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.
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.
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.
You probably want to join a different instance, mate. You seem to be extremely affected by them. They are instances that defeded from hex you can join.
And that should be golden rule. We’re not kindergarten anymore.
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.
“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
That instance is still out there for you to go and join, if you choose to do so. You could even join another “general purpose” instance that had lost its mind and decided that “advocating genocide to fix the problems of straight white men” was somehow general purpose.
It’s just as easy to argue that you are forcing hate groups on to people because you would rather individually block them.
To put it bluntly, I find it difficult to believe that people advocating “just block it” aren’t just doing the usual far-right thing of trying to manipulate people into platforming them.
At best, they haven’t thought through how inadequate a “just opt out” strategy is.
Should we all start messaging you daily photos of our hairy assholes? You can just block the accounts if you don’t want to see them. That way, users who do want daily hairy asshole pics aren’t impacted by a “don’t send explicit photos to unconsenting people” policy, which apparently makes the platform better.
I see what you’re saying, but I think you missed the point. I am not advocating for hexbear or their views at all. I simply don’t think defederation is the solution to this problem in the long term.
Step back and look at the big picture:
Right now, admins are removing or blocking communities/users/instances that are manipulating the platform (vote manipulation, multiple accounts, automated posting), targeting hate towards individuals or groups, and more. It has not been based on the actual content or views expressed alone (unless that content is illegal in the country where lemm.ee is hosted).
If we now start blocking entire instances based on opinion of the content or views expressed, then lemm.ee moves away from being a general-purpose instance. We will need to define exactly what opinions lemm.ee will allow or remove, what the criteria is for a user/community removal or defederation, and if we should defederate from NSFW instances too.
We both agree there is a problem here. You think defederation is the way to solve it. All I am saying is that I don’t think defederation is the way to solve it.
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.)
Statement I was looking for!
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.
Hexbear is making Lemmy unbearable for me. There’s no function for a user to block everything from a server. I don’t want to see their communities, their users, their posts, their messages, or their votes showing up.
I block communities as they come up, I block individuals as they post, but it’s never ending.
Every popular post is over-run with tankies shitposting, grinding real conversation to a halt.
They’re not people open to having a conversation in good faith. They’re ChapoTrapHouse shitposters who got kicked off reddit for being pro-violence shitposters.
Their Moderation Policy is incompatible with ours, as they allow hate speech as long as it’s directed towards the “right” people.
A first timer looking would see 90% tankie crap and would leave and not come back.
I’ve contributed less since they were joined simply because I don’t want a herd of tankies yelling at me with nobody else even reading it.
Until such a time that I, as a user, can bock everything from a server I support defederation. Or at the very least put a giant poop emoji next to everything from that server so it’s easier to skip. They seem to like poop.
I agree with you. I’ve read thread after thread where they show up and start insulting people for not knowing about some minor event that happened in South America 50 years ago that means Ukraine is in the wrong now, or something like that. Then they start piling on each other, and the noise drives out the actual conversation.
I had the exact same thought as you - they are not commenting in good faith. They flat out admit they are here to just argue with people (it was in a post in one of their communities that I’ve now blocked). They will not respect your viewpoint if it at all disagrees with them. I’ve seen that time and time again over the past few days.
Honestly, it’s makes me want to go back to reddit. I assume they were banned there for brigading, because sure as hell that’s what it looks like is happening here. If you see one hexbear user comment in a thread, you’ll see at least 100 more.
Defederate them, at least until I can wholesale block them myself. They are not contributing.
Am I in the minority of users when I pick communities I’m interested in to subscribe to and never look at “all”? I’ve never even seen the communities that people are talking about here.
I don’t get enough content in my subbed communities, so I usually look at All. There’s definitely a lot of hexbear, but I don’t find it overwhelming. Over the last day, it’s been dwarfed by the LTT drama.
If you’re going to look at All, that’s what you’re going to see. All.
If your subs aren’t providing enough content then sub to more comms. I barely ever look at All anymore. When I do though I hopefully find some new comm to sub to. That’s basically what it’s good for.
I had noticed everyone seems to be talking about LTT all of a sudden. Bizarre for what seems like a mid tech entertainment channel when I’ve stumbled on them.
I use the All feed to discover communities I’d like to subscribe to. I know there are other resources for that, but they all require you to know what content you’re looking for. Sometimes i just like free-range exploring.
