Submit

I joined the Submit Discord in February when Apollyon said he was asking for feedback on his ethics and policies. Almost immediately, I saw him silence two trans voices in a discussion about trans experiences. It was the first sign that something wasn't quite right.

In the months that followed, launch deadlines turned into later deadlines. When users started arriving on the site, they were used as unpaid bug checkers, then asked for backer money for the favour. 

Several of my friends did free marketing on Fetlife for Submit and earned bans in the process. One sent out hundreds of marketing messages. Now he doesn't have a kink home. Apollyon alienated him and several others based on the missed launch deadlines and odd moderation failures the site had begun to rack up. He was a permanent part of my Fet experience for years, and now he's alone.

We didn't talk much about ethics on that Discord, but there was a lot of dogpiling. Some members complained that it was the exact opposite of what the founder had promised. Submit was supposed to be safer, not crueler, or more dangerous. A insisted that people needed to deal with the "trauma" they'd experienced on Fet, so he kept his venting channel open. They didn't speak about trauma, though. They attacked people. People like the young Fetlifian who Apollyon had dogpiled for posting a bit of criticism of Submit on Fetlife, and people like me. Those pile-ons were no less traumatic on Submit's server than they were on Fetlife. 

Early on, Apollyon hired a moderator who’s been running a smear campaign against me for seven years. I took the issue to him. We had a short discussion, and then he stopped replying. I left the Discord in March, but we picked the conversation back up a few weeks later. He didn’t believe my claims about his toxic moderator. He “Lolled” and “I don’t cared” all over that conversation. I found him callous, adolescent, and unprofessional.

It quickly became clear that he didn't have the time to treat his users ethically. He just didn’t have the infrastructure or education to manage the rapid scaling he was attempting. When I got to know him better, I realised he wasn’t *capable* of treating us ethically either. He was too thin-skinned to cope with mild criticism directed at himself, and too selfish to act on severe attacks on others.

These days I'm told Apollyon and the toxic mod have been smearing me on the Discord using my Fetlife username. Safe, you said? Free of abuse, you said?

In March this year I told my Facebook followers that the site would probably not meet its promised launch deadline in April. I felt accountable to them because I'd brought them to Submit on my own steam. Apollyon wasn't happy. My post had said the missed Submit deadlines and glitches were “becoming incredibly sad to watch." He experienced that quotation as an attack. He doesn't hold himself to the standards he was holding me, though. Attacks are only bad when the site owner is receiving them, not when he doles them out. He told his users I had to "earn back his trust" despite the fact that I wasn't even a member of his website.

He didn't mention the trust he had lost by repeatedly pushing his launch deadline or ignoring the daily mobbing. Somehow, he was never apologetic about that.

The venting channel never stopped dogpiling me. They were doing it when I left in March, and they were doing it when BJ was banned a few weeks ago. At the time, I was in the middle of a serious depression relapse following a three-year harassment campaign. The worse the Discord dogpiles became, the worse my depression grew. I cried most days, and I usually cried all day, but nobody at Submit cared about that. Nobody was willing to do anything. They had demonised me, so I didn't matter.

Unlike Fetlife, Submit doesn’t act on spotting as a rule; only when it benefits them. You can target someone for as long as you like by their username, even if they aren't on the site. There's not a damn thing you can do about it. They’ll watch your Fet profile, comment from the Discord, and enjoy the dogpile of the day, replete with lies that will circle back to Fetlife. Submit won't do anything about them. Quite the opposite. Apollyon and at least one of his mods participate in that kind of thing. 

Apollyon ultimately pivoted to a Black member, literally in the middle of a dogpile he was engaging in targeting me. This time he reportedly issued a ban for four lines of “anger” under the guise of protecting a moderator. The Discord did what it had always done: enjoyed a virulent dogpile that went on for almost 20 days. Having experienced dogpiles that occupy entire platforms myself, I can inform you that 20 days is a long fucking time. This is the kind of widespread vitriol people commit suicide over. My publisher coined the word "bullycide" for it, and I feel it's an apt word. 

Apollyon ultimately admitted to racism, issued an apology to people who couldn't *see* that apology, then posted an automated mod note barring users from discussing the banned individual.

Effectively, he had attacked the Black community, then silenced them when they were trying to work out if the site was safe for them.

Members started jumping ship due to the racism and silencing of Black members, so naturally the topic of the day became refunds. Backers have paid on the basis of several months of missed deadlines, but the founder's policy is if you paid more than three days ago, you can't get your money back, despite the fact that the site hasn't fully launched and hasn't lived up to its promises. 

Yesterday, a Submit user posted a short guide for those who wanted to leave and get a refund via Patreon.

So Submit allegedly banned him, too.

It also reportedly put someone on timeout for asking for a refund.

Over the last few days, channels have been put on two to six-hour slowdowns. I'm told queer people have been silenced, and others have been banned. This isn’t the end for Submit, though. I think this is just the beginning, and it’s not going to get prettier from here.