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1. Embed this notice
   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 02:55:35 JST Aral Balkan

   • don Elías (como los buses) 🥨
   • Joy

   This anonymous coward is an example of the worst of humanity.

   (There is a reason his account – and yes, I will bet good money it’s a him – is anonymous.)

   He is trying to smear our Gaza Verified campaign (https://gaza-verified.org) which is run by @joynewacc and me and is currently helping over 20 families in Gaza.

   We also have an emergency campaign for getting those stuck under the bombs in North Gaza to relative safety in the South:
   https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

   You know who I am. This is me: https://ar.al And this is me (and my partner Laura): https://small-tech.org. We have been tirelessly advocating for human rights and democracy in the tech space for the last ten years. Put my name into a search engine. Watch my talks. I recommend the ones at the European Parliament, the Royal Society of Arts, etc.

   And I’ve been working every day with Joy over video chat and with all our families. They are real. They are suffering. And they need your help.

   What this person is doing is trying to is to cut of the last lifeline for – and thus literally impose a death sentence on – people who are already enduring famine and genocide at Israel’s bloody hands and who have been turned away from every Big Tech platform out there (and yes, Bluesky is Big Tech, and yes, Bluesky shuts down Palestinian accounts without reason).

   This person is being hosted on the mastodon.cr. @donelias, you’re the admin of the server. We follow each other. I believe you know who I am and what we are doing with Gaza Verified and I believe you are a decent human being. As such I believe you would share my opinion that this person does not deserve a place on your server. If you agree, I would appreciate your help in this matter.

   #GazaVerified #Gaza #Palestine #israel #genocide #FreePalestine #StopIsrael #StopTheGenocide https://mastodon.cr/@Linux/115260160968373850

   • Desorientada Sexual :Ryyca: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Jules she/her (afewbugs@social.coop)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 03:53:05 JST Jules she/her

     in reply to

     @aral so the guy who's always posting about how evil Meta is while *checks notes* actively working for and helping Meta is having a go at the guy trying to help people survive genocide

   • Embed this notice
     GunChleoc (gunchleoc@mastodon.scot)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 06:01:16 JST GunChleoc

     in reply to

     • don Elías (como los buses) 🥨
     • Solène de Montmarin 🇲🇲💚🇵🇸🫏
     • Joy

     @SolenedeM @aral @joynewacc @donelias Not that simple. He's very definitely anti-Trump. I think it's rather somebody who thinks he's always right going on a mission and unable to consider that other people might have a point.

     https://mastodon.scot/@gunchleoc/115260616844250874

     Anyway, he's still causing harm, whatever his motivation.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 06:01:16 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • GunChleoc
     • don Elías (como los buses) 🥨
     • Solène de Montmarin 🇲🇲💚🇵🇸🫏
     • Joy

     @gunchleoc @SolenedeM @aral @joynewacc @donelias The account is genocide denialist. See receipts here: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/115066549309192814

     They've also been creepily boastful of supposedly working at Facebook and of Facebook's surveillance powers, even while playing the part of "warning" people of that.

   • Embed this notice
     Solène de Montmarin 🇲🇲💚🇵🇸🫏 (solenedem@piaille.fr)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 06:01:18 JST Solène de Montmarin 🇲🇲💚🇵🇸🫏

     in reply to

     • don Elías (como los buses) 🥨
     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc @donelias

     Ce mec raconte des conneries et vient de me bloquer.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 14:38:03 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • EllisDee
     • Joy

     @EllisDee @joynewacc Reporting and blocking. We have zero tolerance for (actual) antisemitism here.

   • Embed this notice
     EllisDee (ellisdee@wolfgirl.bar)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 14:38:04 JST EllisDee

     in reply to

     • Joy
     @aral @joynewacc So someone pointing out that you are lining your pockets like a jew needs to be kicked off a platform?
     
     nice racket
   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 14:47:58 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • don Elías (como los buses) 🥨
     • Joy

     @donelias @joynewacc Thank you so much, I really appreciate your detailed response and your support for our Palestinian families in Gaza and apologies for creating more work for you.

     PS. I’d love to see, after you’ve had a chance to handle this, if we you’d like us to include you in the list of friendly servers at Gaza Verified that have publicly stated that they provide a safe haven on the fediverse for people in Gaza who are enduring genocide and famine (https://gaza-verified.org/guide/#servers).

     Thanks again for your time and support.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     don Elías (como los buses) 🥨 (donelias@mastodon.cr)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 14:48:00 JST don Elías (como los buses) 🥨

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral

     Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I personally have donated to several campaigns *with confidence* thanks to your effort of personally verifying each person via a call, building the infrastructure for verification of the links and create a fundraiser campaign for multiple families. I firmly believe that your gaza-verified project not only helps real gazan families, but helps people like us, that want to help but don't know what's real and what's not.