They show up in other communities though, when I see a low effort/meme shitpost and check the user it seems the majority are coming from there.
They show up in other communities though, when I see a low effort/meme shitpost and check the user it seems the majority are coming from there.
I really wish there was something between “all” and “subscribed”. Reddit had “popular”, and it was the default view, I think.
Kind of crazy to see the red scare back in full force
What part of “toxic shitposters with toxic mods should be defederated” is “red scare”?
The part where he uses the word tankie every sentence and bans anyone from that instance arbitrarily.
Tankie is the new derogatory word for any socialist/communist. Yes I know what it actually means but clearly not every member of hexbear is a Stalin apologist and most of them aren’t shit posters. Yet here we are, with certain users so scared of the red they block users on sight regardless of what they are saying.
If you used an app that doesn’t show you what instance people belong too, you wouldn’t be able to tell them from other users.
When I say tankie, I’m referring to the people toeing the party line of the CCP and Putin. That isn’t communism; that’s a specific breed of “communism” that’s mostly capitalism surrounding cults of personality.
If you used an app that doesn’t show you what instance people belong too, you wouldn’t be able to tell them from other users.
If half the people I saw from hexbear weren’t spamming their huge emotes every other comment, I might be inclined to agree. If they weren’t the only people in threads (besides lemmygrad) supporting authoritarian regimes, I might be inclined to agree. Sadly, both of those happen often in my experience.
You’re free to disagree with me on the comments I just made, that’s what’s great about discussions online, but hexbear members are very confrontational, to a trollish degree, in how they discuss these topics from what I’ve seen. It doesn’t need to be “every member” of hexbear as you say. It just has to be a big enough problem that the mods and users want it gone. That is happening fairly often recently based on the posts showing up when I browse lemmy. Hell, that’s how I ended up here.
Don’t conflate communism with tankie shitposting. I’m fine with communists. I don’t want troll comments. But this isn’t my instance.
If you get the connect app you can block an entire instance! But if you do that then there’s absolutely no point in even attempting to engage in any community on any instance they’re federated with because of the brigading. This is what you’ll see. Have fun.
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.
American school-taught history is NOT the gold standard in truth.
That’s a given, but Eastern propaganda isn’t the answer and HexBear is full of that garbage.
There are already plenty of leftist in the non left-centric instances. Hell, if you really want a far-left perspective, there are others which doesn’t consider obnoxiousness a virtue, which seems to be a core tenant of Hexbear.
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.
Typically it’s the far right that causes problems but the far left certainly can do the same and I don’t think we should be any more tolerant of bad behavior on the left than we are of bad behavior on the right. The paradox of tolerance is a real bitch and we should be aware of it and remember how things end up when you get too comfortable in letting people be who they are even if who they are is horrible.
I generally agree. I thought hexbear was fine until I saw some of the spam/trolling you mentioned, and then the genocide denial… That got me to start blocking communities there.
With that said I think exploding heads is probably just as bad, if not worse since the mods aren’t against the content posted there. I know you said you didn’t want to defederate and I kind of understand why, but at least keeping a close eye on the users there would be appreciated.
update 19/8/2023: i have first heard about hexbear 1 day before this thread, i really didn’t give care about them before
after they did an excellent job to introduce themselves in this thread, i’d like to change my stance to DEFEDERATE NOW! 😆
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
imagine i vandalize jewish graveyard, put swastikas all over the place and my defense is “man, swastikas were used all around the word through history, they don’t just belong to nazi germany, you know?” is your reaction going to be “well, you raise some interesting points”?
i doubt that.
“argument” like that is just an asshole trying to obfuscate the facts and delay the consequences of their own action, it is classic propaganda method.
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:
do you feel that response is actually going to change something and it is sincere, not just an effort to obfuscate the reality in the line with what i said above?
or is it like this?
the comrade below actually suggests that there is a time and place for such rhetoric, it is just not right here, right now. you have to think politically and wait for our moment, comrade!
i generally agree with your liberal approach to federation, unfortunately sometimes the reality forces you to take some pragmatic steps and i don’t think anyone would blame you if you took the easy solution, you are not obligated to dig through pile of shit.
i am also not a fan of pseudoliberalism in the style of “just let everyone make their own decision”. it is like saying we don’t need police, lets just let everyone to deal with the world themselves. it is obvious nonsense, most people just want to go about their business and they appreciate the fact there is relatively safe environment behind their apartment door.
