I've been seeing Jordan Lunds name on YePowerTrippingBastards for ages but I'll be honest? I didn't really read any of the posts. To those who know me, I generally stay within the meme area or over in my Star Trek corner getting angry over dumb shit. I am a known asshole and plenty of people do not like me so when it comes to general threads talking about people, I don't often care. But then I started seeing his name pop up as a reason to not go to either Lemmy.world or Lemmy as a whole because the moderation here was so extreme. Now I've done deep dives in the past where I drew up a metric ton of evidence against Startrek.Website and ValueSubtracted/Corgana for actively abusing their users, harassing people across multiple websites, driving misinformation and lying/gaslighting about everything under the sun. Check this first post or this post as examples of both of them being horrible people but also of the type of shit that I do.
So when I saw these accusations I figured let's look into it. The problem was that a significant portion of posts about Jordan are really heavily biased. All of them are from people who had active interactions with him and had a "dog in the fight". Me? The only times I've ever talked to him have been in passing, casual conversation either in lemmy comments or on Discord servers. I have probably had comments removed from /c/world and /c/news in the past, I vaguely recall that happening, but I also remember being fine with it. I get heated so whatever.
Every post and comment that I saw on here were from people who were worked up. Either he had pissed them off or vice versa or both. This does not mean that the posts aren't based in reality or a lie. But it does mean that it is easier for someone to dismiss as just being trolls, something that I have actually seen happen with concerns from this community in the past. Not particularly for Jordan (although, yes, for Jordan) but just in general. Whether that be from other users, other mods or other admins the reaction can be the same. But I have no such connection. So let me lay out a variety of behaviors that not only demonstrate that Jordan is unfit to moderate any community, but that he's a danger not just to the communities he moderates, not just lemmy.world, but the entirety of Lemmy as a whole. This man is doing generational damage to Lemmy that I've not seen any other user do.
Before I kick all this off, I just want to say that I have only been looking into this for about 6-7 hours. This is by no means comprehensive. There are going to be things left out because I'm simply not going to be aware of all of it. If you'd like to add more context or clarification, please be calm and clear about it and add any evidence to the comment section. Also want to say that I don't want to type Jordan out constantly so I'm just going to say JL. Lemmy.world is also going to be shortened to LW. A few others might pop up. I'm just fucking lazy.
The job of a moderator is to apply the rules in an unbiased fashion. To read the rules, interpret them if needed and then carry them out. Personal influence is not supposed to be a part of it. You're supposed to treat it like a position of authority and respect, to respect the position and not abuse it. Now, I am 100% guilty of this in the past (Search my name on here) but it's also one of the reasons why I stepped down as a mod of the majority of communities and why the few ones I still have are treated far more lightly. I turned into what I hate and that's completely on me. I realized I was turning into a terrible person and left. Jordan has not had this realization despite numerous people pointing this out to him. Instead he will say stuff like:
or other things like:
or ones like this:
Now, let's temporarily ignore the fact that he went into YPTP to actively antagonize and harass multiple users, we'll get back to that, just look alone at what this behavior is saying. He's saying that if you don't antagonize him then he won't antagonize you. That it is "fair fucking game" to increase harassment of a user if one harasses him. This is a repugnant and troll-like mindset at the best of times but in the hands of a moderator it is genuinely dangerous. Those two comments alone call into question every single removal or moderator action he has ever taken. He has demonstrated an inability to remain unbiased. That's all those comments are saying but they say an enormous amount.
But let us take a look at some of the actions he has taken, shall we?
A few months ago a Canadian used a Canadian term in referencing Canadian politics and a Canadian Government. Jordan Lund, an American, misunderstood what was being said. Instead of asking for clarification, the post was instantly removed with the logic of "Misinformation". Now, as a Canadian, the idea of an American telling a Canadian that they're misinformed about their own government isn't one that we as Canadians are typically fond of. Even less so when JL decided to double down and ignore anyone telling he was wrong. This is a running trend. Jordan is routinely faced with the real facts of the matter and not what he believes and every time he just leaves the conversation. When faced with irrevocable proof that he is wrong on any community that he is not a moderator of, he disengages. This is another demonstrable behavior that questions his abilities as a moderator. He is unwilling (or incapable) of admitting on being wrong.
"But Stamets, that's just one example!" Okay. Then how about months later when questioned on the literal exact same moment? @Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com called him out and again he dodged any responsibility. He ignored anyone proving him wrong and doubled down on his false understanding of reality. Not only is this woeful behavior for a mod but he's also the moderator of /c/World. With that behavior he has now categorically proven that /c/World is American-Centric to the point of rejecting any wording that isn't done in a way understandable by an ignorant American. Another moment that calls into question whether or not Jordan is capable of being impartial would be removing someones comment so they could continue the exact same argument with someone else.
