Ravelry, a social platform for the knitting community with eight million members, recently announced that it would no longer allow shows of support for President Trump on its site.
In explaining its reasoning for the ban, the site’s administrators wrote that “We cannot provide a space that is inclusive of all and also allow support for open white supremacy. Support of the Trump administration is undeniably support for white supremacy.”
You wouldn’t expect a knitting community to take such a large, heavily political measure.
It’s supposed to be an online community where members can share patterns and projects and progress updates and so on, a digital knitting circle.
However, ever since the Women’s March in January 2017, when women started to share their patterns for pink “pussy hats,” things have had a political bent to them.
And President Trump’s remarks following the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in May 2017 have dogged his presidency.
Now, the site’s administrators are not banning Trump supporters, but they are asking them to keep their views to themselves and banning forum posts, projects, patterns, profiles, and all other content that supports Trump.
They also said that they are not endorsing Democrats or banning Republicans.
“We are definitely not banning conservative politics. Hate groups and intolerance are different from other types of political positions,” they wrote.
They also explained that they wouldn’t ban anyone for past support, and that antagonizing Trump supporters or weaponizing this new policy against them wouldn’t be tolerated either.
Ravelry isn’t the first online community to enact such a policy.
Indeed, Ravelry cited a similar policy created for roleplaying game site RPG.net , which put its ban on Trump support into effect in October 2018, as inspiration for the knitters’ ban.
RPG.net wrote at the time that they were banning Trump support “because his public comments, policies, and the makeup of his administration are so wholly incompatible with our values that formal political neutrality is not tenable.”
Reaction to Ravelry’s announcement has been largely predictable.
Conservative commentators have criticized the ban, saying it suppresses free speech.
However, as a lawyer pointed out, as a private company, Ravelry can ban who they want to. Basically, in Ravelry’s house, you abide by Ravelry’s rules.
Among Ravelry’s users, the ban on Trump support was widely applauded.
“Wow! This bold step arises out of months-long discussions in the knitting community about how crafters and designers of color are marginalized, and reaffirms the long-standing, firm commitment of Ravelry for the LGBTQ+ community,” wrote Dr. Donna Bowman on Twitter . “No half measures in support of core principles.”
One small craft store even pledged to increase their ad spend on Ravelry.
It’s almost like the crafters on the site were fed up with unnecessarily hateful posts and just want to talk about knitting!
