Interview with Mike of DSI
Tarro:
Before we start things off, I just wanted to check. I know DSI is pretty secretive with its members, are you okay with disclosing your name and position within DSI, or are we keeping you anonymous?
Mike:
Yeah, I’m fine. And it’s mostly my prerogative to choose what info needs to be public. I’m just going to be careful about it.
Tarro:
Alright well, thanks for taking the time to talk with me! I know you always have a ton going on. I have a lot of questions, so let’s just get right into it. Normally I like to introduce my interviewees, but since this is an organization, can you explain what DSI is, and what its basic goals are?
Mike:
As an organization, the DSI is mostly an agreement between many different animal-themed Telegram chats about who will be 100% unwelcome in our spaces, and how we collect and review evidence about those people and come to decisions.
It’s basically an anti-abuse message, a baseline for all chats.
Tarro:
That sounds like a really awesome idea! What was the inspiration for starting this project?
Mike:
From my own understanding, Lykon thought up his first ideas about DSI after receiving evidence from Akela about a zoosadist in his groups. It was in early 2021, after Lykon had set up some popular Telegram groups and had been running ZooCommunity for a few months.
Lykon understood that our community’s “hunting culture” caused a lot of problems, and he had instituted a “no hunters” rule in his own groups. Those are people who hang around in abuse-sharing groups in an attempt to hunt down the people who use those spaces. He realised there needed to be a way to help everyone share this sort of information without involving themselves in (and becoming a participant of) abusive environments.
Tarro:
Wow. Lykon really does come up with all the ideas. I didn’t realize that he was behind this one too! As far as I’m aware, this is a totally zoo led project, but it’s something that I think would be pretty beneficial to a lot of different spaces. Has there been any kind of effort to reach out to different furry or feral groups to implement the program there?
Mike:
It’s actually a rumour spread by our detractors that only zoo groups are in the DSI. Though it was started by zoos, we tried hard to involve other furries, ferals, and therians, and we have some non-zoo spaces that are using this system.
The whole “double shield” thing is a sort of visible brand, and it’s very common today for concern trolls to go around asking brands, “Are you going to allow these people to be part of this?” and then to go to everyone else and say, “This brand is allowing them!!!” You can see it on Twitter when people put Hourly Wolves or such on the spot if a zoo happens to follow them.
As far as Lykon, his strength has always been in including others in his ideas and allowing those things to be taken on by the culture. He’s always found it a burden to manage these things, but in the end it truly takes a village.
Tarro:
That’s cool to hear. It seems like the kind of system that works best with as many different groups feeding into the same network of information as possible. Is there any kind of story behind the name “double shield initiative”? Or is it just a secure sounding title?
Mike:
There were actually no changes to the name since he revealed it to us at the end of February in 2021. The idea is to take a stand against the abuse we’ve seen. I should ask him what made him think about two shields? In practical terms, I imagine that wielding two shields acts as a rejection of the sword. These are our communities being affected, and the actions we’re taking represent a focus on our own stances and how we stand together.
Tarro:
For a total guess on what the name means, that’s a great answer! I do really like the imagery of that. So, I’m not sure if you have the number or are willing to tell us, but how many different groups is DSI a part of?
Mike:
We have close to 150 individual spaces, representing a mix of channels and groups across completely different segments of Telegram.
Tarro:
So as I understand it, DSI helps groups to track problematic individuals so they can’t just hop from group to group causing issues. Is there levels to the amount of notoriety someone has with DSI, or is it a binary system between good and bad?
Mike:
A lot of people think in binaries, and it causes problems. At the very least, I urge people to think in a trinary where there’s a middle “neutral” value. We’ll say things like “Well, I’m not surprised!” and what we’re expressing is that we could have been expecting it (negative surprise) or not (neutral).
The DSI takes a stance against people we’ve determined cannot be members of our spaces, the way they’re acting now. Further, we restrict that to evidence based on animal abuse or child abuse. But there are a lot of other people in our community who we might still shy away from, and others who need our guidance to get to a better place, and others still who are working hard to overcome the mistakes of their past.
Tarro:
So, now that we’ve got the basics down, I want to get into some of the details. While DSI has some amazing potential benefits for the community as a whole, there’s also been some pushback against it. If it’s okay with you, I do think some of them are worth addressing. The first thing I wanted to ask about is the complaint I hear the most about. When it comes to deciding who is and isn’t a threat to the community, there’s an obvious concern about what constitutes abuse and what doesn’t. What exactly are the actions that will put you on the list, and what actions are safe? For instance, is sharing pornographic fictional works involving animal suffering or underage children a violation?
