So anyone from r/Exmormon has probably read /u/FearlessFixxer‘s blog post by now (EDIT: just kidding, the mods are censoring that as well. Since I am involved in this whole thing, I wanted to give my perspective on it as well.
Last September /u/gthing made this post. It was about a guy who said some very inappropriate things on the obituary of a gay 19 year old Mormon who just committed suicide. The names of everyone involved were blacked out.
In the comments, however, his name was was revealed, his personal blog was given out, his email was found and published, his Facebook posts were published, and his personal idenity was compromised so bad that /u/NewNameNoah pointed out his phone number and was able to call him, interview the guy, and then publish the interview online. (Mike wasn’t the only one who called him either) and his business’s name was published. A year later and ALL of this information remains on r/Exmormon uncensored.
The splash that r/Exmormon caused garnished a lot of attention. It was cross posted onto r/LGBT where it became the top post of all time (at the time). A year later, after a year of a Trump presidency, it is still ranked highly at #21. Because of r/Exmormon, this story also started finding it’s way into both the local and national media.
This guy is a perennial candidate, and people used that fact to justify all of this. I’d respond to that line of thinking by asking anyone to look up his name on Google and have the search settings only show results before r/Exmormon got ahold of him, say August 2016, and then search for his name today. The differences in his notoriety are pretty apparent. Before r/Exmormon, any mention of him was created by him. After r/Exmormon, most results are him being called out for what r/Exmormon brought to the public’s attention. He was not a genuinely public figure until the witch hunt happened.
You know what the mods did about this incident?
JACK SHIT
They let his name, email, blog, phone number, and Facebook posts be slathered all over the sub. They even allowed people to give out his business’s name and brigade it’s Facebook and Google reviews, which caused his business to close. The r/Exmormon mods allowed all of this despite these specifically being banned by the official content policy of Reddit. They allowed witch hunts armed with all of this guy’s personal information to be conducted under their watch, did nothing about it, and seriously fucked up this guy’s life. They taught the entire subreddit, including me, that this behavior was acceptable for r/Exmormon.
Now we fast forward to October 3, 2017. /u/Danizada posted a picture of a guy saying he thought the victims of the Las Vegas massacre deserved it because they were breaking the sabbath. I ended up reposting it. Both of these images had the guy’s profile picture on them. Ryan posted the picture on his facebook account, and someone mentioned they were his friend and thought it was awful too, so they gave him his real name. Ryan put that screenshot ON FACEBOOK, but NOT on reddit.
/u/VH65 politely and formally commented as an admin on /u/Danizada‘s post telling her to that the post showed his profile picture, which is against policy, and that it could be reposted when the profile picture is also covered up. Perfectly acceptable, and /u/Danizada agreed and censored the picture. I was given no such warning for my repost.
However, the next morning, all 3 of us woke up to a 6 month ban. /u/Danizada and I were banned for the picture that had the profile picture, and Ryan was banned for the post he made on facebook. This sort of punishment is unprecedented for r/Exmormon.
When asked specifically why we were banned, /u/Danizada and I were told that we were banned for a blurry 31×31 pixel picture, which looks like literally every Mormon male ever. We were both given identical messages from /u/subversiveasset. It felt impersonal and unfair, especially since I was an extremely active member of the subreddit. I deserved to be treated with more dignity and respect.
Ryan was told he was banned for a MormonLeaks policy that he’s been upfront about since day 1 and never received a warning for and something that he did completely independent of Reddit on Facebook. He never once posted the dude’s name on Reddit. He directed people to his Facebook once on another subreddit, but then willingly removed that comment when he saw that was against the rules. In addition, /u/subversiveasset tried to prevent Ryan from talking about all of this by threatening him with a longer ban for revealing this modmail. I don’t recall a ban being given out to /u/Curious_Mormon when he leaked hundreds of uncensored modmail messages after he was removed as a mod. /u/4blockhead wasn’t punished in that fallout either.
The mods are accusing /u/Danizada, /u/FearlessFixxer, and I of doxxing on Reddit when that simply was not the case. We gave out no personal information. It is EXTREMELY hypocritical of them to do this to us because of the real doxxing and witch hunts that happened last year where everything short of this guy’s social security number was given out in a single post that remains uncensored to this day. Especially when a mod recently said she didn’t think posting a post from no-name apologist blog that has a picture of him onto /r/Exmormon was considered doxxing.
I left the church because r/Exmormon showed me the un-whitewashed version of Mormon history. I made tons of friends there, including (in no particular order) /u/FearlessFixxer, /u/Hiking1950, /u/Mirbell, /u/DavidABedbug, /u/t_the_initial, /u/Mithryn, /u/VH65, /u/Nevermo_Jralphie, /u/hasbrochem, /u/Chino_Blanco, /u/Upy77, /u/hyrle, /u/kimballthenom, /u/MasterMahanJR, /u/Mithryn, /u/mbradford81, /u/happy_jimmy, /u/NewNameNoah, /u/Chubs_Gato, /u/Kolobot, and more than 2 dozen people I’ve helped find the Boise Post-Mormon Support Ward. I considered r/Exmormon to be “my people” and culture. I even recently made a post about it.
Yesterday, I was excommunicated from r/Exmormon. This hurts infinitely more than being excommunicated from the LDS would have for me. I chose to be a part of r/Exmormon instead of being born into it. I have been rejected. I am no longer an Exmormon, and not by choice.
The worst part is, I was excommunicated for something that the mods allowed to happen to a much greater degree just last year, I wasn’t given a warning, and I wasn’t given the common courtesy of a conversation. Even the LDS church allows for all of that, and I thought r/Exmormon was better than the church.
As someone who was a very active part of the r/Exmormon community for over 2 years, I want to give a warning: Be leary of this moderation team. The mods give no warnings, give punishments for things you do in subreddits/other websites that aren’t r/Exmormon, and pick and choose when and with whom they enforce the rules. They are no better than the church.
EDIT: This is how mods are supposed to handle shit. Bravo r/Mormon. This has made me feel much more comfortable about posting here instead. I will likely take a Reddit break as /u/Curious_Mormon suggested in the comments and then start generating content here instead.
EDIT 2: Follow up post: I’m staying at /r/Mormon.