Intro
We would like to address some of the points that have been raised by some of our users (and by one of our communities here on Lemmy.World) on /c/vegan regarding a recent post concerning vegan diets for cats. We understand that the vegan community here on Lemmy.World is rightfully upset with what has happened. In the following paragraphs we will do our best to respond to the major points that we've gleaned from the threads linked here.
Links
Actions in question
Admin removing comments discussing vegan cat food in a community they did not moderate.
The comments have been restored.
The comments were removed for violating our instance rule against animal abuse (https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#11-attacks-on-users). Rooki is a cat owner himself and he was convinced that it was scientific consensus that cats cannot survive on a vegan diet. This originally justified the removal.
Even if one of our admins does not agree with what is posted, unless the content violates instance rules it should not be removed. This was the original justification for action.
Removing some moderators of the vegan community
Removed moderators have been reinstated.
This was in the first place a failure of communication. It should have been clearly communicated towards the moderators why a certain action was taken (instance rules) and that the reversal of that action would not be considered (during the original incident).
The correct way forward in this case would have been an appeal to the admin team, which would have been handled by someone other than the admin initially acting on this.
We generally discuss high impact actions among team before acting on them. This should especially be the case when there is no strong urgency on the act performed. Since this was only a moderator removal and not a ban, this should have been discussed among the team prior to action.
Going forward we have agreed, as a team, to discuss such actions first, to help prevent future conflict
Posting their own opposing comment and elevating its visibility
Moderators' and admins' comments are flagged with flare, which is okay and by design on Lemmy. But their comments are not forced above the comments of other users for the purpose of arguing a point.
These comments were not elevated to appear before any other users comments.
In addition, Rooki has since revised his comments to be more subjective and less reactive.
Community Responses
The removed comments presented balanced views on vegan cat food, citing scientific research supporting its feasibility if done properly.
Presenting scientifically backed peer reviewed studies is 100% allowed, and encouraged. While we understand anyone can cherry pick studies, if a individual can find a large amount of evidence for their case, then by all accounts they are (in theory) technically correct.
That being said, using facts to bully others is not in good faith either. For example flooding threads with JSTOR links.
The topic is controversial but not clearly prohibited by site rules.
That is correct, at the time there was no violation of site wide rules.
Rooki's actions appear to prioritize his personal disagreement over following established moderation guidelines.
Please see the above regarding addressing moderator policy.
Conclusions
Regarding moderator actions
We will not be removing Rooki from his position as moderator, as we believe that this is a disproportionate response for a heat-of-the-moment response.
Everybody makes mistakes, and while we do try and hold the site admin staff to a higher standard, calling for folks resignation from volunteer positions over it would not fair to them. Rooki has given up 100's of hours of his free time to help both Lemmy.World, FHF and the Fediverse as a whole grown in far reaching ways. You don't immediately fire your staff when they make a bad judgment call.
While we understand that this may not be good enough for some users, we hope that they can be understanding that everyone, no matter the position, can make mistakes.
We've also added a new by-laws section detailing the course of action users should ideally take, when conflict arises. In the event that a user needs to go above the admin team, we've provided a secure link to the operations team (who the admin's report to, ultimately). See https://legal.lemmy.world/bylaws/#12-site-admin-issues-for-community-moderators for details.
TL;DR In the event of an admin action that is deemed unfair or overstepping, moderators can raise this with our operations team for an appeal/review.
Regarding censorship claims
Regarding the alleged censorship, comments were removed without a proper reason. This was out of line, and we will do our best to make sure that this does not happen again. We have updated our legal policy to reflect the new rules in place that bind both our user AND our moderation staff regarding removing comments and content. We WANT users to hold us accountable to the rules we've ALL agreed to follow, going forward. If members of the community find any of the rules we've set forth unreasonable, we promise to listen and adjust these rules where we can. Our terms of service is very much a living document, as any proper binding governing document should be.
Controversial topics can and should be discussed, as long as they are not causing risk of imminent physical harm. We are firm believers in the hippocratic oath of "do no harm".
We encourage users to also list pros and cons regarding controversial viewpoints to foster better discussion. Listing the cons of your viewpoint does not mean you are wrong or at fault, just that you are able to look at the issue from another perspective and aware of potential points of criticism.
While we want to allow our users to express themselves on our platform, we also do not want users to spread mis-information that risks causing direct physical harm to another individual, origination or property owned by the before mentioned. To echo the previous statement "do no harm".
To this end, we have updated our legal page to make this more clear. We already have provisions for attacking groups, threatening individuals and animal harm, this is a logical extension of this to both protect our users and to protect our staff from legal recourse and make it more clear to everyone. We feel this is a very reasonable compromise, and take these additional very seriously.
Sincerely,
FHF / LemmyWorld Operations Team
EDIT: Added org operations contact info
IDK it seems like pretty clear animal abuse to me
Cats are obligate carnivores. It is 100% animal abuse.
Can we not restart the argument please.
To me, it's a lot more important in this post to look at the response from mods and admins to a disagreement (and infighting, and mistakes made).
Personally it seems like it was handled well, at least eventually (here). Do you feel one way or the other?
