Hey all,
In light of recent events concerning one of our communities (/c/vegan), we (as a team) have spent the last week working on how to address better some concerns that had arisen between the moderators of that community and the site admin team. We always strive to find a balance between the free expression of communities hosted here and protecting users from potentially harmful content.
We as a team try to stick to a general rule of respect and consideration for the physical and mental well-being of our users when drafting new rules and revising existing ones. Furthermore, we’ve done our best to try to codify these core beliefs into the additions to the ToS and a new by-laws section.
ToS Additions
That being said, we will be adding a new section to our “terms of service” concerning misinformation. While we do try to be as exact as reasonably able, we also understand that rules can be up to interpretation as well. This is a living document, and users are free to respectfully disagree. We as site admins will do our best to consider the recommendations of all users regarding potentially revising any rules.
Regarding misinformation, we’ve tried our best to capture these main ideas, which we believe are very reasonable:
- Users are encouraged to post information they believe is true and helpful.
- We recommend users conduct thorough research using reputable scientific sources.
- When in doubt, a policy of “Do No Harm”, based on the Hippocratic Oath, is a good compass on what is okay to post.
- Health-related information should ideally be from peer-reviewed, reproducible scientific studies.
- Single studies may be valid, but often provide inadequate sample sizes for health-related advice.
- Non-peer-reviewed studies by individuals are not considered safe for health matters.
We reserve the right to remove information that could cause imminent physical harm to any living being. This includes topics like conversion therapy, unhealthy diets, and dangerous medical procedures. Information that could result in imminent physical harm to property or other living beings may also be removed.
We know some folks who are free speech absolutists may disagree with this stance, but we need to look out for both the individuals who use this site and for the site itself.
By-laws Addition
We’ve also added a new by-laws section as well as a result of this incident. This new section is to better codify the course of action that should be taken by site and community moderators when resolving conflict on the site, and also how to deal with dormant communities.
This new section provides also provides a course of action for resolving conflict with site admin staff, should it arise. We want both the users and moderators here to feel like they have a voice that is heard, and essentially a contact point that they can feel safe going to, to “talk to the manager” type situation, more or less a new Lemmy.World HR department that we’ve created as a result of what has happened over the last week.
Please feel free to raise any questions in this thread. We encourage everyone to please take the time to read over these new additions detailing YOUR rights and how we hope to better protect everyone here.
https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#80-misinformation
https://legal.lemmy.world/bylaws/
Sincerely,
FHF / LemmyWorld Operations Team
EDIT:
We will be releasing a separate post regarding the moderation incident in the next 24-48 hours, just getting final approval from the team.
EDIT 2 (2024-08-31):
We’ve posted a response, sorry for the delay.
👉 https://lemmy.world/post/19264848 👈
There’s a fine line between misinformation and “subjectively offensive information”. To me, this seems like it was a pretty clear case of abuse of power regardless of where you stand on the original issue and retroactively changing the rules to excuse that abuse does not bode well for this community.
You always have the option to move to another instance such as lemm.ee.
It takes a few clicks from the settings to export and import your subscriptions and block lists
You do know that everyone is aware they are not trapped here right?
Lmao all this over meat eaters getting mad at vegan cat food? I’m genuinely impressed that redditors are managing to turn Lemmy into a caricature of the godawful website they left.
GG
there is most certainly some level of ethical behavior to follow in this line, theoretically if the being is getting all of the nutrition they need and isn’t struggling to survive in that sense, it really shouldn’t matter, but at the end of the day, i guess it starts to come back to the ethics behind pet ownership more than anything.
IDK to me it seems like feeding a carnivore a wholly vegan diet is probably ethically dubious at best. Most vegans would probably agree here, ironically. Feeding livestock a generic grain mix is probably not the most ethical decision.
I have no context to the thread that caused this struggle session but as a vegan and someone who knows for a fact people will take that shit out of context anyway I know that most vegans will either not have pets, or if they do don’t go as far as to malnourish it.
Most vegans interested in a “vegan cat food” are purely seeing a bunch of tinned/pouch food that claims to be nutritionally complete. I know that for some here the assumption is that vegans are trying to force feed Mr fluffles a carrot and kale soup.
As for whether that food is nutritionally complete depends on the animal, the brand, the testing, and the regulations. Turns out there’s a lot less rigor in ensuring foods are safe for animal consumption compared to humans!
The takeaway overall, imho, is that this is one of those times where having an “/R/all” frontpage makes for a great opportunity for a pile on, followed by mod overreach, and then a weird ass ToS change that’s more to spite a few people than to do any good.
This is a bit learning the wrong lesson from what happened, isn’t it? The problem is admin overreach. There was some disagreement on a sub, no big deal. I don’t even care what it’s about, I have no opinion on it. But now this admin comes in like Eric Cartman “Respect mah authoritah!”. What am I supposed to make of that? Nobody was advocating animal abuse. I worry about admins who can’t just let something go, who can’t handle disagreement, like a cop always looking to escalate.
So thanks for the rules clarification, I guess, but what about:
- won’t this general guideline of ‘do no harm’ stifle discussion in case it isn’t clear which is the harmful position? For example covid
- is there a process in place when an admin does something in the heat of the moment, that the admin team can let them cool off for a bit?
- is removing mods going to be the norm?
- will there be more rules when another admin disagrees with a mod?
- why was this escalated like this? Don’t you think removing mod status is an overreaction (procedure wise)?
