[Not mudslinging. But if a homophobe can run, that puts basic human rights on the ballot: a recipe for a disastrous election.]

Are you running?

No, there are many great candidates and I’d rather give my vote to someone else.

oh because I wanted to vote for you

uh ok

Awww that’s sweet.

But yeah, especially if the race is gonna look like this we don’t need another pro-LGBTQ person dividing the sane and rational vote further.

k

Homophobes aren’t exactly popular here on this stream. However: if there’s one homophobic candidate running among a slew of other candidates who accept gay people, then then that could provide a path to victory for a relatively unpopular homophobic candidate.

Someone who doesn’t believe LGBTQ memers are valid people can’t adequately represent the ImgFlip community, even in a role-playing capacity.

On this basis, I think candidates with homophobic histories should be DQ’d from running for imgFlip President, unless (perhaps) they very clearly state they’ve changed their beliefs.

[But even in that event, the election would still very likely revolve around the issue of whether LGBTQ people should or shouldn’t be accepted, which should no longer even be subject to debate, and that will make for an unproductive and degrading election experience for everyone.]

Just my two cents.

[image deleted]Why am I not surprised to see you come up with another god-awful take? Toby has posted many defamatory statements about Octavia and JRBob as well as others and will certainly not be getting my vote, but calling for him to be barred from running for a roleplay presidential bid over homophobia is genuinely despotic. I say let the voters decide.

He is probably the most professional candidate, but all his homophobia and transphobia and attacking users like octavia for fake allegations puts him down

Agreed. I doubt he would win anyway, given his history, but even if he did somehow win, he wouldn't have any actual power anyway since it's not a position where you can actually make changes to the site, the TOS, mods, or anything like that. That power will always stay with Dylan or anyone he decides to appoint.

Ive just never seen someone go all in to win the election

I'm pretty sure that tobythepug might win just due to the sheer amount of friends he has

Yeah, i dont think he knows that,

Speak for yourself. I do know that. I am just hoping that a presidential run will raise awareness of my mistreatment by the MODs, and how imgflip is in dire need of change.

I dont think it will if you keep up calling octavia a satanist

By contrast, the qualifications (if any) to run for ImgFlip’s President is just a function of whatever stream terms the Mods here decide.

No more despotic than any other stream mod who has ever created and enforced terms.

Being critical of homosexuality is not denying homosexuals their humanity. That's ridiculous. That's like saying being against Islamic terror is denying Islamic extremists their humanity or being against witch burnings is denying Puritan Christians their humanity or supporting Trump is denying Antifa/BLM extremists their humanity. People are allowed to have opposing views of homosexuality thanks to the First Amendment whether you like it or not. If you don't like Toby's views, then just criticize him for those views. If he does something to violate TOS or the stream rules, then report him to the Stream or Community Mods. But don't go calling for him to be disqualified just because you don't like his opinions. Thankfully the Stream Mods appear to be running things fairly, so your vision of no opposition to your agenda appears to be nothing more than a pipe dream.

Well yes. I was going for the hyperbole to make my point that despite Toby's opinions, he should still be allowed to run. It is an opinion after all.

The stream MODs are not being fair, by the way. Mudslinging has been outlawed.

that made me laugh

Mudslinging was outlawed because the Imgflip Presidents stream was devolving into such a pit of harassment and TOS violations that I was required to come in and clean it up. Criticism of another candidate's platform I would say is still allowed per Imgflip TOS provided it doesn't devolve into a pit of harassment again, but since I'm not in charge of running this stream, that decision is up to Captain_Scar and halfwhitmemes.

Censoring content makes the election less fair. A fair election is more important than a "kind" election. As long as there were no threats of physical violence, illegal content, or excessive spam being posted, it should be allowed.

what if people are using slurs?

It's a roleplay for an office with no power. Imgflip is under no obligation to implement anything you or even I call for. You can certainly criticize your opponents as far as I'm concerned provided it complies with stream rules, but everyone is still required to follow Imgflip TOS election or not.

can you feature my image?

