Nostr notes by Kolektiva Mod Team

It's pretty much impossible to protect against bots scraping ...

2025-10-27T02:24:40Z

In reply to nevent1q…286v
_________________________

It's pretty much impossible to protect against bots scraping data on Mastodon, because users' posts are public by default.

What we can do is block servers that are known to be scraping data.... which is something we do to the best of our ability. Other than that, people can put their profiles to 'followers only', which provides a bit more security from mass data scrapers.

Shit... There seems to be going a new Donations-for-Gaza scam ...

2025-08-03T15:25:33Z

Shit...
There seems to be going a new Donations-for-Gaza scam going on. Quite elaborated (thanks to the person who reported this!)

Maybe you were followed by one of these accounts:
https://kolektiva.social/@ibrahimqannan
https://mastodon.world/@nadra_tibi
https://manganiello.social/@ola
https://mas.to/@ola_abu_moamer
(there are probably more)

These accounts appear to be impersonating well-known journalists in Gaza by copying posts from their real accounts like these:
https://www.facebook.com/ibrahim.qannan.1/
https://www.instagram.com/nadra_tibi/
https://www.instagram.com/ola_abu_moamer/

These Mastodon accounts rapidly started following hundreds of users without interacting in any other way, or writing standard messages (see 3rd screenshot).

For the one on kolektiva, we did a reverse IP address look up for the user, and they are based in Calgary, Canada.

They've put a highly suspect fundraising link in their bio we could not find linked by the actual journalists Ibrahim Qannan or Nadra Tibi on any of their real accounts. This fundraising campaign appears to be a yet another scam to capitalize on people's desire to help Gazans.

All of them have this fundraising campaign on chuffed that looks sus as fuck:
https://chuffed.org/project/137341-emergency-relief-for-gaza-families-food-clothing-hygiene-aid
-> they achieved already 40 000 $ (!)

Is there anybody with better investigative journalist skills that wants to verify these suspicions?
Because the fundraising platform chuffed.org should be informed, too.

The same people might be behind this other scam-campaign, who knows...
https://mas.to/@markwyner/114926766399857735
(it leads to a different chuffed.org fundraiser campaign)

The scammers might have learned that asking too aggressively for donations makes people suspicious, and that such a soft approach gives greater return in the end.

---------------------------------

We are all desperate and want to support the people in Gaza who are currently suffering a genocide by a right-wing governed Israel, supported by our own governments.

Whether you want to give money to Gaza or you can't: please use and share this list of MutualAid groups in Gaza, published and verified by ItsGoingDown:
https://kolektiva.social/@igd_news/114915363901482538

#MastodonScam #Scam #Moderation #Fediblock palestine group (npub1zxn…0kqm)

[@igd_news](https://kolektiva.social/@igd_news ) Mark Wyner Won’t Comply :vm: (npub1mza…kvkg) Fabio Manganiello (npub1s9u…dnmu) trumpet@mas.to (npub19vf…lppg) Sigurd Vie 🏳️‍🌈 (npub15hj…rkz0)

Mods wanted!! Kolektiva.social has now been around for nearly ...

2025-04-19T19:18:27Z

Mods wanted!!

Kolektiva.social has now been around for nearly five years. During that time, we have received lots of valuable feedback. It has and continues to help us better understand problems with our moderation, and what needs to change. A clear takeaway from the issues we've come up against is that we need more help with content moderation.

Over the past several months, It's become more evident than ever that our movements require autonomous social media networks. To be blunt, if we want Kolektiva (and the Fediverse more broadly) to continue to grow in the face of cyberlibertarian co-optation, we need more people to help out. Developing the Fediverse as an alternative, autonomous social network involves more than just using its free, open source, decentralized infrastructure as a simple substitute to surveillance capitalist platforms. It also takes shared responsibility and thoughtful, human centered moderation. As anarchists, we view content moderation through the lens of mutual aid: it is a form of collective care that enhances the quality of collective information flows and means of communication. Mutual aid is premised on working together to expand solidarity and build movements. It is about sharing time, attention, and responsibility. Stepping up to support with moderation means helping to maintain community standards, and to keep our space grounded in the values we share.

