GAB server and the isolate GAB movement which eventually led to the exodus.

At the time of GAB debates across the fediverse began regarding suspending GAB. Some people decided to suspend GAB and then suspend anyone who didnt suspend GAB, and anyone who didnt suspect them, etc... others, the ones loosely called "free speech" decided to leave that power in the hands of the users. QOTO at this point was undecided on what stance to take but our policy was still open until we decided. What we did see is that QOTO was seeing a huge surge in new traffic that I didnt understand, i later found out this surge, which lasted weeks, was mostly LGBT users, but I didnt find out why until later.

Since QOTO is a democratically run server and moderators are ellected we thought it fitting to put the policy decision up to the community. It was during this disucssion I discovered that the huge LGBT exodus we were seeing was due to LGBT users fleeing from servers employing extensive block policies on other servers. The reason, as they explained it to me, was that they wanted to be able to observe certain bad actors in the GAB community (such as milo) who might be doxxing LGBT members or otherwise doing things that put their lives at risk. They felt being able to see this (rather than having the content blocked) let them warn people of being doxxed and generally let them take actions to secure their safety. Not being able to see this information from their local server simply but their lives at risk.

The problem was, however, that most servers that took a free speech stance, as you rightfully point out, were filled with biggots of many flavors. So obviously they would feel equally unsafe going to a server like FSE. QOTO however, from the earlier incident with scholar, had a reputation among the LGBT who went through that drama of being welcoming and accepting place for LGBT. So they really saw us as the only option in the whole fediverse that was a "safe space" for LGBT while still holding open-federation policy.

This ultimately led to two things, the mass exodus of LGBT to QOTO itself, but also our policy to continue to protect that LGBT community and consider their safety in our own policy making, and that means free speech.

Why do you think it is that our about us page uses the terminology "an inclusive free speech instance"? You say free speech is a trigger word for biggots, well what about the word inclusive, how do they feel about that?

@realcaseyrollins

@ianmacd Many of our users use crossposters... that particular one your using has a massive blocklist sadly... try this one, it has better features too:

https://moa.party/

@realcaseyrollins

Yup qoto was Snow's first home. They got the boot pretty quickly and the entire mod team was in agreement on that actions.

There are countless examples of us blocking users for racism or hate speech. Which makes Victor's claims extremely puzzling and im left wondering where it comes from.

Victor are you familiar with what we call at QOTO the "LGBT exodus" where early on in our career the server was flooded with LGBT members over a free speech issue that ultimately caused servers they were fleeing from (like the scholar instance) to start bad mouthing us. They literally lost a huge portion of their community to QOTO because of some policy decisions and ultimate is where the rumors started about QOTO, completely fictional. Thankfully our LGBT community remains strong to this day for that reason but some people love to gossip anyway.

I suspect that may be where you get the idea from about QOTO, especially if you dont know the details (it was some time back).

@VictorVenema

@VictorVenema

Of course, and you are welcome to do as you see fit... but why is it when all your reasons turn out to be untrue and there is ample evidence to show it is incorrect that you wish to maintain those false opinions?

Not that I mind you do, but, where is the cause, what incident did you have that demonstrates your opinion at all, because I've never seen one.

Even if you dont change your mind if there is even a shred of truth to your accusations I would want to know about it so as a moderator I could fix the problem. If there isnt (and so far you dont seem to have any to provide) then I'd wonder why you would maintain a policy based on something you now know to be false?

@admin

@VictorVenema

Why would "strange people" getting into your mentions be my fault? That would be the result of **you** not moderating against those strange people, but wouldnt have anything to do with me.

As for free speech, free speech does not imply lack of moderation. Nor does it mean you can say anything you want.

More importantly, and to the point, have you ever seen a single incident that you would deem unacceptable where a moderator didnt act? Sounds more like what if isms than the actual reality, which is that we moderator and do so regularly.

Sounds like you never even bothered to read our rules or look at our past moderation actions.

Which by the way we publicly keep a record of our moderation and users weve banned for hate speech or other offenses. So there is more than enough evidence that we dont just have rules but actively enforce them...

So again any examples of a case where we didnt enforce moderator action when called for, even one?

@admin

@VictorVenema

Huh? We explicitly state that we moderate in our rules and list several examples of actions we moderate for (including hate speech and discrimination among others). We both have and will continue to ban users who break those rules.

Why in the world would you think we are unmoderated?

@admin

@zpartacoos starting a nation isnt likely to be a quick thing for sure. Hell there isnt even any land that is up for grabs which is likely on eof the biggest obstacles... but like I said im on board!

@zpartacoos You will when you realize that you will be "Duke Spata of titty town" (I get to name the towns too obviously).

@zpartacoos I love the idea, but getting movements started tend to be finicky things where good ideas mean very little... While I dont know if such a thing would ever gain momentum I would be happy to support it and be a part of it. Its a good idea in theory.

@zpartacoos King Freemo, has a nice ring to it.. im down!