Official Discord Mod Team Response to Reddit Accusations

[This is a coordinated statement by the OHSD MOD TEAM, led by myself, entirely unaffiliated with the HOMESTUCK TEAM but some informational points have been independently verified with Homestuck Staff. Footnotes including links and images will be posted in the first reply to this thread. The thread will temporarily be locked and will open once the footnotes have been posted.]

I wanted to go through some things about the Reddit post (1) because this situation now directly references my team in many ways, doing everything that it can to paint us as frivolous and malicious reporters, as well as implying other things about our processes and sowing distrust in our community. While I am the primary writer of this post, it has been supplemented and proofread by the available members of the mod team.

There’s not an easy way to talk about this, I think the forums are the best we can do. 

Most importantly, I need to get the intentions of the team completely clear. It is one hundred percent false that our goal is/was to get the Homestuck Subreddit taken down, and the Reddit Team (read: Makin) releasing this announcement on 4/13 is misleading, fearmongering, and very intentionally placed.

Our hope in the messages leaked is, and always has been, to remove Makin as the main owner of the Homestuck community sphere. We had neither past nor present intentions of taking down the subreddit or any of its forks such as Psycholonials or Althomestuck, and the only reports individuals of this team made against the UHSD were reports of bigoted messages across the server— never the copyright claim(s) which were cited in its removal. We were not the reason that the Discord was taken down, we were completely and utterly uninvolved with Makin taking down and then making homestuck.net redirect, and we have no interest in having community resources or outside community servers and spaces removed.

My Statement

First off, I personally (speaking as cytochrome and not for any other team members) do believe that the chats are shocking or appear unprofessional without their context. However, all of these things were obviously said in private with no intent of ever being spoken about publicly or representing finalized decisions of the team. These chats are conversational and personal in tone because they were known as a place for mods to bring up their own private concerns and grievances. The unofficial homestuck discord and some of the people who run it have been a source of pain for many of us in ways that are not all my stories to share. People are allowed to be happy in private when their harassers face consequences. Furthermore, it should go without saying that it’s deeply unsettling that our private conversations have been leaked for a myriad of reasons: initially to doxx prominent team members, and now to hedge claims that we are intentionally trying to destroy a fandom space.

On the Mod Team Reporting the UHSD

Members of our team did, in fact, report posts from the Unofficial Homestuck Discord back before it was taken down. It was not a coordinated effort as server moderators at all, but as concerned individuals that could not stomach being bystanders to behavior that had been reported to us directly or often experienced personally, and these reports were not directly called for by higher-ups. Individual members of the team of their own concern reported posts there for harassment and bullying to discord as violation of basic TOS, as this is what we very often were witness to or victims of.

The unofficial discord was an incredibly hostile place, and did not make many attempts to remove bigoted language and hate speech. Makin even says as much in his Reddit post, citing transparency. Most frequently we would report posts containing slurs and disparaging talk about others to Discord (such as calls for harassment or killing, claims of pedophilia or grooming, etc.). Partnered servers are held to a standard which UHSD continually failed to uphold, allowing damaging and defamatory discussions of many regular users, members of official homestuck team and staff, and Andrew themself in increasingly concerning reports.

“Transparency” as an excuse not to remove bigoted speech simply is not a goal you can abide by when managing a Discord community server, because they are held strictly to Discord’s Community Guidelines (2). Furthermore, the claim that the mod team did not engage in this behavior is not only known to be false, but Makin continues to provide a space for a known neo-nazi who was once on his mod team. (3)

We urge anyone in any fandom spaces, Homestuck or otherwise: please remember to report bigotry in whatever method a platform allows. Sometimes it’s hard when it’s the only thing that can be done, but it is always better than being a bystander.

Makin misattributed the server going down to the mod team.

Makin, in his original announcement about the takedown of the Unofficial Homestuck Discord, publicly stated that the takedown reason given to him was copyright infringement. (4) This lines up with the behavior exhibited by their server, where they would almost weekly be putting up announcements for movie nights. Even though they were often held on an external program, it is against Discord’s TOS to link to pirated content such as movies or games. This was further confirmed by a member of their own team as an unfortunate possible reason for the server’s takedown.

While it is possible that our reports of bigotry and harassment in messages could have added to the case against the server to Discord, it was clearly not the primary reasoning behind the removal. That lies between whichever party submitted the copyright claim and Makin himself.

The claim that the team used alt accounts to mass-report is blatantly unfounded and untrue. The screenshot of our chat from which this claim is taken, edited into the pinned post beneath the full document, is referring to making reports similar to that of the aforementioned-by-makin RIPBOZO413 twitter account (5), which is an anonymous user posting many screenshots of the unsavory behavior left unchecked in the UHSD. Furthermore, while two members briefly entertain the idea in the screenshot as individual suggestions, this is an idea that was never actioned upon by them or others, and does not continue before or after this point in the logs. I simply do not understand where they pull the term mass-report from here, this is most of the discussion and there are people in the logs surrounding this saying not to bother.