- does the ‘anti animal abuse’ statute apply to animal consumption and animal products? Vegan community has a point there
- what about rooki?
All in all, please don’t kill this instance by telling people what to think. There is healthy discussion and people don’t always have to agree. That doesn’t make me a ‘free speech absolutist’. I think removing moderator privileges was quite out of bounds. Again, nobody was advocating animal abuse at all.
Mods and admins are here to keep discussion healthy, not impose their views on everyone else, right? So don’t! And don’t cover for others who do!
About the other topic there will be a another post dont worry.
About the points i will bring it up to the team.
The other post isnt going to change the new rules from this post.
Have you apologized yet?
deleted by creator
Yeah, it was definitely Animal abuse. Switching carnivorous animals to plant-diets to satisfy their humanitarian urges, is straight up abuse.
When I argued sanely over there I was basically just called a carnal apologist and banned. Shit was wild. Glad Lemmy picked up this stance; because what they were advocating was entirely wrong.
I suppose if those plant-based diets were based on peer-reviewed scientific studies and shown to cause no nutritional, physical, or mental harm to the animals then it wouldn’t be animal abuse. But I haven’t seen the threads so I’m assuming that wasn’t the case.
The problem with that, is you can find a scientific study that will give you almost any result you want. Scientific studies exist at all ends of the spectrum, contradicting each other constantly. It’s rather hard to actually get unbiased information today. Additionally, it’s pretty common knowledge that cats eat meat in the wild; no scientific reviews needed for that one.
Sounds like its not settled science and we should be able to discuss the spectrum of studies and current science around the topic without fear a man-child will take this as their moment to protect all of the cat world from the evil vegans.
Its absurd. Current science does not say that a cat cannot be healthy or healthier on a vegan diet, which is the only reason vegans are considering it in the first place.
If you all haven’t figured it out yet, animal wellbeing is the whole point, noone was advocating for hurting a cat.
lol something like this is what made me stop participating at all on reddit. It was an atheism sub of all places and it was clear that some mod was sad that I had a different opinion. And I’m atheist too. It was straight up unnecessarily personal.
Every job has shitty managers, why wouldnt this one?
Can someone explain to me the context behind the incident that caused this? I am entirely out of the loop.
This thread. Apparently the dietary requirements of cats is a contentious topic.
edit: Sorry also this thread that I hadn’t seen before.
It’s only contentious for vegans. No one else thinks cats can be vegan
Noone else has considered it, and they are going with their gut reaction rather than consider both sides. Isnt the internet a fun place!
If you are a vegan and want animal companionship, get a vegan pet!! Rabbits, birds, and guinea pigs are great options. Cats and dogs are not options for meatless pets, regardless of how avaliable they are.
Thank you medical professional who surely also has experience with nutrition.
This doesn’t sound like free speech is welcomed here.
Am I wrong?
This instance gave me many signs of this happening, where only what one group of people think MUST be followed, but this kind of cements that now.
Define “free speech,” because contextually what you want sounds more like “speech without consequence” which is not the same thing, but rather a veil of plausible deniability in which to hide in, while being hateful.
How the hell do you know what I want?
Stop putting words into my mouth, and trying to gaslight me into being silent on mods here removing anything they want to at any time without repercussions.
Read: “contextually” and “sounds more like”
If you don’t like how you’re being called out then you should be introspective into why a generic statement made you so upset.
It’s not gaslighting when there’s a straight line of evidence.
To the wider world it looks like this: “Why do people think I don’t like dogs?! Just because I said I don’t like that you can’t kick dogs without getting a ticket nowadays! I didn’t kick any, I’m just saying!”
Who’s upset? The way I see it is you and others are the upset ones, because if you have to take the time out of your day to insinuate that others are horrible people just because they don’t see things the way you do, it means YOU’RE the ones with the issue.
(proof is in your above comment, again you try to gaslight saying there’s “evidence” when there’s nothing of the sort…lmao, it’s crazy how you all try the same tactics)
“how the hell do you know what I want?”
That’s an inherently aggressive statement.
It’s fine, but no reasonable person would think much differently.
Also, generalizing me with “you all” is a defensive catch-all to be dismissive of my point without actually making a stand for your own values.
It’s just a you-and-me conversation right now
If its just a you-and-them conversation why are you making appeals to popular opinion?
Do you believe having the popular opinion means its the right one?
deleted by creator
The science :
Considering these results overall, cats fed vegan diets tended to be healthier than cats fed meat-based diets. This trend was clear and consistent. These results largely concur with previous, similar studies. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0284132
Sure might not be the best science but still science
quoting from your link: No reductions were statistically significant. Only one difference [re:disease] was statistically significant.
plus it was done by a pro-vegan group with obvious bias. so the results from the pro-vegan funded study are not terribly good at supporting veganism for cats as more healthy. it’s about the same, maybe less disease (severity of disease wasn’t covered in the abstract but would be a significant part of a decision). show me a study not funded by a pro-vegan group with similar or better results before I consider feeding my pet a diet very different from their natural diet.
All studies on this will either be funded for or against it. You can’t just claim bias cause you connected a pair of dots in your head.
The same logic would disqualify papers that support your opinion too, as they are funded by companies that make money from selling meat.
Honestly (and I see you do recognise this in your comment) but this really seems like a kinda crappy study that I’m surprised made it into plos.
