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I don't believe you. Not for a second.
Just look at the Kiwi Farms. One of the first attacks came from Jonathan Yaniv, a surprisingly powerful Canadian man who used transgender ideology to harass women into waxing his balls. When all criticism of his actions was censored from every corner of the Internet, you might have said:
"Build your own website!"
Ok, most documentation of Yaniv's activities got largely concentrated on the Kiwi Farms. But then Yaniv directly targeted its data center in Buffalo, NY and got them to physically unplug its devices by sending in false complaints.
"Build your own data center/ISP!"
Sure, whatever. It looks like Josh managed to get a dedicated ASN for KF and have found other ISPs that are fine peering with it. But now some random video game emulator developer committed suicide, therefore the domain name for the site must be terminated.
"Build your own domain registrar!"
It actually costs thousands of dollars a year to become your own domain registrar, so after getting dropped from DreamHost the domain was simply moved over to Cloudflare, but for the sake of argument, I'm ignoring that.
The next volley comes from a motivated group of trans activists, led by one particular trans activist (Keffals) gloating about deplatforming Destiny for wrongthink opinions. This group manages to get Cloudflare to #DropKiwifarms. Without Cloudflare, the Kiwi Farms is limited on options for DDoS mitigation.
"Build your own DDoS mitigation!"
Ok, sure. Josh managed to vibe-code Tartarus. It was that easy!
I'm just going to gloss over that after Cloudflare dropped, the site floundered around several DDoS mitigation solutions before Josh decided to roll his own, and Tartarus was actually only installed this year as the successor to several attempts.
I'm also going to super-gloss over the fact that DDoS mitigation is a lot more complicated than just "install X" and requires actual thousands of dollars in infrastructure to handle attacks! (If it was that easy, half the Internet wouldn't be gated behind Cloudflare right now.)
I think you see where this is going. I haven't even talked about:
"Build your own payment processors!" because they can just ban you and you have no appeal, you don't even get to know why you were banned. Building your own Internet cost thousands of dollars? Tough luck. Eat shit and do it without being able to raise funds from 99% of the population.
"Build your own forum software!" because yes, they can and will just revoke your license off of the word of an insane British man. (Josh is in fact trying to build his own forum software.)
"Build your own... legal firm?" Did you know that no one is going to stop you from filing frivolous lawsuits, forever, and you don't have to pay a dime for it, and the forum has been withstanding asinine litigation for years at this point, to the tune of several thousands of dollars in legal fees? And I haven't even talked about the threat actor who does have money to spend on lawfare? No? Well, now you do.
I think you get my point. Not a single time has the "start your own" argument ever been stated in good faith. Not a single proponent of such an argument actually wishes for their interlocutor to start their own website/ISP/data center/DDoS mitigation/payment processor/forum software/everything. This interpretation assumes that the problem of the censor (in this case, the trans activist) is merely that dissenting opinions are expressed on a platform they share with them, and that everything would be fine if those opinions were expressed elsewhere. The "we're just showing you the door!" school of censorship, in other words. This assumption is false.
No, what the "start your own" argument is actually saying is this: "I don't want your thoughts to be expressed, so I am going to censor you. However, I still want to have even the smallest of fig leafs that I somehow support free expression. To that end, I am going to point out that it is possible for you to start your own website/ISP/data center/yada yada. Nevermind the huge costs of doing this with few benefits in return, I do this to imply that because this option is theoretically available to you, you don't have anything to complain about. Now I don't have to concede that what I am doing is in fact censorship." And even this nanometer-sized fig leaf is proven false, when time after time, you build your own X and they do everything in their power to censor your X anyway.
So I am going to say no, @Jiro can't just start his own Wikipedia, and moreover, he shouldn't have to. When Wikipedia is still a frequently cited source seen as credible in the popular imagination, it ought to accurately reflect reality. That it doesn't and actively resists attempts to correct it is a travesty. And "just start your own Wikipedia bro" is not a credible counterargument to any criticism of Wikipedia not accurately reflecting reality, when it's highly likely to be targeted by trans activists and censored in the same way as the original.
I don't approve of dissenting opinions being discriminated against by the data providers, ISPs, domain registrars, DDoS mitigators, payment processors, forum software providers, or anyone else who is capable of offering their services to all sides simultaneously. I do not even look kindly on most platforms attempting to purge dissent from their pages, or make it less convenient for such to reach those who are interested in hearing or reading it, as they also have room for all sides to share space; thus they ought to be less restrictive than the chattering classes would prefer.
However, Wikipedia only has one article on Alice Famousperson; it cannot simultaneously adhere to both trans-accepting and trans-rejecting standards. It cannot both include and exclude the fact that, prior to her transition, prior to anyone having heard of her, she was called Bob Nobody.
Thus, you have a point that you shouldn't have to build your own Facebook/Youtube/Reddit/Artist-Formerly-Known-As-Twitter, nor, if you choose to do so, should you have to build your own infrastructure stack to support it, but it remains the case that one side or the other won't see their Views adopted as Wikipedia Policy.
Also, the "just start your own Wikipedia bro" predates many of the current guerres de culture and the xkcd comic, and is a core part of the open-source ethos. It was already in place when the disagreements in question were "Should we have adverts?" or "What colour should this template be?".
Just use ordinary standards for name changes.
Many Wiki-notable people both historical and current were changing their names and using pseudonyms during their lives, and Wiki policy deals with it.
For example, Henry McCarty, deadname of William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid appears in his page.
Excepting name changes for gender identity reasons.
