Fediverse is allowing this person to remain after a lot of stuff
If you’ve been living under a rock for the past while and have absolutely no idea what the heck I am talking about, don’t worry. I’m going to explain it here because there is quite a bit of context behind this whole situation.
You might have heard the name Oliphant before. If you have been around certain parts of the Fediverse, there’s a good chance you’ve seen the name come up at some point. Oliphant is the person who was suspended from the hear-me.social a while ago, before the admin of that server eventually revoked the suspension.
And if you’re wondering why I even care enough to write an entire blog post about this, well... there’s a reason.
Oliphant has been involved in a lot of conflicts across the Fediverse. From my perspective and based on the interactions and situations I’ve seen, he has harassed other people and has also been accused of manipulating people into trusting him. He has managed to build relationships with people while also becoming involved in a bunch of drama behind the scenes.
That combination is what makes the situation frustrating to me.
Now, before getting into the actual reason for this post, I want to make something clear: I don't have a problem with someone making websites or coding projects.
Oliphant does a lot of that.
He has made multiple websites and projects, and he talks about them in his bio. You might look at that and say:
“So? He makes websites for free. What’s wrong with that?”
Honestly?
Nothing.
If you make something cool, you should be allowed to talk about it. If you spend hours coding a website, setting up a service, maintaining a project, or doing whatever else, go ahead and show people what you made. I have absolutely no issue with that.
The websites aren't the reason I'm writing this.
The problem comes from the other things that have happened alongside all of that.
The blocklist problem
One of the biggest things that stands out to me is Oliphant's history with blocklists.
For people who aren't familiar with Fediverse culture, blocklists can be a useful moderation tool. Server admins can use them to block other servers that they believe are harmful, abusive, full of spam, or otherwise incompatible with their community.
There is nothing inherently wrong with blocklists.
The problem is when blocklists stop being about moderation and start becoming a weapon against people.
Oliphant became known for making blocklists that, in my view, were used to target other admins and people involved in various Fediverse communities. Instead of simply being a tool for server moderation, these lists became part of larger conflicts and arguments between people.
And that's where I start having a problem with it.
Because if you are going to publicly target people, make lists about them, encourage others to block them, and involve yourself in these kinds of conflicts, I think you should at least be willing to acknowledge when you went too far.
Did he apologise?
Nope.
At least, not to the people I believe were affected by it.
Instead, it seemed like he simply moved on.
And that's one of the things that bothers me the most.
You can't just throw people into a public conflict, target them, contribute to a bunch of drama, and then act like everything is fine once the attention moves somewhere else.
People don't just forget what happened because you stopped talking about it.
Then there was me.
I wasn't exactly sitting on the sidelines either.
Oliphant targeted me as well.
One of the things he went after me about was the number of alternate accounts I supposedly had. The way it was presented made it sound like I had an enormous collection of accounts scattered around the Fediverse for some malicious reason.
Yes, I had alternate accounts.
I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
But there is an important part of that story that tends to get ignored.
A number of those accounts were either deleted by server administrators or suspended directly. They weren't all active accounts that I was secretly using to do whatever people thought I was doing.
Some were gone because admins removed them. Others were suspended. Some simply no longer existed.
So when someone takes the number of accounts I've had and uses that number as some kind of "gotcha", it leaves out a pretty massive amount of context.
And honestly, I'm tired of people taking complicated situations and turning them into a simple narrative because it's easier to attack someone that way.
I have made mistakes in the past. I have said things I shouldn't have said. I have gotten involved in drama that I probably should have stayed out of.
I'm not going to pretend I'm some perfect person who has never done anything wrong.
I've been trying to move forward from that.
But there is a difference between someone acknowledging their mistakes and someone using those mistakes as ammunition to keep targeting them.
The “saviour of the Fediverse”
And then we get to the part that I find almost impossible not to laugh at.
Oliphant has described himself as the “saviour of the Fediverse".
I'm sorry, but... What?
That is an incredibly big title to give yourself.
The Fediverse isn't some fantasy kingdom where one person gets to put on a cape and declare themselves the hero.
It's a collection of thousands of communities, admins, moderators, users, developers, artists, writers, and everyone else who happens to participate in it.
Nobody is the single “saviour” of the Fediverse.
