Hey folks
I have been receiving a lot of messages every single day about federation with hexbear. Some of our users are vehemently against it, others are in full support. The conversation does not seem to be dying down, rather, the volume of messages I receive about it seems to be increasing, so I am opening this public space where we can openly discuss the topic.
I am going to write a wall of text about my own thoughts on the situation, I’m sorry, but no tl;dr this time, and I ask anybody participating in this thread to first read through this post before commenting.
Before I go any further, I want to be clear that for anybody who participates here, it is required to focus on the quality of your posts. That means:
- Be kind to each other, even if you disagree
- Use arguments rather than calling people names
- Realize that this is a divisive topic, so your comments should be even more thoughtful than usual
With that out of the way, there are a few things I want to cover.
On defederation in general
First of all, I am a firm believer that defederation must be reserved only for cases where all other methods have failed. If defederation is used liberally, then a small group of malicious users can effectively completely shut down the federated network, by simply creating the type of drama between instances which would inevitably result in defederation. In my view, federation is the biggest strength of Lemmy compared to any centralized discussion forum, so naturally I think maintaining federation by default is an important goal in general.
I am also a believer in the value of deplatforming hateful content, but I think defederation is not the best way to do this. Banning individual users, banning communities and establishing a culture of mutual support between mods and admins of different instances should be the first line of defense against such content. There are some further steps that can be taken before defederation as well, but these are not really documented anywhere (in order to prevent circumvention). The point is: for myself, defederation is the absolute last resort, only to be used when it is completely clear that other methods are ineffective.
Finally, I am wary of creating a false expectation among lemm.ee users that lemm.ee admins endorse all users and communities and content on instances we are federated with. Here at lemm.ee, we use a blocklist for federation, which means our default apporach is to federate with all new instances. We do not have the resources (manpower, skills and knowledge) necessary to pass judgement on all instances which exist out there, as a result, users on lemm.ee are expected to curate their own content to quite a high degree. In addition to downvoting and/or reporting as necessary, individual lemm.ee users are also able to block specific users and communities, and the ability to block entire instances is coming very soon as well.
Having said all that, in a situation where all other methods do indeed fail, defederation is not out of the question. Making such a call is up to the discretion of lemm.ee admins, and doing it as a last resort is completely in line with our federation policy.
Regarding hexbear
Hexbear is an established Lemmy instance, focused on many flavors of leftism. They have quite a large userbase who are very active on Lemmy (often so active that they leave the impression brigading all popular Lemmy posts). One important thing to note is that while some forms of bigotry seem to be quite accepted by many hexbear users (but seemingly not by mods - more on that below), they at least are very protective of LGBT rights (and yes, I am quite certain that they are not just pretending to do this, as many users seem to believe). Additionally, while I have noticed quite high quality posts from hexbear users, there are also several users there who seem to really enjoy trolling and baiting (very reminiscent of 4chan-type “for the lulz” posting), and it’s important to note that this kind of posting is in general allowed on hexbear itself.
The reason this whole topic is important to so many people right now (despite hexbear being a relatively old instance), is that hexbear only recently enabled federation. A combination of their volume of posts, their strong convictions, the excitement about federation, and the aforementioned trolling has made them very visible to almost all Lemmy users, and this has sparked discussions about the value of federation with hexbear on a lot of Lemmy instances.
My own experience with hexbear
I want to write down my own experience with interacting with hexbear users, mods, and admins over the past few days. I believe this experience will highlight why I am hesitant to advocate for immediate full defederation from hexbear at this point in time, and am for now still more in favor of taking action on a more individual user basis. Please read and see how you feel about the situation afterwards.
Background
My first real contact with hexbear users was in the comments section of a post in this meta community requesting defederation from hexbear by @glimpythegoblin@lemm.ee. That post is now locked, because several hexbear users very quickly started doing the aforementioned “for the lulz” type spamming of meme images in the comments (these are actually just emojis, but they are rendered as full-size images on all instances other than the source instance, due to a current Lemmy bug).
I did not want to take further actions in that thread in general (for archival purposes), but I did take one action, which in retrospect was a mistake: I removed a comment which contained the hammer and sickle symbol. I ignorantly associated this symbolism with Kremlin propaganda, and the atrocities my own people suffered at the hands of the soviet union during the previous century. Many users (including hexbear users) correctly (and politely) pointed out to me in DMs that the symbol has a much broader use than just as the symbol of the USSR, and people elsewhere in the world may not associate it with the USSR at all. I am grateful for users who pointed this out to me without resorting to personal attacks.
