Update:
The comments from this post will not be removed as to preserve the discussion around the announcement. Any continued discussions outside of this thread that violate server rules will be removed. We feel that everyone that has an opinion, and wanted to vent, has been heard.
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Original post:
Yesterday, we received information about the planned federation by Hexbear. The announcement thread can be found here: https://www.hexbear.net/post/280770. After reviewing the thread and the comments, it became evident that allowing Hexbear to federate would violate our rules.
Our code of conduct and server rules can be found here.
The announcement included several concerning statements, as highlighted below:
- “Please try to keep the dirtbag lib-dunking to hexbear itself. Do not follow the Chapo Rules of Posting, instead try to engage utilizing informed rhetoric with sources to dismantle western propaganda. Posting the western atrocity propaganda and pig poop balls is hilarious but will pretty quickly get you banned and if enough of us do it defederated.”
- “The West’s role in the world, through organizations such as NATO, the IMF, and the World Bank - among many others - are deeply harmful to the billions of people living both inside and outside of their imperial core.”
- “These organizations constitute the modern imperial order, with the United States at its heart - we are not fooled by the term “rules-based international order.” It is in the Left’s interest for these organizations to be demolished. When and how this will occur, and what precisely comes after, is the cause of great debate and discussion on this site, but it is necessary for a better world.”
The rhetoric and goal of Hexbar are clear based on their announcement: to “dismantle western propaganda” and "demolish organizations such as NATO” shows that Hexbar has no intention of "respecting the rules of the community instance in which they are posting/commenting.” It’s to push their beliefs and ideology.
In addition, several comments from a Hexbear admin, demonstrate that instance rules will not be respected.
Here are some examples:
“I can assure you there will be no lemmygrad brigades, that energy would be better funneled into the current war against liberalism on the wider fediverse.”
“All loyal, honest, active and upright Communists must unite to oppose the liberal tendencies shown by certain people among us, and set them on the right path. This is one of the tasks on our ideological front.”
- https://lemmy.world/comment/121850
- https://lemmy.world/comment/1487168
- https://lemmy.world/comment/1476084
- https://lemmy.world/comment/171595
- https://www.hexbear.net/comment/3648500
Overall community comments:
- https://www.hexbear.net/comment/3526128
- https://www.hexbear.net/comment/3526086
- https://www.hexbear.net/comment/3652828
To clarify, for those who have inquired about why Hexbear versus Lemmygrad, it should be noted that we are currently exploring the possibility of defederating from Lemmygrad as well based on similar comments Hexbear has made.
- https://lemmygrad.ml/post/158656
- https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/882559
- https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/540170
- https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/446529
Defederation should only be considered as a last resort. However, based on their comments and behavior, no positive outcomes can be expected.
We made the decision to preemptively defederate from Hexbear for these reasons. While we understand that not everyone may agree with our decision, we believe it is important to prioritize the best interests of our community.
Let me guess, your examples are Finland and Sweden, two countries that have been gradually dismantling their welfare states for decades?
Is that the best you’ve got? Systems that have been “gradually dismantled for decades” but still provide a higher quality of life for their citizens than not just the US but every single authoritarian government. Also the list is a lot bigger than two countries.
Do you practice being this stupid or does it come naturally?
I mean, that’s the best the West has got. Everywhere else, social security is considerably worse and means-tested. Plus, both have got right-wing governments that aren’t exactly fans of social security: the last right-wing Finnish government introduced an ”activation” system for unemployment which was so bureaucratic a lot of people’s benefits were cut for not being able to jump through arbitary hoops, and they’re bringing a similar system back, as well as cutting many, more focused benefits. What @Lenins2ndCat@lemmy.world said also applies here, since the whole welfare state only exists due to the CIA funding social democrats during the Cold War as a counter to socialism.
There’s many more factors to consider than whether or not a country is AuThOrItArIaN. A country living off the backs of the global south can give its citizens a better standard of living than countries in the global south? Surprised Pikachu.
I mean, that’s the best the West has got.
Are you sure? And yet, even if it is, it’s still providing better quality of life for more citizens than anything that came before it.
Plus, both have got right-wing governments that aren’t exactly fans of social security
You mean there’s a number of voters that would vote for non-socially democratic parties and that those parties would try to dismantle socialised institutions? Surprised Pikachu.
You are aware that there’s idiots voting for anti-social parties in even the most socially advanced countries too right, you’re not just disingenuously blaming the ineffectualities of the system on those that support it, right?
What does the CIA have to do with the anti-social masses in all the other countries around the world? Doesn’t take a psyop campaign to find authoritarian morons.
There’s many more factors to consider than whether or not a country is AuThOrItArIaN
Yeah, like how their populace votes.
A country living off the backs of the global south can give its citizens a better standard of living than countries in the global south?
No shit. Just like a country that engages in good faith democratic representation and supports social services can also provide better healthcare and happiness index ratings than the US, Russia, and China.
What on earth are you on about? The USSR provided guaranteed housing and employment for all citizens. Cuba has a world-class universal health system despite more than half a century under economic sanctions. China will exceed the living standards of the Western working class within this generation. And the “welfare” states of the West, even before they were dismantled, were only possible under capitalism because of the enormous wealth that the West had accrued by economic imperialism.
How’s that USSR working out?
Yes, Cuba, a country that despite not having the ability to exploit ‘the global south’ still has better health and happiness than “exploitative” countries, refer to my last point from the rest of the conversation below that you chose to ignore, you’re agreeing with me.
China has just been through the harshest pandemic lock down of all countries and still failed to avoid economic suffering, are you really so ignorant to think their populace is happy? The same populace with 24% unemployment in the under 25 age bracket? The same populace under the boot of an authoritarian leader that disallows dissent?
Do you practice being this stupid or does it come naturally?
Achieved by the ideology of the very people you’re currently suppressing. All you’re doing is moving this community hard-right, alienating the left by saying “this is not for you”.
How do you think this discussion is gonna go down every single time this community ever gets linked anywhere now? It’s gonna be “the community that banned socialists” and it’s gonna attract the neoliberals and the far right as a result while ensuring everyone that leans remotely left says “oh, fuck that then”. It’s a completely shortsighted move for the future of the instance. It’s going to have nazi bar syndrome.
As soon as we had that PM where you said “survival of the fittest” to me I knew something was up. You literally quoted Thatcherite/Ayn Randian philosophy to justify selectively not intervening in name squatting and community theft, a move that completely fucked over this instance’s potential to work with any subreddit modteams in further hastening the reddit migration. Livid that I was led on by this place to begin with.
Oh you mean that time where you asked me to remove the current mod from !gamingcirclejerk@lemmy.world? Where you asked me to either add you as a topmod or rename the existing one because you were the moderators of that community on Reddit?
I told you to pick it up with the current one or to create it on another instance. I said that with your entire reddit community behind you you would quickly become to bigger “gamingcirclejerk” without me having to intervene. It was in that context that I called it “survival of the fittest” of communities on instances. Nothing too philosophical about that.
Feel free to post our entire conversation here.
