Context

As you probably now, Hexbear is a fairly large leftist instance, whose users are notorious for being very loud in the communities of every instance they federate with. For a long time they blocked all instances, preferring to remain isolated. Recently, however, they have started allowing some large instances into their allow list.

Yesterday they expanded said list by including the popular sh.itjust.works (SJW) instance.

Some Hexbear users immediately jumped on the train by creating posts in !main@sh.itjust.works making sure everyone was aware of their presence and calling out what they thought was bigotry on SJW’s side:

  • Example 1
  • Example 2, the post included in the meme, now removed

Currently, there’s people on both sides calling for mutual defederation, as one Hexbear sees the other party as “bigoted” and “politically illiterate infants” while many people on SJW are just tired of the political spam.

Where do we stand in this mess? Comfortably on the sidelines, enjoying the popcorn while it lasts.

    • Nerd02@lemmy.basedcount.comOPEnglish
      13·
      1 year ago

      Of the two posts I mentioned one account is indeed very new and not from Hexbear, the other one is 3 years old and IS from Hexbear.

      There might be some external actors trying to stir the water, indeed that tends to happen pretty often all over the internet, but some Hexbear users are definitely involved.

    • yata@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      10·
      1 year ago

      What are you on about? The disingenous “this is racism” thread OP linked was posted and entirely populated by hexbear users registered at hexbear.

      Also please don’t pretend this is the only time hexbear users has done this, when that is in fact something they have done systematically since they federated (and even longer, because they did the same back on reddit when they were CTH).

    • Gsus4English
      61·
      1 year ago

      Probably true to some extent, the problem to me is that if they are an anti-fascist instance, why can’t they clean up their own trolls? If some dudes act the way magas imagine communists to be, how can’t they self-police a bit? It shows that it must be incredibly easy to infiltrate antifa to make it look bad (probably happens too, lol).

      • yata@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        8·
        1 year ago

        They aren’t anti-fascist at all. They are very much pro-authoritarianism. And their behaviour is working as they intend.

        • Gsus4English
          3·
          1 year ago

          Eh, fine…I’d consider myself experienced in online community dynamics and a bit of non-american politics, so I try to interpret things in the light of what I’ve seen in the wild and the people I’ve met in real life, but this shit is out of my reach. Besides, politics always is a mess when it isn’t face-to-face (trolling, astroturfing, gatekeeping, posing, muddying the waters, sealioning, dogwhistling…) or in a controlled environment , I just wish every thread didn’t turn political.