In 2011, I joined an online message board forum called Kindle Boards (later KBoards) where other self-publishers had joined to give each other support, share what works, and otherwise band together as a community. Back then, self-publishing was considered the kiss of death, and many of my former writer “friends” shunned me for starting down that dark path. Having a community where people could assure you that you weren’t crazy was really a big help.

Yesterday, I was permanently banned from KBoards. But from the way it went down, I doubt that I’m going to miss the place, because it is a very different community now from the one that I joined in 2011.

The brewhaha started when a new member posted a thread to announce a book promotion site that she had just started. These types of sites offer advertising opportunities to authors and curated book recommendations to readers. There are dozens of these sites across the internet, and they are an important part of the indie book world.

On the thread, someone noted that the OP’s promo site did not accept erotica or LGBT books, according to the submission guidelines. Immediately, people began to pile up on the OP, demanding an explanation and accusing her of being unfair. The pile-up had all the signs of a social justice mob:

• Unsubstantiated accusations that get taken at face value and added to a laundry list of perceived wrongs.
• The formation of a narrative that ties in with a much wider set of perceived injustices, making the accused guilty by association.
• Calls for “justice” that make a peaceful and mutually amicable reconciliation impossible.

I’ve seen it happen many times, as I’m sure you have too. If the accused tries to make amends, it only makes the social justice warriors howl even louder. The only thing that can satisfy them is the complete ruination of their enemy—and sometimes, even that is not enough.

As a side note, I would like to point out that I have nothing wrong with people who write LGBT books. Should these books be allowed to be published? Absolutely! The book world is a richer place because of them. I have nothing against people writing them, reading them, publishing them, or promoting them. People should be free to write whatever they want, so long as it does not cause criminal harm (such as doxxing or child porn).

But that’s not what this social justice mob was about. They had taken one line from the submission guidelines (which has since been removed) about not accepting LGBT books, and twisted it in every possible way to skewer the OP. For example, people took it to mean that books of any genre with LGBT characters would not be accepted, when original intent was pretty clear that genre LGBT would not be accepted. There is a difference. They then went on to say that LGBT is “not a category” (though according to Amazon, it most certainly is), and to accuse the OP of all sorts of other things.

When I saw this social justice mob forming, I decided to step in and stop it by deflecting some of the attention onto myself. The idea was to tank their attacks, rile them up just enough for the moderators to take notice, and leave it to them to stop the bullying.

Until this point, my opinion of the moderators at KBoards was pretty good. Even though I’d been on the receiving end of the “cattle prod” a couple of times, I’d always felt that they were more or less fair—or at least that they gave fair reasons for everything that they did. On the KBoards forums, the mods are generally praised as one of the main reasons why the place is so friendly and welcoming.

Part one of my plan worked out perfectly. I poked the SJWs just enough for them to show their true colors, and the thread was predictably locked. The OP and some other KBoards members sent me private messages thanking me for standing up to the bullies. When the mods re-opened the thread, however, all of my posts were gone, but the pile-up that had started the mob from forming was still in place. And predictably, the bullying began again in earnest.

I was disappointed in the mod’s decision, and stated as much, but tried to exercise restraint since there wasn’t much else I could do. Then someone openly accused the OP of being “discriminatory” because their site didn’t promote LGBT books. In response, I started a new thread:

Can we please stop calling promo sites “discriminatory”?

On another thread announcing a new promo site, a bunch of writers are piling up on the OP for stating in their guidelines that they do not promote LGBT books. Rather than derail that thread even further, I figured it would be better to start a new thread to say my piece about it.

It really galls me when anyone accuses a promo group of being “discriminatory” because it doesn’t promote their particular kind of book. By turning their rejection into a social justice issue, it flies in the face of the obvious: that readers aren’t morally obligated to like every kind of book equally, and that promo sites have to pick and choose which books they promote according to (among other things) the tastes of their readers.

Look, I have no problems with people writing, reading, publishing, or promoting LGBT books. If you’re an LGBT author who writes LGBT books, rock on and more power to you. But as a reader, I probably wouldn’t subscribe to a newsletter that promoted them—not because I hate gays, but because it’s just not the sort of thing that I read. Does that make me evil and discriminatory? Am I having “wrongfun”? Should I be forced to read a book that I don’t want to read? No? Then why say all that of promo sites that don’t carry those kinds of books?

My BS test for this sort of thing is to replace the allegedly oppressed minority group with Mormon Texas Czech (I defy you to find a smaller minority group!). If a promo site rejected, say, religious historical fiction, would I get all huffy and accuse them of discriminating against my Moravian Mormon heritage because they rejected my novel about a 1920s Czech immigrant who ran away to Utah and started a kolache shop? No—I’d shrug and figure my book probably wouldn’t do all that well at that site anyway, since their readership obviously isn’t into that sort of thing, and look for a promosite that would be willing to carry my book. And if that site doesn’t exist, I would create it!

Behind these knee-jerk accusations of discriminatory behavior is an implicit call for a new regime of gatekeepers to ensure that the “right” books—the ones that promote the accuser’s particular brand of social justice—are entitled to premium placement. But the fact is that no one is entitled to anything in this business, nor should they be. Besides, we tore down the gates years ago.

