Here’s their full explanation: https://lemmy.world/post/49817942
It’s pretty long and includes some insightful details about implementation (making the blocklist’s usage at the discretion of the instance admin though not transparent of its contents and defaulting it to enabled) but this quote boils down the underlying sentiment pretty well:
“These are all rough edges of the threadiverse which I am attempting to round off so we might actually be able to retain some level headed people instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel by being a dumping ground for people rejected by civil society."
When you examine the list, by and large, it’s pretty reasonable. Lots of false news, state propaganda, spammers, etc. But also the entire lemmy.blahaj.zone instance (where many of lemmy’s trans denizens call home). We’re included in what the lead developer describes as “bottom of the barrel” “people rejected by civil society.”
Though I do fear the backlash. You’ve got a bunch of malicious spammers, hate-mongers and blackhat state actors who now have an open window to cause a lot of harm (harassment & general sowing of discontent) with the convenient smoke screen of upset trans folks who it can be blamed on.
Not necessarily.
While it’s true that the job listing was probably fake, the reason for listing it is often to collect data on the current hiring pool, including how much response can be expected when listing a role with varying salaries. HR departments take this insight back to their current employees and use it to decide who to give raises to and who can be replaced by someone new who will work for less.