Social media struggles part 3 (oh god not again)

[elidelio]

Damn well I never thought I'd be making another post about this but here we are.

So in less than a month, the site i had taken a liking to (squabbles, rebranded to squabblr for some reason but that's fine, it's not like i was a fan of the name either way) imploded or something... from what i gathered from the posts i came across and the discord (where i lurk because i'm nosey) there were some bigoted trolls, the dev got tired of having to deal with reports for bigoted trolls, then the dev removed a line about protections for LGBT from the ToS and declared the place a "free speech site" (yikes), there was also something on the ToS about the site owning everything you post. As for what I saw personally, the Free Speech post was real, which was a red flag for me because anyone who knows about the anglo side of internet knows what "free speech" is a dogwhistle for. As for the ToS, there is a line prohibiting derogatory slurs based on race, religion, gender, sexuality, but the line that specifies that discriminatory content is prohibited only applies to race, religion, and ethnicity. I don't know if that was the change that people were talking about, or if it has been modified since. I'm pretty sure the first time i read the ToS discrimination also covered gender and sexuality so the slurs line may have been added after the backlash. I'm also pretty sure i remember seeing a screenshot of the tos where the site had the rights to use the content posted to it in perpetuity or something, but i can't seem to find it and i don't think it's still there, so that's an allegation idk about.

Anyway, i usually wouldn't care about the ToS bit because it's not like the internet cares about queer folks but i really don't think the dev handled it properly, and i think that's what upset people the most (and left a bad taste in my mouth tbh). Afaik, site moderation was handled on a case-by-case basis, and one site mod stepped down a few weeks ago precisely because the dev refused to put hard guidelines down on what was considered hate speech and not allowed on the platform. Then when the free speech debacle happened out of three mods one resigned and then the dev himself kicked the two remaining mods out, which, also yikes. There seemed to have been a wave of unsavoury trolling in retaliation afterwards, which I purposefully ignored, so i don't have much to say about it.

Now i'm just sort of... staying away from the site. I have come back to it a couple of times to talk to some folks i wanted to keep in contact with and like a few posts from ppl i interacted a lot with, but i haven't posted since, it's just been kinda depressing. I don't know if i'm "coming back" to it any time soon, which is sad bc the community was genuinely super nice for a time.

Some folks have migrated to discuit, which i had also seen and have an account there. it seems nice? but i'm not about to get my hopes up again, though i am gonna try to get a lil' involved in like commenting and stuff.

Honestly, at this point, I might as well just go back to reddit...