Corporate social media platforms do not operate on the principle of mutual aid. They operate on the basis of profit — mining their users for data, that they can process and sell to advertisers. Neither do the moderators of these social media platforms operate on the principle of mutual aid. They do these difficult and often brutal jobs because they are paid a wage out of the revenue brought in from advertisers. Kolektiva's moderation team consists of volunteers. If we want to do social media differently, it requires a shift in the service user/service provider mentality. It requires more people to step up, so that the burden of moderation is shared more equitably, and so that the moderation team is enriched by more perspectives.

If you join the Kolektiva moderation team, you’ll be part of a collective that spans several continents and brings different experiences and politics into conversation. Additionally, you'll build skills in navigating conflict and disagreement — skills that are valuable to our movements outside the Fediverse.

Of course, we know that not everyone can volunteer their time. We want to mention that there are plenty of ways to contribute: flag posts, report bugs and share direct feedback. We are grateful for everyone who has taken the time to do this and has discussed and engaged with us directly.

Since launching in 2020, Kolektiva has grown beyond what we ever expected. While our goal has never been to become massive, we value our place as a landing spot into the Fediverse for many — and a home base for some.

In addition to expanding our content moderation team, we have other plans in the works. These include starting a blog and developing educational materials to support people who want to create their own instances.

If you value Kolektiva, please consider joining the Kolektiva content moderation team!
Contact us at if you’re interested or have questions.

#kolektiva #contentmoderation #mutualaid

yes, whatsup? did you send them a DM? Any issues? probably the ...

2025-02-15T09:49:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…z2a3
_________________________

yes, whatsup?
did you send them a DM? Any issues?

probably the mod account is more often checked by someone from the team.

Hey all! Every now and then someone asks us why we block the ...

2025-01-23T13:54:21Z

Hey all! Every now and then someone asks us why we block the bridge for #Bluesky. The short answer is that we're concerned that posts boosted by someone who uses that bridge might end up on Bluesky without the original poster's consent.

But we're open for discussion. And we're also creating this poll to feel the temperature about what our users think about this topic.

Also, please reply to this thread and share your thoughts.

So, do you think #Kolektiva should enable the Bluesky bridge so our users can follow and be followed by users on Bluesky?

To those who have reached out to our instance to express your ...

2025-01-04T03:12:54Z

To those who have reached out to our instance to express your anger, hurt, and disappointment, this is a message to say that we have heard your criticisms, and acknowledge that we fucked up. Based on this feedback and further internal discussion, we have suspended the account of our former user Rusty Betrand, for violating our rules against transphobic discourse.

While acknowledging that we have made serious mistakes in not taking this action sooner, we also want to push back against the accusations going around that #Kolektiva supports transmisogyny, or harbours anti-trans politics or views. This is not true, and deeply upsetting to members of our collective, which includes several trans and non-binary members.

When Rusty first joined Kolektiva, he was open with our mods about his previous history of trauma. He has repeatedly and openly talked about being a child cult survivor, and having been sexually assaulted by a trans inmate while in prison. He is also a trans man who reacts very emotionally and angrily to being called a transphobe. Given our awareness of this, and his tendency to become triggered when confronted, members of our mod team have always weighed our interactions with him carefully. In hindsight, this has clearly led to us being overly lenient with regards to his toxic behaviour. Although we’ve intervened repeatedly to delete posts that violated our terms of service (which includes a ban on transphobic discourse), several of these posts should have been grounds for immediate suspension. However, it is much easier to suspend a person that seems privileged, than somebody that claims to be disabled, trans, gay, Jewish, and a trauma survivor with multiple mental health issues.