For instance I couldn’t find any evidence of them considering that the dietary choices of the guardian may affect the attitudes of the guardian to vetenarians (and thus the self-reported health of those animals). To take this further, in the scenario that a cat guardian believes their choices make their cat healthier, especially when going against vetinary orthodoxy, the guardian is probably less likely to take the cat to the vet for minor issues. This confounds the analysis of “healthiness” as performed by the authors.
Furthermore any cat that is not an indoor cat is likely also not fed a purely vegan diet (as they do hunt), so they should possibly account for that via a sort of bootstrapped approach. Generally the stats were okay though, and don’t make super strong claims from some pretty weak data. Though GAMs were a pretty odd choice and I’d have preferred some sort of explicit model fit with Bayesian fitting or NLLS.
In the end all of this points to the sort of thing where they should really have been doing perturbational research. I.e. feeding cats different diets in a controlled lab space. This is not the sort of research that lends itself to surveys and that seriously impacts the actual practicality of its findings.
Also as an aside, I really cannot abide anyone who includes a questionably inspirational quote that they said themselves in the fucking French Alps on their own website. That’s just pure wankery. The only people I usually see doing things like that are scientists like Trivers, which is not company one should wish to be in.
This is the limitation with policy made by people who just think “science” is when you quote an opinion with an article in a journal.
Decades of climate denialism, anti-veganism, and “race science” is perfectly acceptable under these rules because you could simply post studies funded by Exxon, meat and dairy lobbyists, and right-wing think-tanks which support their conclusion.
“Science should prevail” nerds could do well to consider that perhaps we have other means of identifying malicious behaviour. Any kind of checkbook exercise or algorithm that can pluck truth out of the air won’t work; the scientific method was never intended to declare X or Y as permanent facts the way we use it online.
Because the priority for them is engagement, regardless of how harmful the content could be to people. Engagement doesn’t mean shit here because nobody’s profiting off of it.
If you think lemmy.world is worthless then you are mistaken.
I’m glad to see site-wide action taken against the spread of harmful disinformation.
Sick to the back teeth of hearing the term “disinformation” applied to any opinion or discourse that doesn’t conform to, let’s be honest…govt sanctioned sources
Ah yes, the big bad government with their 5g magnetic vaccines.
…this guy gets it.
Internet has brought so many new social issues and yet no philosophers to ponder and find good solutions even though no one is working.
Strange
im here, and i do enjoy a good ponder, unfortunately the political right and some of the political left have consumed 100% of my philosophical pondering over the last 5 or so years.
The fundamental problem here in regards to feeding a cat a vegan diet is that you are forcing something onto an existing sentient (to some degree) being.
You as a human could live on rice and water exclusively, but it would most certainly not be optimal. The same is generally true for most living beings. The ultimate question here, once we get past feeding a pet whatever diet, is that pet ownership is to some degree, probably unethical at the source. Feeding them inherently brings up an ethical dilemma, as they are not a human, they cannot make a conscious choice about how their food is acquired. You as a vegan could theoretically raise and kill game to feed a cat which is probably the most ethical solution here, but that’s not likely to be popular. The alternative being farm grown game, although it’s likely to be off cuts and byproduct as humans eat the most desired parts, so the end result is probably fairly insignificant, unless you’re feeding your cat a rich mans diet or something.
There is no one rule to fit all vegans, every vegan has to evaluate their own situations. You are right that some vegans are against all pet ownership. There is another group that believes if you rescue an animal from being euthanized or slaughtered and improve their standard of living and length of life, then that is ethical.
A huge part of being vegan is repetitive self-reflection, always searching for moral inconsistencies and working to fix them.
This is what leads vegans to consider a vegan diet for their pet, as if it was at least as healthy as non-vegan food, then less animals will be hurt due to the vegans choices.
Contrary to popular belief there are plenty of studies and case reports advocating for both sides of the argument of vegan cat food. Even by the admins new rules, we would be able to argue for vegan cat food as long as we only referenced studies.
Since its not settled either way, and multiple pet health and food organizations have stated their interest in researching the viability of vegan/vegetarian diets for dogs/cats, I think its fair to say it should be open for discussion.
Any chance the relevant incident could be unpacked and used as a demonstration of how these changes would alter the outcome or encourage a different outcome?
As someone who only saw pieces of it after the fact, I am potentially in the dark here about the purposes and context of these changes.
That being said, from what I did see, it seemed very much like an instance admin imposing themselves and their superior power on a community when there were probably plenty of other more subtle action that could have been taken, where subtlety becomes vital for any issue complex and nuanced enough to be handled remotely well. I’m not sure I’m seeing any awareness of this in this post and the links provided.
For instance, AFAICT, the “incident” involved a discussion of if or how a domestic cat could eat a vegan diet. Obviously that’s not trivial as they, like humans, have some necessary nutrients, and AFAICT the vegans involved were talking about how it could be done, while the admin involved was basically having none of that and removed content on the basis that it would lead to a cat dying.
And then in the misinformation link we have:
We also reserve the right to remove any sufficiently scientifically proven MALICIOUS information posted which a user may follow, which would result in either IMMINENT PHYSICAL harm to an INDIVIDUALS PROPERTY, the PROPERTY of OTHERS or OTHER LIVING BEINGS.
In the context of cats and their food … which “living beings” are being harmed and who is encouraging or discouraging this harm?
