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.
After reading through the comments here and seeing the level and type of hexbear participation I’ve lost my qualms and am fully in favor of defederating.
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.
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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.
Please never apologize for this. The Soviets were some fucked up people who did fucked up things to tens of millions of people. Nobody should be eyeing their symbology favourably.
This kind of self-righteousness would be more compelling if it wasn’t always reserved solely for communist symbols. Capitalist, and fascist, symbols are always given a pass.
You see a lot of Nazi symbolism? Because clearly fascist symbolism is not given a pass. I’m also not sure what you mean by capitalist symbolism. There’s no universally agreed upon symbol for capitalism, the closest thing is the dollar sign and that has a dual meaning.
So please, be more specific (ideally with examples) with what you mean when you say fascist and capitalist symbols. I’m sure if there’s anything specific (like the hammer and sickle, that was purposefully chosen as USSR symbolism) worthy of banning then there’s probably no issue with the removal of such symbolism.
Because clearly fascist symbolism is not given a pass.
the literal fasces is all over US government buildings and symbols
Where are you seeing this on Lemmy? Doesn’t seem the the US government gets a pass here at all, I mostly see justified skepticism at best.
do you have a list of examples
this is pretty interesting, but includes a lot of examples that either dont include a date of introduction or are from before the the national fascist party or even the existence of fascism as a concept
i dont feel like framing examples like that as fascist symbolism is fair or accurate, same as how organisations continuing their pre-nazism usage of the swastika isnt nazi symbolism
I think the (iirc) Finish airforce recently took down the swastika symbol from their flag.
You see a lot of Nazi symbolism
Yes, I do. All the time.
Because clearly fascist symbolism is not given a pass.
Yeah? You see a lot of people going after the Union Jack or the Stars and Stripes?
So please, be more specific (ideally with examples) with what you mean when you say fascist and capitalist symbols.
You declared a symbol of communism to represent the bad things the USSR did, so any symbol that represents any capitalist ideology or system that has ever had anything bad done under it. Let’s start with most national flags.
pretty true for all flags really.
I’ve seen the hexbears at work and don’t doubt that they’d class some of my views as woefully liberal but in the main I am enjoying being on a site where the left is so unapologetic, doesn’t go for all this centrist bollocks and is unafraid to call out bullshit.
Having seen the Overton window constantly shifted to a narrower aspect ratio and then shifted rightwards on reddit was a very disheartening experience and I think seeing active hexbears on all threads will be useful in stopping the uptight right when they inevitably decide that that the fediverse needs shifting towards their own Volkish views.
Thanks for all the work you’ve been doing admining this instance @sunaurus.
My immediate opinion from this post was that we should defederate from hexbear, since I’ve felt myself put off of browsing lemmy because of what I perceived as their annoying comments. I’ll admit, by annoying I meant constantly bringing up leftist ideology into threads where it was just plain irrelevant. I’m liberal myself, just not as leftist as the average user on hexbear is. But sometimes I just want to browse my memes in peace, y’know?
But after reading through the comments on this thread, I’m now a little more apprehensive about supporting defederation. It’s now apparent to me that the reason why their comments have leftist undertones is because that’s what characterizes the instance. Hexbear wouldn’t be hexbear if their userbase were centrist or right-wing. Hexbear is hexbear precisely because (for better or for worse) they provide a home for leftist ideology.
Furthermore, there are a couple of reasons why it seems like they’re “brigading muh memes.” One is because they’re such a large instance (larger than us, but certainly smaller than lemmy.world). The other is that their interface doesn’t allow downvotes, so the only way they can voice disapproval of an opinion is by literally voicing their disapproval in the comments. I personally think this is an excellent system, if it can be moderated well. I see it as promoting discussion. However if it’s not moderated well, good discussion ends up getting drowned out by the shouting of village idiots.
A lot of people are pointing out how 1.4k of the 1.8k comments on this post are from hexbear users. That’s ~5.8% of the instance’s 24.5k member userbase. The remaining 400 or so comments come from a mix of lemm.ee and other instances. Assuming all 400 other comments from from lemm.ee users, that’s 2% of our userbase. Undoubtedly, the percentage is even less because that assumption is definitely false. Thus, hexbear has a participation rate that’s almost triple ours (with the best case assumptions in our favor). I’m sure the probability of encountering one (or many) of their village idiots is high. This probability is undoubtedly increased due to the fact that their instance systematically encourages participation because of their lack of downvotes. And if Trumpists demonstrate anything, it’s that stupid likes to participate.