After a recent rant, in which he made several fucked up and transmisognyistic statements about trans women being biological predators, we decided that he'd unequivocally crossed the line, and that he had to leave Kolektiva. Out of concern for his mental health issues, we attempted to be sensitive when telling him to find another server. Nonetheless, he did not take this message well, and posted a screenshot containing part of the direct message we’d sent him, while making allegations that he was being unfairly targeted, etc. Several of his supporters saw this, and chimed in that we should give him another chance. In our message to him, we’d written that we had repeatedly warned him about his transmisogyny in the past. He argued this was not true, and when we looked through his account history, we realized that he was technically correct. Most of the reports filed against him had been accusations of antisemitism related to his posts about Israel and Palestine (including a smaller number that we determined were valid, and which we deleted and explicitly warned him about). We had deleted a couple posts that we'd considered to be transphobic, but had never actually sent him a formal warning. That technical omission, combined with the messages of support we’d received about him, were the reasons we decided to simply delete several of his offensive posts and give him a final warning before suspending his account. This was a mistake. We should have stuck to our original plan, and followed through with the suspension. Transmisogynistic or TERF discourse has no place on this server, and should never have been tolerated to the extent that it was.

In our message to Rusty asking him to leave Kolektiva, we pointed out that he sometimes made valid points, and that we realized that sometimes his statements were misconstrued as being transphobic, but that when challenged in these cases he would resort to TERF talking points and clearly transmisogynist rants. Some have pointed to this as evidence that Kolektiva’s mods think transphobia is ‘fair and valid.’ This is not true. We observed multiple occasions where Rusty would post a statement that was itself not inherently transphobic (talking about the importance of trans people and queers embracing feminist politics, for example), and then get accused of transphobia. In these cases, Rusty would generally freak out and start regurgitating TERF talking points. Our message was trying to describe this pattern of behaviour and explain that it was not acceptable. This was intended as a private message to Rusty, but in hindsight we should have predicted that he would screenshot our DM, and we should have chosen our words more carefully.

Our server, and Mastodon more broadly, is home to many amazing transfemme users. We know that the world is often shitty to trans people, and that part of our responsibility as moderators is creating a space that is as free of this shittiness as possible. Through our mishandling of this situation, we have clearly failed in our duty to do this, and for that we are truly sorry.

At the end of the day, our mod team is made up of a relatively small team of volunteers who have made mistakes, and frankly will continue to make mistakes in the future. We are open to criticism, and encourage users to reach out to us when they disagree with our actions. We are always accepting volunteers who would like to get involved and help contribute to improving the moderation policies and practices on this instance. If that sounds like you, get in touch.

After further discussion, we have decided to let you off with a ...

2025-01-02T15:46:32Z

In reply to nevent1q…xjp2
_________________________

After further discussion, we have decided to let you off with a final warning. We’re sorry that this exchange has been so upsetting for you. But to be clear, us asking you to find another server had nothing to do with your identity, or with the single post you've referenced here. We were responding to a pattern of behaviour. Specifically, to repeated posts where you’ve painted trans women as potential/former predators, and employed other TERF talking points. There have been multiple examples of this, even before the recent set of rants that forced us to take action. Provided that you avoid making these sorts of posts in the future, we are happy to continue to host your account on Kolektiva. But please be aware that we will suspend your account if the problem persists.

Also posting the full DM we sent you regarding this, since the screenshot you posted above is cut off.

After discussing this some more, we have decided to let you off ...

2025-01-02T15:37:21Z

In reply to nevent1q…f99l
_________________________

After discussing this some more, we have decided to let you off with a final warning. We’re sorry that this exchange has been so upsetting for you. But to be clear, us asking you to find another server had nothing to do with your identity. We were responding to your behaviour and comments. Specifically, to repeated posts where you’ve painted trans women as potential/former predators, and employed other TERF talking points. There have been multiple examples of this, even before the recent set of rants that forced us to take action. Provided that you avoid making these sorts of posts in the future, we are happy to continue to host your account on Kolektiva. But please be aware that we will suspend your account if the problem persists.

