Midwest.social banned me a year ago for "Racism" and I only just found out

Instance is midwest.social. Not a solitary clue who the admin was who did it.

A friend was wondering why they hadn't seen my posts and figured I'd been banned from lemmy.world or just left in general. I went to his instance and saw that in the modlog.

Not a damn clue as to why. There are no post removals, no comment removals, no temp bans and I never got any messages from any of the admins about anything that I did. Just one day, they randomly banned me for racism without rhyme nor reason. I have literally nothing that I can point towards and say "This is the reason why" because they never bothered to do anything other than ban me.

I am many things. I am an asshole, I'm a vindictive bitch, I'm a petty prick, I'm often antagonistic, I'm also a whiny bitch. But racist?

Edit:

Well okay then

98 comments

Maybe it's that the mod is racist and they are just letting you know? That would make way more sense than you being racist.
- That's the only guess I got.
  I went to midwest.social and looked at my own profile. Gives me a general timeframe of when I was banned. One of the last comments I made that was federated to that instance was this comment.
  Context is easy to make out, but the dude was saying that constant reporting on deaths in Palestine was unhelpful because it would desensitize everyone to the death and make them expect it.
  The only thing I can think of is that one of the admins of midwest.social is aggressively zionist or just completely misunderstood that comment.
  
  Ooooh. This was in that era when being pro-Israelian or pro-Palestinian meant everyone not of your view was racist. All the extremies were clambering to bag that rhetoric for themselves. Racism is obviously a fntastic card to have in the narcissists' deck, but it needs to stick to something first so in those opening rounds everything from anyone on any side is "racism".
  And let's be honest; the odds of a moderator being a narcissist is higher than the normals
  
  deleted by creator
- lol
Ever notice how seldom they quote the post and context, even when asked for contestation purposes? I once asked a mod somewhere why I was banned and they just replied "no" and blocked me lol. Summer people are just so patheticly petty.
- people are just so patheticly petty
  Modding attracts a type kinda like clergy attracts pedos
  
  Hey
Have you ever opposed any of the world’s ongoing genocides or authoritarian regimes?
- Usually that just gets me mass downvoted and called a tankie
  
  Or a liberal.
- is your name irony or serious?
  
  If you detected a hint of atomic number 26, it’s because the name is as serious as a rusty old frying pan.
That's a major flaw in lemmy. No ban notifications. Or, I've never gotten one. Like, rock n roll, ban me, especially if it's justified. But since lemmy doesn't let me know, if a mod doesn't send a "fuck off and die" note, I may not find out I'm banned for months (like your situation, it wasn't until someone else brought it to my attention).
But I do have multiple accounts, and if you want to ban me instead of just this account, you gotta let me know so I can filter shit out so I don't vote on an alt or make a comment while I'm piddling around or whatever.
Also, apologies for going off topic since the mod action taken against the OP is the point of posting here, PTB. With no specifics given, and the total lack of anything hinting at racism in your years on lemmy, I can't see this being a justified ban. Like you said, you're human enough to put on an asshole hat now and then (less than me most likely, but still), but racism just isn't something you've indulged in even in jest that I've ever seen.
- I'm not 100% what is going on with ban notifications, but you will get some. Mostly from communities but not all. I think it's depending on which instance has implemented that AutoMod function. But none of them tell you that you've been banned from another instance. Hell, it doesn't even show it in my modlog. I had to go to midwest.social and manually search their modlog for myself and THEN see that I was banned. I'm sure I've probably got that on a few other instances.
  I abhor racism. I was raised in an exceptionally racist household. I cannot say that I never said the N-word because I did. A lot. But growing up in a hateful echo chamber in a small town on a small island when everyone is so white they sunburn at night? You never see anything to break that mold. First person I met who wasn't white was a Native dude at school when I was like 10ish. He was great, invited me over to his place and I went. Met his family. Every single thing I had been told was a complete lie. Was at that point I started second guessing everything that I was ever taught by my shithole parents. I was furious. I'm still furious. Well over 2/3rd of my life later and I'm incredibly furious. I am not okay with being used, especially against people for no reason. Like hell am I going to try and continue that for other people.
  Then there's the fact that I'm gay and have a "vested interest" if you want to put it that way because racism isn't that different from homophobia in how insanely fucking stupid the entire thing is.
  But more than anything? It's just a fucked up way to be. I'm a die hard Trekkie. If I watched that show and came away going "Racism is okay!" then I need to be shot.
  
  I've removed two posts in the one comm im a mod of (that isn't just a personal comm) and both times i responded in the post explaining why it's deleted, before removing the post. That's the only way I know of that will alert a person they've been moderated.
  I've never gotten a notification for anything of mine that's been removed or banned.
- That’s a major flaw in lemmy. No ban notifications.
  Agreed!
Oh i've stopped looking for logic with these weasels.
I got banned with a "merry Christmas ya filthy racist" for pointing out the Master from Doctor Who was a genocidal maniac who tended to get hoist on his own petard. Because the current iteration was played by an actor of SEA descent. Apparently actor =/= character is faulty maths.
- To be fair, you were banned from hexbear.
  