Let me be clear here: while I do not have anything against leftism or communist ideas in general (in fact in today’s world, I think discussion of such ideas is quite necessary), Kremlin propaganda has no place on lemm.ee. Any dehumanizing talking points of the Kremlin on lemm.ee are treated as any other bigotry, and if communist symbolism is used in context of Kremlin propaganda (that is the context in which I have been exposed to it throughout my whole life), then it will still be removed. But there is no blanket ban on communist symbolism in general on lemm.ee, and discussing and advocating for leftist and communist topics (as distinct from the imperialist and dehumanizing policies of the Kremlin) is certainly allowed on lemm.ee.
Hexbear user response
Coming back to the events of the past few days: soon after my removal of the comment containing the symbol from the meta thread, two posts popped up on hexbear. One was focused on insulting and spreading lies about me personally. Another was focused on diminishing the horrors of the soviet occupation in my country. In the comments under both of these posts (and in a few other threads on hexbear), I noticed some seriously disturbing bigotry against my people. There were comments which reflected the anti-Estonian propaganda of the current Russian state, things like:
- Suggesting that my people has no right to exist
- Stating that my people (and other Baltic nations) are subhuman
- Claiming that anybody critical of both nazi and soviet occupations is themselves a nazi and a holocaust denier
I expect to hear such statements from the Russian state - here in Estonia, we are subjected to this and other kinds of bigotry constantly from Russian media - but to see it spread openly in non-Russian channels is extremely disturbing. Such bigotry is completely against lemm.ee rules in general. Additionally, my identity is public information, because I feel it’s important for the integrity of lemm.ee that I don’t hide behind anonymity. Considering this, I’m sure you can understand why I am very worried about my own safety when people leave comments in many unrelated threads (where my original posts are not even visible), baselessly calling me a nazi and a holocaust denier.
Note that the goal of this post is not to start a new debate in the comments about the the repressions of the soviet union in Estonia or other occupied territories, but if the topic interests any users, I can recommend the 2006 documentary The Singing Revolution (imdb). The trailer is a bit cheesy, but the actual film contains lots of historical footage from the soviet occupation, and also many interviews with people who experienced it, who share stories which are deeply familiar to all Estonians. If anybody is interested in further discussion, then I suggest making a post about it in the Estonian community here: !eesti@lemm.ee.
Hexbear admin response
After the above events had played out, I reached out to hexbear admins for clarification on their moderation policies and how they handle such cases. I was actually very happy with their response:
- They immediately removed the personal attacks and dehumanizing comments containing Kremlin propaganda from Hexbear, and assured me that such content is always handled by mods
- They told me that while there are all kinds of leftists on hexbear, Russian disinformation is generally either refuted in comments or removed by mods
- They implemented some additional rules on hexbear to try and reduce the trolling experienced by many other instances, including ours: https://hexbear.net/post/352119
My personal take-aways
Let me play the devil’s advocate here and employ some “self-whataboutism”: among all users that have been banned on lemm.ee for bigotry, the majority were actually not users from other instances, and in fact people with lemm.ee accounts. If we judge any larger instance only by bigoted posts that some of its users make, then we might as well declare all instances as cesspools and close down Lemmy completely. I believe it’s far more useful to judge instances based on moderation in response to such content. Just as we remove bigoted content from lemm.ee, I have also witnessed bigoted content being removed from hexbear.
At the same time, I am aware of some internal conflict between hexbear users over the more strict moderation they are now starting to employ, and I am definitely keeping an eye on that situation and how admins handle it.
I am also still quite worried about the amount of distinct users on hexbear who have posted Kremlin propaganda. I so far don’t have reason to believe that these users are employed by the Russian state, but the fact that they are spreading the same hateful content which can be seen on Russian television seems problematic to say the least, and it remains to be seen if moderators can truly keep up with such content.