Whether you’re vegan or not, this seems to me formally ambiguous and on the face of it only enshrines the source of the conflict rather than facilitating better forms of communication or resolution (perhaps there are things in the by-laws I’ve missed??).
Two groups can have exactly the same aim and core values (reduce harm to living beings) but in the complexity of the issue come to issue a bunch of friendly fire … that’s how complex issues work.
So, back to my original question … how exactly would things be done better?
Hi there, totally in the dark here. What was the incident?
Vegans saying that cats, which are obligate carnivores, can subsist on a vegan diet; admin removed it as misinformation. The vegan community then threw a fit over it.
God damn. So that means theres a whole community of people whos cats are living their worst life, because some asshole adopted them and feels self rightous.
And those are the ones who set a bad example for vegans. I’m sure there are mild mannered non-asshole vegans out there. I’d even believe they were a silent majority. But MY interactions with vegans are always the loud pushy types who try to make you feel that YOU need to follow THEIR choices.
And to that type of person, I actually have an endless supply of middle fingers and a chronic drought of fucks to give. I tell them I’m going to eat THREE cheeseburgers now. One for the cheeseburger I was already going to eat. One for the cheeseburger they’re NOT eating, and one more just to make their veganism a net loss. Since I’d only be eating just the one if they weren’t getting in my face about being vegan.
No vegan would ever accept any degradation in their cats life just to make them vegan.
The only discussions are around maintaining a cats health and happiness while feeding them a vegan diet that contains all the same supplements non vegan food does.
Theres plenty of cats who just dont like the two vegan brands available and so thats that, they aren’t vegan.
Its absurd that you all think that vegans of all people would tolerate hurting an animal or reducing its quality of life in any way.
What do you all think vegan even means?
people say stereotypes are damaging but I have literally never met a vegan IRL that was a decent person.
I know plenty.
The thing is, the ones you meet actively, as in, they make being a vegan a significant portion of their exterior presentation and lifestyle, they’re usually off the deep end, independent of being vegan.
You can see the exact same behaviour - just not about veganism - in modern alt right counterculture, religious fascists, etc. It’s always about pushing a narrative and a believe system, the specific system is almost irrelevant.
But OTOH, veganism without making it a religious cult is almost normal at this point, which is also why you would not actively notice it a lot. There’s nothing to actively notice, really.
It’s just the crazy people that make it weird, and then end up torturing dependent animals and stuff.
‘No True Scotsman’…
I think you misunderstand the argumentative fallacy there. Unless you mean that someone who isn’t pushing agenda is no true scotsman? Then that’s correctly used, but also the inverse of what I am saying.
(edit)
Aaah, nevermind. I see what you mean, I could have worded that better. It wasn’t meant as exclusionism, rather that of any subgroup, the part that does X, but is self-reflective about it and accepting of disparate opinions is not going to be remotely as visible, and hence by and large, you won’t notice that part actively.
This of how little you notice most catholics in daily life. I doubt you associate “is a catholic” with most people you interact with who are. You would not even think about assigning such a label, no matter which way.The people you associate with such an attribute are the ones that constantly push this attribute themselves, lacking the ability to reflect how this appears to others and alienates them. And it’s this very mental inability to consider a perspective of others that would also make you, say, feed your cat a vegan diet as a vegan out the inability to reflect that while for humans a vegan diet might be the correct choice (and even then there are exceptions of course) but this does not mean you can extend this to cats, unless the cats as a society decide this of their own. It’s their decision to make.
But it’s also exactly this kind of person where you remember that specific attribute. “Is strictly catholic”, “is vegan and nothing else it seems”, “exists only as an extra to their car”, etc etc.
Obligatory “I’m not a vegan,” but this comment seems like it’s at least partially mischaracterizing the issue.
Some of the comments removed seem to advocate for a vegan cat diet that specifically includes the amino acids and protein that cats need, albeit sourced in a vegan-friendly way:
I am also not a vet (go figure) but this seems reasonable on its face and lines up with the 5 minutes of Google research that I did. It sounds like not all vegan formulated cat food actually strikes the balance cats need and that this diet would need to be balanced very carefully, but it seems possible to do it in a healthy way, especially if done in concert with a vet and frequent checkups.
I agree with you but wanted to add that non vegan cat food has the same quality and nutritional value issues.
I think some people assume vegan cat food means feeding them whole foods prepared at home but thats ridiculous. It would be just as ridiculous to decide to start formulating your own cats nutritional needs with non vegan food.
Preparing your own animal food is its own subject entirely, and vegan and non vegan cat foods share a lot of the same processes and ingredients.
Saying others are 100% wrong when there are scientific research that supports that cats can eat a plant-based diet with synthetic taurine, b12 and minerals is not very wise. It’s sound like a big false gotcha for a group society is biased against.
Sources:
-https://sustainablepetfood.info/
-https://www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/abs/10.12968/vetn.2022.13.6.252
-https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0253292
-https://www.mdpi.com/2306-7381/10/1/52
-https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0284132
-https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240584402411609X
-https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/6/9/57
Yeah, they’re 100% in the wrong here. Cats aren’t people, they can’t consent to your personal code of ethics. They’re meat-eaters by nature, and denying them of that is animal abuse. Good intentions don’t override your pet’s nutritional needs. Admins are right to remove any content that encourages animal abuse.
OK, so some counters:
- I mean, plenty of pet-keeping practices can count as some form of animal abuse but are readily tolerated.