  Go back a bit further, i also got banned from .ml for referring to xi as "winnie"
  
  Ironically, the term "dunk tank" has rascist origins.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunk_tank#Origin (note: slurs).
Stamets, you honky.
- What? Can't hear you over the banjo
Part of a temp ban I got (night have been my other account I don't use anymore) was because I ignored that my other comments were removed and continued an argument.
How was I supposed to know my comments were removed? There was no warning or anything, no notification about removals, nothing. Only saw the comments I was responding to as they popped in.
Doesn't REALLY matter, I deserved it, but it would be nice to actually be appropriately warned before catching a ban when a warning was implied.
My favorite is when they ban you without citing any of the rules you broke. Got shadow banned from news because I made a tongue in cheek reference to how billionaires see the whole of working class citizens. "no, just no" was all they put. No broken rule, and obviously, no grasp of sarcasm. Even had the /s and everything.
- Sounds like you been served by Jordan Lund haha
  
  I'll post the big bad comment here to see if I was actually in the wrong, as I'm usually pretty mindful of what I post (I think?) lol
  FOR MODS:
  I am just posting the comment that was under a Luigi Mangione post. If I shouldn't, just let me know and I'll edit out. Thank you!
  BANNED COMMENT:
  ‘Look, I get it. I have this excel sheet filled with CEOs, what they make a year, what company they work for, who their family is, what their blood type is, and much more. According to my spreadsheet, there are still ways to cut costs, and the only thing that can make my company more money is by offering these poor CEOs up to the capitalist machine. It’s just the cost of business, you know? I feel sorry for them, but profits are so much more important to me than some silly little person and their problems. /s’
- . Got shadow banned from news
  Can Lemmy even shadow-ban tho? I wasn't aware that was a thing.
  
  It can't, no.
  You don't get notified when you're banned, but there is a modlog.
It was a beautiful comment. Some people struggle with irony. Btw, I don't think anyone is concious of their unconcious biases. If you give a shit, in the broad sense, you just have to keep trying.
You're interviewing two candidates and you just seem to prefer Dan over Eric, who has dreads. You're not really sure why you prefer Dan, but you're sure it's nothing to do with racism. You feel confident because you have a daughter-in-law you love like your own, who happens to be black. Are you racist if you hire Dan?
- Oh absolutely. I have no idea if I'm racist unless I have it pointed out. Do I want to be? Fuck no. I just want to be told how so I can stop doing that. I don't want my fun to come at the expense of others. Unless they're billionaires or nazis, they can fuck off.
When a mod threatens to ban you from a community you want no part in
Now there's a username I never expected to see in YPTB.
- Me? Oh I've posted here before. Hell, I've been posted about before. Like I said, I am an asshole.
  Granted my biggest 'blowout' over a power tripping piece of shit mod, I used TenForward itself to do it instead of here. Arguably I should have but it was just after the launch of TenForward and the admins of Startrek.website were actively harassing myself and the lemmy.world admins to attempt to get me banned. That and there were a lot of posts being made at the time questioning why I had suddenly left startrek.website, why myself/Picard/Umm/NegativeNull and others suddenly stopped posting to Risa entirely. It was just easier to make one giant post on that community.... why did I start talking about this and get links?
  I need sleep. I also need ADHD meds. And I'd like to eat.
  Can someone shoot me?
  
  Can someone shoot me?
  Request denied. You produce the content.
  
  You can have only one of those things. Maybe 2.
I bet one of the admins just had it out for you and came up with a bullshit excuse. Midwest reminds me of the Tankie Triad sometimes, quite a few of their users are .ml and Hexbear alts and the nonsensical banning is perfectly on brand. Nowhere near on the same level, of course, but still clearly a problem.
Side note, I hardly ever see anyone posting from that instance anymore. Used to see their users all the time. I wonder why?
- Midwest is still federated with Hexbear as well.
  What I find bizarre is that I only found out by complete accident.
  Someone else made a post and @'d me. I looked at it and it had a response with someone saying "That account has been banned" and he was from the midwest.social instance. This dude happens to be a buddy of mine and I chat with him on Steam and Bsky so I reached out and asked what he meant while I looked at midwest.social and saw the banning.
  He thought that lemmy.world had banned me for whatever reason (Spam. Spam would be the reason) and that's why he wasn't seeing my posts or anything on Lemmy anymore. That I either got banned or left lemmy on my own (which I did do for a hot second). I responded to him and asked if he could see the response. He couldn't. He then looked at my account and saw all the posts outside of midwest.social and saw all the posts I've been making and that's when I made this post.
  Whole situation is just so weird.
  Thanks again @End0fLine@midwest.social
  
  Well, that definitely explains the number of tankies from that instance. On a side note, I'm really glad you're back on Lemmy, the place felt empty without your posts.
  
