serge

serge, 7 months ago to FediMeta

Would Fediverse admins like a presentation by Babka folks on antisemitism on the Fediverse, specifically what mainstream Jews/Jewish organizations consider hate speech and why?

If you're an instance admin or a moderator and you'd be interested, I'd like to hear from you. If there's enough interest, I'll put together a signup, but this is just a feeler for now.

If you're interested, please reply or DM me, thanks!

If you're not an admin, please boost or let your admin know about this! Thanks!

#FediverseMeta #Jewdiverse #Mazeldon

serge, 1 month ago to random

Non-Jews and Non-Jews only,

Like and or Boost this post if you support Jews being safe.

serge, 3 months ago to random

This instance handles, on average, 6.5 reports of antisemitism a day.

Why is that significant? It's significant because Babka already suspends individual accounts, and Limits entire instances.

Despite this, we deal with ~6.5 new antisemitic accounts per day.

And yet, if we look at the graphs from Fediverse Observer, the number of active users on the Fediverse has gone down!

So what exactly does that mean, if the number of antisemitic accounts continues to grow and the number of active users continues to shrink?

It means that the number of antisemites on the Fediverse is quite large, and what we're seeing isn't new antisemites as much as it is antisemitism being so normalized that people feel comfortable spouting hate, and that despite blocking or silencing thousands of accounts, hate continues to be emboldened.

#FediAntisemitism #FediblockMeta #antisemitism

Graph showing the number of active users on the Fediverse shrinking

serge, 1 month ago to Israel

This is such an important article. I hope people read it.

There is a ceasefire proposal in front of Hamas, one drafted by Arab nations, and Hamas is rejecting it. It would rather see the war continue and the Gazans hurt or killed, rather than provide a reprieve.

Maybe that's because Hamas leadership isn't in Gaza. They live elsewhere, in other countries far away from the fighting, and yet on the ground, Hamas runs Gaza.

What Israel should or should not do, or how it should conduct the war is absolutely a question on the table, but fundamentally a ceasefire must be two ways, a ceasefire from both sides, and if Hamas does not accept one for the sake of the Palestinian people, then it's they should should be attacked by the media.

Gaza must be freed from Hamas so the people there can live full lives, and for the possibility of peace.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-rejects-israels-ceasefire-response-sticks-main-demands-2024-04-13/

#Israel #Hamas #Gaza #ceasefire

serge, 7 months ago to Israel

I'm going to make it really easy for everyone:

1. Calling the Jews "Settler Colonialists" denies that they are native to the region. It's a way to deny Jews their homeland by de-legitimizing Israel.

2. Calling it a genocide is a deliberate misstatements of facts, since the word "genocide" has specific and direct meaning. It's a means of demonizing Israel.

3. Calling for the destruction (or "forced reformation" of Israel to any other country formation through non-democratic means is directly calling for the death of 7 million (or half the world's) Jews.

These are antisemitic. Period.

#antisemitism #Israel

serge, 1 month ago to random

This idea of "Jews interpret everything as antisemitic" is about as real as voter fraud in the US. It basically doesn't happen, but it's used to justify absolutely awful people and awful policies.

This narrative has a name, it's called "Weaponized Antisemitism" and it is indeed hateful and antisemitic as it says that Jews lie and manipulate to gain sympathy and wield power. It also says Jews can't be trusted on their own hate speech.

#antisemitism

serge, 2 months ago to Canada

People might know that there are countries where it is effectively impossible for Jews to live.

What less people know is that there are countries where Jews are not banned outright, or prevented from getting work permits by law, but are made to pay a "Jew Tax" in the form of preventing Jews from producing kosher meat, requiring them to buy foreign meat that is less available and costs a lot more.

Those countries are Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Slovenia.

These countries have a "Jew Tax" which requires their Jewish citizens to buy food at higher prices.

Canada has now joined these countries.

When I was in school and people would ask "How could people pass laws against Jews?", the answer is this... by starting with making life more difficult for Jews, then like the frog in the pot, turning up the heat.

#Antisemitism #Canada #Denmark #Sweden #Estonia #Slovenia #Kosher

#JewTax

serge, 7 months ago to Israel

I'm seeing arguments that the Hamas attacks were "spontaneous", "an outgrowth of a peaceful protest" or "a prison break". None of these narratives are true.

Many Hamas fighters were found with professionally created mission dossiers/field manuals, including mission objectives, maps, secondary objectives, and what to do in case of various scenarios.

These are dossiers that modern military provide their elite soldiers.

This was a carefully planned, carefully executed attack by a military group onto a group of civilians.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/21/hamas-documents-plans-israel-attack/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/hamas-abduction-manual-shows-hostage-taking-was-central-aim-attack-rcna121794

#Israel #Hamas #Gaza #HamasTerrorism

serge, 2 months ago to fediverse

Has anyone considered a Fediverse moderator exchange program?

Basically you'd have a moderator come onto your team and see what your moderation challenges are, how you handle them, etc.

This would be especially useful to marginalized communities which have poor representation on the Fediverse, such as Black instances, Jewish instances, and so on.

