If I understand it right, the moderator of the mastodon.world instance has blocked several posts by Hasnain Kazim, as Kazim reported yesterday on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/661473263/posts/10163657720033264/
Kazim is a quite famous and successful book author in Germany and something between left, conservative and liberal. He was journalist for the most important German weekly news magazine Spiegel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasnain_Kazim?wprov=sfla1
Canceling his posts is stupid and certainly completely exaggerated. To me from the external perspective it seems that the moderator is abusing his power. He is damaging free and respectful discussion. Furthermore, when a famous person like Kazim reports those experiences to his broad audience, who do not understand the functioning of the fediverse, the moderator also damages Mastodon in general significantly, it seems to me.
What do you think about this case ?
It’s in the bottom right of the screenshot that shows his complaint:
Deepl translation:
That’s his version of events that he’s showing to his audience. People who get banned from things often share a harmless-looking excerpt when that’s not really what got them banned.
It would be good to have the whole context before reaching a conclusion.
Everything he says is his version of events, everything you say is your version of events, everything I say is my version of events. So… you never, ever need to say that. WE KNOW
He has made the same original post on Bluesky as well. So you can probably see the other posts he has made.
I don’t see anything in the Bluesky posts I would expect to get moderated on a .world server. Odd.
He posts mainly on Facebook, and copies some posts to bluesky and (up to now) to Mastodon, to support big tech alternatives. Also on FB you will not find anything that you “would expect to get moderated on a .world server”. He is very balanced and respectful (but also very clear) in his posts on complicated topics, as I must grant him, even if I do not always agree with him. It is a significant loss for the fediverse to lose a German top author. Fediverse needs those accounts to attract normal users.
Ist halt ne wirklich dumme Verkürzung der Tatsachen, und wenn man sich so die Mehrheit der Kommentare in deutschsprachigen Onlinezeitungen anschaut dann könnte man auch denken die AfD hat 90% Zustimmung.
Ich vermute mal der mastodon.world Moderator hatte keine Ahnung wer dieser Typ ist (ich hatte auch noch nie von dem gehöhrt), aber hat dauernd (vermutlich nicht ganz unbegründete) Beschwerden wegen Islamophobie bekommen.
Edit: ups, sorry, I mistook this for a German speaking com.
It’s just a really stupid oversimplification of the facts, and if you look at the majority of the comments in German-language online newspapers, you might even think the AfD has a 90% approval rating.
I’m guessing the mastodon.world moderator had no idea who this guy is (I never heard of him either), but kept receiving complaints (presumably not entirely unfounded) about Islamophobia.
Yes, at this point comments online don’t mean all that much. Could be someone with an LLM or a small segment of very loud people with a lot of spare time.
The individual comment itself doesn’t seem particularly bannable. But a pattern of islamophobia could be. Which may be the larger issue.
Ja bin ich dabei, ich kenn den Spiegel seit >30 Jahren inzwischen und hab noch nie von dem Typen gehört.
https://www.spiegel.de/impressum/autor-4dd37b50-0001-0003-0000-000000002702
Thanks. The selection of texts makes it clear that he has slowly moved from being a serious journalist to a pundit that publishes mostly opinion pieces that cater to conservative and latently racist audience and are likely also attempts at rage baiting left-liberals. Basically an opportunist exploiting the “also show the other side” bias of liberal media like the Spiegel and I would not be overly surprised if his next move is to support the far-right (the AfD is very open to opportunists with migration history or LG(BT), like Alice Weidel).
Ah, that’d in part explain why mastodon would readily kick him off, yes.
The rage baiting left-liberals? Yeah, I suppose 😏
I think “allen Ernstes” is more accurately translated “in all seriousness”, not “actually”; so: “the moderator here, in all seriousness, deleted…”.