- EG, It’s fairly common for cats to be prevented form hunting other animals like birds etc through bells on collars or even keeping them indoors. From what I’ve seen, this genuinely makes cats sad and bored … but it’s done a lot and for good reason as they’re really obligate hunters. There’s also how a lot of dog owners treat dogs too which frankly can be damn right heart breaking.
- “Obligate carnivore” doesn’t mean that much. They have nutritional needs which either can or cannot be met by various food production techniques.
- And it’s important to note that pet food is not a well regulated industry with high quality produce. AFAIU, cats mainly (or exclusively) require a single and very simple molecule, taurine, which is easily produced synthetically or artificially. Moreover, I’d wager that a lot of commercial cat food has synthetic taurine added to it rather than getting it from carnivorous sources (cuz it’d be cheaper), which is at least suggested by the linked wikipedia article (genuinely curious about this if anyone knows more).
- Additionally, cats probably require a certain balance of proteins and fats that might be difficult to reproduce from non-animalistic sources.
All up, pets are absolutely subjected to human codes of ethics and values … they’re pets and subjecting them to our needs, desires and demands is exactly what owning a pet is all about (for better or worse).
If you have problems with that, I personally understand, but modifying their diet without wanting to sacrifice their health is very much the type of thing that pet ownership is generally all about. The lines being drawn here seem to me to not be about the specific issue of whether a vegan cat diet is feasible … and merely talking about it a reasonable thing … but about how one feels about vegans in general.
On which, accusing vegans of animal abuse is certainly a choice. From what I’ve seen, any conversation about this from a vegan was always starting from a position of caring about the dietary requirements of cats (which may be more than what some pet food manufacturers and pet owners do) and being informed about them. Whether that’s what happened in the relevant incident, I’m not sure, but the bits I’ve seen certainly indicate that it could have been reasonable too.
Which all comes back to my original point … what is moderation to bring to such a conversation and situation and what are its aims?
Which all comes back to my original point … what is moderation to bring to such a conversation and situation and what are its aims?
Remove posts that have a serious potential to seriously harm cats, by making newer vegans believe it’s okay to feed cats a vegan diet?
The issue here is that nowadays these posts become information to others. That’s what the internet has become. People no longer read something like this, and then first talk to 2-3 vets about it before deciding, they read that “Yo totally fine to torture your cats, k” and then do it.
And it’s important to note that pet food is not a well regulated industry with high quality produce. AFAIU, cats mainly (or exclusively) require a single and very simple molecule, taurine, which is easily produced synthetically or artificially. Moreover, I’d wager that a lot of commercial cat food has synthetic taurine added to it rather than getting it from carnivorous sources (cuz it’d be cheaper), which is at least suggested by the linked wikipedia article (genuinely curious about this if anyone knows more).
As someone whose FwB works with pets professionally, it’s difficult to be more wrong, but granted that’s for my central european context. There are absolutely bad cat foods about, but even those are not truly dangerous for the cat involved. They might have a higher percentage of grain added, but you’re right in that to a degree this is doable for a cat.
Note however that many pure-grain or high-grain foods will be explicitly marked as “Not meant as a sole food item” over here, and have to be: They’re not a balanced nutritional diet. Even worse, some add sugar, and now we’re getting into truly shitty territory that sadly isn’t clamped down on hard enough, this gets added to make the food look and smell better to the owner, while being either irrelevant or usually bad for the cat (since they consume too many calories for the amount of nourishment they get). However, again, as a supplementary item it’d not be terminal or something.
And that’s kinda the thing here:
- Can you feed your cat vegan stuff? Absolutely, and in fact a large percentage of what they consume will be vegan, usually mixed into other foods. For example my cat currently has 30% vegetables in her main food (the other 70% is meat). The jelly food she gets for extra fluid intake is even 55% vegan components.
- Should you feed your cat a vegan diet? Absolutely not, because that’s just silly and also intentionally marked as “supplementary food only” whenever you were to buy vegan cat food, at least over here. For a reason!
It’s not a binary choice. Just use high-quality cat food. It’s that simple. Ask someone who works with this professionally for help. And yes, high quality food will be 50%+ meat. That’s supposed to tell you something.
I like how your main rebuttal to vegan cat food is “its just silly”. Appeals to intuition are surely substantial right?
This is purely shutting down a discussion based on emotional reasons, otherwise discussions about sexual abuse or child abuse would be banned as well “lest new gullible users think they might be suggestions”.
If you want to actually read about the current scientific discussion on the matter I suggest reading “Obligate Carnivore: Cats, Dogs, and What it Really Means to be Vegan by Jed Gillen.”
Got any peer reviewed scientific evidence for your positions?
I like how your main rebuttal to vegan cat food is “its just silly”. Appeals to intuition are surely substantial right?
🤦
I like how that is what you got from it.
But yeah, sure. To break it down further, if you require more input than “it’s silly as a concept” for this talk, or if you think of Jed Gillen as anything but a hack, you are neither mentally or intellectually adult enough to own a pet, in particular not a cat. Maybe a stone with glued-on wobbly eyes, and I’d be worried about that, too. Talk to an actual professional, geez. It’s not difficult.
Yikes
How to not be taken serious by people - Vegan cat abusers edition
In the context of cats and their food … which “living beings” are being harmed and who is encouraging or discouraging this harm?
