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.
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
jesus christ. i don’t think i’ve ever seen a longer sidebar as I scroll down to the modlog… not a good start…
and okay, so the mod is unhappy about a vegan restaurant turning to non-veganry to stay alive? to the point where they’re silencing all discussion of it in a positive or even ambivalent light? This seems like there’s more to it than the mod is willing to admit publicly. “the restaurant isn’t vegan” doesn’t account for “it’s a shame but I’d rather an otherwise vegan restaurant survive than not. how sad” and “it seems like there just weren’t enough vegans in town to keep it alive” being banned. it’s clear ethics policing and again, im sensing some passive-aggression and unstated resentments on the mod’s part.
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.
I’m not undoing the bans as the comments literally go against the definition of veganism ie no animal products for the reason of ethics, serving meat options in an establishment isn’t even vegetarian let alone vegan. Words are supposed to have meaning or language is completely pointless.
The foods that are vegan and plant-based have zero animal products. It is not up for debate.
You’re welcome to post and comment in flexitarian communities instead.
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
Lol found out here that I had been banned from the community. Ty for sharing the information :)
Regarding the matter, I understand their reaction.
I’ve been interacting with some vegan circles IRL and some are more “hardcore” (not in a negative way) than others. When you consider animal exploitation as mass slavery, mass torture and mass murder, it becomes increasingly difficult to tolerate even light deviations from the all-vegan path.This being said, I would have preferred they had a better wording for the temp ban reason than “fake vegan” by which I feel insulted and hurt.
The “all or nothing” crowd really knows how to stomp on progress, huh?
It’s like they don’t realize that by being this hostile towards any other viewpoints, they drive away people who might otherwise be interested in becoming vegan or want to learn more. All it does is harm the community in the long run, and then they wonder why there’s a stigma around vegans. That stigma then feeds into a persecution complex and that becomes a nasty vicious cycle.
(not in a negative way)
Debatable.
One of my best friends is a long-term vegan. He generally avoids telling people because he so strongly hates being lumped in with this crowd of asshats.
Not a lot of 100% vegan grocery stores, where do they get their food?
EDIT: It’s pretty telling that everyone is reading this as an excuse to keep murdering instead of accepting that murder is part of being alive. “Life feeds on life.” It is not pretty, it is ugly and dark. What should be taken away is a greater respect for all life and an understanding of what we’re taking when we feed on life. It should be used as a pretext to respect all life and do your best to reduce harm to all life. Whatever life you’re taking should be considered valuable and a sacrifice made. (Mass deforestation to make way for agricultural farming doesn’t just hurt trees, it hurts the animals that live in them and among them, for instance. A soybean farm doesn’t have the same ecological importance as an old growth forest, sorry.) The fact that this view is seen as a reason to kill more instead of kill less and have respect for the life you take is pathetic.
But keep ranting to me in your total misread of what I’m saying.
Just popping in to say the main reason that attitude is dumb because there is no such thing as moral absolutism.
animal exploitation as mass slavery, mass torture and mass murder
Do we consider antibiotics exploitative to penicillin? Do we cry over every breath we take in which our immune system automatically murders billions of bacteria?
Just because plants don’t have faces like ours and don’t look like us and don’t scream when we kill them killing plants is fine somehow. They’re all alive, you’re still killing life, and in our great inhuman lack-of-wisdom we’ve decided that if it doesn’t have a brain and consciousness like ours, then it most not have consciousness and thus it’s okay to murder and exploit them.
Just call me the fucking Lorax. Who speaks for the trees, dude?
Anyway, no such thing as moral absolutism and these people will continue to climb higher and higher on their holier-than-thou-mountain only to become caricatures of a real person.
Isn’t it pretty apparent?
If it can feel pain and suffer it shouldn’t.
Bacteria do not have the capability to feel suffering. They cannot even feel.
Plants and fungi, despite their increased complexity, do not have the capability to suffer either.
The entire point of the field of ethics and half the field of philosophy is to reduce suffering. Torture is bad because it causes suffering. Killing is bad because it causes suffering. Slavery is bad because it causes suffering. Rape is bad because it causes suffering. Abuse is bad because is causes suffering.
Veganism extends this to animals who are capable of suffering in ways identical to us humans. It also raises important questions: Would it be ethical to treat aliens the same way humanity treats non-humans? What if the aliens are sufficiently stupid, yet still capable of civilization? What if they’re smarter but live in solitude? Why exactly is it unethical to kill severely mentally disabled people? Is it just because humans view themselves as superior to every other living being in the universe?
I believe veganism is the objectively moral choice. Still, I’m not vegan for various reasons. But I don’t have any qualms with admitting my behavior is objectively wrong.
The entire point of the field of ethics and half the field of philosophy is to reduce suffering
this is just a lie. one type of ethical study, utilitarianism, is focused on that. many ethical theories don’t regard suffering at all, or only as a facet of some other concern.
Plants and fungi, despite their increased complexity, do not have the capability to suffer either.
you can’t prove this
Bacteria do not have the capability to feel suffering. They cannot even feel.
you can’t prove this
Plants feel pain too so it’s okay to stab babies. There’s no difference between pulling a potato out of the ground and punting a chihuahua over a fence! :)
If you disagree with that, you must be a moral absolutist.
I will not debate about whether animals, plants and bacteria suffer the same way.
This is an argument I’ve heard time and time again from the antivegan crowd and imo falls into the “at best very uninformed, more likely troll” category.
Here I am fully ready to deep dive into some drama from a community I have zero investment in and it’s impossible to read 😩
Are you using sync? If so, It’s a sync bug. Open the post and then click the image from there.
Your instance seems to be serving you up a thumbnail of the image instead of the actual image. I recommend temporarily looking at the post from another instance, such as mine.
?
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
This is why plantbased was made recently
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
Yup!
Purity gatekeeping, and purity competitions, are the bane of any movement. Sorry that happened to you. FWIW I thought your comments were reasonable
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 :)
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.
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.
I’m apparently banned from vegan theory club. I have no idea what I could have done to them.
Lemmy world is a blocked instance on vegan theory club. @Arcanepotato@vegantheoryclub.org won’t be able to see your comment.
Wow. Thats… their choice, I guess. All hail the fediverse.
They got sick of trolls invading and demanding to be debated, and lemmy.world was one of the most egregious instances. I can’t blame them, vegans deserve a place to just be without every discussion turning into a debate with non-vegans.
Fair. Nobody deserves to get brigaded for living quietly and authentically.
Definitely PTB.
This is super weird to me. Back on the Asian ass porn site known as Reddit I could just go into vegan subs and have casual conversations about recipes and cooking techniques. It didn’t matter that I eat meat.
After the API kerfuffle we all celebrated how friendly the internet can be and now you get preemptively banned because you COULD be a bad actor in disguise.
To a point I understand the frustration vegans have to live with. The constant childish trolling can be exhausting, but this is pretty much the worst way to handle this.
you’re just defederated. you’re not personally banned: it’s your whole instance.
Never said I was.
I thought it would make you feel better that it’s not personal
Even when I was banned I wouldn’t feel bad. I don’t need a community that unwelcoming to others. But thanks for looking out. I appreciate that.
Every good cause has fundamentalist dickheads who try to coopt it and make it about them.
And realistically they’re more likely to end up here
Vegans biting each other 😉
Heh, getting warmed up for their inevitable turn to cannibalism, to rid the earth of evil humans.
I thought the vegans left lemmy.world.
Seems like mods are helping those left behind
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.