Would this be interesting to anyone else?

#Fediverse #moderation

serge, 11 months ago to fediverse

If you run a moderated electronic space, whether that's a microblogging platform, a chat server, a forum, or something else, and Jews make you aware that one or more people in your space is being antisemitic, they provide concrete examples and they explain why the behavior is antisemitic, and you choose to take no action then you are condoning that behavior.

If you choose to sealion, gaslight, or tone police the person reporting the antisemitism, then even if your message does not explicitly contain antisemitism, you are not only participatory in the original offense, but are now abusing people for speaking up.

#antisemism #fediverse

serge, 8 months ago to FediMeta

In the last three days, myself and Babka's incredible moderators have fielded hate speech reports about 90 accounts, across 53 instances.

As far as I can tell, none of them have been acted on by the remote instances. None.

Saying the Fediverse has an antisemitism problem is an extreme understatement. This network systemically hates Jews and treats us differently than other marginalized groups, even when we're the literal victims of terrorism.

#Babka #FediverseMeta #Fediverse #EndJewHate #PeopleLoveDeadJews #JewsDontCount

serge, 7 months ago to Israel

Supporting Israel and supporting Palestinians are not at odds. In fact, I'd argue they're inexorably linked.

It means supporting the Palestinians in Gaza, who deserve dignity, self-actualization, and self-rule. It means supporting the folks in the West Bank and the Palestinians who are Israeli citizens (the folks we often call Arab Israelis) who were just as terrorized by Hamas on October 7th.

As Israel is shut down and on the brink of war, many of these people are unable to work and earn a living, and may even be subject to implicit or explicit bigotry, or at least distrust, simply because they look like other people who did awful things.

Compassion can and must exist through war. It means not ignoring the threat Israel is under or the loss of lives and security, while also believing in the rights of Arabs to live fulfilled, peaceful, and joyful lives as well.

#Israel #Palestinians

serge, 6 months ago to Israel

When we see people speaking "For Palestinians", often Palestinian voices are lost.

A poll in Israel shows that Arab Israels, who often identify as Palestinian, are split on whether Israel's response to the October 7th attacks are justified, with a roughly half saying they are and the other half saying they aren't.

Furthermore, roughly half are now supportive of a two state solution based on '67 borders- even though these voters are by definition Israeli already and have full voting rights in Israel.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-776355

#Israel #Gaza

serge, 3 months ago to random

I see a lot of folks congratulating themselves on not being Nazis today.

That's great, but I can tell you as the grandchild of a Holocaust survivor, that if someone is terrorizing Jews by protesting in front of Jewish schools or hospitals, destroying their property, or harassing them online and spreading hate - that I don't care what their political affiliation is.

Hate is hate, and if the only thing you care about Nazis is that they're from the right- then you're in the wrong fight.

#antisemitism #Nazis #Hate

serge, 4 months ago to random

There are times when I think that antisemitism on the Fediverse is going down, but really it's just that our local moderation is going well.

Nonetheless, unless instances' moderators actually take an active stand against it, the result is that it's up to victims of hate speech to be constantly on guard.

I for one am sick of seeing:

Nazi/Holocaust Inversion
Blood Libel Accusations
Harassment of Jews Talking About Antisemitism
Deicide
Word Swapping (ie "Zionists" or "Israelis" used instead of Jews")
Accusations of Weaponized Antisemitism

On the Fediverse.

If you say you're against antisemitism, then take action, clean up your own instance and start taking other instances who allow this kind of hate speech on your instance seriously.

#FediAntisemitism #FediBlockMeta

serge, 1 month ago to random

The protestors at Columbia and Bernard were found to be chanting "We are Hamas", as well as telling Jewish counter-protestors to "be ready" because "every day will be October 7th" and throwing fake blood at Jews.

These protests made Jewish students feel unsafe, as they would for anyone in their shoes, and the university took the right action in addressing hate on their campus by removing the protestors and addressing their actions both through the police, and through their own internal disciplinary processes.

If you think that it's acceptable to threaten, intimidate, and assault Jews, then we can't be friends.

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-798049

serge, 3 months ago to Palestine

Let's make this clear... Making lists of Jews and where they live isn't "Pro-Palestinian".

Furthermore, calling this and similar actions "silencing Pro-Palestinian voices" conflates the Palestinian cause with hate, which not only harms Jews, but also legitimate Pro-Palestinian voices.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-02-13/australia-to-ban-doxxing-after-pro-palestinian-activists-publish-information-about-hundreds-of-jews

#ProPalestinian #antisemitism #Palestine

serge, 7 months ago to Israel

One of the most disturbing things I'm seeing on the Fediverse, alongside (and in some ways worse) than the blatant antisemitism are when antisemites parade out a Jew to further their agenda.

"See, this Jew said what I think, so I CAN'T BE ANTISEMITIC!"

Perhaps they don't realize (or don't care to realize) that doing this is in itself an act of tokenization and using Jews as pawns.