I have to remind you: this mod chat is a forum for moderators to both speak about actionable reports from our own server, and also serves as a private log for mods to informally discuss broader community concerns that we should keep eyes on, as well as discuss our own experiences within them. Many ideas are shared in attempts to help ongoing stressful situations, many ideas are turned down or never acted upon day by day. This is the nature of any mod chat, and ours is no different.

Why did Makin do this?

I would like to implore people to look into the reasons why things like this get posted in certain ways and at certain times. 

We have recently dealt with these screenshot leaks in the last few weeks and this information has been available to the reddit team for at least one month, if not longer. If the team were truly panicked at the idea that we are launching a takeover, then why did they wait to post until now?  4/13 was evidently chosen as a day the community celebrates en masse, and used in order to share these claims across social media when controversy would get the most traction with the least context. There is a longstanding distrust of the team perpetuated by Makin and the people he chooses to defend, and this post thoroughly capitalizes upon it.

At the same time, the homestuck.net services are wiped, and all redirected back to the reddit post. I have independently verified with the Homestuck team that nothing was done on their end to cause this. Makin took it down of his own volition (6), and quietly omits the truth of this in order to directly insinuate that it was a takedown by the Homestuck team themselves, only admitting as much after four days of radio silence. While he will claim that he did so due to pressure from Andrew’s screenshots in the document, those statements and sentiments were never made public, are from two months ago, and only acted upon on 4/13. He knew most people would be on his hook that day, and intentionally took the site down at this time in order to incite panic.

Shortly after the reddit announcement, the comments on the hs.net twitter post were limited to prevent people from continuing to share their own stories of harassment regarding the UHSD/subreddit or call into question the intentions of his post. For the duration of 4/13, the subreddit had been limited, so that any post you try to make needs to be approved by a mod before being published, and a “hostile takeover inbound” badge (7) was applied to every post. I have spoken to several people who have had their comments removed on the subreddit for speaking out against the subreddit and discord for their previous hosting of harassment. The announcement post itself maintains an overwhelmingly upset comment section who is being actively misled by its contents to believe that the HS Subreddit may go down, and other homestuck-affiliated subreddits panicking that they may similarly be removed. 

Regarding The Restraining Order

This next bit will be very difficult for me to discuss, as the restraining order served against an individual that was mentioned in the reddit post is a delicate legal matter, and the public revealing of this information that has been done by leaking the messages is illegal. This information was given to a private channel of people who were relevant parties, because there were several instances of this individual going after the mod team. Very, very relevant things are missing from the Reddit post regarding this situation, which is bound to happen when you source your screenshots from a leaker who is attempting to make someone look as bad as possible. Here’s a timeline with the information I am allowed to provide. Name and pronouns are kept anonymous, and anyone with questions or wishing to discuss this within the thread should do the same.

• - The individual (I will refer to them as D) has a history of publishing defamatory and false information about not only Andrew but anyone on the Homestuck team that they can, and does so not only on their one most notorious account, but a multitude of others which can be traced back to a sole owner.
• - Enough evidence of doxxing, attempts to hack, harassment, and otherwise deplorable behavior that they are more well-known for is put forth and a temporary restraining order is granted and set to be served. This temporary restraining order would only be in place in the time it takes for a court hearing to be held. In their state, this means that a police officer will knock at their address to serve papers. This proceeding varies state-by-state. Vibri speaks to the mod chat, as we are relevant to be kept informed, letting us know that the first attempt to serve papers will be that night.
• - Several days go by, and Vibri is told after inquiring that D is avoiding service and nobody is answering the door. It is only after several attempts that Vibri is informed by Andrew’s lawyer that D’s family may be hesitant due to their citizenship status. Notably, this status does NOT make them at risk of deportation, but she is told this information as a probable cause for the delays due to the current political climate.
• - Internally and unseen to the mod-chat, staff has a discussion and decides that while they want D to cease their behavior, it is an unwanted side effect to cause stress to their family, who are innocent parties. However, it is impossible for the serving of papers to be called off at this stage in the process, and they still wanted to seek protection, as the staff are still victims of their criminal stalking.
• - Vibri mentions that this may be the reason for delays in the mod chat after being asked for a status update on papers being served, as D was still actively posting about the team during this time despite confirmation that officers had attempted and failed to serve papers for close to a week. In the screenshot it is inferred as though she knew the whole time, it is simply worded incorrectly. She found out about this after several attempts were made to serve temporary papers.
• - It took several more days for confirmation that D was served, and staff decided not to pursue heavy legal action. D and the Homestuck team reach a settlement after deliberation with their lawyers, which is forgiving to D and does not go on their permanent record, while also providing protections to the victims. The terms and conditions of this settlement legally cannot be explained further. Vibri’s public message on the matter will be shown below (8).

