Okay, so I had joined the admin team of this FB community, and there had been some drama with the previous team.

One of the former admins (call him Eric) had become increasingly lazy, and hadn't been doing his job for months on end, and after many warnings, another admin (call him Lucian) removed him from the chat group, and told the other admins : "Let's see how long until he realizes he's out of the chat", to prove that Eric didn't give a damn anymore. Lucian said he'd accept Eric again if he had valid reasons for his absence. The other admins agreed on that whole process.

Now, it gets interesting, as Eric's girlfriend had just recently left the admin team (call her Lucie), and encouraged Lucian to kick her BF if he kept on not doing his job. They kept trying to send messages to Eric, but he wouldn't answer. Weeks later, Eric is completely removed from the team because he didn't even show up anymore.

It's at this moment that all hell broke loose. Eric realized he had been "fired", unbeknownst to him, and his GF, and friends start getting really mad at Lucian, telling him it was a disgusting way of getting rid of someone. Now, Eric, Lucian and Lucie knew each other for a long time, and had even been flatmates with some other people at some point. They were really close, and this completely nuked their friendship. Some other former flatmates got involved, and threw a full on Vendetta onto Lucian. Insulting him whenever they could, provoking him in the community, trying to tell all the members how horrible of an admin and person he was...

I had already been talking a lot to Lucian for a couple of years, and he offered me to join the admins team, and I accepted. I learnt about the story piece by piece. Thing is, I had okay relationships with Lucie and Eric as well, and each side was trying to pull me their way. "NaG, look how horrible this guy is!" "NaG, look at how they're treating me, even though I did what I had to do, and everybody agreed!".

Lucian felt really bad, because they used to be his friends, and he talked about leaving the team. Now, he's one of the guy who created this community, and takes care of most of the stuff, so losing him would have been a really hard blow to the community, and it would mean to lose hime too, as he would probably not interact with me, and work with me.

I had tried being as neutral as possible. Being an admin, I had to remove offensive posts from the groups, posted by the flatmates. It made me look like I was siding with Lucian to them, even though I was just doing my job.

One day, when Lucian threatened to leave the team, I snapped and started telling him to stay, and that leaving would mean that they win, that they are horrible persons, and they're bullying him cause they have nothing better to do with their lives. Now, I said this in a secret admin group, where only the few of us had access. The thing is, one of the newest admins was more on the Eric/Lucie side. She obviously took screen caps of my messages (which were quite aggressive, as I didn't want Lucian to leave, and tried to convince him he didn't do anything bad), and sent them to the people I was talking about. No one told me anything, and when we all met each other in real life, Eric refused to shake hands, and told me that there were some things I had said that I should apologize about and such. That's when I knew someone had relayed the messages to them, and I did apologize but it did nothing.

Funny part is that Lucian, Eric and Lucie are now all fine with each other, they're friends again, and now, I'm the guy they hate. I look like an asshole who judged people and insulted them without knowing them that much. I was trying to help a friend to not ruin years of work because of bullies, and I get fucked. In a way, it feels unfair, but I also realize I shouldn't have sided with anyone. It gets increasingly harder as months pass, and people talk a lot to you, on both sides, and try to get you to side with them. I shouldn't have gotten involved at all, and I regret saying all of that.

TL;DR : Took sides in a fight that did not involve me. Ended up saying bad things against some people, to prevent a friend from ruining years of work because of them. What I said ended up being relayed to said people. They confronted me about it, and I looked like an asshole. They all settled the argument, and got back to being friends. Except me, the asshole who took sides.

Morale of the story : Don't get involved in an argument that doesn't involve you. Just don't. Shut up, say nothing, wait for things to settle.