     That person doesn't have to believe in the same things we do, nor support our causes, but promoting information that is demonstrably fake without evidence or even against evidence is something I have a rule for in our server.

     I understand why some people might think fundraising campaigns might be a scam, but saying "every single one" is a scam without evidence and referring to verification efforts like yours like a scam it's the root of the problem here, I don't know all the details but I see my notifications going crazy right now.

     I personally allowed them (Linux is Best) to open an account and migrate here, a quick review didn't show any bad behavior. They have been very considerate about not causing trouble for us as a small server.

     I received previous reports about them for saying things like "The USA cannot is under fascism, you cannot even trust companies under that jusrisdiction". I didn't see any reason or problem there.

     I have received other reports saying "it's an asshole". Again, not a reason to act, that's the block button is for.

     But in this case, I think it's different. I don't have all the information at hand to make the best decision at this moment, but I'll try to make my best.

     I'll take the time to talk to them later, today has been a crazy day at home and work, I have been drafting this post several hours ago.

     @joynewacc

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 15:04:15 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • GunChleoc
     • Rich Felker
     • don Elías (como los buses) 🥨
     • Solène de Montmarin 🇲🇲💚🇵🇸🫏
     • Joy

     @dalias @gunchleoc @SolenedeM @joynewacc @donelias I knew I remembered him from somewhere. Apparently he’s been instance hopping like a bunny on speed. One can only imagine why.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 19:23:50 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:
     • don Elías (como los buses) 🥨
     • Joy

     @onepict @joynewacc @donelias 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Esther Payne :bisexual_flag: (onepict@chaos.social)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 19:23:52 JST Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

     in reply to

     • don Elías (como los buses) 🥨
     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc @donelias

     As I've said elsewhere:

     "Like if your attitude is: "It's begging, how do I know they deserve this money?"

     Dude take a long hard look at yourself. If you're worried about the idea of someone just demanding money without contributing at all and like grifting.

     We have those in society. They are called Billionaires."

     Thank you both for your work creating Gaza Verified.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 28-Sep-2025 01:48:06 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • don Elías (como los buses) 🥨
     • Erik Uden 🍑
     • Joy

     @donelias @ErikUden @joynewacc Thank you so much. And apologies for creating even more work for you.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     don Elías (como los buses) 🥨 (donelias@mastodon.cr)'s status on Sunday, 28-Sep-2025 01:48:07 JST don Elías (como los buses) 🥨

     in reply to

     • Erik Uden 🍑
     • Joy

     Hello @aral I wrote a private message to that account. I said to them something similar to what I wrote here, that I was ignoring several reports against them, because there was no hate speech, conspiracy theories or other violations to our server rules, but there's been a big BUT.

     This is the part that I'll share publicly.

     It's impossible to know EVERY SINGLE fundraising campaign in a decentralized social network is a scam or not (see attached screenshot), and saying so without evidence is like fake news. The person didn't reply, just moved away and wrote a post about not being silenced.

     It's impossible for me to know for certain what's real and what's not. But I believe in using one's knowledge and abilities to good use. If it's true that person has additional information and knows someone is doing a scam, he could offer help filtering people so the real ones are not put in the same bag. But it looks like they took the easy path, advocate against ALL fundraising campaigns. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Fuck that attitude. He could be right about some scammer here and there, he could be right about the risks of donations to individuals on the internet, it's not wrong to alert people about online scams, it's OK to decide to not donating anyone. But advocating to not help anyone anywhere because "there's no hope, everyone is almost dead already, everything is already bombed, every single campaign is a scam all verification efforts are scams too", is propaganda that favors the perpetrators of the genocide.

     Anyway, that person didn't even reply to me, just left without saying anything, I'll suspend and delete the account to save a bit of resources. I suspect he'll jump to other servers, causing a lot of moderation work and not donating anything ( be aware @ErikUden )

     In any case, thanks again for your efforts as I said before, you (Aral) and @joynewacc are doing a great initiative.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 28-Sep-2025 06:54:24 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • don Elías (como los buses) 🥨
     • Joy

     @donelias @joynewacc Thank you, I’ll add you to our list the first chance I get 💕

   • Embed this notice
     don Elías (como los buses) 🥨 (donelias@mastodon.cr)'s status on Sunday, 28-Sep-2025 06:54:26 JST don Elías (como los buses) 🥨

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral

     While Mastodon.CR accept registrations only to people and organization related to our country, and have clear rules against hate speech, spam and bot like behavior (like asking money in private messages), our server is a safe place to palestinians.

     @joynewacc