And especially not someone who has repeatedly found themselves involved in drama surrounding the very same communities and people they claim to be protecting.
That's the irony that gets me.
You can't constantly involve yourself in `#fediblock 'drama', target people through blocklists, get involved in arguments with admins, and then turn around and present yourself as some heroic figure who is here to save everyone.
At some point, you have to look at your own actions.
Maybe you're not the hero of the story.
Maybe you're just another person caught up in the drama.
Fediblock isn't a game
This is also why I think people need to be careful with #fediblock.
Blocking another server can be an important moderation decision. Sometimes it is completely necessary. If a server is hosting harassment, racism, fascism, spam, CSAM, or other genuinely dangerous content, admins need tools to protect their users.
But `#fediblock it shouldn't become a popularity contest.
It shouldn't be:
“I'm angry at this admin, so I'm going to make a blocklist.”
It shouldn't be:
“This person disagreed with me; therefore, everyone needs to block them.”
And it definitely shouldn't be used as a way of building some sort of personal reputation as the person who decides who is “good” or “bad” on the Fediverse.
That's where things get dangerous.
Once people start treating blocklists like weapons instead of moderation tools, the whole thing becomes incredibly toxic.
People start fighting over who blocked who.
Admins start making counter-blocklists.
Users start digging through old posts looking for something they can use against someone.
And before you know it, the entire community is spending more time fighting each other than actually enjoying the platform.
I've seen enough of that.
I'm honestly exhausted by it.
I'm not pretending I'm innocent.
I also want to be fair here.
I'm not writing this because I think I'm some morally perfect person who has never participated in Fediverse drama.
I haven't.
I've been involved in my own share of stupid arguments. I've made posts that I regret. I've reacted badly to situations. I've made decisions that, looking back, I would handle differently today.
That's something I'm willing to admit.
I've been trying to change how I handle these situations because constantly fighting with people online gets exhausting very quickly.
But changing my behaviour doesn't mean I have to pretend that everyone else has been perfect either.
If someone has criticised me for something I've actually done, that's one thing.
If someone wants to hold me accountable for my past behaviour, that's fair.
But turning that into harassment, targeting, manipulation, or constantly bringing up old situations isn't accountability.
At that point, it's just another form of harassment.
Why am I writing this now?
So why write about Oliphant now?
Because I'm tired of people only seeing one side of these situations.
Someone can have a cool website.
Someone can be good at coding.
Someone can contribute useful projects.
Someone can help people.
And they can still do things that hurt other people.
Those things aren't mutually exclusive.
You don't have to completely hate someone to criticise their behaviour.
Likewise, you don't have to completely love someone just because they made a useful project.
People are complicated.
The internet loves turning everyone into either a hero or a villain, but real life doesn't work like that.
What matters to me is the behaviour.
If someone is going around targeting people, manipulating communities, participating in harassment, or using blocklists as weapons, I think people have every right to question that behaviour.
And if you're going to call yourself the “saviour of the Fediverse", then people are obviously going to look at what you've actually done and ask whether your actions match that claim.
That's fair criticism.
At the end of the day...
I'm not asking everyone to go and harass Oliphant.
In fact, please don't.
That's exactly the kind of behaviour I'm criticising in the first place.
I'm not interested in sending a mob after someone. I'm not interested in getting people to spam their accounts or websites. And I'm not interested in turning this into another endless Fediverse bloodbath.
What I am doing is explaining why I personally have a problem with the way Oliphant has behaved and why the whole “saviour of the Fediverse” image doesn't exactly match what I've seen.
If someone wants to make websites, cool.
If someone wants to code projects, cool.
If someone wants to maintain a community, cool.
But none of those things give someone a free pass when they start targeting other people.
You can be a developer and still be an asshole.
You can make useful websites and still hurt people.
You can contribute to a community and still become part of its problems.
And you can call yourself the saviour of the Fediverse all you want, but the title doesn't mean much if your own behaviour keeps putting you in the middle of the drama you're supposedly trying to stop.
That's really the point I'm trying to make here.
I'm not interested in being anyone's saviour.
I'm just trying to move forward, learn from my own mistakes, and hopefully spend less time watching the Fediverse eat itself alive.
Because honestly?
There are better things to do with my time.