Given this timeline, and the sensitive nature of this case, a few things need to be said on behalf of the mod team. We were not the ones to serve the restraining order and do not speak on behalf of the most heavily affected party. The mod team is composed of many marginalized people including immigrants. We had zero desire to turn to the police, the Homestuck team did so because it was the only way to get papers served for a proper hearing, and it was done against a prolific and well-known harasser of the team who would otherwise go completely unchecked. None of us were happy about causing stress to an immigrant family, none of us were happy to work with police in any capacity as can be gleaned by the complaints about their dysfunction, and the Homestuck team, independently of anything said in mod chat, decided to reach a settlement which did not harm more people. I have seen people calling all sorts of blatantly wrong things about the mod team based on these screenshots. ICE was never involved in any capacity, nor did we want them to be. While we expressed positive sentiment to D being served, it was because D has actively done illegal things to doxx team members, spread statements about members of the mod team, and caused many instances of other people harassing the mod team on behalf of their statements. We simply wanted to have any way we could to put a stop to this individual, as reporting their worst posts for hate speech, transphobia, racism and posting illegal content led to no results. This was not a joyful time for us, and we only hope despite the harassment we have faced at their behest, that D is given the space they deserve away from being used as a shield by Makin and others. The fact that this was done is beyond morally wrong, and those who knowingly spread this sensitive legal information should be ashamed. Makin leaking this information does no service to D and only further puts them at risk — another startling show of someone willing to put others in harm's way if he thinks it may benefit his greater goals.

Our mod team is intentionally being painted as irrational for genuine responses to intense harassment.

In regards to the screenshots leaked addressing Gio (9), I asked for discordant’s own comment.

Giovanh is known to the mod team as someone who uses “journalism” as a cover for real, identifiable harm, who actively obfuscates his involvement in harassment campaigns and uses sensationalist language to further attack heavily-targeted individuals who are on record as no longer wishing to be brought into public discussion of Homestuck. Posting this batch of messages by discordantObserver is not only once again bringing this other private individual back into public discussion by proxy, but is attempting to paint someone in a poor light for being protective of a trans woman who was verifiably doxxed and harassed.

I do not want Makin as a community leader.

To speak for myself again rather than the team:

I strongly believe that this post was orchestrated by Makin for what he seems to view as his own benefit. It is posted using the AutoModerator so that no responsibility can be taken, and heavily defends him while endangering people personally affected by his past actions and inactions, without giving any credence to the claims against him and the harm past and present done to the community. I believe that Makin is an individual who negatively impacts this community and I would prefer that someone else hold responsibility for his community spaces, including the subreddit. I don’t even necessarily want it to be held officially. I want it to be held by someone who won’t sit idly by while threats of harassment, false claims of crimes, discussions of doxxing attempts and rampant bigotry are allowed to build up within their community. I stand by Andrew’s, Vibri’s, and any other involved choices in the banning of Makin from the official server, as they are people who were personally victimized by the harassment campaigns that he facilitates and the actions he takes such as this one.

In closing, I would like people to more thoroughly investigate the lack of context that the Reddit post takes use of in order to manipulate the audience into upset on what would otherwise be a great day of festivity in the fandom. These screenshots and others of similar quality have been leaked by a hostile party within the last few weeks, and are being re-used to tell a certain narrative. The mod team does not agree with the ways in which the Unofficial Discord was managed, and while many of us take great discomfort with Makin being the owner of these spaces, it will never be our intent to tear down community-run spaces or take them for our own. There is no hostile takeover. Discord and other social medias do not do a good enough job with their handling of reports to bring any justice to harassment. The discord was not taken down by the mod team, the reddit will not be taken down by the mod team. If this reddit post and the actions Makin has taken to withhold community resources on a whim is any indication, Makin is a poor community leader for Homestuck, and I stand by my conviction that while I do not have the power to depose him, I would rather his community space be run by someone who doesn’t allow hate to fester.

The discord has been incredibly active recently, obviously, because it was 4/13. The wild and fast nature of Discord led to several of the mods deciding to delete messages and timeout people discussing this announcement in the morning when it was released. Those that joined and immediately started to talk about this topic with no other message history were quick-trigger banned because that is the way they are told to handle emergency situations before the rest of the mod team has been informed and are able to respond. I have been seeing some complaining about this, which I do understand, and people who were hit by this are free to appeal their bans, as is the case for all those who are banned. Ban appeal form will be linked below. (10)
It is not our intent to restrict conversation in the discord or forums about this situation, but we will continue to moderate and shut down any hostile attempts to force conversation in this direction. If you can calmly and cordially discuss this with others, then we have no qualms with you and others continuing the topic. We don’t only allow those who agree with us, so long as your points do not disparage others or attempt to insult the team.