I’m intentionally avoiding using the word “discussion”, since I recognize that participating in a thread and discussing in a thread are two very different things. Both village idiots and good-faith intellectuals participate, but only the latter’s participation can be characterized as discussion. I’ve seen both types of hexbear users in this thread.
I’m wary of us defederating from hexbear. It seems like we’d be condemning a political community for the actions of their (admittedly rather vocal) village idiots. On the other hand, it’s not clear to me if that community’s moderators really care about controlling their village idiots, especially since they are undoubtedly wreaking havoc on other communities. My guess is that the wisest course of action is to wait and see how their rule changes take effect. If their new rules are able to control their village idiots, then I see no reason to defederate.
It was commonplace among leftists to oppose US military hegemony, NATO, and Raytheon pre-2022, even for relatively lib leaning spaces. This position became basically unacceptable if not bannable in so many left leaning spaces within a matter of months, which should scare you a lot more than the existence of one community where the sentiment has remained the same.
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Yup. British leftie here. I don’t like NATO, or trust it, but it has a purpose to serve, and the last few years have definitely demonstrated it. I don’t think any sane minded person could not justify Putin’s actions in Ukraine without tying themselves in knots. White NATO has unreasonably expanded against their word in recent years, raising cities to the ground is never justified, attacking civilians and constantly hitting civilian infrastructure is never justified. It’s a horrific speed run on collecting all war crimes, it seems.
White NATO has unreasonably expanded against their word in recent years,
Just a heads up, that is actually Russian propaganda. NATO agreed with the USSR to not expand further but the USSR collapsed and Russia has been very adamant that they don’t consider themselves as the successor to the USSR. That means no such guarantee has ever been given to Russia. It’s Russian media that has perpetuated the idea that NATO has somehow promised to not expand.
It was actually the BBC that documents this, and those expansions. Foreign policy wise, it’s about as imperial as it comes. It’s pro-Israel, pro-Ukraine, pro-NATO.
Even if the point you raise is technically correct, knowing interests in that area are uncomfortable about that and pushing through that, could be construed as a little antagonistic. The west had nuclear non-proliferation treaties in this regards post the cold war to remove tensions. This was one of those policies aimed at de-escalation. Even if it’s technically legal, choosing actions that will piss off countries you’re trying to work through de-escalations with either stupid or antagonistic.
I think the Russian propaganda line is that NATO started this, so Russia are justified. To make it clear, Russia aren’t justified to invade a country and commit atrocities, but even then, in any situation, if you cannot look back at your own actions, and think is there something we could have done differently, you’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes. There is often this weird view that your side can do no wrong. The reality is, both can, and there can be multiple assholes countries around the table, even if one is a far bigger asshole country.
I know in my heart of hearts that if Xi Jinping tried to use a technicality like this to build a Chinese military base in Mexico or smth that you would be calling him a racial slur so offensive that the last person to utter it was a British imperial explorer who wore a pith helmet and died in 1921.
But your analogy would only be valid if Mexico had asked Xi to build a Chinese military base in Mexico, which they would never do because unlike Russia’s neighbors, they’re not worried about being invaded by their stronger neighbor.
You’re missing the point (even though you’re also wrong about that because half of America’s political class is advocating an invasion of Mexico right now), the line you’re spewing is deliberately obtuse sophistry designed to dismiss NATO’s obviously duplicitous behavior as acceptable.
It’s a hollow state-created line designed to erode critical thinking, like calling the Iraq War a “US-Led Intervention” or calling the Ukraine War a “Special Military Operation for Denazification”.
Hexbear user here. No, it isn’t Russian propaganda. Joe Biden himself said in 1997, six years after the collapse of the USSR, that if anything would provoke Russia into war it would be Western military expansion into countries bordering Russia. 25 years later, that same Joe Biden became president of the US and had NATO break the Minsk agreements that would have prevented the Donbas conflict from escalating into all out war. Exactly what Joe Biden said on camera would happen 25 years earlier. Unless you consider Joe Biden himself to be a Russian propagandist, it’s wrong to say what you said. Respectfully, I strongly suggest you read up on the Minsk agreements and Joe Biden’s political history prior to 2008. As was the norm to say in leftist communities before 2022, NATO and its expansion is in fact a bad thing.
Edit: want to add an edit to say that while hexbear users are notorious for shit posting we are also happy to discuss things amicably on your platforms. I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to discuss areas where we disagree. I’m sure we all have a lot to learn, and I don’t really want to live in an echo chamber like patriots.win or some shit.
