Good news, everyone!
Knitters’ network bans Trump support on its website!
https://twitter.com/ravelry/status/1142766608680660992
According to the AP, Ravelry.com is “a free, 8-million strong social network for knitters, crocheters and others in the fiber arts”.
That’s a huge chuck of the US population; I wonder how many will be grateful?
And I can’t wait to hear what Trump has to say about it! How you gonna dis knitters? :dubious:
It’s actually less than 1% of the us population, even if it’s a huge amount as an absolute number of people.
I’ll also point out that they aren’t banning Trump supporters, just discussion of Trump and his administration which, let’s be frank, has little to no relevance to knitting, crocheting, or other fiber arts.
It’s ~2.5% of the US population.
Shoot, I missed a great opportunity to make a joke about knitpicking.
That pun had better be intentional, because as we all know the term is actually nitpicking.
</nitpicking>
I just logged on to my Ravelry account (yikes, I gotta update my projects) and found their official statement:
I don’t see any big deal here. Ravelry.com has always been anti-bigotry, as per their community guidelines:
It’s not a free-speech forum, it’s a forum for civil communications about fiber arts. If any of the people who voted for possibly the most belligerently un-civil President in the history of the United States are upset because now they can’t express their support for him on a forum for civil communications about fiber arts, well, the poor little snowflakes will just have to get over themselves.
I doubt their business model is going to take any kind of hit over this, but I made a donation just to express support for their decision. Now back to that project updating…
It’s an even higher percentage, if you compare it to the portion of the population who actually votes.
And I would guess that the population of knitters and crocheters skews older, and the old are both more reliable voters, and tend Republican (though it probably also skews female, and women tend Democratic).
RPG.net did the same thing for much the same reasons. Support for Trump and open support of white nationalism, sexism & other bigotries are so closely mapped as to be nearly perfect matches; his supporters disrupt forums they are allowed to push their bigotry on and drive everyone else away.
Ravelry had basically two choices; force Trump supporters to keep their support to themselves, or turn into a neo-Nazi site as the rest of their users flee.
I was going to say that I thought they wanted to recruit knitwits.
(Yes I know about the k.)
However, I’d guess that the population of knitters and crocheters (and designers, spinners, weavers and dyers, btw) who use a craft-social-media site like Ravelry skews considerably younger and less conservative than the average.
Female, yes, by about 71% to 29%.
Why not just ban political discussions?
Fibre artists are a funny lot. You’ll get the most liberal crunchy sheep-growing-shearing-spinning-dyeing collective-living activist, and right next to her is a stodgy Iowa farm wife with old fashioned ways and a strict gender divide with her husband. If all they talk about is yarn, and dyes, and knit/crochet patterns, you’d swear they were a devoted Mother and Daughter. But if they start talking politics it is irrecoverable within seconds. Nano-seconds even!
Ravelry has always been assertively inclusive, and they are just reiterating when they say that white supremacy will not be tolerated. What is new is that a large number of people now consider our President and his Administration to be a White Supremacy organization.
This was what made the story news-worthy, IMO. This is a completely apolitical group but toxic politics was invading even there, is how I took it. And they’re not having it. Politics in a civilized society isn’t about hating people, ffs.
And so here’s a group calling it out, loud and clear and unashamed that really should have no connection to this.
Who’ll be next? A model train enthusiast group? A bowling league?
You’re assuming that all eight million members are in the US. I really doubt that’s the case. Most likely and without knowing anything about the site, that number includes people all over the world.
Awesomely insightful post, Dewey! Thanks for your contribution to the thread!
We have members on at least 6 continents, and at any given time, we usually have someone in Antarctica, whether they’re working or visiting. I tried to find the exact number of countries, but couldn’t.
The issue was that someone was posting some pretty OTT pro-Trump patterns, and when they were flagged, she and her husband started doxxing some of the reporters. THAT’S what precipitated the “banning.” Plus, in 2008 there was an anti-Obama group called “The Bunker” that got Ravelry investigated by the Secret Service because some of the posters were talking about how they planned to assassinate him, which is NOT covered under free speech. I’m guessing some of them are still in prison. Anyway, that word was flagged for a few years afterwards, and referring to the group got a warning from the moderator. They probably didn’t want anything like that happening again.
You can still be a Trump supporter; you just can’t talk about it there. We do have a few right-wing boards, but with one exception, they’re dormant.
Since you seem to be a member…
I’d gotten the impression that there’s a lot more covered on Ravelry than yarncraft - similar to here, there’s an active amount of “social posting” True?
I’ve heard of dyed-in-the-wool racists (or any other ideology), and I’ve heard of yarn-bombing, but knitted/crocheted racist propaganda? Now I’ve heard everything.
Sure am! I joined in 2008; fiber artists of all types are welcome (most knit and/or crochet, but quilters, spinners, dyers, weavers, etc. are also represented) and while we do have literally thousands of boards devoted to crafts, we also have boards for pretty much every conceivable interest, as long as it’s legal (although the NORML board might be stretching it in some areas!). We can “friend” people and see their projects, if they wish to post photos.
Many people just go there for free patterns and have nothing to do with the message boards.
Oooohhh yeah! In addition, name the body part, or the species, and there are patterns for making them.
Wanna make a pussy hat that looks like a vagina? Yeah, we’ve got that.