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 ?

  • poVoq@slrpnk.netEnglish
    29·
    20 hours ago

    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.

    • Eldritch@piefed.worldEnglish
      6·
      18 hours ago

      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.

        • poVoq@slrpnk.netEnglish
          20·
          20 hours ago

          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).