Mike:
We made sure from the beginning to avoid working based on identity or on fictional works. You can read our foundational definition on our channel https://t.me/doubleshieldinitiative/9 . Most people have nothing to worry about, of course. I suppose roleplay would be the most likely place where messages could be taken out of context. Usually, though, we deal with people who’ve sent obviously abusive media and indicate that they’re looking for more of the same. Because of Telegram’s privacy features, it’s attracted a whole stream of criminal minds who are openly soliciting that sort of material.
Tarro:
Another complaint I hear about a lot is “guilt by association.” Basically, if you’re friends with someone that’s an abuser, or you’re in a group that has abusers in it, even if you’re not you still get flagged in the DSI log as well. Can you talk a little bit about whether guilt by association exists, and if so what it practically looks like behind the scenes?
Mike:
Thankfully, no, it doesn’t work that way.
It turns out that when an institution penalizes you, the easiest way to regain access may be to malign the institution. There have been several people who were found to be in violation and who then started complaining about random things on Twitter where they could gain a sympathetic ear. A lot of this has to do with associations, lists, or nefarious third-parties. All the sorts of things that the rumor mills find yummy to chew on.
Tarro:
When someone gets flagged by the system, do you generally reach out to let the person know that they’ve been given a warning, or that they’re blacklisted?
Mike:
This sort of community structure needs to roll out in stages. At first, we really needed to get the word out to the community and get other partner spaces so we wouldn’t be “a few groups trying to control things.” It was against our interests to tell abusive people they were being removed from groups, because the rumour mill would have started sooner. At this point, we’re entering a new stage where we have new responsibilities as a presence in our safer community, and so we’re working through a set of changes to implement over the next few months. One of those will be to allow our partners to speak a bit more about the initiative, and another will be to give people a clear answer about whether they’re suffering sanctions and what they were generally found guilty of. We also want to make our appeal system clearer, because as time goes on there will be people who are honest about what they’ve done and are working to better themselves. That could lead us to yet another stage where we aid in some people’s recovery.
To speak further about our system, as it stands: we recognize that everyone we remove from our community could struggle to find other safe communities, and that we’re doing all this because of a widespread cultural sickness. To speak of “our system,” it sounds like we’ve got a computer making decisions somehow, but all the evidence is reviewed by community leaders in DSI, who then come to decisions.
Tarro:
You touched on it in the last answer, but I think it bears a more specific answer. Is there a way for people that get blacklisted to reach out and ask for what they did, as well as ask for the evidence that DSI has on hand to justify that ban? As I’m sure you can understand, there’s the opportunity for DSI to just ban people without cause, and so having some way to show the details behind a ban could help to show that the system is getting the right targets.
Mike:
The DSI Helper Bot will eventually tell you whether you’ve been put under sanctions, and will list out the staff members you can talk to.
We don’t hand out evidence, due to the nature of most of it, as well as the sensitive privacy of sources. One of the big roadblocks is that most of the people who confront me about their case will lie to me about being innocent even when we’ve got multiple pieces of evidence linking them to some really nasty content. I don’t know if I truly understood the term ‘gaslighting’ before, but if we didn’t have this solid evidence I would feel like I was living in some kind of shifting fantasy world.
In fact, if someone has been sanctioned, the very least they’ll need to do is think about how their conduct has enabled abuse to proliferate in our spaces. At this point in time, there is unlikely to be any case where we were simply wrong.
The accountability is built into the trust systems of DSI. These cases are decided collectively by the owners of groups in our community, and any partner can request evidence about someone they’ve had to remove. So while people who hear rumors are unable to verify it themselves, it’s still possible to trust these decisions across the community. And of course, the larger DSI gets, more leaders will see these cases, and lend their own credence.
Tarro:
Looking down the line a little bit, where would you like to see DSI in a few months, a year, and then in your dream future? What role does it serve both in and out of the zoo community?
Mike:
We’ve seen a transformation where zoos, at least, know there’s someone to go to if they find something horrible. That never existed before, and whistleblowers used to be punished because they were rocking the boat.
I think there’s another step the zoo community needs to take as we realize what it means for us: We can put some investment into the people in our communities, and work to change poor attitudes about animals and their autonomy. We can create an expectation that rape is not okay.