Unless a living transgender or non-binary person was notable under a former name, the former name should not appear in any page
Why? Would Billy the Kid suffer less pain and anguish if someone reminded him of his unglamorous Irish origins?
If a trans person was not notable before transitioning, their former name is of no interest to the public and there is no reason to include it, and a good reason – namely, courtesy – to exclude it. Note that the fact that they are trans is allowed to be included, since that is clearly of interest to the public.
In fact, Wikipedia is pretty consistent on this. The same courtesy is extended to, for example, the streamer Jerma985 whose real name you won't find anywhere in his article. It formerly contained a fake real name, which he presents as his real name, presumably to protect his privacy, but even that has now been removed.
This isn't the only instance of Wikipedia being courteous with respect to non-notable people or things people did before they became notable. One Wikipedia policy says:
No, it isn't.
For example, Bill de Blasio is not entitled to the same courtesy, even when he was born as Warren Wilhelm he was not yet notable.
No one is worried that Bill might see his article, and become very sad when he is reminded of his dead name.
For another less notable but still Wiki notable case, wish of recently deceased Nicholas Alahverdian to be exclusively known as Arthur Knight is not respected too.
Have you read the article? He'd already started political campaigning at the time he changed his name.
Does he actually have a problem with people knowing his former name? Are his political opponents liable to passive-aggressively refer to him as "Warren Wilhelm Jr."?
The aforementioned Jerma985 made a clear effort to hide his real name, and that was respected.
Of course a criminal who changed his name repeatedly to commit fraud and escape prosecution is going to have all his aliases listed. How is this in any way comparable to a trans person whose only notable activity was done under their new name?
Here is another relevant policy I found:
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I don't think that that is too unreasonable of a compromise. Some trans advocates object to any mention of the birth name of a trans person even if they were famous under that name before they transitioned; they are just as welcome to make their own fork.
(It is my understanding that the reason so many trans individuals have such a desire to hide their deadnames is because some anti-trans persons, who have no compunction about respecting name changes in other circumstances, nevertheless insist on referring to Alice as 'Alan' as a subtle way of, every time they refer to her, calling her delusional or worse.
By way of analogy, imagine instead that Alice is a devout Catholic and Bob is a devout Protestant. Each sincerely believes that the other is factually wrong about fundamental aspects of reality, but if Alice doesn't want to talk about it, it is not considered polite for Bob to keep bringing it up when Alice has asked him to stop, and if Bob continuously referred to Alice as 'Alice, who worships a long-dead Babylonian queen, and is thus on a direct route to hell,' I think most people would agree that he was out of line.
The same principle applies if Alice is a trans woman and Bob is an adherent of the ideology which calls Alice a 'trans-identified male'; a lot of people outside the tribal cores would look askance at Bob if, every time he mentioned Alice, he called her 'Alice the delusional man in a dress who is probably some kind of pervert'; repeatedly calling her 'Alan' is, from the perspective of trans individuals and their sympathisers, an attempt to do the same thing with a minimal fig leaf of plausible deniability.)
We are not talking about personal etiquette in office or neighborhood, we are talking about official policy of world's encyclopedia of record.
Rather different things.
Imagine Encyclopedia Britannica had a rule to never ever mention that notable persons known for their Catholicism were ever in their life adherents of different religion. (in description of people of other religions or non religion, no such rule applies).
Wouldn't you find it a little strange, wouldn't this make you worry that famous objectivity and impartiality of Britannica might be compromised?
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But "this information could be used to harm someone" is not accepted by Wikipedia in most other contexts as a reason to not include information.
It is possible to talk normally about Alice without mentioning Alice's religion at all. It's not possible to talk normally about Alice without mentioning Alice's name.
If a trans person was not notable before transitioning, their former name is of no interest to the public and there is no reason to include it, and a good reason – namely, courtesy – to exclude it. Note that the fact that they are trans is allowed to be included, since that is clearly of interest to the public.
In fact, Wikipedia is pretty consistent on this. The same courtesy is extended to, for example, the streamer Jerma985 whose real name you won't find anywhere in his article. It formerly contained a fake real name, which he presents as his real name, presumably to protect his privacy, but even that has now been removed.
This isn't the only instance of Wikipedia being courteous with respect to non-notable people or things people did before they became notable. One Wikipedia policy says (emphasis mine):
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But it is possible to talk normally about her without mentioning her previous name.
The reason that Bob doesn't have to refer to Alice's religion by a name that Alice doesn't like is that he doesn't have to refer to it at all. This is not true for Alice's name. Using Alice's preferred name is not remaining neutral; it's giving in. Alice's name, in the trans context, makes an implicit statement about Alice that Bob doesn't believe in and therefore doesn't want to say.
Using someone's objectively real, legal name does not entail accepting that they are their stated gender. Someone could change their name for non-trans-related reasons, and you would presumably accept that.
That the new name is typically one used by the opposite gender is irrelevant. If someone had a gender-inappropriate name because their parents are weird – a boy named Sue or one of the many girls nowadays given traditionally masculine names – you surely wouldn't object to that, either.
It sometimes does, depending on context. "It's their legal name" is not magic--there's no reason why a name can't be someone's legal name and still imply a falsehood.
If someone was given a gender-inappropriate name by their parents, the parents typically aren't making a false claim about gender, they are making a false claim about how appropriate the name is, which is different.
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Exactly. How many of those who persistently refer to Alice as 'Alan', also refer to the thirty-eighth President of the United States as 'Leslie Lynch King', or the star of Hitchcock's North by Northwest as 'Archibald Leach'?
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