Sometimes I feel like people would like to restart this argument every time it is mentioned, even after 2 threads with hundreds of comments on the topic
Who is arguing? One is factual and the other is willfully ignorant to the point of harming their animal. It's like giving flat earth any credibility, it's objectively against science.
Because what you consider a fact is based on studies that don't provide as compelling evidence as you want to believe they do.
Generally speaking, it's probably best to not do it, but calling it outright abuse requires evidence that it is causing actual harm, and the scientific consensus on it is not as solid as you think it is.
Recent academic review of many past studies have found that it's inconclusive.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9860667/
Basically, we need more studies before we can start deleting shit on accusations of animal abuse.
That brings up another side of this, the academic discussion side. It's good if the moderation policies allow discussion, since that's how we can talk about new research and changing science. We are a discussion forum afterall
If a group accounts seem to be pushing a certain viewpoint or moderating in bad faith, then that's a related but possibly separate issue
I've looked into this and every worthwhile study seems to point to issues with the vegan diet and then potential benefits. I've not seen one that shows serious positive aspects without negative ones. I'm open to being shown any though (aside from the one everyone seems to link where they just talked to cat owners). I'm not trying to spin this debate back up, just saying that the science does seem pretty clear.
Even in this one: According to the U.S. National Research Council’s (NRC) recommendations on nutrient requirements for dogs and cats [15,16], potentially problematic elements in vegan/vegetarian diets for dogs and cats could be: (1) insufficient protein; (2) unbalanced fats; and (3) nutrient insufficiencies [17]. For example, it has been shown that exercising dogs that consume unbalanced plant protein diets can develop anemia and a marked decrease in red blood cell hemoglobin levels but will return to health if the diet with vegetable protein is balanced properly [18].
…everyone is arguing? Considering the studies given by both sides, and the constant promotion of that one brand of vegan cat food, it’s hard to give one side a clear objective win (though I do lean toward giving the cat meat).
People like drama.
Cat drama in particular seems to always hit maximum outrage really fast.
Animal abuse is a touchy subject for many people, yes.
It is relevant though, since the issue of it being animal abuse or not is central to the whole thing.
Is it not animal abuse? Then what has happened in this post is correct.
Is it animal abuse? Then this post shows that the admins will roll over if they get enough push back from a group of users.
The reason given by Rooki for most of the actions was "missinformation", not anything related to animal abuse. One of the two mods was demoted for "endangering pets". At the time of the incident, the only vaguely related rule was 6. Violent Content that talks about visual content depicting dismemberment, murder, suicide, animal abuse, and so on. Though the OP is confusing and at times inaccurate, it still accepts that "at the time there was no violation of site wide rules."
The response of mods and admins is that they removed content that promotes animal abuse and that got people mad enough so they went and restored the content promoting animal abuse.
Thanks, we're trying to chime in where we can and do hope the post at least helps provide some transparency on what happened. 🙏
Whether a pet gets the food it needs isn't something you can even have an opinion about. You can have understandings, misunderstandings, or the scientific understanding itself could change. Anything attempting to hone that is fine.
To frame something like that as a disagreement is fundamentally dishonest. The question is what's nutritionally best for cats. We and our stupid feelings are secondary. I don't even have any familiarity with the subject myself, I only know it's not the realm of opinions. Cats need meat or they don't, in certain amounts, types, at certain intervals, etc.
And yet this binary assumption that you're taking completely for granted for some reason is fundamentally flawed. Cats need amino acids from meat that they cannot produce themselves. The scientific research being conducted is over whether these amino acids can be artificially produced and vegan cat food fortified with them in such a way that the cats can properly absorb them. If yes, then voila, you have healthful vegan cat food.
This also supposes that there are not other essential (to cats) nutrients beyond taurine that would be absent.
True. I believe B12 is the other big one, although that is trivially supplemented to my recollection.
To be fair, I have a pretty strong opinion on pets getting the food they need. My opinion is that not feeding an animal appropriately is, at best, neglectful.
The great thing is that it's easy to find out what is an appropriate diet for any pet, clever scientists figured it out and wrote up guidelines for us to follow. Here in the UK for example we would follow the European FEDIAF;
https://europeanpetfood.org/self-regulation/safety
So long as you're following the guidelines and giving your pet all the nutrients it needs - regardless of how they're produced (vegan food is fine so long as it replicates the full dietary needs of the animal for example) - you're good 😊👍
I know it's silly to have to point that out, I'm not sure why people argued over it (I didn't see the original discourse). But yes, just to reiterate, it doesn't matter how you prefer to source the food - vegan, halal, whatever fits your beliefs - just so long as it is a nutritionally complete diet for the animal <3
On the subject of admin/moderation, it is wonderful to see the team trying to be thoughtful, transparent, and kind even in the face of high tempers and heated beliefs. I wish we had more of this calibre of person out in the world :-)
Yep. The doublespeak here is wild. "Controversial topics can and should be discussed, as long as they are not causing risk of imminent physical harm. Therefore, we are leaving up comments that cause imminent risk of physical harm."
Forget the particular details of this issue. It feels way, way more strongly like they're trying to duck out of having to take action.