Not the point I imagine, the rule as written makes no requirement of being able to specifically identify who or how. It’s like Google AI suggesting you add glue to your pizza sauce. Is it likely that you, /u/maegul, would follow that advise? Hopefully not. But is it absolutely endandering to leave the information there and not just flat out delete it on the off-chance someone takes it serious? Of course!
Okay so no jokes on the internet anymore then right.
Y’all need to follow your premises through mentally.
And now the incident’s “debate” is here.
Lemmy vegans really wanna kill cats
Fearmongering with your lies.
Cats are actually healthier on formulated plant-based kibble synthesized with taurine, b12 and vitamin a.
To generalise is easy. To spot colour in a black and white world is a bit harder but in the end well worth it.
I’m normally a Vegan hater but this is a whole new level. 👀
I was under the impression that most criticism was directed not towards veganism per se but rather feeding a carnivore vegan diet which is animal abuse .
Obligate Carnivore: Cats, Dogs, and What it Really Means to be Vegan by Jed Gillen
Great read!
Yeah few vegans would steep as low as feeding a cat a vegan diet. So not really sad to see the particular individuals gone.
It’s perfectly possible to give animals vegan diets.
Sure. It’s also possible to feed your animal a bad diet. Notable, and in this particular case and for the particular animal, the two happen to go together, when you feed a cat a vegan diet, that’s a bad diet for a cat.
Will the cat immediately keel over? No.
Will some cats live long lives and be pretty healthy? Sure.
But on average, will your cat live shorter and worse if you feed it a purely vegan diet, respectively if you let it roam outside, will it be a seriously ferocious hunter as it tries to re-balance it’s diet? Yes, definitely.
Whether that’s consciable to you, that’s something you have to decide. I would however hope that especially someone who subsides on a vegan diet for their human diet would be against animal cruelty, and hence just feed their cat a mostly meat-based diet (not entirely, that’s not healthy either).
Yes, until the poor animal dies due to malnutrition. Just get a vegan pet
Stop it with the strawman.
Cats can be healthier on a plant-based diet.
-https://bmcvetres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12917-021-02754-8
More animals die because non vegans decide that allowing one pet to live is fine but then go and pay in the supermarket to have some freshly slaughtered other animal.
Please don’t be a hypocrite.
lol, who’s the hypocrite here? People who openly admit to eating meat and not having a problem with animals getting killed for that purpose? Or maybe it’s a group of people who vehemently insist on animal rights but they end up abusing their own pets. What a twisted logic, mate.
Someone is misinformed.
You are incorrect. A vegan diet for animals is perfectly possible. You are thinking of vegans giving them salad, but vegans are actually carefully selecting and giving them the nutrients they need.
As I said, don’t be a hypocrite. You know jack shit.
Please don’t be a hypocrite.
It’s ridiculous that you don’t seem to realize how much this applies to your first post. 😂
Hahahah. This ignorance from the carnivores here truly knows no boundaries.
I’m not a carnivore? Been a vegetarian since for-fucking-ever, considering my age probably long since before most here knew about a word like “vegan” existing, on account of existance. Seriously, the fuck where did you take that from?
Don’t project, please.
I love the strong emotional takes on what is animal abuse from all the meat eaters in here.
My goodness.
As a wildlife carer who enjoys meat: Eat shite.
Ah, an animal abuser. Cute.
cryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Nice oxymoron but ok.
Oh man this ones got some flavour to sink ones teeth into 😅
I take the side of the admin. If someone can’t accept or understand that a cat eats a meat based diet then they deserve to have reality thrown in their face. Better than some poor animals being tortured.
If someone can’t accept or understand that a cat eats a meat based diet then they deserve to have reality thrown in their face. Better than some poor animals being tortured.
Dang, is that what happened? It’s sad to think that there are people mistreating animals that they care about accidentally, through trying to apply their own human morals and rules to them.
Cats are hunters, they eat meat. If that’s an issue for your home then fair enough, your house your rules. Just don’t get a cat, or a carnivorous pet in general. There’s lots of cool pets out there that are herbivores :-)
I think all of this says more about the faith people have in the quality of their cat food.
Also people seem to love the words obligate carnivore but have not much understanding of the concept.
Oh and lastly, my favorite is discounting all evidence as anecdotal or “not good research”.
This is some of the stupidest dogpiling ive seen and really drives home how simple the average person on here is.
“Hur dur, if people talk about the possibility of a vegan cat then surely their owners will starve them and refuse to change course until they die!”
I think it’s less applying their morals to the cat and more not wanting to support the meat industry. That said, yeah just don’t have a cat. I expect many vegans aren’t too big on the concept of pet ownership anyway.
I don’t think this is the place for this discussion obviously but just know this subject has a lot of taboo and misinformation around it.
I recommend reading Obligate Carnivore: Cats, Dogs, and What it Really Means to be Vegan by Jed Gillen if you are interested in digging deep into it.
What are Jed Gillan’s credentials? He has basically no search engine presence.
Maybe people should be consulting their vets before some random book they heard of online. anyone can publish a book.
I wrote a book about anuses through the ages and still don’t know if it should be anuses or anusi.
I think it’s anussy
Vegan here. Love my cat. My cat eats meat. End of story.
Wow, a normal person on the internet. Thank you for existing.