Nonsense. NATO didn’t just move into the former Soviet nations and set up shop; to the contrary, NATO expanded specifically at the request of those sovereign nations who knew, better than anyone, that Russia was still dangerous as fuck. To ignore that is to ignore their right to autonomy while hypocritically championing the same right for the Russian speaking population of eastern Ukraine.
That said, it’s not my position that relations with post-Soviet Russia could not have been handled better. I simply reject the idea that NATO expansion forced Putin to invade Ukraine.
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Every aggressive act that has ever occurred, even Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, has been justified as a defensive action. So it’s important to look at the means by which NATO has expanded which is by arming far right stay behind groups, electoral subterfuge and massively destabilizing coup d’états. Look into operation Gladio, in no way is this an authentically defensive organization.
Okay, of course every aggressive act has some form of excuse/justification that is given/believed by the aggressor. That doesn’t mean that it was actually a valid justification. Of course it is important to look back to see what events and actions aided in creating the situation that allowed for aggressive acts to take place, but it doesn’t change the fact that in many of these instances, including that in Ukraine is the aggressors fault, and is unjustified. The events following WW1 created a situation in Germany that allowed Fascism to thrive, and there were many decisions made by the West and the USSR that led to some of the atrocities in WW2, but that doesn’t change the fact that the actions of Nazi Germany were unjustified and reprehensible.
A problem that I see is that a lot of replies and statements that immediately place blame on the West/NATO while glossing over the fact that the main contributor to the war in Ukraine is Russia. It is important to highlight that actions taken by the west played a part, but not without recognizing that Putin is the aggressor and is at fault for the invasion.
Russian disinformation is generally either refuted in comments or removed by mods
I mean all you have to do is glance at any Ukraine thread on any instance federated with hexbear to know this is a lie.
These people are trolls, plain and simple. The mods/admins are no exception, they are just slightly more self aware than their users when it comes to diplomacy. They will say whatever they think you want to hear in order to get one more day worth of trolling in.
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.
and a removed liberal
We didn’t call you that because there is an incredibly strong site culture against using ableist slurs and anybody who comes into our instance and says that slur is banned on the spot. I literally can’t even see it because the hexbear instance automatically changes it to say removed instead. I would encourage you not to sling around ableist slurs in future.
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”.
So you use slurs that are banned on our instance and act like we’re the ones not being civil? Real self aware you are.
Your instance has replaced
“removed (by the people who moderate this sub)” with “removed liberal”
Which is sad and pathetic.
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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
okay but communists have been yelling at communists for not being communist enough since before marx put pen to paper
At 21 hours old, this lemm.ee meta post has 1123 comments and 3/4ths of the comments are from hexbear users. They brigade every thread with their non sense and it is impacting lemmy in a very negative way. We wouldn’t be having this discussion if it wasn’t. I don’t really like defederation if it was a tool to silence ideology but what hexbear users do is not really debate ideology and more aggressive in your face bad faith argument trolling. This is a spam instance that should be treated as such. Block it.
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.
I have no stance on them but I do find the people that post from hexbear to be a little irritating. A lot of them leave low quality shitpost with massive images and I know that’s a bug but it still ruins it for everyone else.
I had to use Connect to block both Hexbear and Lemmygrad. On any political topic, I see a normal discussion for a few hours, and then when the brigade starts, my inbox fills with “This comment blocked using an instance filter for Hexbear” and if I show the comments, they’re almost universally negative and abusive.
I support any effort to restrict that instance. Chapos and tankies don’t play nice with others. They use their supposed support of LGBT rights and leftist initiatives to infiltrate and disrupt left spaces and undermine reasonable discourse, turning the conversation to acrimony and sometimes even bigotry.
My view is that this federation of theirs is just sketchy. Their announcement post reads as some barely veiled call to propagandize the Fediverse, and the instance itself seems almost proud in a way to have developed their particular methods in their isolation. Though from what I’ve seen, those methods are mostly just whataboutism and “just asking questions”, not anything particularly novel.
If there was much content or interaction from them that was just neutral, it’d be much easier to swallow, but everything they post or comment always seems be a dog whistle at minimum. And maybe I’m just not noticing all the users not doing that, but the ones I do notice are all over.
All in all, I’d be more in favor of defederation. I’ve seen enough of this from the right already to have an idea of where this is going, and barring a larger effort from the instance to change, would rather it just got nipped in the bud.
I really have no problem with communist or leftist views, but some of those guys need to take a chill pill. I’m cool with bashing the fash and social welfare programs, I’m not cool with basically talking about how everyone to the right of Stalin needs to die or how Tianenmen Square was a wholesale fabrication by the west. I typically just roll my eyes, block the bullshit and move on with life, but it’s been really dragging down my lemmy experience.
