Bylines.social

• site: https://bylines.social/
  • main/admin: @clarion

About

bylines.social is a Mastodon instance created by/for the Bylines Network, with Yorkshire Bylines as the primary poster currently. While they appear to be firmly reality-based, they also appear to have had rather poor judgement regarding moderation.

Report

A user reported this post, concerned that it represented an invitation to (re)open "debate" on whether trans people are who they say they are:

• 2023-01-02 bylines.social/@YorksBylines «If we can establish a consensus that trans men are men and trans women are women, it is likely to add to the safety of all as it increases the open-mindedness of society and challenges fears and divisions »
  • linked: 2023-01-02 Transgender rights: everything old is new again «Whenever any section of society starts to stand up for its rights it faces a barrage of criticism and people come up with some very overblown theories about what will go wrong if we start treating them more reasonably.»

It's entirely understandable to be concerned about any framing of trans rights as a "debate", but I think this post is more about seeking to establish a solid consensus against the the idea that such debate is legitimate -- where the purpose of "consensus" in this context is that nobody can get away with pretending there's any serious debate on the matter.

Looking at a smattering of other posts on the instance and on the Yorkshire Bylines site, they seem solidly reality-based.

Commentary

• 2023-01-03 Effective shunning (via) «One of the bonuses of being on Mastodon is the fediverse is actually strong about crushing bad actors. A shiny new newspaper out of Yorkshire trying to make it in an online world published a lazy, stupid opinion piece about trans people — it’s England, you know, the place is infested with transphobes — and got slammed hard for it.»
  • Note: I have not been able to find the opinion piece described. -W.