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
The comments in here are unbelievable. This post was about the systemic moderation issues that lead to the incident, the team’s response to it, and how to deal with such a problems in the future.
Half the comments: CATS CAN’T EAT VEGAN
The other half: CATS CAN TOO EAT VEGAN
There are people here who need to go back to fucking reddit.
I think what people generally want is not reddit. The mods in reddit have almost no accountability from admin.
Oftentimes comments are removed just because a mod doesn’t agree or like the content.
I was banned from r/Ukraine simply for saying we shouldn’t demonize the entire population of Russia for the actions of their government. I later argued with the mod through their “arbitration process” and he would not unban me. (What really hurt is that I’m Ukrainian. It was an improvement sub for me)
No one wants that! Please don’t let that happen here!
Good to know admins wont ever face any consequences
Will your next statement address the existence of a bot that lets community moderators site-ban and IP blacklist accounts without any appeal process?
Between the MediaBiasFactCheck and this bot how much power does Rooki have over the instance?
To be totally honest you have nothing to apologize for. Dogs and cats are metabolically different to humans and cannot survive on a vegan diet unlike us. Forcing obligate carnivore pets on vegan diets is certainly animal abuse.
I remember when there was a growing campaign to ban r/nonewnormal on Reddit due to it being a hub of medical disinformation and conspiracy theories surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and that this led to a blackout much like the later API protests.
Rather than read the room and introduce a new rule banning medical disinformation, Reddit’s Tintin-looking moron of a CEO instead threw out tonnes of BS statistics on brigading likely plucked out of his own sphincter, and banned the subreddit because their activity exceeded this arbitrary percentage he made up.
And before you tell me this guy’s figures were legit, aren’t we forgetting that he pathologically lied about his interactions with the Sync developer? Spez is a snake.
Dogs are omnivores like us and can do fine on a plant based diet. Sometimes even recommended for health reasons for dogs with anal gland issues.
Cats are a bit more complex but require taurine. Modern mass produced cat food is supplemented with synthetic taurine anyway so there isn’t much difference.
Vegans causing controversy. This is my complete lack of surprise.
This is not a productive comment. It’s probably best to discuss the pros and cons of veganism and it’s followers somewhere else.
tbf, pwning vegans is one of the internet’s most time-honored traditions. Up there with harassing women.
But yeah, you’re right.
What if they’re American vegans who use the imperial system of measurement, don’t own a bidet, and microwave their water for tea? Should I break out the cross and hammer?
Do they do crossfit? Are they an Arch Linux user?
IDK it seems like pretty clear animal abuse to me
And humans weren’t made to eat tablets and get injected with mixtures from syringes.
IDK it seems like pretty clear human abuse to me
If medical drugs can be made to be safe and compatible with humans there’s nothing stopping it for the same happening for vegan food for cats
I think people are misunderstanding your comment as anti-science :(
No, people are down voting it for being a bad argument, because humans can in fact make the choice not to take those tablets or get those injections.
But these cats that are forced a vegan diet can’t.
Oh sure, they could choose to not eat, and die a bit faster than they would on the vegan food, but no animal will choose to ignore food when they are hungry.
humans can in fact make the choice not to take those tablets or get those injections
My infant child has less agency over what he eats than my pet dog. They both get vaccinated over vocal objection.
Humans do not, in fact, get to make these choices. Other, older, wiser humans routinely make these decisions on their behalf.
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.
That is outright false and there is no need for false equivalencies. As studies support the fact that a plant-based diet is healthy for cats.
As reputable Kibble brands have the needed synthetic taurine, B12 and vitamin A.