Where thing stand right now
I am not convinced that we are currently at a point where the “last resort” of defederation is necessary. This is based on the presumption that our moderation workload at lemm.ee will not get out of hand just due to users from that particular instance. My current expectation is that as the excitement of federation calms down (and as new rules on hexbear go into effect), the currently relatively high volume of low effort trolling will be replaced by more thoughtful posts. If this is not the case then we will certainly need to re-evaluate things.
Additionally, nothing is changing about our own rules regarding bigotry. Especially relevant in the context of Kremlin propaganda, I want to say that dehumanizing anybody is not allowed on lemm.ee (hopefully I do not have to spell it out, but this of course includes Ukrainians, LGBT folks, and others that the Kremlin despises), and action will be taken against any users who do this, regardless of what instance they are posting from.
Finally, I am very interested to hear thoughts and responses from our own users. I am super grateful to anybody who actually took the time to read through this massive dump of my own thoughts, and I am very interested to get a proper understanding of how our users feel about what I’ve written here. Please share any thoughts in the comments.
Stating that my people (and other Baltic nations) are subhuman
As a member of Hexbear for 3+ years I just want to say that this isn’t acceptable over here and would land people with a very serious reprimand or a permaban if they don’t admit to being in the wrong for this. The use of “subhuman” in particular is fascist behaviour and I’d assume it is wreckers rather than longstanding members, it’s not language that socialists are fond of.
The only other thing I will say is that I genuinely appreciate that you’re building this community with your userbase and having these conversations, it’s the correct way to create a unique community culture and have people care about the space.
The use of “subhuman” in particular is fascist behaviour and I’d assume it is wreckers rather than longstanding members, it’s not language that socialists are fond of.
That’s not true at all. Look at any post about landlords or Zelenskyy or “bourgeoisie”. Count the number of pictures or references to guillotines.
I’ve already personally blocked the whole instance because it’s not worth arguing with people over and over.
Edit: you can see from the comments below what I’m talking about. I don’t care who these people think “deserve” the label of “subhuman”. I don’t want to interact with people who talk like that or think like that. That’s why I block them all.
I don’t know if defederation is the answer, but this instance is clearly a haven for these people. So I have already taken action.
There is a difference between calling someone subhuman which is the rhetoric of people that believe that various races of humanity are more human than others(fascist master race rhetoric) vs calls to eat the rich through the use of guillotine memes. The latter is just radical and militant activism. The former is fascist rhetoric. The latter also has a place in mainstream society already as something that is regularly the centerpiece of art.
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It appears posting memes about assassinating people for ideology is something that both extreme left and extreme right tend to do, and that’s something that non-extreme people, unsurprisingly, don’t seem to be fond of.
The fact that you’re here in our meta thread for our users to discuss the situation arguing the really doesn’t help with the image of Hexbear users brigading other communities.
Agreeing with something a ukraine flag pfp says? Truly the world has gone mad.
Guillotines […] reference perhaps the most important part in late medieval European history
The guillotine is best known for its use in France, particularly during the French Revolution. The French revolution was late 18th century, long after the Middle Ages had ended.
And Guillotines are not even Socialist references, they reference perhaps the most important part in late medieval European history.
Not only are you wrong on calling it medieval as stated by others, but you’re also wrong about saying it has nothing to do with Socialism. The French Revolution, the Paris Commune (name rings a bell?) and Robespierre are major references of the European left culture.
Awoo has already noted some important refutations, but I want to unpack something here.
Landlords and Bourgeoisie are class identities. Importantly, these are not the result of things outside of your control (i.e. ethnic origin, nation, etc.) but instead determined by actions in the world. While one can’t say that one is subhuman because of where they are from, isn’t being a landlord (and thus extracting rent from people for shelter) a behavior? A series of actions and choices? And can’t we characterize a behavior or action as evil/immoral? Basically, when I say “landlords are evil and deserve to die or surrender their assets to the collective” what I’m describing is a particular set of actions. It’s not different from having an opinion on if murderers deserve capital punishment.
Btw, I believe in rehabilitative punishment. However, if we’re going to talk about people who deserve to die, I think capitalists and landlords are up there. A person who kills someone else – either due to mental illness or a crime of passion – is far less damaging to our social fabric than people who, through institutions, contribute to the death of our world and the immiseration of many. For instance, how many unhoused people have gone hungry/died because of the executives at Starbucks who decide that food thrown out should be covered in coffee grounds to be inedible? We don’t have the numbers, but shouldn’t we call this behavior subhuman/evil? I think you’re missing the distinction between saying the executive who designed that policy deserves the gulag – a specific inhuman action that deserves a specific response – and calling all insert ethnicity/nationality here subhuman.
