424
Mod removed innocous post from Dadjokes because "kids don't understand gay marriage"
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
The post in question
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2026
424 points (95.3% liked)
Ye Power Trippin' Bastards
1885 readers
803 users here now
This is a community in the spirit of "Am I The Asshole" where people can post their own bans from lemmy or reddit or whatever and get some feedback from others whether the ban was justified or not.
Sometimes one just wants to be able to challenge the arguments some mod made and this could be the place for that.
Posting Guidelines
All posts should follow this basic structure:
- Which mods/admins were being Power Tripping Bastards?
- What sanction did they impose (e.g. community ban, instance ban, removed comment)?
- Provide a screenshot of the relevant modlog entry (don’t de-obfuscate mod names).
- Provide a screenshot and explanation of the cause of the sanction (e.g. the post/comment that was removed, or got you banned).
- Explain why you think its unfair and how you would like the situation to be remedied.
Rules
- Post only about bans or other sanctions that you have received from a mod or admin.
- Don’t use private communications to prove your point. We can’t verify them and they can be faked easily.
- Don’t deobfuscate mod names from the modlog with admin powers.
- Don’t harass mods or brigade comms. Don’t word your posts in a way that would trigger such harassment and brigades.
- Do not downvote posts if you think they deserved it. Use the comment votes (see below) for that.
- You can post about power trippin’ in any social media, not just lemmy. Feel free to post about reddit or a forum etc.
- If you are the accused PTB, while you are welcome to respond, please do so within the relevant post.
- Keep the comments in YPTB posts about the moderation action itself, not about the general topic in which the moderation took place.
Expect to receive feedback about your posts, they might even be negative.
Make sure you follow this instance's code of conduct. In other words we won't allow bellyaching about being sanctioned for hate speech or bigotry.
YPTB matrix channel: For real-time discussions about bastards or to appeal mod actions in YPTB itself.
Some acronyms you might see.
- PTB - Power-Tripping Bastard: The commenter agrees with you this was a PTB mod.
- YDI - You Deserved It: The commenter thinks you deserved that mod action.
- YDM new - You Deserved More: The commenter thinks you got off too lightly.
- BPR - Bait-Provoked Reaction: That mod probably overreacted in charged situation, or due to being baited.
- CLM - Clueless Mod: The mod probably just doesn't understand how their software works.
Relevant comms
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I've taken a look at the moderator log, and they are pretty consistent about it.
I can understand the concern - seeing this post caused me to go take a look.
I'm open to my mind being changed, but it appears to me that they pretty consistently remove jokes with a sexual component, and often suggest c/unclejokes as an alternative place for posting them.
At the moment, this looks to me to be a community rule that not everyone agrees with, but a reasonable rule to have and enforce. It certainly does not break the Lemmy.World TOS.
The job of a moderator is to act as a janitor and facilitator. They remove spam, bigotry, and posts that don't fit. And then hopefully help ensure the things that do fit are allowed - so the community then upvotes/downvotes on what they like or don't like. But it is worth bearing in mind that moderators are all volunteers, and in addition to being a janitor and facilitator, they have often created the communities in question, and so should and do have a hand in how those communities operate. Ideally, it's a balance between what the community wants and the vision the mod has for the community.
I will also say that 1) everyone's opinions on what crosses lines are different, and 2) after moderating in various places for 30 years of my life, I can say that a surprising amount of content requires subjective calls to be made, even with brilliantly objective rules. Context is surprisingly critical in many cases, for example, although in this instance, it's more about where lines are drawn and what exactly is "sexual".
I personally don't have any problems with this joke at all, and if I were the mod, I think I wouldn't worry about what actual children might think of jokes - but that's where this community is, and this removal seems reasonable to me based on that rule.
What is sexual about being gay? Is mentioning "Dad jokes" talking about sex because dads usually become dads by having sex?
From what i've seen from the modlog, I would expect a joke that revolved around dad referencing sex with mom (or their sexuality at all) would also get removed.
Note that I don't personally agree with the rule, it's just a rule I don't see as problematic, nor being enforced unfairly.
Why don't you have a problem with "bisexual" not being considered "gay"? Because you've decided that's okay. And I don't disagree necessarily, because for example we have LGBTQ+ which separates out the letters. But if you reduce that to a single word, it would probably be "gay", meaning that bisexuality is also gay.
I'm sure it would surprise some of the commentors calling me a bigot to learn that my wife is bisexual. Not that you can't have members of some class being bigots. But I'd imagine it would sitll surprise them. Nor do most people who don't actually give a shit about the conversation and who are just looking for a convenient target to hate care much either. Which is not you, which is why I gave you an actual reply.
But this isn't a joke about sex. This is a joke about romantic orientation - which usually coincides with one's sexual orientation, sure, but they aren't the same thing.
Saying that queerness is inherently sexual is a bigoted stance to take, and it's a bad look if you're defending it. And that remains true even if you have a queer partner or even if you're queer yourself. Since you want to use having a queer partner as a defense for your logic, why don't you ask her what she thinks of this situation? She may not agree with your take on it.
Where in the OP does it talk about having sex?
This has nothing to do with this post. To clarify though, I'm a bisexual woman. Sometimes I call myself gay, but it's not quite the right term. And you don't get to dictate what someone identifies as for their sexual orientation.
There is nothing inherently sexual about the original post.
You're a bigot Harry.
Interesting choice to make a reference written by a known transphobe.
Interesting choice to double down on being ignorant while policing other people's expression.
It's frightening someone with your worldview is an admin. But I guess that says a lot about where we're at hey.
It's not surprising to me at all that you would say nasty things without knowing anything about me and making baseless assumptions.
I was responding to a judgement you made. That's not a baseless assumption mate, there's literal writing on the wall here of you making an ignorant comment as an admin to defend a moderation mistake.
I don't know anything about you other than what you've said here and I joked you were a bigot but I admit that was hasty. You may be truly ignorant about your judgement backing that 3-6 yo kids can't learn about queer people even though in our world people from those families have kids of their own.
It might seem reasonable to classify sexuality as something of a sexual nature, but you're talking about people's lives here. Someone has to go to school one day in a world where other kids parents told them their parents are perverted. The views you expressed here legitimise that world.