Sources:
https://bmcvetres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12917-021-02754-8
https://www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/abs/10.12968/vetn.2022.13.6.252
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0253292
https://www.mdpi.com/2306-7381/10/1/52
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0284132
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240584402411609X
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
It’s important to consider that the academic discussion on the plant-based diet for cats has seismically changed in the last 3 years due to the recently published studies. I implore you to read more about the topic:
https://bmcvetres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12917-021-02754-8
https://www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/abs/10.12968/vetn.2022.13.6.252
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0253292
https://www.mdpi.com/2306-7381/10/1/52
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0284132
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240584402411609X
To me it just indicates how much of the Lemmy population hasn’t studied any bio past maybe first year HS level, or any advanced chemistry either for that matter. And how much people on the internet like fighting with vegans. The two influences together are very powerful.
Or maybe people just don’t like animal abuse? It’s okay to sometimes just go with the straightforward explanation. Don’t abuse cattle et all for human diets, don’t abuse your cat via its diet, and so on.
There’s some fallacious reasoning right there when cats can be healthier on a plant-based diet:
https://bmcvetres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12917-021-02754-8
https://www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/abs/10.12968/vetn.2022.13.6.252
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0253292
https://www.mdpi.com/2306-7381/10/1/52
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0284132
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240584402411609X
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.
Whether a pet gets the food it needs isn’t something you can even have an opinion about.
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;
Pet food nutritional guidelines for manufacturers in the UK are produced by FEDIAF (the European Pet Food Industry). These guidelines (also known as Codes) detail the nutritional needs of cats and dogs at varying life stages. They are regularly updated to include the latest nutritional research.
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 :-)
(vegan food is fine so long as it replicates the full dietary needs of the animal for example) - you’re good 😊
Vegan food is the opposite of replicating the full dietary needs of anything
Oh god, oh fuck, we need to get the word out to these highly educated nutritional scientists, cardiologists, gastroenterologists, endocrinologists, pulmonologists, oncologists, bariatricians, and nephrologists that “it’s the opposite, actually” as soon as possible. I’ll bet they’ll feel like idiots when they need to retract the dozens of meta-analyses and systemic reviews they’ve meticulously authored both showing that plant-based diets tend to be healthier than omnivorous ones and giving explanations for why.
A lot of these studies are funded by vegan grifters so no yeah no
I am not a vegan, but I do try to make food choices that are as ethical and healthy as I can… or at least as far as I can afford.
Cats are carnivores. Fact. This is not debatable. But I think you could also meet or exceed a cats nutritional needs from other sources. Whether those sources are readily available and whether a person is sufficiently meeting those needs… that’s another can of worms.
Generally, I’d argue that if you are hell-bent on a vegan diet, then you should not own carnivorous pets. No matter how well meaning you are, there is a significant chance that you will inflict harm on your pet, and that is unacceptable.
You might be surprised at how much corn, grains, and other non-meat stuff there is in cat food. Particularly in cheap dry kibble that nobody typically bats an eye at someone feeding to their cat.
This conversation just seems so weird to me. The number of people who feed their cats anything similar to what they’d be eating in the wild is minuscule.
Meat isn’t some magic substance, biological chemical reactions turns grass into cows. That you think you can’t take those nutrients and make them bioavailable to an obligate carnivore is absurd. Ever seen an impossible burger?
And if you think the cruelty stems from the idea that cats wouldn’t like it, I gotta say. I have my cat on an expensive grain free meat heavy diet. And I know for a fact that he goes crazy for the cheap shitty corn based purina kibble. He has busted into other people’s homes to steal kibble from their cats.
So is it cruel for me to feed him a more nature based diet when it’s clear he prefers corn based trash?
I don’t see any reason why a functional vegan cat food couldn’t exist.
Animal abuse isn’t an opinion. It’s evil. And malice by ignorance that could be corrected is malice.
Stop apologizing for doing your jobs. We all have opinions and raise them loudly in the Fediverse so I understand your natural reaction and want to communicate well. But IMHO this is troll feeding. If they posted in favor of human genocide, you’d close a ticket, and move on, not write an apology for taking it down.
All I’m getting from this entire saga is that vegans on here are lunatics. From forcing this nonsense on pets, to all of the follow-up, this is a very bad look for the community, from somone looking in from the outside.
This is some cultish behavior…