And if it sounds like we should already be there, remember that just four short years ago you’d be laughed out of the room if you complained about someone posting an abusively forceful video. We had no power to better ourselves. Things were grim. So the fact that we’re able to take these little beginning steps now fills me with new hope.
We’re continually thinking about how things can be done better, internally. Some of that is technical, some is process, and every once in a while we think about new directions to move in. I expect that work to continue.
In the far future, I dearly hope our “blast them out the airlock” approach is no longer needed nor the best tool at our disposal. I want new initiatives to exist that work to connect zoos with mental health resources, and I want a culture where experienced zoos stick around as mentors and no one ends up in “hard” groups because they didn’t know better. Maybe at that point the DSI will become something else entirely, or can focus on only bad-faith cases where there doesn’t seem to be anything else the community can do.
Tarro:
If someone sees something that makes them uncomfortable, or has someone try and share abuse content with them, how can they report that?
Mike:
Use the DSI Helper Bot (@DSI_Helper_Bot on Telegram) to prepare yourself with some information about what we look for. There are buttons under those sections to declare that something is abusive, and to start an evidence process.
Keep your head on straight. Make sure to take screenshots that show the context. Forward original content into the bot, keeping in mind that forwarding a forward won’t show who sent it to you. Record your screen, if possible, clicking on multiple elements and their profile to show that it’s a live session. Use a separate camera to film secret chats if you’re suspicious of someone. If you’re using an alternate Telegram app, like Plus Messenger or Nicegram, it can show their unique user ID even if they don’t have a username.
Moreover: Don’t stress yourself too much over it. We appreciate tips when something happens, but never try to hunt someone across spaces. And never feel that you have a duty to enter any bad groups that you find.
Tarro:
Okay, something more personal to me that I’ve been talking about for AGES is getting DSI into Discord. The Zooey Magazine Discord server (#plug) has around 150 members, and is generally pretty active, and I have been BEGGING to get DSI verification into there to help keep things safe. And the magazine server is far from the only zoo space. Where are we with getting DSI into Discord?
Mike:
Luckily, Discord is a safer platform than Telegram. I mean, some would say it’s “not safe for zoos,” and they mean that your account will be deleted if you share any bestiality. Because there’s no content allowed, communities usually don’t have to worry as much about content seekers.
That said, we’re trying to replicate the same process we have on Telegram. Our evidence relies on platform details that allow us to verify that specific accounts belong to the people we are sanctioning, and those rules are different on Discord from Telegram. It’s a work in progress that we hope to roll out with all our planned updates in a couple months. And it won’t just be Discord, we hope to be able to include web sites like ZooCommunity.org as well. The anti-abuse message should work just as well on any platform.
Tarro:
Okay! Last thing to wrap things up here! Is there anything else you’d like to leave our readers with when it comes to DSI?
Mike:
Uhhhhhh, collectible tokens? Info pamphlets? I guess I’ll have to settle for some words of wisdom:
As zoos, it almost seems we’re beset on all sides. All that fear and loathing we find reflected onto us ends up coming from one main area, though: human attitudes towards animals. Until we come together as zoos to change those attitudes, we will be compared to the zoosadist who abuses animals for their own pleasure, or the normie who castrates their animals to keep them as little fur-babies, or the farmer who “disposes” of animals as needed, or the furry who denounces us in fear of society. At this moment, each of those people can be zoos. I’ve seen each of those zoos. And each fail to understand some of the simple truths about animals. The power of zoo voices will come from understanding those truths and speaking them. And, in the end, by winning others to our side in recognition of their autonomy or even their personhood. Everything else we do is just a step on the field as we try to move toward those goals.
And it is built on each little step. We’re relying on all of you to make the journey with us.
Tarro:
Alright, well, thanks so much for taking the time to do this! I really support the idea of DSI, and I hope that this clears up some of the misconceptions around it! For more information, you can check out the DSI Telegram page at https://t.me/doubleshieldinitiative . Thanks so much for being here Mike, and to everyone else I hope to see you in the next article!
Interview conducted between Tarro and Mike the Dog (November 12th, 2022)
Find Tarro at https://twitter.com/hereforthezoo
And Mike at https://twitter.com/DogMikeZC
Questions, comments or concerns, find the discussion thread at zoocommunity, or join our Discord server!