This is highly offtopic flamebait that will trigger a protracted argument of little substance.
Further, how you’ve casually slipped into a debate about capital punishment for enormous swathes of population is disturbing and disgusting. This is the lack of self awareness that others have mentioned here.
On topic, but I’ve actually had a couple of good landlords over the years. One guy would stop by once a month to check on the house and do landscaping. We used to have really good conversations when I saw him, and we would talk about how the neighborhood was doing, any issues with the house and so on and so forth. Whenever I had a maintenance issue, he would be there within a few days to handle it. He even kept rent increases to below inflation.
On the other hand, I’ve also heard people denigrate architects, lawyers, engineers, and tech support people. But landlords and lawyers in particular make great punching bags.
This is the kind of thing I really hate to see. It’s the reason I’m going to be leaving. You guys make a blanket statement like all landlords are evil because they extract rent for shelter. You don’t give any further reasoning. I’m sure you’ve collectively decided that through some illogical conversations on your home instance but you fail to make a valid point in the wild.
For example:
where are you expecting people to live?
These homes are owned by someone- they worked/paid/built them themselves.
Why do you think these people who have toiled for 40+years should just give you there invested money/work for free?
Why are they evil for using something they have worked for to help themselves?
Inevitably someone like you comes along and just shitposts this same rhetoric you just did with no logical backing behind it other than “evil landlords must die and be redistributed”
How is a house different from a farm? Or a rail system? Or a insert anything created by someone and used for personal gain?
Why don’t you go build your own house? Why aren’t you giving these unfortunate souls your own place?
To cap it all- you follow each other around in groups and rather than actually discussing you strawman, point people to communist propaganda, and generally troll anyone who disagrees with you. No one wants to join your club, no one wants to read your Marxism books etc. If you have a point- state it. Don’t point elsewhere and act like you won because we arent interested in your echochamber
Count the number of pictures or references to guillotines.
With varying degrees of seriousness, people call for violence against others all the time all over the internet. Go on any pro-Ukraine thread and you’ll find tons of bloodthirsty comments calling for the killing of Russian soldiers (you’ll often find variations of horrible stuff like “any Russian who isn’t in open revolt is a fair target,” too).
So first, what you are describing is not unique to Hexbear, and is in fact common. Second, if your response to my comparison is “well they’re talking about a war!”, so are we: every year capitalists wage war on the poor, killing millions by profit-driven deprivation of housing, food, medical care, etc. (see social murder).
It is pretty unique to hexbear and .ml on Lemmy from what I’ve seen. Even if what you just said was true (it’s not) that doesn’t excuse it
The reason dehumanizing someone is evil is, among other things, because it makes it easier for non-psychopathic people to kill them. If you’re ok with killing people even without dehumanizing them, that suggests very troubling things about you.
That’s not true at all. Look at any post about landlords or Zelenskyy or “bourgeoisie”. Count the number of pictures or references to guillotines.
This is like a children’s picture book-level of understanding of the differences between these. This same group of people are responsible for getting you things like healthcare, or the 8 hour work week, or fucking paid vacation. Maybe listen to them and read a little more before posting dumbass takes like this.
That’s hard to believe when it’s basically almost the only thing (and other serious and aggressive trolling and not trolling.) I’ve not seen any calm reasonable and rational responses from hexbear users until this post threatening to get rid of them
I am also still quite worried about the amount of distinct users on hexbear who have posted Kremlin propaganda. I so far don’t have reason to believe that these users are employed by the Russian state, but the fact that they are spreading the same hateful content which can be seen on Russian television seems problematic to say the least, and it remains to be seen if moderators can truly keep up with such content.
This was why my eyebrows raised when I saw the Hexbear admin response when they claim that “Russian disinformation is generally either refuted in comments or removed by mods”. Kremlin propaganda is rife in communities like chapotraphouse, and it certainly seems like the mods there let anything slide as long as it is isn’t outright incitement to violence.