You will always find a minority of people who are the dissenters in their community. When the suffragette movement existed, fighting for women's right to vote, there were some anti-suffragette women, but their numbers and their opinions did not reflect the greater reality, and I think that anyone reasonable would look at a blog post that says "See, women don't want voting rights!" based on an anti-suffragette demonstration and know that it's not only nonsense, but actively harmful.

The same is true here. Stop tokenizing Jews in upholding your biases.

#antisemitism #EndJewHate #Israel #Hamas

serge, 1 month ago to FreeSpeech

I'm seeing so many new defenders of "Free Speech" out there, and while I believe in Free Speech as a principle too, society has learned that sometimes "Free Speech" is a cover for hate and harassment.

We even have a name for it, "Freeze Peach".

Yet I'm seeing the same people who would otherwise demand action be taken against Freeze Peach now defending people who make direct threats against Jews: calling for violence against them, calling for their murder, calling for their discrimination, villianizing and calling for de-funding of Jewish institutions.

I don't believe these people have turned into "Free Speech Absolutists" ; they would still recognize and rightfully demand the silencing of hate groups in favor of human rights in other cases.

The logical conclusion I've come to is that they believe Jews are sub-human, and thus undeserving of these same protections.

Once seen as subhuman, any action on them can be justified.

#FreeSpeech #Antisemitism #Hate

serge, 3 months ago to random

If someone compares Jews to Nazis, the group that killed half the Jews in the world, that is Nazi Inversion, and it's antisemitic. Invoking the Nazis or the Holocaust as so called "rhetorical speech" to talk about the actions of Jews is antisemitic.

It's very clear, it's very simple, and it's not stopping anyone from criticizing anything, because the same argument could be made without Nazi Inversion, and if it couldn't be, then it's not criticism at all, but simply words used to attack, intimidate or in some other way harm Jews.

I'm happy to see that other instances are starting to take Nazi Inversion seriously and act on it when their users engage in hate speech. I strongly encourage all instances who want to stop antisemitism to do the same.

#antisemitism #FediAntisemitism #HateSpeech #NaziInversion #HolocaustInversion #FediblockMeta

serge, 4 months ago to random

A reminder to the various Fediverse admins that saying you're against antisemitism is good, but if you don't follow up this statement by removing antisemitic content from your instance, it's worse than if you'd said nothing.

Moreover, when Jews offer to help you understand and identify hate speech, but you tell them you know better than they do, and that they can't be trusted to identify their own oppression, you're actively part of the problem.

And if you silence Jews on your instance for talking about antisemitic hate speech, then you're a bad person.

I know I've said this before but it seems the message doesn't get through, and I still see admins puffing themselves up, while ignoring reports or actively oppressing Jews for speaking up.

#FediBlockMeta #FediAntisemitism

serge, 1 month ago to random

I'm working on a new web development project and I'm looking for a developer who is comfortable with backend Python work (Flask or Django) and strong in frontend web development (CSS, Javascript) to work in an independent contractor basis.

You'd be working with me and an existing developer on a website that I hope will help the Jewish community. I'll explain more when we talk!

I love working with people from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences, and believe that diversity is a strength!

I don't have a huge budget, but I can be very flexible with work hours and you'd have the opportunity to work on a meaningful project for a community that needs help and support right now, and to get paid to do it.

If you're interested in working together, please DM me and we'll go from there!

#GetFediHired #DiversityInTech

serge, 1 month ago to random

I usually love the podcast Unorthodox, but I was shocked at Liel Leibovitz's monologue about the campus protests.

I was shocked because he moved the issue from antisemitism, demonstrating the issues of discrimination and hatred clearly to what I can only describe as right wing nut-jobbery, praising hate-filled people like Ron DeSantis.

I was even more shocked, and dismayed, that this monologue seemed to be not only allowed, but tied directly to Tablet's membership campaign.

For Jews like me who are absolutely appalled at the hatred coming from these campus protests and left-leaning movements, it might seem attractive to give in to the most base elements of our psyche and "jump ship", but doing so ignores not only our own struggle, but that of others we care about, Queer folks, Black folks, and other marginalized people.

1/

serge, 1 month ago to random

With the campus attacks on Jews going essentially unreported by "polite company", allows them to call these protests peaceful, which then provides moral justification for them to continue.

The existence of Jews who are being physically assaulted, who are blocked from accessing their dorms or classes, who are terrorized with threats of violence and murder, all of this is so easily dismissed to allow for the label of peaceful protest. In fact, they might argue it's the presence of Jews who make it non-peaceful.

It's a modern day interpretation of a "First They Ignore You, Then They Laugh at You' that feels very 1930s Germany.

First They Marginalize You. Then They Ignore You. Then They Exterminate You.

We're fighting for nothing less than our lives.

#StudentProtests #Antisemitism

serge, 13 days ago to Canada

After weeks and months of chanting for violence against Jews worldwide, and calls for "Long Live October 7th" and "Intifada", at the protests, an attack on a synagogue in Vancouver

No coverage on the #CBC for this incident.

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-804499

#Canada #antisemitism #Vancouver