We have also posted a full screenshot of our initial DM to you, since the one you posted above is cut off half-way.

After discussing this some more, we have decided to let you off ...

2025-01-02T15:31:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…c09r
_________________________

After discussing this some more, we have decided to let you off with a final warning. We’re sorry that this exchange has been so upsetting for you. But to be clear, us asking you to find another server had nothing to do with your identity. We were responding to your behaviour and comments. Specifically, to repeated posts where you’ve painted trans women as potential/former predators, and employed other TERF talking points. There have been multiple examples of this, even before the recent set of rants that forced us to take action. Provided that you avoid making these sorts of posts in the future, we are happy to continue to host your account on Kolektiva. But please be aware that we will suspend your account if the problem persists.

2) October 7th and the “Axis of Resistance” Since the attacks ...

2024-10-24T18:22:57Z

In reply to nevent1q…jdc9
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2) October 7th and the “Axis of Resistance”

Since the attacks of October 7th, 2023, and particularly since the Israeli state responded with a genocidal slaughter in Gaza, there’s been an increase in popular support for Hamas and for the so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ led by Iran, and supported by the foreign operations branch of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Al-Quds Force. Recent Israeli atrocities in Lebanon have seen a similar spike in support for Hezbollah. We consider this to be an understandable and predictable result of Israel’s ongoing military atrocities, given that these armed factions are often presented as the only forces willing and able to engage in effective armed resistance to the Israeli state's murderous actions in the region. The horrifying and existential realities of war exert a tremendous pressure on people to cast aside political differences and 'pick a side'. And clearly, many people have chosen to take the side of those seen to be fighting on behalf of Palestine, against Israel and their imperialist backers in the west.

Within this context, and under the pretext of building increased global anti-imperialist and anti-colonial solidarity, a current within the anarchist movement has for months been re-publishing reports and communiques from armed Palestinian groups, along with news articles that glorify the 'Axis of Resistance' and openly celebrate Operation Al Aqsa Flood, the attack carried out by Palestinian militants on October 7th 2023.

Over the past year, these posts have generated hundreds of reports. We’ve deleted some of the more egregious examples, but we left most of them alone. This has been a source of continual debate and disagreement within the moderation team, and with several of our users. Members of the Kolektiva mod team were initially sympathetic to arguments made about the importance of sharing information that is otherwise heavily censored by western media sources (such as reports about armed attacks on Israeli soldiers in Gaza) even when that information comes from heavily biased media sources or from groups that we find politically abhorrent. We also recognize that when we use our position to delete posts on a certain topic, or from certain sources, we are effectively censoring discourse and removing the ability of people to discuss and debate these ideas on this platform. Sometimes, this censorship is warranted (we aren't interested in promoting debates among the finer points of fascism, for example), but in this case we're talking about setting the parameters for discussion around one of the most brutal military campaigns in modern history and a crucial focal point for global anti-colonial and anti-imperialist resistance. So we've generally opted to take a fairly light touch, and to have faith that our majority-anarchist userbase would mitigate the drift towards glorifying militarism, martyrdom & war.

However, over time we have grown increasingly uncomfortable as we’ve watched several of our users, including comrades whose work we have respected for years, along with their affiliated counter-info sites, gradually transform into uncritical cheerleaders for authoritarian Islamist paramilitary actors like Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah, and totalitarian states like Syria and Iran - whose own security forces and assorted death squads have bombed, gassed, shot, detained, tortured and brutally slaughtered hundreds of thousands of revolutionaries and political dissidents across the region in the years since the Arab Spring.

These are reactionary and repressive institutions. This fact may be inconvenient for those who now see them as agents of liberation and Palestinian self-determination, but it is not lost on the millions of people whose calls for freedom were silenced by barrel bombs in Aleppo, or whose friends and comrades were shot by IRGC proxies in Baghdad or Basra, or executed for rising up against the murder of Jina Amini.