I challenged claims made in a couple of different anti-Ukraine posts and despite the fact there were maybe one or two users whose responses were thoughtful, the majority were outright calling me an idiot and a retarded liberal (edit: correction; dumb fuck)
So far, my impression of HB’s userbase is pretty negative because the posts on there that make the front page here tend to be the more shit-posty ones.
That said, I appreciate @sunaurus for the stance he’s taking. There is some positive and thoughtful content on HB - you just have to block the noisier and more idiotic communities so it doesn’t get drowned out.
Yeah, and Russian propaganda is one thing, but he hasn’t mentioned Chinese PC one, and I noticed a lot of hexbear users being in support of them, which to me, is as much an anathema to the left as the Kremlin is.
Chinese PC
Is that PC “Parti Communiste”? As an FYI that is admittedly slightly off-topic, the official name in English is the Communist Party of China or CPC. A lot of anglophones call it the CCP to connect it to the USSR (CCCP in Russian) or just because they are repeating what anglophone journos call it uncritically.
I noticed a lot of hexbear users being in support of them, which to me, is as much an anathema to the left as the Kremlin is.
To be accurate, I don’t think anyone on Hexbear thinks modern-day Russia is a communist, socialist, or leftist state. Generally, we believe Russia is a capitalist state, led by profit-seeking oligarchs, and that Putin is just the leader of those oligarchs. No one on Hexbear actually thinks Putin is personally a good human being. The reason Hexbear appears “pro-Russia” is because we refute the claim that Putin launched the war against Ukraine because he is ontologically evil, a demon, a crazy man who has lost his mind, literally Hitler, etc. We recognize the complexity of the situation Putin was put in and see his launch of the war as a semi-logical response to decades of past history. Would it be better if the war never happened? Yes. But did the war just come out of nowhere? No. It’s complicated. It’s not a Hollywood movie. There are no action heroes.
Also, I don’t think anyone on Hexbear thinks modern-day China is a fully communist or socialist state right now. We are more hopeful that it will BECOME a fully socialist state in the next generation or two than most are. This is mainly because of the long list of actions that Xi has taken that are in line with orthodox Marxist philosophy. For fuck’s sake, Xi has a PhD in Marxism. That is not a joke - the president of China went back to school in his 30s and got a university degree in Marxist studies. Compare that to any US presidential candidate, who probably has never read a single page of Marx. It’s a stark difference. Hundreds of years of European propaganda about “Oriental Despotism” makes many in the west think that China is, by definition, evil. Heaxbear generally believes the situation to be more complex and nuanced. I mean, Obama literally ordered the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen (along with thousands of foreigners in the middle east) and yet most Americans think of the Chinese government as “more authoritarian” than America. Sure, okay. The numbers don’t add up.
But overall I think the discussion on foreign policy can be respectful and productive. Few will be convinced, but the debate can sharpen both sides. I appreciate any instance that has the patience to deal with Hexbear and our neurotic, overly-detailed diatribes!
removed liberal
I don’t know what word is supposed to be there, but we can’t have called you that because it is literally not allowed by our instance.
I was paraphrasing, but yes you’re right.
On review, the actual phrase they used was “dumb fuck”.
I’ve seen that or worse thrown around on pretty much every internet community I’ve ever seen. The only difference is whether it is popular/ever removed by mods. On literally every internet community I’ve seen or heard of, there are insults that crop up with the same amount of intended impact, even if they are less profane (think of all the snarky comments or outright diatribes you’ve seen about how ignorant or wrong someone is). And profanity is not some exceptional line, either.
Your instance has replaced
“removed (by the people who moderate this sub)” with “removed liberal”
Which is sad and pathetic.
it certainly seems like the mods there let anything slide as long as it is isn’t outright incitement to violence
Our mods tolerate a lot of things that would get you banned on reddit, such as calling for the death of nazis as long as it’s not what we call “fedposting” (actionable threats of violence that would also work as an FBI honeypot). On the other hand, our moderation team is probably the most hardline one on the entire internet when it comes to punishing transphobia and other queerphobic sentiments, and we do not take kindly to other forms of bigottry on there, either. For example, using the r-slur or other ableist language will reliably get your post deleted. If you have a habit of calling people you disagree with autistic or schizophrenic, you can prepare for getting banned from our instance. We look out for our neurodivergent comrades. Then there’s the entire culture against hornyposting that we have. Hexbear is very different from the rest of the internet when it comes to sexualizing and objectifying people. We’re not a sex-negative instance, but we’re hentai free and don’t want things to get creepy and uncomfortable in our place. We have a fairly elaborate culture of what goes into a content warning, too. We’re most definitely not an “anything goes” free speech absolutist instance. We’re a staunchly leftist, intersectional, antifascist community and we actively fight to keep it that way so that all marginalized people can feel safe around us.