But I did mention earlier that we'd get back to this so let us. Jordan has demonstrated time and time again that he looks for a fight, actively enjoys trolling, and wants to be as antagonistic as humanly possible. There are times he's summoned into YPTB with an @ but other times he isn't. Honestly I don't want to go through each and everyone of these showing that this is shitty, troll-like and antagonistic behavior. You should be able to tell yourself. The fact that the mod is going in and doubling down on being a dick is obscene. Clarifying the decision? Maybe. But actively fanning the flames and acting like twerp is pathetic and disqualifies him from the position of a mod of any community, nevermind flagship communites on lemmy.world. Here's another example of an entire thread showing he isn't fit. If you want more just look at his profile or search his name on basically any community.
Next we shall focus on him gaslighting and lying to or about everyone. Including the Admins of LW.
A few days ago, Jordan accused someone of being transphobic, homophobic, violent and racist on YePowerTrippingBastards. Both the person themselves as well as another user looked into those accusations. There were no demonstrations of that behavior. The user, @Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com, gave a pretty detailed response of how Jordan was lying and unfit for the job. I highly recommend checking that out for yourself. Jordan did not respond but Ganbat also said they were done talking to Jordan anyway. @princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone also looked into the accusations and couldn't find anything but could actually find things removed that were actively defending trans people. If anything, Ganbat was the dead opposite of transphobic. Norah being the one to point this out is also important as she's trans. Jordans instant response was to gaslight and deflect blame saying he was talking about someone else, not Ganbat. Odd that he did not say this to Ganbat. But this is something that was also instantly proven wrong as he directly referenced Ganbat. Norah also mentioned something that I'll get into in a moment. Jordan did not respond. But just to recap here, a cis white male just tried to weaponize transphobia against someone who was not transphobic for the sake of closing an argument and then tried to gaslight a trans woman about whether or not he just did that. Again, this discounts him from ever holding a position as a moderator.
Months ago on /c/World, Jordan Lund was talking about the media fact checking bot. He claimed that he would be removed if he removed the bot. That the moderators serve at pleasure of the Admins and they would just replace him. This is directly at odds with an Admin then immediately saying that it wasn't true.
This also demonstrates that he is not willing to take any criticism or pushback at all on things that he agrees with and would rather push that blame onto someone else to avoid it himself. Now how do I know he was actively for this? Because in the Discord channel when the bot was made and announced, Jordan was literally the first person to respond and say that he was down with this. Something I verified from two different sources and by seeing it with my own eyes.
Now, let us focus on something in that Discord server.
There have been comments floating about with screenshots saying that Jordan has access to a bot that has admin abilities. I can confirm this. I do not know whether he still has access to it but he did for at least a year. How do I know this? Because I did as well. When I originally ported over to LW, I had my own personal stalker who was following me around and harassing me. An admin who is no longer active gave me access to the bot to deal with this person. I cannot speak to the full abilities of the bot, especially as the development of the bot has switched to another admin/mod who I'm not friends with. But the bot when I had it was capable of banning a user (permanently or for a period of time) from the entirety of Lemmy.World as well as removing posts. This bot was designed specifically for spam and CSAM as we're talking like a year and a half to two years ago. CSAM was still being slammed in waves and anti-lemmy spam from reddit was still coming in strong. Access to the bot was extremely limited and only given to users that were trusted to not abuse the bot and only use it for spam, CSAM or in the case of two people, harassment. I was one of those two people. Want to guess who the other was?
I did not pay much attention to the usage of the bot. I did not pay much attention to the discord server in general. But I can say that I saw Jordan use it at least once for a harassing user. I have no idea whether or not that was valid as I wasn't looking into it. At the time he was just a dude in the server who I occasionally chatted with. I knew nothing about him. But then again I'm an oblivious fool who didn't even know PugJesus existed until really recently. At the time I had no second thoughts about the usage of it. I only used it a handful of times, less than 5. Either for accounts that were self-admitted alts of my stalker or of CSAM when admins were not available. Because of that I didn't pay a ton of attention to the channel where the bot was being used but the most active user of the bot that I saw during that time was Jordan Lund.
All of this so far has just been actions of his that demonstrate that he's not fit. Now let's talk about who he is and let us start with him being a racist. This is a news article about him. The whole thing is essentially about how he as a white man is surprised to find out there are negative feelings about Portland. Negative feelings about Portland and Oregon being extremely white and racist.
Still, Lund said he doesn’t see much racism in his day-to-day life. He’s certainly never experienced it.
Right.
"I think Portland had a variety of problems. Race is definitely one of them, yes. But I don't know that we could classify it as the most important problem. if you look at the homeless situation, there's definitely an income inequality problem, a mental health problem. there are a whole lot of more pressing problems besides race."
Jordan? A lot of those are based on race. But this is just me nitpicking. The real problem is this.
