Ye Power Trippin' Bastards @lemmy.dbzer0.com

4w ago

Fake vegans

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.

PPS: Some instances or clients seem to compress the screenshots in a way they're unreadable. Find the full resolution here: https://imgur.com/a/8XdexTm

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

395 comments

- 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 😩
  
  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.
  
  Are you using sync? If so, It's a sync bug. Open the post and then click the image from there.
- ?

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.
  
  Are you "all or nothing" with stopping rape? Or would you be okay with some light raping happening, if the majority was anti-rape?
  They clearly view this act as something as abhorrent as we would rape, so why are you surprised they don't want to meet half way on the topic?
- Not a lot of 100% vegan grocery stores, where do they get their food?
- (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.
- When you consider animal exploitation as mass slavery, mass torture and mass murder,
  ... it is the time to speak to a psychiatrist.
  
  Hello dear internet user,
  It looks like you need to educate yourself on at least 3 topics before using your keyboard again:
  why is it hurtful and not ok to rebutt other's opinions by suggesting they are mentally ill?
  are other animals sentient, sociable and do they feel emotions and pain?
  how are meat and dairy products produced and how many animals live in this system?
  Once you've done the work, we'll be able to agree on the basics facts and exchange arguments on how we see the situation and the precise words we want to use.
  Looking forward to engaging with you in good faith in the future,
  Me.
- 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.
  
  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.
  
  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.
  What murder, sweetie?
  
  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.

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
- Yeah the vegan communities are so toxic that it has turned me off of pursuing an interest into their lifestyle. I want to try out a Buddhist approach to veganism and ignore whatever the hell they're trying to achieve.
- It looks to me the mods there are fake vegans, trying to make as much damage to the cause as possible.

I (a vegan) got banned from there for finding the love of cows cloying. I said we shouldn't have to pretend cows are cute to convince others not to kill and eat them.
It really isn't a place for even back and forth amongst friends, "no conversation - only agreement"
- cloying
  adjective
  undefined
  
  excessively sweet, rich, or sentimental, especially to a disgusting or sickening degree
  Neat, new word.
  
  Actually it's from the 14th century
- I think cows are adorable (in a positive manner :D) but yes, completely agree. Being a vegan shouldn't require that you passionately love being in contact with all kinds of species. I mean - despite them playing a role in the ecosystem - who loves ticks or mosquitoes?
  
  Ticks and mosquitoes aren't vegan either, are they? That has nothing to do with liking them, it just suddenly occurred to me.

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:
  https://vegantheoryclub.org/c/homecooks
  https://vegantheoryclub.org/c/recipes
  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.
  
  I'm apparently banned from vegan theory club. I have no idea what I could have done to them.
- Isn't !vegan@lemmy.world less radical than !vegan@vegantheoryclub.org ?
  
  Probably? I don't know. It started with the same mod team, didn't it?
- I think you go way to lean on the mods. I don't think its anything but power tripping for a few mods to decide who gets to be a "real vegan" and who is a "fake vegan" if they don't actually consume animal based products.
- A lot of "their own community" types can keep themselves to themselves.
  Dear everybody: if your posts appear to the public, the public's gonna show up and talk to you. No popular website is your unquestioned megaphone. Be prepared to argue if you target people who disagree. That is what it means, for them to disagree.
  
  That's not how it works. Just because someone is letting you listen in doesn't mean you deserve a platform in their spaces

Purity gatekeeping, and purity competitions, are the bane of any movement. Sorry that happened to you. FWIW I thought your comments were reasonable

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.
- 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
  
  ... and they're more likely to start their own websites about it.
- you're just defederated. you're not personally banned: it's your whole instance.
  
  Never said I was.

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 resentment on the mod's part.

Vegans biting each other 😉
- Heh, getting warmed up for their inevitable turn to cannibalism, to rid the earth of evil humans.

Another day, another ~~diet~~ vegan/carnivore drama
- fyi the normal diet people eat is omnivorous, not carnivorous.
- That looked like vegan/vegan drama
  I didn't see any anti-vegan comment
  
  A few days ago there was a carnivore drama in this community
- Veganism isn't a diet, it is a social justice movement for animal rights.
  
  It's both!
  
  Edited
  
  It can be. I know a lot of the loudest vegans insist this is the only acceptable definition. But that's not how language works. A vegan is someone who abstains from all animal food products, and usually all/most other animal products. Their reason for doing so is not an essential part of the definition.
  
  Not really. It is a diet and a lifestyle based on abstaining from animal products.

This is why plantbased was made recently
- Yup!
- @ComradeMiao@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- 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

The vegan Community is actually quite shit. They don't hesitate to delete your comment just because you aren't a vegan, even if you agree with them in certain points.
- There's a word that describes communities like that, echochambers.
- Love the user name. Ruminant revolution!
  