That’s fair. When I spoke earlier, I didn’t mean to give the impression that HB is your typical fReE sPeEch zone that permits slurs against minorities.
That said, personal and vitriolic attacks against non-radical-leftists who disagree with or challenge the anti-NATO, anti-Ukraine, anti-West status quo in anyway seem to be absolutely okay, as far as I can see. And I say this as someone who considers themself to be a social democrat on many issues and agrees with most progressive causes in general.
This has been my experience as well. There are a lot of great things they’re discussing over there and in general I do like the fact that they challenge the Western-driven beliefs on politics/economics, however, the vitriol against anyone else less hardlined left and not anti-NATO/anti-West is disappointing and a put off. While I agree that capitalism is an immoral and abhorrent system, and have many qualms with the IMFand military driven western hegemony, I don’t see anything I the Russian or Chinese leadership that suggests either of those are any better. They’re oppression in a different coat. But saying that on the instance gets you labeled as someone who’s still sucking down western propaganda, without an ounce of irony re: CPC and Russian propaganda systems
Thanks for that very thoughtful statement. I am fine with keeping them federated and letting individual users block what they don’t want to see. I find it interesting to see what different communities have to say, even if I find it abhorrent.
Should it?
The overwhelming majority of mass shooters currently plaguing America are young, male and far-right. They didn’t just wake up one morning as extremists.
The story always reads basically the same. Loneliness, frustration and/or disillusionment made them vulnerable, they stumbled upon the far-right claiming they had answers and were lead down the path of extremism by memes, algorithms and social media groups.
Given that, why should they be platformed at all? Why make the default “if you don’t like it, just block it” rather than “if you want to read it, join their shithole servers”?
While we might not be “kindergarten” any more, there’s definitely users who are in early highschool and users who are vulnerable to cults.
That said, I don’t see hexbear being nearly as dangerous because unlike neo-nazis, state violence isn’t the goal.
Take the murder and enslavement out of modern Nazism and there’s nothing left, because murder and enslavement was the point. Take the murder out of communism and socialism and you’ve got a fairer, less exploitative society because a fairer, less exploitative society was the point.
I was about to say, Hexbear is very against stochastic violence, which on the left is called “Propaganda of the Deed” after a failed activist “experiment” to do just that. We reject it as a type of adventurism, i.e. doing something for kicks that isn’t actually politically useful (and in fact is usually wildly detrimental).
There’s can, and should, be exceptions - but lemm.ee has a federation policy where the standard for defederation is “directly harming lemm.ee users” and I think that should be the standard, as opposed to “users dislike the content, and there’s a lot of it”. (Hexbear is a big instance, there will be a lot of content.)
“if you don’t like it, block it” gives each of us a choice. Defederating takes away that choice for all 20k people on this general-purpose instance. We shouldn’t be censoring based on opinion of content alone
Until they have the native tools to let me, as a user, block the entire instance I’m with you. Until then defederation is the only way to make “All” even bearable.
Should I stop contributing, leave, and come back in a few months to see if those tools have been made? Because that’s a much preferable alternative than wading through so much shitposting blocking one community or user at a time. And I still see the effect of their votes.
If this is going to drive away people who have been here what do you think it’ll do to newcomers? Do you think people will really want to join somewhere where every top post is full of tankies?
Besides it’s not like they’re posting in good faith. They’re not there for an honest conversation. They are ChapoTrapHouse and they don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. They are 100% trolls.
Is your All really that clogged? I think I’ve blocked 2 or 3 Hexbear communities and now I can’t remember the last time I saw a hexbear post in All.
If it’s that harmful to your experience, I’m sure there are other instances that have already defederated. You could make an account there to start using and even switch back later once the ability to block instances has been added. The point of federation is you have the ability to curate your own experience and there’s less chance for a centralized force to curate your experience for you. Trying to get a large instance to defederate from an instance you disagree is you trying to curate the experience for thousands upon thousands of users.