And despite his politics, he struggles to find sympathy or kinship with the Black Lives Matter marchers who occasionally disrupt his commute home to protest police violence. "I do pay attention to them. I think primarily as somebody who works in downtown we tend to be aware of things like that more because of the disruption it causes. I don't think the disruption they do is particularly productive. It takes people who would ordinarily be on their side and go, why are they doing this to us? The Portland Police didn't shoot anybody recently that I’m aware of. If they want to be productive in their protests, they should go to where these events are happening."
This man was just met with the fact that his place is known for being racist and xenophobic and his first instinctual response was "Go protest elsewhere." Yeah... the call is coming from inside of the house Jordan. You're the racist that people are constantly talking about. Racism isn't just burning a cross. It's not just shooting up a black church. It can be quiet and insidious and you are actively helping further that by dismissing a right to protest so you can get somewhere faster. Moreover, a protest to make people aware of a problem with racism. A problem you only became aware of when someone hit you in the face with it because you keep ignoring it around you like with these protests. And if you're worried I'm taking him out of context with that article? I'm not. He reiterated it here in his own words.
Now let's move onto the fact that he's transphobic as fuck. He went to /c/Transgender and posted a Matt Walsh video. Then there's the whole thing earlier about him claiming someone else was transphobic who wasn't. Not only is that extremely offensive to the dude you claimed it of but also extremely offensive to every trans person in existence for you to claim that you know better than someone else. He's using the trans community for his own benefit but has not demonstrated anything that I've seen of support of that community. Just active hostility. Check his modlog for the record. There are some other interesting things in there like him stalking someone and spamming the same comment over and over again.
Next up? Zionism. He has repeatedly removed posts that are critical of Israel or pro-Palestinian and that's fairly well documented. Again, just searching his name and Zionist or anything on any community here gives you more than enough to look at. You do have to filter through it a bit because a lot of people are, justifiably, pissed as hell but it does mean that the language of the comments can seem inflammatory and trolling him. Something that he has leaned into quite heavily and used as a shield. But these two posts stand out to me as particularly obscene. One such example is his patented refusal to ever address proof to the contrary. He listed a source as being antisemitic while using the justification of a Zionist source. When given a litany of Israel critical cartoons but none that are actively antisemitic, he refused to engage. Honestly the entire post also demonstrates a shocking amount of logic that isn't outright Zionist but dancing around the edges and leaving the outline of one. Especially when he says that he'll allow the post of the slain journalist to be posted when he "starts writing for a reputable news source again. Of course when pressed, he gaslit again saying that it wasn't the person he was talking about when it clearly was.
Conclusion
The man is a genuine danger to Lemmy.world. I know plenty of people who refuse to engage with the communities on the instance as a whole because they do not trust the mods here. When questioned why it always ends up being Jordan or someone like FlyingSquid who was basically Jordan 2.0. There was so much shit happening behind the scenes with that dude with him actively torpedoing friendships left right and center. He started to crash out hard because no one was supporting him anymore. Yet people still support Jordan and I have no idea why. My only assumption is just his state of health. He's not in the best shape and the only thing I can think is that no one wanted to rock the boat with him to add extra stress on him going through something massive but doing that is also an enormous disservice to the people on Lemmy. And I do mean Lemmy as his behavior makes us all look bad. I've tried to get someone recently on reddit to move to Lemmy and their argument was that they will not because the mods here are worse than the mods on reddit. When I asked for an example, they linked me to Jordan. I even found a comment out in the wild saying to not join Lemmy because of Jordan and when I contacted them to ask if I could add their comment to this post they ended up deleting it and their whole account.
Jordan is incapable of sustaining impartiality, is incapable of accepting fault, is incapable of accepting any viewpoint different than his own, is incapable of learning anything new, is racist, is transphobic, supports Zionism and abuses his position at the drop of a hat. He does not meet the basic qualifications of a reddit moderator, never mind ones of a Lemmy user. The fact that he is the face of multiple enormous communities while routinely doing these things means that the entirety of Lemmy.world looks bad. But because Lemmy.world is also one of the biggest instances and one that often a lot of people end up falling to first, he also ends up being the face of All of Lemmy Moderation.
I'm actively calling for him to be removed from any and all moderator positions. He has proven time and time again for months that he is not capable of holding these positions in a way that treats the platform, the users and even himself with respect. Also going to say here and now that I'm seriously considering leaving Lemmy.world and going elsewhere and this is playing a big part in that. I post so much because I like adding to a community I enjoy being a part of. A community that I can be proud to be a part of.
I don't have much in the run of pride right now.
Edit: Jordan keeps violating the rules of this community while in this post. He has had 4 comments removed in the past 4 days. All of then are for transphobic behavior. The same behavior that someone else was guilty of that he accused of being Transphobic. Ergo, Jordan is undeniably transphobic and MUST BE REMOVED INSTANTLY. This has been 4 days guys. What is going on?
