hiii, do you have sources for the whole ao3 situation? where the volunteer didnt actually get kicked out for being pro palestine?
Sure! I'm getting all my information from the "official" sources that everyone is sharing, which is this tumblr post and this Google Doc. (I believe there's a "new year" Dreamwidth post that people also reference but I haven't read it so won't reference it).
First, a direct quote from the Tumblr post: "I left because I was horrified by the org and all of the racism they promised to work on but never ever did." -> didn't get kicked out, suspended, or anything from AO3, the user (Bjorn) voluntarily left the organization.
The rest of the screenshots from the Google doc are from a Slack channel you have to opt into about I/P, which is a place you are most likely to find Zionists.
I'll break down the conversation here.
Here's the first included warning:
I'm writing to you on behalf of Tag Wrangling Chairs due to a few serious issues which have been brought to our attention. A number of volunteers have approached us, either privately or through VolCom, to convey concerns regarding your behaviour in the #x-politics-society-current-events and #x-politics-israel-palestine-events Slack channels.
Our Code of Conduct,, which you agreed to in our most recent Still Willing to Wrangle, requires that all volunteers maintain a level of civility when interacting with one another. Specifically, "We never lose sight of everyone's right to be treated with dignity, compassion and respect."
The language and tone that you have been using do not convey compassion or respect toward your fellow volunteers. For example, you accused a fellow volunteer of defending murder and war crimes, and have referred to another as a "fucking asshole".
We understand that this is an emotionally charged situation, and that with so much death and destruction happening, it is easy to misdirect the anger and helplessness you might feel. However, to the best of our ability, we need to assume that our fellow volunteers are well-intentioned and speaking in good faith, and not devolve to insults or name-calling.
Please understand that should we receive additional complaints or note that you have continued to violate the Code of Conduct in your treatment of other volunteers, we Chairs may step in and remove you from certain social Slack channels, either temporarily or permanently depending on the number and nature of the complaint(s). We hope that this will not be necessary.
--> so, they're being warned for not following the Code of Conduct, which includes being civil to other people. Nothing is said about "from the river to the sea". Bjorn brings up "from the river to the sea" unprompted in their response:
Additionally, if me saying "from the river to the sea" is supposedly against the Code of Conduct and grounds for repeatedly removing me from the channel, when other people are allowed to deny genocide and defend war crimes on perceived technicalities with explicit defense from the org, I believe that reflects extremely poorly on the org as a whole. If this sentiment continues to be upheld by supervisors, that is extremely concerning. Especially since I was reported and warned for accusing someone of supporting genocide, but people are allowed to accuse me of the same thing with support from other people in the channel.
It looks like two days passed before staff responded to Bjorn, and we get this quote:
Okay. To be very clear. You are absolutely entitled to your opinion and to your beliefs, and we have zero issue with you expressing those opinions and beliefs in conversation so long as you do so while obeying both the letter and the spirit of the Code of Conduct.
Now, to the other side of this. You have been removed from the room repeatedly within the past 24 hours for Code of Conduct violations as we told you might happen, and I am now going to go ahead and remove you from the room and ask that you do not return for one week while we discuss the room in general with the other chairs.
When we wrote to you two days ago, we specifically chose not to address your Slack status "Palestine will be free" with you even though several volunteers had mentioned to us that this phrase made them uncomfortable. While the phrase did make some folks uncomfortable, it also wasn't obviously trying to be antagonistic. We are not responsible for making sure everyone is comfortable all the time. It was an expression of your beliefs, and that wasn't an issue we felt was appropriate for us to address since it wasn't in and of itself a violation of the Code of Conduct.
So: Having your Slack status as "Palestine will be free" is not a violation of the Code of Conduct.
We go on with their response.
What is a violation of the Code of Conduct is that since we notified you that folks were having a hard time with your behaviour in that channel, the behaviour has gotten worse. You've gotten into arguments repeatedly and called folks names; you've accused folks of defending murder. You've been abrasive and argumentative throughout your exchanges there.
Are you the only person who has done so? Clearly not. And you aren't the only person we've spoken to about this. If it feels like you're being singled out, I'm very sorry for that, and you are correct that you are not the only one who has caused issues. However. We do not address the behavior of other volunteers with you the same way we do not address your behavior with them.
That said, when we let you know that others were uncomfortable, instead of discussing this with us or asking any questions, you gave us a dismissive "k", and instead began relentlessly posting articles to the room and occasionally leaving long tirades about your disgust for folks who do not agree with your specific point of view. Within about an hour of our having spoken with you, you changed your status from "Palestine will be free" to "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free". And this was after we let you know that you were making folks uncomfortable and specifically asked you to be more mindful of your language and not to lose sight of everyone's right to be treated with dignity, compassion, and respect.
Basically, 'we talked to you about the code of conduct violations, you continued to specifically provoke people with your Slack status, you know how it affects people'.
You have been involved in enough conversations over the last month about that particular phrase that you knew or should have known the impact it would have on other volunteers to see that in your status given its fraught and controversial history. You were also aware of the impact it would have to use it in the room, repeatedly.
We are a volunteer organization and the use of Slack is, at its core, a way for us to be able to communicate with each other more easily to do our work. The social aspects are absolutely a lovely bonus, but they are not the point. If you can not have civil exchanges in those spaces and respect your fellow volunteers enough to stop when they ask you to stop, we expect you to remove yourself from those spaces. Just as we expect of every single other volunteer on our committee.
So: removed from the specific channel for violating the Code of Conduct and deliberately provoking other people.
I also want to address another part of Bjorn's accusation, as seen in their response to staff here:
when other people are allowed to deny genocide and defend war crimes on perceived technicalities with explicit defense from the org
if there was any explicit defense from ao3 about this I would expect to see screenshots, which I don't see
We don't know if other people in the channel also got reprimanded from AO3, because Bjorn doesn't know.
I'd love to see a comprehensive investigation, possibly with undercover volunteers, into Ao3's zionism and racism. Unfortunately, I find this to be shoddy, sensationalist journalism. Something else that puts me off of this statement is that @end-otw-racism refused to promote/work with Bjorn on this because Bjorn refused to redact names from the screenshots in the Slack, opening up volunteers to potentially being doxxed. With the past CSAM attacks happening to AO3 volunteers, I find this extremely off-putting.
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