Lol i did, and im literally trying to oppose mudslinging, and i dont see where it mentions you as the candidate

where does the meme by OP Say *TobyThePug should not be voted for because he is a homophobe?

Big X doubt

Bringing in red herrings like Islamic terrorism and witch burning is invalid. The comparisons you raise aren’t apt because each and every one of those things is a choice someone made.

Homosexuals didn’t choose to have the feelings they have any more than straight people choose to be attracted to the opposite sex.

The better comparisons are: criticizing blacks for having black skin; women for being female; Mexicans for being born in Mexico; disabled people for being impaired with a life-altering condition they didn’t choose.

All of that is bigotry.

Bigots are allowed to hold and air those views per the First Amendment, but the First Amendment also grants all of us the freedom to not associate with those people, including ImgFlip itself and the leadership of this stream if they so choose.

Homosexuals having feelings for and getting it on with others of the same sex and not bothering anybody while they’re doing it just aren’t equivalent to terrorists flying planes into the twin towers or Puritans burning heretics at the stake or any of those other things that warrant vigorous condemnation and prison time.

Gays won the right to marry around the country roughly 5 years ago, and only then by a narrow 5-4 Supreme Court decision made by a bench that looks very different than it does today. Namely, 2 of the justices who supplied yes votes are now gone.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obergefell_v._Hodges

Meanwhile trans people still struggle for basic recognition. LGBTQ rights are more fragile than we assume and nothing guarantees them going forward.

Please please please exercise your moral muscles.

Wrong again. Nobody of relevance in America is calling for the banning of homosexuality. Donald Trump, the man accused of everything bad someone could think of was the first person elected that announced their support for the LGBT community prior to becoming President. One of Trump's appointed judges was the one who wrote the sweeping opinion for the recent LGBT labor law in a 6-3 ruling.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/two-supreme-court-jaw-droppers-lgbtq-decision-you-can-t-n1231120

Even if Trump picks the most right wing judge humanly possible, they are still in the minority. The mainstream culture and social media companies are just shy of universally preaching about LGBT rights. There's an entire month dedicated to rainbow pride. LGBT rights aren't going anywhere and anyone who says otherwise is fearmongering.

A sign of how far both parties moved on the issue in a short period of time.

But no: because HRC would have also been the first President to support gay marriage from day one, that factoid is not that impressive.

And you highlighted gay marriage but Trump has been retrograde on trans issues.

Tl;dr — It is beyond dispute that LGBTQ rights are more protected when Democrats are in charge and appointing judges: not just to SCOTUS, but the lower benches as well.

All I did was post substantial evidence of what I believed was proof of Octavia_Melody and synthetic-Mantis violating the imgflip ToU. You just ignored me and gave me comment timers. How have these blatant ToU violations been ignored, while my content, which does not violate the imgflip ToU in any way, has been censored? Can you not see the hypocrisy here? And my claims are not false.

You made blatant accusations that Octavia_Melody and JRBobDobbs were pedophiles with no evidence to back up your claim. That's defamation and it is illegal as well as violating Imgflip's TOS. So yeah, your comment timers were well earned. Andrew and Kate agreed as well when you went to them about it. And you will continue to earn comment timers for every subsequent false accusation you throw around. Do you understand?

No evidence to back it up?

https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesfromtheFlip/comments/icfdjv/my_experiences_with_imgflip/

I will stop accusing others of being pedophiles if you wish, but I will not stop accusing Octavia_Melody and synthetic-Mantis of violating the imgflip ToU until justice is done. If you don't punish them, fine, but only as long as I am not censored either. If you are going to be anti-free speech, you could at least be consistent in your censorship.

That Reddit post has no evidence backing up their claim. There's no way for me to determine its validity. Unless actual evidence comes in, it's just hearsay. And there's nothing in the TOS that says you can't be anti-Abrahamic or a whatever-ist/phobe, you just can't harass other users about it as far as I'm concerned. Other Mods may act in a different matter and they're free to do so, since Imgflip is under no obligation to host any content it doesn't wish to host.