  Its a fact. Also cows are much cooler than horses, because unlike them they are actually useful. Also I cows are very chill so you can cuddle with them a lot.

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.
- !plantbased@lemmy.dbzer0.com
  
  so true! plants are based

Vegan restaurant
Adds meat to its menu
What
- *Former Vegan Resturant

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.
- I was thinking exactly that, she is certainly behaving very similarly to how Beaver did back in the day and is absolutely power-tripping now. If banning people who criticize the mod's posts in any way is power-tripping, then accusing people of being fake vegans for disagreeing is absolutely power tripping.

I mean what level of vegan are you? Do you eat anything that casts a shadow?
- Last time I walked through a field. I'm pretty sure the wheat barley and corn all casted shadows.
  
  in a simpsons episode lisa meets a vegan who says he is a level 5 vegan and does not eat anything that casts a shadow.

I can't read that but yeah the Vegan community here has a long history of being total assholes.

Militant vegans always seemed cult-like to me, and nothing reinforced that idea more than seeing posts from the vegan group on here.
Didn't take long for me to block that community.

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

One of the first communities I blocked.
- Likewise.

I thought the vegans left lemmy.world.
- Seems like mods are helping those left behind

PTB for sure, they're removing comments not 100% in support of them which is iffy, but now they are trying to decide that people aren't real vegans because they don't agree with the mods, WTF?!?
Also is it just me or does this mod seem like they might be an Alt of Beaver (a previous mod of the Vegan community who was removed from the community for power-tripping) was known for making alts and trying to sneak herself back in as mod a few times with her alts, as well as fostering ill will towards the mod who removed her using her alt accounts. She ultimately deleted her accounts after being called out for the behavior and when these tactics weren't working.
@TheTechnician27@lemmy.world Maybe you might want to look into this, it's very possible the person who was power-tripping before was somehow able to get back in as a mod on an alt account without you or other mods knowing it was them.

Definitely PTB.

Lemmy vegans are a never ending source of entertainment, aren't they?
- It used to be pretty active, but everyone bailed right around when the mods started with the purity tests and thumbscrews. Like most subcultures viewed as 'cringe', the reputation comes from one or two users being fucking weirdos and then everyone reposting their insanity for meme points.

unrelated to the drama:
who are these 'screenshots' for? because they're so small and compressed I cannot read the text.... are these automated or?
- They're not. That's your instance showing you the thumbnail instead of the real image, for some reason. Contact your admins to see if they can fix the problem, and in the meantime view the image from another instance.
  
  fascinating, I use lemmy.world, appreciate the feedback
- https://imgur.com/a/8XdexTm
  
  ty

Your resolution is weak.

Resolution is fine your peoples ~~client~~ instance is just trash
- Not the client's fault. The instance's.
  
  Cheers
- Use some punctuation. I don't know what you're trying to say.
  
  Teaching Kids to Read for Dummies - Anna's Archive

You know what's worse than being a fake vegan? Being a fake gamer.

The truly unreasonable part of this is how horrible your screencaps are. How do you even get screencaps to be that low res? Did you scale them way down?
- Is that a client-specific thing? On my end they're sharp and readable (Boost for Lemmy), even in preview mode (before clicking on HD for full resolution), I can read everything.
  https://imgur.com/a/8XdexTm

Almost all vegans are "fake". Start with the bees used to pollinate the food. End with a wasp dying in a fig...
It's all definition in the end. I think that's random and the mod is random. But idk, let them echo chamber a little.
- Yeah. The plant lifecycle depends on animals, and the animal life cycle depends on plants. You can't divorce one from the other and have a sustainable ecosystem.

Shit like this is why I went back to eating eggs and dairy.
Also my (still vegan) wife took in a bunch of chickens.
- Damn the dairy industry is the worst for the world too. Wouldn't you say your morals are pretty flimsy if you'll give up on em to avoid looking cringey?
  
  No, I asked myself why am I spending more money to the same conglomerates to receive a shittier product.
  It's "easy" to be a modern vegan...if you give half your food budget to Monsanto and Kellogs.
  Being an ethical vegan is damn near impossible in the modern grocery market. Especially if you have a life outside being a vegan.
  So I can pay top dollar for some shit cheese that barely melts, made by some giant food corp...for what? To feel better about protecting the environment? Why? So that more hicks in Texas can roll coal to their nearest buccees to buy a liter of diet coke in a Styrofoam cup?
  Fuck it. The world's going down in a hand basket anyway. If nobody else is gonna change them I'm not gonna disadvantage myself before the coming collapse by eating inferior ice cream.

Ohh no. Anyways.