I knew that the thread would ruffle some feathers, but I did not predict the response—though in retrospect, it wasn’t surprising at all. Instead of trying to engage with my ideas, the SJWs reported the thread to the mods, who promptly locked it. Only two responses got through, both of which came within spitting distance of Godwin’s Law (“What if a promo site refused to accept books with Jews in them? Huh? HUH?”).

A lot of people were upset that the thread got locked. It accumulated more than 400 views before it dropped off the front page, and I got several PMs saying “I totally agree, these people have gone too far,” and “I was in the middle of my response when the mods locked this thread,” etc.

When I got back to my computer, I posted on the first thread, where I basically said “I find it telling that instead of engaging with me, you got the mods to lock my thread. Since when did disagreement become tantamount to hate speech?” In response, I got the following PM from the moderators:

Joe,

even before the blow up in the My Book Cave thread, you had been pushing the boundaries in your posts here and many had to be edited or removed.

In the My Book Cave thread, it was the tone of your posts that was the problem.  I advised you via PM that people who appreciated the restrictions posed by My Book Cave were welcome to post their support in a civil manner.  You have refused to do that, instead choosing to make more than one inflammatory post or thread.  I refer you again to  my most recent PM.

Accordingly, you are placed on post moderation.  I note that this at least your third significant moderation action.  As you indicate in your most recent post, now deleted, perhaps you need to think about whether KBoards is the place for you.  Hopefully this period of post approval will give you that opportunity to think about it.

Betsy
KB Moderator

In response, I wrote the following:

The question is not whether Kboards is the place for me, but whether KBoards has become the sort of place where people can be bullied in the name of social justice. In the last couple of days, I have received multiple PMs thanking me for taking a stand against these bullies, which tells me that this problem is much larger than just me. The fact that your response is to put me on post moderation tells me everything that I need to know: that disagreement truly is seen as hate speech in this community. I won’t be the only one who leaves KBoards because of this.

The final message that I received from the moderators was this:

Joe,

Please tell me where I equated disagreement with hate speech?  In the My Book Cave thread, to the best of our ability, we have removed and continue to remove posts on both sides that attacked other members or the OP in the thread and left those that stated their reason for not using the service or asked more questions about it.

I refer you again to my prior PM.  You, and others, are more than welcome to state your support for My Book Cave in a civil manner.  Instead, you have attacked your fellow members for stating their reasons for not wanting to use the service and for asking questions to clarify the restrictions.  There were also questions about the erotica restriction and the restrictions on language.  These are reasonable questions.  It would also be reasonable for a member to state (as you did, in one bit of your locked thread), that you would appreciate a site that had restrictions.  Posts that stated a different point of view in a civil manner without attacking your fellow members would have remained and have been protected.

You chose not to do that, but to instead start yet another thread that attacked your fellow members.  While we were discussing that thread (which had not been permanently locked at that time–we were still in discussion), you chose to make yet another post continuing the same discussion in the original MBC thread.

Refusal to accept moderation is a bannable offense.  You have been previously banned and placed on post moderation and tonight have refused to accept post moderation.  Immediately after posting this, I will ban your account.  KBoards is clearly not the right forum for you.

I wish you the best in your future endeavors.

Betsy
KB Moderator

There are a number of things that I found disingenuous about this exchange.

First, I never attacked anybody. I never singled anyone out. I never engaged in personal insults, though personal insults (now deleted) were directed at me. And while I was aggressive in the way that I engaged, I also endeavored to be as intellectually honest as possible. I cannot say the same of those I disagreed with.

Second, it’s pretty clear that the mods were not treating me with the same benefit of the doubt as the bullies. SJWs have a way of rewriting history, and that’s exactly what they were doing by claiming to ask “questions to clarify the restrictions.” There were no attempts to clarify the promo site’s submission guidelines: as soon as one person suggested that any book with an LGBT character would be rejected, everyone assumed that it was true.

Third, it seems quite clear that the mods were waiting for an excuse to ban me. They locked down my thread within minutes of posting it, based solely on reports from people who disagreed with it. With the phrase “perhaps you need to think about whether KBoards is the place for you,” they issued a veiled threat which they followed through on within minutes. Their claim that they hoped “this period of post approval” would help me turn around was duplicitous on its face. So was the question “Please tell me where I equated disagreement with hate speech?” because my account was locked and my IP was banned, making it impossible for me to respond.

Looking back on what I could have done differently, I suppose I could have toned down my rhetoric a bit, or refrained from engaging. But at what point does silence become complicity? If I had let the social justice mob run its course, and the OP had been attacked outside of the boards, would I have done the right thing? When it became clear that the mods were going to let the bullying continue, what was I supposed to do?

Honestly, I feel like I came out of that exchange with my integrity intact. If that means I got banned, so be it.

And to be frankly honest, if KBoards is the kind of place where social justice warriors can dominate the discussion and drive out anyone who disagrees with them, then I really don’t feel bad about getting banned. There is a war going on in our culture today, and I would rather pick a side than be complicit through my silence.