Sure, I could delete every comment that's not very nice about someone else giving everyone comment timers and I would be within my rights to do so as the TOS does indeed state those sort of comments and images are subject to deletion. However, as this is a meme site where we discuss a wide variety of ideas and have many different opinions on what is considered humorous, that would eliminate every political stream, every sexy stream, the Dark_Humour stream, every stream that dares criticize anyone ever, and most of the kids streams, which would utterly destroy Imgflip. I think we can all agree that would be terrible for everyone? So I tend to only go after attacks on other users. That I believe is the best balance between allowing for free and open expression while maintaining a compliance with TOS that is reasonable for most people. Of course another mod is free to reverse my decision if they disagree with the call I made.

And yes, Octavia did indeed get a comment timer.

For providing evidence of possible ToU violations: Because you continue to spam us when we have already made our decision over a month ago.

Making memes with statistics connecting homosexuality and pedophilia: Apparently another mod has decided those violate TOS, which if you look at how the Terms were written, they technically do. I can assure you though, that I was not the mod who took them down. I do not believe it is my place to be the arbiter of what is factual and what is fake news, although I'm not afraid to share my opinions on biased news sources like CNN.

In conclusion, don't harass other users and don't spam, and you're in the clear as far as I'm concerned. Other mods will of course mod where they see fit. Sound good?

Harassment I would define as any commentary about another user that is specifically targeted to defame, belittle, or intimidate especially if it's prolonged over a period of time. This is not the same as criticism. If a person says or does something that's worthy of criticism, then criticism is warranted. For example, the Octavia comment about agreeing with some tenants of the Satanic temple. If you disagree with him about those tenants, criticism about those tenants is fair game as far as I'm concerned. Labelling him as a Satanist when he clearly stated he wasn't one would be harassment.

Spam is anything that can be considered detrimental to the Imgflip community. That includes:
Links to your content or website. You are free to post links to your content on your own images however. Those images may be subject to unfeaturing if the Stream Mods decide it's detrimental to their stream.
Malware links
Irrelevant content (no politics in the fun stream, that sort of thing)
Copypastas (Bee Movie script, Memecat, that sort of thing)
Any comment that is clearly just to farm upvotes. A good example of this would be the one or two word comments the kids are always making that offer no commentary whatsoever.

can you feature my image?

Aren't you campaigning for free speech? Should the folks in the politics stream whom you constantly complain about be deprived of their free speech?

Kate can you feature my image?

I can only feature memes in streams that I moderate.

oh

Which stream did you submit it? Link the meme and I can look at it.

imgflip.com/user/TheTrueRiddler

Memer has been spamming me since yesterday, 23 notifications straight just this morning

give me a sec, let me get the link...

IMGFLIP_PRESIDENTS: https://imgflip.com/i/4g5jaf

Strange it wasn't featured. I'll ask the mods there.

ok

i can send it again

you are against cenorship but you ask for it to be done to your opponents

It's just if you become mod this stream might become a war zone.

this stream becomes super free speech which allows hate speech. Basically it would be racists and neo nazis vs everyone who's sane

Hate speech is free speech. As long as nobody posts threats of physical violence, illegal content or excessive spam, then it should be allowed. It is regrettable that people post racism online, but it is still wrong to censor it.

how is it wrong to slow the spread of racism

Not my place to DQ them.

And where would we draw a line? Who all else could I DQ if I disagreed with them?

Point is, it ain't happening. I doubt they'll win (I don't think I've even interacted with them myself), but let's let the voters decide.

Ok, but as I said I think it’s a recipe for a toxic election and especially frightening to LGBTQ community members.

Boycotting the election rather than participating in a degrading struggle for their acceptance is one option, we’ll have to see.

I have no idea what his chances are, but they’re not zero. Divide-and-conquer of the pro-gay demographic and the votes of some of his Uberconservative “politics” friends who don’t otherwise participate here is a very plausible pathway to victory.

You have no obligation to any particular candidate, only to look after the stream’s and the election’s best interests.