this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
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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 ?

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[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

something between left, conservative and liberal

[–] Grainne@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Sounds like he’s some sort of nationalist and socialist…

[–] hauke@lemmy.world 0 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Did you research before making serious judgements on another person? The opposite is true. https://www.dangerousspeech.org/counter-speech-case-studies/hasnain-kazim Or translate this into your language: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasnain_Kazim?wprov=sfla1

[–] carrylex@lemmy.world 9 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

famous German author

You could ask 100k Germans and maybe 1 person knows who he is.

Drop the famous.

[–] hauke@lemmy.world -2 points 1 hour ago

Who is more famous; Micaela Schäfer or Dorothee Elmiger? I would say the winner of the German book prize 2025. You would probably pick the 'model',because more people know her. Fame is not objective. Well, it is not relly important here anyway.

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 46 points 10 hours ago (4 children)

This post says who he is and that he got banned from mastodon.world, but it does not say what he posted there before getting banned.

The .world network is not known, in general for having unconventional rules or heavy-handed moderation. Without more information, I have to assume he posted something that would get him banned a lot of other places too.

[–] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 14 points 8 hours ago (10 children)

It's right there:

A post of him was deleted where he reported that a majority of arabic language comments in international media were celebrating the attack in Berlin on a Pride event, and were also celebrating the guy who weaponized his car. He says that this is a big, massive problem in that post.

He then just posted "The mods have deleted my previous comment, is that for real?" while citing the same comment again - this is what got him banned.

!yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com material.

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[–] Asetru@feddit.org 16 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

It's in the bottom right of the screenshot that shows his complaint:

Der „Moderator" hier hat allen Ernstes diesen Post von mir gelöscht:

Ich habe gerade Leserkommentare mehrerer internationaler Medien durchforstet. Die große Mehrheit der arabischsprachigen Kommentatoren feiert den Täter von Berlin, die große Mehrheit feiert seine Tat. Und das ist ein sehr großes Problem.

Deepl translation:

The “moderator” here actually deleted this post of mine:

I just went through reader comments on several international media outlets. The vast majority of Arabic-speaking commenters are celebrating the Berlin attacker; the vast majority are celebrating his act. And that is a very big problem.

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 23 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

That’s his version of events that he’s showing to his audience.

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

[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 7 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

He has made the same original post on Bluesky as well. So you can probably see the other posts he has made.

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I don't see anything in the Bluesky posts I would expect to get moderated on a .world server. Odd.

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[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 13 points 9 hours ago (4 children)

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.

[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 3 points 7 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.

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[–] TheRealKuni@piefed.social 15 points 10 hours ago

Yeah I’d be curious about context, too.

[–] TORFdot0@lemmy.world 8 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

If someone gets banned from an instance, they are free to move their account to a new instance and still keep their followers.

Someone doesn’t just get to break instance rules just because they are a successful author. Attitudes need to change, if you approach the fediverse like corporate social media, you are doing it wrong.

What’s his excuse going to be once he gets muted on bluesky?

[–] OpenStars@discuss.online 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Also, what does "banning" even mean? Lemmings I find love to abuse terminology so that a one-hour time-out period gets referred to as a "ban" (tbf this was inherited from Reddit, no matter how much we'd like to leave the old ways behind, they do tend to cling stubbornly).

But I don't know how Mastodon uses those words - is he even truly "banned" or merely "banned" for like an hour while the moderator spent that time researching the situation?

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 hours ago

The word ban does not imply any duration on its own.

[–] Wataba@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 hours ago

Mastodon has some really nutty moderators with bad faith attitudes, so this doesnt surprise me.

[–] gedfromgont@piefed.ca 17 points 9 hours ago (10 children)

Maybe I am too dense to get this, but how exactly can you be between left, conservative and liberal? Is that being centrist?

[–] Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

I am often called a centrist... I hold views the left and the right both despise, I agree with one here and the other there. In USA we are officially "independents" and are the majority of voters (40% independents, 30% Democrat ("left"), 30% Republican.

"independents" also include all other political parties (Greens, Libertarians, Socialists, et al), which are more active locally than federally.

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[–] ozoned@piefed.social 11 points 9 hours ago (4 children)

I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding still of how the Fediverse works.

Any instance, mastodon.world for instance, is NOT Mastodon itself. Mastodon is JUST the software that was chosen. Each instance is allowed their own rules. Each community is allowed their own rules within the instance. If you get banned, think of it more that someone has asked you to leave their home and doesn't want you there.

We have to get away from these ideas of that every instance of Mastodon or Lemmy or whatever completely reflects the entire Fediverse.

This comes with a big caveat. I think the world still sees us this way. And I think we HAVE to do a better job of, "This is a platform and if you're banned you're gone." Instead we should help folks understand, if you're kicked off an instance, there are a dozen others. There is a community for everyone. Hell, run your own or ask and folks can run one for you.

I will 100% disagree with a LOT of folks on a LOT of issues and I'd never want to host socials for the majority of folks. BUT I will absolutely defend your right to exist on the Fediverse and even help you, to a point, set up your own instance. But everyone needs to be mindful, that those places can and will still ban you. But you can at least get your message out to your community.

I don't know what was said as I don't speak German. I also don't know why he was banned. But that is .world's right to eject anyone from their community they don't want. If the person decides to leave and not come back at all, that really sucks. But they also have the right to start their own community and continue interacting.

I've banned someone from TubeFree.org. I've blocked folks. I've refused to allow someone to create an account on TubeFree.org. Am I censoring someone? Maybe, but I'm attempting to build a specific community.