I’m honestly not sure if a vegan cat diet is possible or not, but random people giving unqualified advice that could easily lead a less knowledgeable person to harm an animal is a problem. What should have been done in this case is for a mod or admin to shut the discussion down with a note telling people to consult a qualified veterinarian regarding any change to their pets diet.
My idea was that respectful, dissenting opinions posted in a small ratio should be allowed in all communities.
It works well in this situation because you can have ten vegans posting about how vegan diets are great for cats, but you’d still have at least one guy posting “This isn’t safe for your cat. Please find sources that aren’t biased before doing this.”
I don’t know if a vegan diet is safe for cats or not, and I shouldn’t need to. Having that one dissenting voice is helpful in prompting people not to trust everything they read on the internet. c/flatearth can still have their narrative, but a policy like this would help put the brakes on it a little.
Of course, do consider this policy in a community that you agree with. This would mean that someone would be allowed to post Russian propaganda in the Ukraine community. If they spam it, it can still be removed. If they’re rude, it can be removed. But if it’s just one Russian comment for every ten comments refuting it, I would hope the ten comments are enough to handle it.
“dissenting opinions” are not the same as mis/disinformation.
It’s just alternate information.
Drinking bleach to kill a disease is technically alternative information. It’s even backed indirectly by science: bleach kills bacteria. The difference here is the information is harmful, incorrect, and being presented as science backed.
Simply put- just because an echo chamber wants to drink the Kool aid - doesn’t mean we should allow them to share it with unwitting passerbys.
Not everyone is going to do the due diligence and assume that the group is wrong: so it is potentially damaging to allow that misinformation to be spread. Multiple examples exist of why moderation is needed.
Freedom of speech is not absolute. If it limits others freedom, it must be checked. If it can harm others, it must be checked.
Show me a study that shows any human or animal benefits in anyway from drinking bleach.
However, there does exist a spectrum of studies both supporting and attacking the idea of a vegan diet for cats, often with contradictory conclusions.
From my understanding there was a nuanced discussion including risks and acknowledging that whole food diets are impossible for cats.
Either people are reacting with emotion far more than I expected, or people are confusing whole food plant based with “no meat products in it”, which of course are two entirely different sets of food.
The admin was childish and obtuse, they could have handled this in a number of other ways and instead doubled down on their emotional reaction and instincts.
Explicitly though, that won’t be what happens, particularly for something as small as the Fediverse. What happens is a post from a small community ends up on the main feed and the prevailing opinion of the entire Fediverse begins a long chain of comments about how dissenting opinions are dumb.
Conversely the community could be feeding incorrect information to the entire main feed.
If your community is unable to handle something as basic as a dissenting opinion - through civil discussion - there is a problem with your community. There are innumerable diets out there: ask yourself why you don’t see their lifestyle coming under fire. You can’t pick fights and then cry foul because you are the minority.
Are vegans all awful people? No. Of course not. But there are a significant number who elevate their lifestyle to a religious status and feel compelled to preach and inflict it on others. THAT is unacceptable.
Why are you so quick to move people into the bad vegan category? Sounds like a lot of people are just using this to confirm their belief that vegans are crazy and they should continue eating meat without a care.
I think I get it. If its possible a cat could be healthy and vegan, then humans have no excuse left do they.
Self preservation at its finest.
I had no idea what this one was about. I got banned a few months ago for insisting in c/vegan that animals that eat a predominantly carnivorous diet should not be fed a vegan diet. I’m a cat lover and dog liker and believe that it is animal abuse. I’m glad to see this change.
Try reading some current information on it. It can be healthy for a cat to be vegan if it is done correctly.
The most difficult part is quote a lot of cats are picky to the point they won’t eat the one or two brands that are actually nutritionally complete.
Its absurd they are banning even the discussion of this when research keeps trending towards the possibility of a healthy vegan cat.
Mostly, I think its absurd to think these discussions will actually hurt real cats. If the owner is basing their information on this websites shitposters, they are already a horrible owner.
So there is a study that shows that forcing your quest for a sense of absolute moral superiority on a obligate or fecultative carnivore by feeding them an unnatural vegan diet may not kill them?
The issue is choice and the fact that you are taking it away. Obligate and fecultative carnivores would choose to eat a diet consisting mainly of meat because that is what they evolved to eat and you are taking that away from them. These studies that say it may not be unhealthy are simply efforts to feed the self-satisfied circle jerk. Efforts to develop a vegan food that obligate and fecultative carnivores would choose to eat are efforts to overcome their nature which is to eat a diet consisting mainly of meat.
Forcing your beliefs on a being that isn’t given a choice.
Animal abuse.
Forcing your beliefs on a being that isn’t given a choice.
Animal abuse.
I’m not a vegan, but it really cracks me up when people get up in arms about this subject they barely understand and arrive at the position that pet ownership/meat eating itself is unethical because it removes animal agency. Like, you’re making an ethically vegan argument you know.
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No, the first post was about that. This post is about how we aren’t allowed to have this conversation out loud.
I do have studies I can send you, I’m sure you know you can find studies all along the spectrum for most topics. I dont have the experience to defend the studies myself though but if you would like I can send you some to look over.
This whole post is frustrating because vegans are trying to reduce animal harm, and then get accused of harming their pets. Of course there are a handful of stories of people who tried a whole food diet and hurt their cats but not a single person recommended that, and multiple vegans correctly advised against it.