  Midwest is still federated with Hexbear as well.
  Any idea when Midwest was setup? I feel like I only saw Hexbear for a short bit before the blocking function became available. Then I immediately would have blocked Hexbear.
  It just seems very midwestern to take the "just ignore them" approach.
- I like it because I prefer to have the blocking of instances be my choice.
- ooo has the redbaiting found a new target?
I quite like that admin, he has a very 'no bullshit' attitude.
I get why you might be confused though, he tends to issue bans for comments or posts on other instances that he finds or are reported (instance admins get reports from users on their instance regardless of if it originates on a different one). I actually quite appreciated it myself, but I very much share his political perspective so its not for everyone.
Midwest.social is small anyway, so its not a big deal.
- There is more going on with that instance than meets the eye.
  https://lemmy.cafe/post/10511187
  https://lemmy.world/post/18414833
  
  Like I said, I quite like that admin.
  I get why people (especially people who do not share his perspectives) might not appreciate the blunt moderation, but I happen to agree with both of those examples.
  The first one was someone abusing the report function against people who were not breaking any server rules. Midwest.social does not have a rule against calls to violence, and I personally do not have a problem with calling for violence against billionares, just like I don't have a problem with calls to violence against nazis or genociders. If it were my server, and I was getting dozens of reports from the same person complaining about people wishing harm to billionares, I would probably ban them, too.
  I honestly don't see a problem with the second post, unless you just think he's being an ass.
Hey stamets, did you
- Did I what?
  
  You know, the thing!
I've said it before but this is a good time to say it again: Lemmy can be more authoritarian than even Reddit.
Yes there is a modlog, but no notifications, no modmail, no ability to even know who did the moderation other than that it was done by a "mod" - Reddit at least told us that we were banned?!?! and allowed for an appeal process - all of which makes total sense when you consider the authoritarian nature of the devs, who are well-known for site-wide banning upon saying something that they disagree with (even simple facts).
I am much happier on PieFed, which offers numerous options for democratization of moderation - e.g. you can place icons next to users names, or have that done automatically based on rules, thereby increasing the set of options from the binary "remove post or ban" vs. "do nothing, leave it alone for everyone to see" to allow you to decide what to do based on those. Like there are keyword filters in place (beyond simply "All" vs. "None", also offering "Some", if you wanted e.g. some Trump or Musk content but less than the currently tsunami of it!), thereby allowing a mod to leave a post up and allow the community members to individually tailor the content to suit their tastes. Like for a <2 week account, I may respond differently; or for someone who receives 10x more downvotes than upvotes, I may choose not to respond at all rather than waste time on such sea-lioning tactics.
Lemmy was made by the people who got banned from Reddit for being too toxic. We are using their tools, made for and by authoritarians, unless we build and use better (like Mbin and now PieFed).
This specific thing - about notifications - may change (though it has not in the 2 years I moved here from Reddit... only getting worse in fact, as the modlog used to say the name of the mod but now it simply says "mod"), but the overall trend looks like it will not.
- Like what?
  Any tool can be used in many ways, but overall the trend that I see in PieFed is to place more power into the hands of the individual users rather than force administrators or community moderators or developers to have to do every little thing. Even right down to the choice of implementation language being Python rather than Rust, which shifts the balance downwards allowing more people to control their own instances rather than have to rely upon the developers, and facilitates user contributions to the codebase.
  Of course instance admins should control their own instances - it's their hardware after all, bought and paid for, and with their effort more than simply money - and similarly moderators their communities. I am just speaking to the overall trends (the overall balance being shifted more towards users on PieFed, compared to Lemmy and Reddit) that I have seen, but am open to feedback if others see differently? I should note that PieFed is relatively much newer than Lemmy, despite how features keep being added weekly, so e.g. if PieFed lacks a feature such as notifications for being banned, I would likely chalk it up to it simply being so new, rather than a deliberate choice not to bother with such, which the administrative practices observed on lemmy.ml lends me to believe is the case for Lemmy.
- Lemmy can be more authoritarian than even Reddit.
  I think it's leaning that way. And I think it's hampering it's growth. I still like Lemmy way more than Reddit though!
  And piefed is awesome!
- Reddit at least told us that we were banned?!?! and allowed for an appeal process
  Which they promptly reject every single time, because it's not a human doing it.
Got one of these too...
Critical thinking triggers certain people.
- I was temp banned there, for fascism, and the same person temp banned me from another community. So I just permanently blocked midwest.
  My crime? I commented on world technology community that both the poster and many comments misunderstood how grants worked. It made many people angry.
Yeah, that's weird. I wish people would be more descriptive in ban reasons. As the story is so far, it sounds like PTB to me. I get the impression from others on Lemmy that midwest is pretty ban-heavy tho.
I'm still banned from world I think
- What you do to get server wide ban lol
  World has regime whores mods on political type communities. The admins appear stay out of the drama
  
  No idea

98 comments