Personally, I don’t think any instance should defederate from another instance unless the admins of that instance are supportive of hate speech or dangerous language. It seems from this post that the Hexbears admins not only don’t support it but are actively trying to curtail it. Defederating with them will just isolate them and make it easier for that vocal minority to gain control and keep it.
I’d like to stay federated with hexbear. They bring important information to conversation that people are otherwise not exposed to. American school-taught history is NOT the gold standard in truth.
I feel a little sorry for the Lemm.ee users here that came to make measured, personal posts specific to the annoucement. There’s a fair amount of long off-topic arguements happening in bits of the thread now and that probably makes it harder to read and manage.
This is something that’s often been pointed to as a pure result of Hexbear users or federation with Hexbear and given rise to accusations of ‘brigading here and in the past’. While I don’t think every segue into debate has been useful here, and have also told comrades that I didn’t think this was the place for specific comments (which they removed) I also think there’s some important context to point out - and I hope it helps lemm.ee users wondering about all this traffic not to fall into the trap of assuming the worst based on a couple of comments:
- Hexbear is a very big and very active instance. A very small proportion of users posting in a thread (especially one explicitly about them) can seem like a lot to a lot of instances.
- Hexbear doesn’t have downvotes and Hexbear users do not have the ability to downvote posts or comments on other instances. This creates a culture where if people disagree, they tend to reply, not downvote instead. Another reason we’re very active.
- This thread has constantly been at the top of people’s feeds on Hexbear. if they’re not only set to ‘local’.
- Finally - and I say this fully acknowledging and appriciating the many ordinary, good faith, pleasant lemm.ee commenters that I’ve enjoyed reading and talking too even when I totally disagreed with them - a lot of these off-topic arguements and more heated comments do not come from nowhere. While not at all the majority, I do see a pretty shocking amount of actively hostile, hateful, and insulting behaviour here. Sadly, quite a bit of it would be banned under Hexbear’s moderation policy against things like slurs and hate speech too.
So try to keep in mind if you see salty Hexbear users replying to people that, just in reading through this thread myself, I’ve the following instances of abuse or smears against my comrades (and they continue popping up). So I absolutely support them defending themselves (as long as they stay within the rules here):
- Dimissal as the pejorative “tankie” - 4 times (although we actually think this one is pretty funny usually)
- Users stating that Hexbear users are propagandists - 8 times
- Stating that people from Hexbear are specifically paid Russian/Chinese bots/propagandists - 10 times
- Direct equivalences of Hexbear posters to Nazis or just straight up calling us Nazis/fascists - 7 times
- Insults regarding mental health or IQ that would be classed as ablism on Hexbear - 8 times
- Dismissing users as children - 2 times
- Claiming Hexbear users are using vote-manipulation (impossible, as explained above) - 4 times
- Accusations of deliberate brigading rather than just commenting, being active - 11 times
I’ve tried not to count repeated instances from the same users. But sadly that’s not all. Just a handful of the following are comments that have been made against Hexbear users in this thread, without any kind of equal hostility. As far as I can tell they all still remain:
- “You guys are like cancer”
- “Braindead fucking tankies”
- “Get fucked”
- “Asshole” (multiple)
- That our beliefs are “moralistic bullshut”
- That some of our beliefs are “a criminal ideology”
- A comment that simply states “No Russians”
- That we’re “evil” (multiple times)
- An elaborate comparison to us “vandalising a Jewish graveyard” and other Nazi equivalences
- And of course a comment that explictly minimised the Nazi death toll with glee, seeming to imply they should have killed more. On the subject of disagreeing with equating the hammer and sickle to the swastika (hidden with spoiler tag, for those who don’t want to see it repeated)…
spoiler
“you are right, it is nor really fair to nazis, who killed measly 17 million people, compared to impressive 100 million killed by communists.”
There’s also been numerious instances of users misgendering Hexbear users. I’m not going to put all of these down to malice, but at Hexbear we display our pronouns for a reason - we love our trans comrades! You don’t have to, but could you please at least respect them and not misgender them?
Again, this isn’t the majority, but it’s honestly disappointing and worth keeping in mind amongst some of the louder, minority yells of ‘brigading’ etc.