It appears that our account was suspended on mastodon.social. If anyone can help us fix this, please let us know.
Read through the thread below for more information on this suspension action.
Update (10am EST): It appears the account suspension may have been reversed. We have not yet received any communication from the moderators.
@Gargron What are our options here? We are a well-established journalism publication. Recent articles we've published may have touched a nerve for some, but that does not warrant a suspension.
This is the email we sent to the appeal address at mastodon.social.
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Hello Mastodon.social moderators,
I am writing to appeal the suspension action you took on our account, @mondoweiss.
We are a well-established independent, nonprofit journalism publication focusing on Palestine, Israel, and related U.S. and international politics. We have been publishing for over 12 years. We are one of the few – and possibly only – independent news outlet in the world with a staffed bureau in Palestine.
(cont)
With the outbreak of violence in Gaza and Israel, we have published some articles that may have touched a nerve for some, but that does not warrant a suspension. All of our news articles are based on high-quality journalism. We also publish a wide spectrum of voices in our opinion pieces. Part of our mission is to lift up those voices that are typically marginalized in the context of this conflict.
(cont)
What are our options to have this suspension lifted? We are not going to delete posts made to our profile that contain reported news items. People are free to disagree with the news we report, but it is based on gathered information and crafted through an editorial process.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this.
Since the beginning of this horrible violence in Gaza and Israel, we have received 10 reports from different Mastodon servers. Only 1 was from mastodon.social.
It read, "Promoting the violent attacks of a terrorist organization". The report listed two posts on our Mastodon account, both of which linked to a reported news story about the events unfolding on October 7.
It was clearly inaccurate.
This action is especially upsetting when we have a staff member, our Gaza Correspondent Tareq Hajjaj, under immediate threat of death from the indiscriminate Israeli bombing of Gaza.
Tareq and his family have already relocated to the south of Gaza. He learned just two days ago that his house in the north was destroyed. He has already lost several members of his extended family in this violence.
Yet he continues to provide on-the-ground reporting for us.
This suspension action is also unfortunate because we are excited about the possibilities the federated vision of the internet offers, especially for independent media like us.
It was that excitement that led us to go ahead and launch our own Mastodon server. We are slowly working to bring all of our staff onto the platform. You can already follow our Palestine News Director, Yumna Patel, here: @yumna
We have been exploring launching a Peertube server, and even adding ActivityPub directly to our website.
Update: It appears the account suspension may have been lifted?
Meanwhile, for all those new followers just finding us now, please see this introduction thread: https://social.mondoweiss.net/@mondoweiss/110656736419181387
@mondoweiss @Gargron Any criticism of Israel is forbidden, I learned this years ago on Facebook and Twitter. Israel has an army of Bots looking for naughty comments.
@mondoweiss @Gargron seriously. i’m shocked and disappointed…
@mondoweiss considering the moderation of that instance and the political pressure to censor anything critical of Israel its not much of a surprise.
@mondoweiss@social.mondoweiss.net too bad, but that's Mastodon admins for ya
@mondoweiss
I'd expect that on Twitter, but I'm dissapointed with mastodon.social
@curry We have dealt with some account issues on TikTok over the past 18 days, but not on Twitter.
@mondoweiss ... using starvation now as a 'weapon of war' - this is ethnic cleansing in plain sight. The 'international community' non-existent it seems.
@mondoweiss It seems #Mastodon is not free from #Zionist #Censorship. Unsurprising but still disappointed to see such actions by so called supporters of Free Platforms. Hope the account is reinstated on mastodon.social and the #journalism can be continued for the broader masses. #Mondoweiss has been an excellent source of information for me. #FreePalestine
@mondoweiss @rtredreovic oh no! You got censored on this platform?!!!! Ugh! I too am surprised about some posts on here.
@mondoweiss @yumna I do. But I'm still looking for a server without German mods who might suspend my account or not show me others any more as it happened before.
Mastodon.social is not a platform conducive to free and independent journalism, especially with respect to anything that touches on the antiwar movement. It’s extremely unlikely that they will reply to your appeal, but in the event that they do revive your account I advise you to take that opportunity to do nothing more than backup your data and migrate your existing followers to your new account immediately. https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-another-server/
@mondoweiss @yumna Even though mastodon.social appears to have reversed their suspension, I am very happy to see you folks have established your own instance.
I have seen a handful of other journalists I respect come and go after reporting on controversial subjects and receiving similar backlash. Victims of what Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky refer to as "Flak" in their Propaganda Model.
It is important to remember that, while the flagship instances might be the most visible, there are over 22,000 instances in the Fediverse. The rest of us can still benefit from your contributions.
Don't be discouraged. You are demonstrating a good example of how to run an independent news service on this platform.
@mondoweiss Please do all of this, and i think we need to have resources for members on the sites where this might be happening on how to take action. I do think it would be worth finding other followers on mastodon.social to directly ask, i know that is more organizing
@mondoweiss
weird thing is, this is what I see on the other account.
@morpheo That was our old account. We first opened an account on mastodon.social, then we moved to a self-hosted account here.
@mondoweiss anyway, it's better to keep self hosting so you can avoid something like that in the future. Based people will keep reporting you for nothing.
@simoto @mondoweiss not on my computer. On my phone, tusky app, its ok. I will restart and test. Keep up the good work!
@mondoweiss seems like you lost my follow somewhere in the process. giving it back now
@mondoweiss
You're back! Yay
@mondoweiss test geboost via tusky
Let's not forget you're pushing up against a huge Israeli propaganda war machine and there's likely no corner of cyberspace that it cannot reach. They *literally kill journalists to keep the news from getting out. God speed.
Isn’t Mastodon.social known for suspensions like this? They pretty much suck.
@mondoweiss@social.mondoweiss.net Has mastodon GmbH started censoring?
@mondoweiss I wished I know how to help placing y’all back. Isn’t there an appeal process here? I hope your account won’t be suspended too long like #SpaceKaren has suspended my twitter account for insulting his best friend #trump jr.
Cheers
@zebibyte The suspension has been lifted.
Avoid twitter, it’s a cesspool of filth today.
@mondoweiss very sad to hear of this.
@alonely_tree @mondoweiss That the account was blocked, or that the block was lifted before you posted your response?
Moderation mistakes happen - everybody is human. What's important is that it's dealt with in a proper way, which it was in this case.
@mondoweiss@social.mondoweiss.net
defederates 244 instances
complains when they get censored by one of the most censorship-happy instances
calls themselves a journalist
@mondoweiss what cowards... glad I host my own server