The point is that maybe we can trust that vegans of all people would be considerate of animal well being as best as they can, including trying healthier diets in the effort to prolong their lives.
https://europeanpetfood.org/pet-food-facts/fact-sheets/nutrition/vegetarian-diets/
https://europeanpetfood.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Updated-Nutritional-Guidelines.pdf
Like any animal, you are able to supply some essential amino acids and essential fatty acids along with other bioavailable micronutrients(plant based pro-vitamin A without modification is out) through artificial or specifically formulated sources. Asking for scientific journals is silly in my opinion because those without a biology background wouldn’t understand them (and even what I just posted would likely be hard to understand for most), but pointing out that pet food industry experts and vet nutritionists consider it a plausible goal and have specific nutrition profiles they follow for it should be enough.
I consider the whole effort silly myself, but I’m a meat eater. Doesn’t mean that it isn’t data driven.
That first link is giving off strong vibes of trying to satisfy stubborn ass vegans who are going to do it anyways and trying to save a few cats lives.
The entire thing can be summed up as “Please don’t fucking do this, but if you insist consult a vet nutritionist because if you get anything wrong your cat will die”
If someone is a vegan, then they just shouldn’t have a cat as imposing dietary choices that the cat (or other animal) wouldn’t make goes against their own morals by being vegan in the first place.
Even for dogs, yes they are omnivores, but they won’t choose to not eat meat See: That one years old clip from a talk show with a vegan guest who said “Their dog is a total vegan and won’t even want to eat meat” and when tested on the show the dog went straight for the meat dish instead of the vegan one
This is not specific to cats. If you plan to formulate your own food for a pet, you need input from a vet and a nutritionist, or else risk hurting your animal. Plenty of people cooking fresh food for their dogs are not giving them a full nutrient profile either.
I think this is showing how much faith people have in regular commercial pet food. Normal pet food isnt great for your pets, look into what the ingredients actually are and their quality.
The only reason the idea of vegan food for cats and dogs came about was in an effort to make them healthier and happier animals. Its not to force a vegans morals onto an animal.
I’m vegan and I have a cat. My vet approved the vegan food for a trial but the cat didnt like it, so she eats meat now. If thats abusive to you then I’m not sure what to say.
Tell me why my entire vet office approved of this trial if its animal abuse always. The discussions here on this site simply dont match the discussions youll find if you talk to a vet or an animal nutritionist.
The idea of Obligate Carnivore is fully lost on some. And that’s quite a sad reality.
Sure, explain it to me. What is it that a cat can’t get from non-meat sources?
This rogue admin was absolutely not acting with the best intentions. Is he kicked out of the admin team?
He was abusing the term “misinformation” even though it was extremely obvious that he had a personal vendetta against vegans. A vegan pet diet is perfectly possible, and vegans were merely saying that. There was no question for a source by anybody, because the source is just a simply google search away.
This admin is just anti vegan and was on a personal vendetta. He saw an opportunity to classify it as misinformation, so he just started removing posts and banning people. Why was /c/Vegan specifically targeted by this person?
“Oh but this vegan diet for your pet might hurt it!!”, bro you’re literally the one paying others to slaughter living beings.
If you can’t feed a cat a proper diet reflecting their needs, don’t keep one.
Yep exactly. A vegan diet is perfectly possible.
But I’m not here to discuss that. I’m here to discuss how this admin this abused their powers.
Is this really about peoples inability to consider that cats could live long healthy lives on a vegan diet?
I don’t understand the aversion to it. Noones on here going to read any of the post in question and then go and kill their cat with an unhealthy diet.
Here’s an idea. Don’t base medical decisions solely on internet conjecture. If you think this is meant to be a place for only settled science from decades ago, then what is the point of discussion.
I have to say that the moderator team here doubling down is absurd and shows they take themselves too seriously.
This site is literally an opinion board, and they are now saying that these opinions are so scary and dangerous they might hurt someones cat.
Childish behavior from what I’m sure are actual children running this website.
Good thing theres a bunch of other lemmy providers because this one is proving to be just as awful as reddit was, which I guess I should have expected since thats where everyone here came from.
Its harder to get a vegan cat post through this site than posts covering pedophilia or sexual assault, so I guess which of those three things is too dangerous to talk about, really?
Keep in mind that these “morals” come from people that most likely are paying others to slaughter animals for their consumption.
A vegan diet for a cat is possible, but hard, which was exactly what the posts in question were talking about.
Anyways, look at the Admins actual behaviour: https://lemmy.world/post/18817262
As a former site admin, I will say right now that leaving any kind of rule “open to interpretation” is the WORST thing you could do. The only interpretation of the rules of your site should be the your (the site admin’s) interpretation. That’s it. Rules should be easy to understand and easily convey the correct interpretation.
Leaving the rules open to interpretation only leads to disagreements and arguments. It is better for users to have concrete rules with a reliably consistent correct interpretation than for everyone to complain because their interpretation of a rule lets them do whatever they want. Just my two cents on that.
As a former site admin, I will say right now that leaving any kind of rule “open to interpretation” is the WORST thing you could do. The only interpretation of the rules of your site should be the your interpretation. That’s it. Rules should be easy to understand and easily convey the correct interpretation.
This might be a language-barrier thing, but that’s the meaning of “open for interpretation”.
It means that the admins and moderators are judging it on a per-case basis instead of a hard delineation that anybody could use to decide whether something is against the rules or not (and hence use technicalities to skirt the rules, naturally).
They are literally saying the opposite.