I'd absolutely LOVE to see any of these big instances have communities start their own instance. We shouldn't have monoliths in the fediverse. The more diverse the network, the better. Honestly I'm trying to help communities run their own for their own community. I've even been talking with folks and attempting to work with folks on a spin up your own image to run from a business or home that is plug and play.

We NEED people to run their own, control their data, manage this themselves. We're not there yet, but I honestly think someday we will be and everyone will just have a presence on the Fediverse. A community blocks you? You won't even notice because YOU control YOUR digital identity.

[–] JupiterRowland@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Any instance, mastodon.world for instance, is NOT Mastodon itself.

It's this very thing that especially those who only came to Mastodon for reach often don't understand.

All Fediverse newbies, except for those who escape from Reddit to Lemmy those very few who escape from Instagram to Pixelfed, are being railroaded to Mastodon without being told a thing about the Fediverse outside of Mastodon. That's because those who on-board them either think that Mastodon is hard to understand already, what with being decentralised and having "instances" and stuff, and the Fediverse, as a network of tons of wholly different stuff, is incomprehensible level: eldritch. Or they don't know about the Fediverse outside Mastodon itself.

In fact, most Mastodon newbies seem to not even be told about Mastodon being a network of lots of independent websites. They may think that Mastodon is a network in the same sense as Facebook being a network.

So for those who joined via the Web interface, Mastodon tends to be a website. Namely the server that they've joined.

For them, mastodon.social = Mastodon = the Fediverse. Or mastodon.world = Mastodon = the Fediverse.

For those who joined by loading and using the official app without taking a glance at any Mastodon server's website even only once, Mastodon is a phone app, just like Telegram is a phone app, and Facebook is a phone app. They don't know fuck all about what's happening behind the app, and they don't care as long as it works.

For them, the Mastodon app on their phone = Mastodon = the Fediverse.

Private, spare-time Mastodon users will eventually learn that Mastodon is, in fact, not one website or simply an app, but made up of many such websites called "servers" or "instances".

The next step will be for them to learn that the Fediverse is, in fact, not only Mastodon. That all these Mastodon "servers" are fully connected to other wholly different websites a.k.a. "servers" (or whatever the respective Fediverse server application calls its servers). For example, this happens when they receive an answer to one of their toots that's way over 500 characters long (which they deem technologically impossible in the Fediverse because Mastodon can't do it), and that contains stuff like text formatting (which they deem technologically impossible in the Fediverse because Mastodon can't do it).

Even private, spare-time Mastodon users may be stuck in such a Mastodon-only bubble that they take two years or more to learn the latter.

Now, professionals, that's a wholly different matter. They don't have time to engage with the community. They can barely catch up with the comments on their posts. If they read them at all, that is. They don't read what the community has to say outside these comments either because they don't follow anyone who's really engaged in the community.

Thus, they never come across a message that even only gives them a hint on what the Fediverse actually is. Nothing that they actually pay attention to on Mastodon tells them that Mastodon is not just one website or a phone app that neatly hides what's happening behind itself.

They can have joined in early November, 2022, days after Elon Musk's Twitter takeover and still think that Mastodon is one website. And either they've never heard the term "Fediverse", or they think that "Fediverse" is another name for Mastodon, i.e. that one website that they think is Mastodon.

Kazim probably was too professional and too busy to see what the community was posting about. So he kept on "knowing" that mastodon.world = the Mastodon website = the Fediverse.

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[–] obelisk_complex@piefed.ca 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I think that there's a specific kind of person who responds to a tragic event by looking for and reporting on people celebrating the tragedy. In my several decades of experience, the point always seems to be to try and vilify the people who share a few traits like skin colour, language, or ethnicity, and somehow it's always a group the "reporter" has some kind of problem with.

Trump did the same thing after 9/11, you know. Do you support that Trumpy kind of behaviour, to try and incite hatred against particular groups of people in that manner?

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[–] Kierunkowy74@piefed.zip 6 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Unfortunately, his account has been suspended, not freezed (which would retain the account - but simply prevent him from using it), so he cannot migrate his followers to another instance.

Also unfortunate, that a pick-your-poison moderation policy choice remains apparently a brand new sentence for any "normie".

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[–] BallyM@lemmy.world 6 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Interesting article about him here — https://www.dangerousspeech.org/counter-speech-case-studies/hasnain-kazim

He’s doing Mastodon a favour. He can always return to anywhere on the fediverse. Complaining that one moderator on one Mastodon instance was mean isn’t news, but maybe it is if it’s a journalist. Good for him.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 8 points 9 hours ago (10 children)

That was the only article I could find about him too.

It gave plenty of examples of him trolling bigots, almost nothing about him being a journalist except something he did for a student paper as a teenager

It seems very likely that he was fucking around and got banned for trolling.

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[–] pseudo@jlai.lu 8 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

That's disappointing to see people who could attract people to the fediverse leave it and with bad memories.

[–] StillAlive@piefed.world 11 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

"Leave 'big tech' platforms, they're abusing their influence. Come to fediverse where power tripping mods abuse their position instead!"

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[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 6 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Yeah dunno. Did they follow instance rules? It states inflammatory posts need a Content Warning and I can't tell whether the author is in violation of the instance CoC or following the rules?! Seems there is no such warning on the screenshots. We could probably ask the admin or mod in question. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe it wasn't... We don't really know other than Kazim thinks they've being wronged.

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