Looks like the vegan admin has an aggression problem. Maybe he or she should at least occasionally eat some meat to calm the cravings.
Edit: /s, for the idiots who did not get it. Wow, are some people stuck up. Do they have the same problems that the admin had?
- she should at least occasionally eat some meat
  Even though I don't share her point of view, that part of your comment is totally inappropriate and rude.
  
  comment is totally inappropriate and rude.
  How is it rude?
  
  It's funny though

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.
- Thanks for taking the time to comment here.
  The foods that are vegan and plant-based have zero animal products. It is not up for debate.
  From my perspective, that's a classical strawman. No one said that food with animal products is vegan or that a restaurant that serves animal products should be considered a vegan restaurant.
  I just prefer a restaurant that still serves a large number of vegan options over the average omnivore restaurant that has no or just very few vegan options. That's better for me personally but IMO also for the vegan movement as a whole as it eases access to vegan food for everyone.
  I went fully vegan 3 years ago - I don't think it's fair to call me or others fake vegans or flexitarians just because we have a slightly different opinion on a certain topic.
  
  I would trip over your description "a vegan restaurant that serves a bit of meat" as well, because it doesn't make sense to call it "vegan" then.
  I can understand why someone would want to prevent the term "vegan" from being watered down.
  If a supposedly vegan restaurant suddenly offers non-vegan dishes, this carries more weight for vegans than if some other restaurant tinkers with its menu.
  You may have already advertised the "vegan" restaurant in good faith and now they're stabbing you in the back.
  The change also shows that the owners themselves are not vegan. And then, of course, you question everything: were the ingredients ever properly screened? What about the wine? Were the chairs covered in leather? Were the candles made from beeswax?
  Just imagine a "vegan" restaurant that has an advertising banner for the elephant circus hanging on the door. Outrage would be justified. But they even put fucking meat on the menu.
  "Vegan" is a statement. People should not tag it on their business if they're merely coicidentally plant-based and don't actually care for animal rights.
  It would certainly have been more conciliatory for everyone if the mods had made it clear in the thread why they were upset about the comments. On the other hand, I can also understand if they were not in the mood for the hundredth discussion and would rather take the "easier" route and delete the comment. But I also think it's excessive to justify it with "fake vegan". You're vegan if you leave your hands off the animals. Semantic considerations are not necessary.
  That being said, it's wonderful that you're both vegan and that the topic is obviously important to you. Don't let a loose string on the jointly pulled rope divide you. We have more important battles to fight.
  Vegan btw
- Serious question, not meant to be antagonistic. I'm honestly just curious.
  Is the purpose of your community to simply be an echo chamber of similar opinions? Is debate not allowed, or having a different opinion?
  I will never visit that community, but this seems like a wild abuse of mod powers. You do whatever you want, I don't care and have no skin in the game, but don't you want to foster discussion on your community? An echo chamber with other vegans doesn't seem conducive to achieving anything, other than maybe a feels good circlejerk. The downvote button exists if you have a different opinion. A straight ban for not toeing the line seems like further isolating your view points from the greater Lemmy community, as well as entrenches the view point a lot of people have that vegans are hostile to non-vegans.
  Calling other vegans fake vegans and banning them tho is whack as fuck but pretty hilarious
  
  When I go to a vegan community, I don't want to debate with carnists. I would consider that trolling. There are other places meant for debating. Vegan communities are basically safe spaces to talk with other vegans and people that want to be vegan.
  Too many carnists troll the vegan communities, they created this problem. I first joined lemmy during the reddit exodus on a .world account. The vegan community at that point was poorly moderated and most of the comments were carnists circle jerking about how eating meat is so great to them. Finally, active people took over and it became so much better to actually browse that community once these trolls were banned. This behavior is nothing new btw, I've seen assholes on reddit and facebook do the same to vegan spaces. You'll notice I'm no longer on .world, I disagree with their modding practices and lately I feel even more justified in leaving that cesspool.
  I want vegan news, vegan recipes, and vegan discussion. I do not want carnists coming in, at all. People can come in asking genuine questions about veganism, but no debating whatsoever. I do not mod any of these communities btw, but this is what I want as a user.
  It seems hostile to you because you have not had to deal with the constant carnist trolls. People who complain vegans are militant or hostile is a red flag for me, it really means that vegans are too unapologetic about their veganism instead of being passive people who don't rock the boat or question the status quo. These people are defensive about vegans pointing out that they are consuming products made from abuse, rape, and murder. They want to be treated with kiddie gloves. Sorry, but no vegan is obligated to do so.
- The foods that are vegan and plant-based have zero animal products. It is not up for debate.
  You do realise that plants get pollinated by animals, right?
  
  And…? They’re not being used by humans. They do it out of their free will in the wild.
  You’re gasping at straws.

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