In the lead up to October 7th, there were texts circulating online calling for western anarchists to learn from the ‘revolutionary tactics’ and organizational structures of the Al-Qassam Brigades, and to use these lessons to target individual Zionists with ‘direct action’. These posts are often marked with an inverted red triangle, which has come to serve as a pro-Hamas dog whistle.

Not only are these posts deeply delusional and dripping with performative machismo, but they are also reckless. They blur the line between combatant and non-combatants and appropriate anarchist aesthetics and discourse to promote a 'unity of fields' strategy that imagines themselves as a fifth column of the Iranian military. As anarchists, we have serious concerns with this political trajectory and where it is heading - to put it mildly - and we’re no longer willing to platform these sorts of 'political interventions' on our instance.

Moving forward, we will be deleting these posts on sight and requesting that Kolektiva.social accounts associated with counter-info sites avoid re-publishing these sorts of posts on Kolektiva, or else find themselves a new home instance.

For more anarchist critiques of militarism in this current context please see:

1) Hostages to the Gun: On Militancy and Militarism
https://north-shore.info/2024/10/04/hostages-of-the-gun-on-militancy-and-militarism/

2) Abolition Media's Authoritarian Entryism
https://cola.blackblogs.org/2024/03/22/abolition-medias-authoritarian-entryism/

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1) Analogizing Israel and Nazi Germany We have removed the ...

2024-10-24T18:21:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…d9es
_________________________

1) Analogizing Israel and Nazi Germany

We have removed the explicit rule against analogizing Israel and Nazi Germany from our code of conduct. This has been a particularly contentious rule that has led to several users leaving our instance, and numerous accusations that we’re sympathetic to Zionism or the Israeli state – which we are not. Having to constantly rehash these debates has been emotionally and mentally draining for our volunteers. And we’re all pretty sick of perceptions that this rule exists simply to shield Israel from criticism.

What the moderators of Kolektiva have always opposed with this rule was the weaponization and trivialization of the Holocaust against one of its primary targets and victims – in this case, Jews. This rule was initially added in 2021 following discussions with anti-Zionist, Jewish anarchists, who impressed upon several members of our mod team (at the time) that these comparisons were generally a lazy way of criticizing the Israeli state by intentionally poking at the trauma experienced by survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants. And that given how this trauma is already manipulated and weaponized by Zionist politicians, lobbyists and other advocates of Israeli militarism, it was playing into their rhetoric about how the rest of the world (including the so-called ‘left’) doesn’t care about the plight of Jews and is willing to mock the most horrific thing that has ever happened to their people in order to score rhetorical points against the Israeli occupation and military atrocities.

In some of the heated debates around this policy and how it’s been implemented, we’ve seen users repeatedly state that what’s going on in Gaza right now is even worse than the Holocaust. Whatever else one thinks of that statement, we find the direct comparison and ‘ranking’ of different genocides, particularly when made by those not directly affected by either of them, to be a recipe for stoking flames of nationalist division and for the relative dehumanization of entire groups of people.

It isn't lost on us that Nazi Germany is often used as a reference point and a singular, exceptionalized example of evil by individuals who live in settler-colonial states that bear much more of a resemblance to Israel than the historic Nazi regime did. When engaging users around this topic, members of our mod team have often pointed out that a better analogy for Israel would be the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa or Brazil – all countries where European settlers have carried out (and continue to carry out) genocidal policies against local Indigenous populations. We still think that this is a more politically useful analogy, and we continue to encourage users from settler-colonial societies, who are so quick to refer to Israelis as Nazis, to at least reflect on and challenge their own complicity in colonialism.

We will continue to delete posts that we believe are using this analogy in bad faith, or in a way that is overtly anti-Semitic (defacing the Star of David with a Swastika, for example). That said, we acknowledge that an outright ban on this analogy is overly heavy-handed, and despite its intention, it often comes across as censorship or policing people’s entirely legitimate rage and despair over Israel’s destructive actions in Palestine and the broader Middle East. There needs to be more room for nuance here, even though nuance and empathy are increasingly in short supply these days.

It’s both valid and incredibly important to draw attention to the fact that a state that was born of in the wake of a historical act of genocide is using the slogan ‘Never Again’ to justify and rationalize their own genocidal actions. We also realize that many Israeli and anti-Zionist Jewish commentators have critically examined this contradiction themselves, while attempting to do so in a way that honours both the victims of the Holocaust, and the victims of Israeli settler-colonialism. And so we are removing this rule in the strict sense, while respectfully asking our users to be reflective and intentional when invoking this comparison, and mindful of the weight that it carries for Jews and other victims of the Holocaust – even those who do not ascribe to Zionism or support the policies of the Israeli state.

The horror, anger and despair that many of us feel from witnessing the daily atrocities of the Israeli state must not be used as an excuse to dehumanize Jews or discount the very real and historically-justified fear that many Jewish people feel today at rising levels of antisemitism. Doing so is not only antisemitic, but also plays directly into the hands of those who seek to weaponize Jewish trauma in the pursuit of further Israeli militarism.

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Update on our Code of Conduct policy: Following extensive ...

2024-10-24T18:20:25Z

Update on our Code of Conduct policy:

Following extensive internal and external discussions, we have decided to update the Kolektiva.social code of conduct. While there will be additional changes coming in the near future, there are two that we will be adopting effective immediately. In this post, we will discuss our rationale for these changes, and how they will affect our moderation practices. The obvious context and impetus for the changes is the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the increasingly brutal Israeli military campaigns being waged in the West Bank and Lebanon.

The TLDR; version:

1) We are removing the section of our Code of Conduct that specifically prohibits Analogizing Israel and Nazi Germany.

&

2) We will be taking a more active role in removing posts that uncritically celebrate the Al Aqsa Flood attack of October 7 2023, and/or glorify militarized, authoritarian actors in the so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Syrian and Iranian states.

We’ll go over both of these points individually, but first we want to acknowledge that there are users who will take issue with these decisions for different and mutually-conflicting reasons. While we regret this, we also see it as inevitable. We welcome feedback, discussion and constructive criticism.

The Kolektiva mod team is made up of individuals with our own opinions and strongly held views. While we don’t always agree on everything 100%, we try to come to consensus whenever possible, and to be guided by our shared anarchist principles and values. Sometimes this process moves slowly, and requires numerous conversations, which has been the case here.

The past year has been utterly horrific. The scale and constant bombardment of ethno-nationalist and religious-sectarian violence, massacres and atrocities has ignited rage, hatred, and a thirst for vengeance in many people’s hearts. It has shattered many people’s illusions about shared human values, and added a new sense of urgency to discussions on the role and ethics of violence as it relates to revolutionary and anti-colonial struggle, tactics and strategy. While often difficult, we hope these discussions and debates continue, and that they produce new affinities and ultimately, more effective resistance against the forces that divide and subjugate us.

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Here is a statement from Kolektiva regarding Facebook ...

2023-06-26T21:03:32Z

Here is a statement from Kolektiva regarding Facebook ("Meta") soon launching a new app ("Threads" or "Project92") which will reportedly use ActivityPub and interoperate or federate with parts of the Fediverse.

Kolektiva was founded as a direct result of anarchist and antifascist projects being kicked off of Facebook in 2020. Our entire "raison d'etre" is to provide an independent autonomous alternative to corporate social media. We exist in opposition to Facebook and their ilk. We have no interest in federating with a network operated and controlled by Meta, even if it becomes technically possible.

Meta has shown its values and actions are not just incompatible with our world view but openly hostile towards it. Whereas we create a world based on mutual aid and voluntary cooperation Meta necessitates conflict and systems of domination in order to profit.

Kolektiva.social will not federate with whatever Meta's future presence on the Fediverse looks like. We will continue to strive towards a larger, more decentralized and anarchist Fediverse. We choose our autonomy and trust in the social experiment / counter culture we are co-creating with others who do not wield such abhorrent systems of power over us.