The problem with the ‘live and let be’ tolerant philosophy on online forums and the argument against moderation is the paradox of tolerance:
“The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually ceased or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.”
(From Wikipedia)
Please don’t defederate unless moderation becomes impossible. People should curate what they want to see on their own. Part of why I joined lemm.ee was that the content is not pre-curated, but I have a wide selection to choose from myself.
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.
If those long threads were mostly on topic (about federation), that would at least be something. They present interesting view points but at all the wrong times and in huge numbers. This post is about examining their behavior and their effect on conversations. I think they’ve shown it to us.
Well written. We’re luck to have you.
- socsa ( @socsa@lemmy.ml ) 61•1 year ago
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 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.
They are not leftist idea
I posted a comment in the_dunk_tank without noticing where I was. While many people were heated over what I said, it was a misunderstanding due to a lack of specificity and ignorance on my part. After I clarified what I was intending to say, discussion ensued and it was ended on good terms.
The vast majority of users I interact with from hexbear are thoughtful, insightful, kind and genuine individuals that care deeply about humanity and moving forward. The hate that they have is for fascism and actual fascists.
To defederate hexbear would be a disservice to the idea of federated social media.
Says the hexbear user.
I mean, seriously?
I’m a lemm.ee user. I visit hexbear communities as they appear in my feed, much like how you might visit other communities on other instances due to the nature of federation.
Your response to an entire post outlining my experience with hexbear users is “seriously?” Do you have anything else to add? This is supposed to be a discussion. If you have something to add to the discussion, please do so. It’s really easy to not respond when you have nothing to add.
- pissydickle ( @pissydickle@feddit.nl ) 1•1 year ago
wut? They’re from ur instance.
You sound like you’ve got Stockholm Syndrome. Blink twice if the tankies are in the room with you
I blocked the_dunk_tank in particular because it’s pretty toxic
I don’t find it toxic, but you do you.
I’m not from lemm.ee, but I believe that this problem is something the whole fediverse is facing.
Users from instances like hexbear, lemmygrad, exploding heads etc. seem to have some things in common: -Brigading -Trolling -Spreading misinformation/lies about genocides, wars, etc. -Demanding to be heard because of free speech and “tolerance” -When they face resistance, they get aggressive and you better believe that the comments going against their narrative are getting deleted on their instance
They are using lemmy to spread their propaganda and hate. This is exactly how propaganda is effective: spew the same bullshit as often as possible and, because humans tend to believe things to be true that they see or read a lot, radicalize users through it. Of course that doesn’t count for every person on that instance but in the end it doesn’t matter if a user is an edgy teenager, a radicalized senior or someone with hundred accounts. They are doing damage and the only way to win against them is to not let them into the playground.
(edit) downviting if you disagree is a terrible reddit holdover, be more like hexbearians and start a discussion
Bit weird you commenting on this post and accusing others of brigading.
Brigading doesn’t exist on Lemmy unless there is a centralised effort to harass a community or individual.
- viewing a post in your feed from a different instance is not brigading
- commenting on a post from another instance is not brigading
- linking to a post from another instances is not brigading
As you found this post in your feed so to will others. To expect one of the biggest instances to not contribute more is silly especially when they have a culture of commenting over votes.
Also don’t conflate hexbears as a whole with fashists and Tankies, hexbear is a broad left instance and that includes including anarchists, libertarians, socialists, and communists.
On the propaganda point, countering the lack of honest reporting and information on a lot of topics that benefits those in power and the status-quo is perfectly fine. A lot of MSM can be considered pro-capatilist propaganda.
First off
and you better believe that the comments going against their narrative are getting deleted on their instance
Is just a baseless accusation at this point.
Secondly if
Users from instances like hexbear, lemmygrad, exploding heads etc. seem to have some things in common: -Brigading -Trolling -Spreading misinformation/lies about genocides, wars, etc. -Demanding to be heard because of free speech and “tolerance” -When they face resistance, they get aggressive
were reported so often it’d be untenable the admins here would probably be more up in arms about it. Seeing as they are seeking open discussion about this issue, I’d defer to them in the assessment that the issue with comments of this kind is with individuals and not one of the instance.
Generally Propaganda is pretty much everywhere and everyone also is regurgitating some version of it, you or other liberal users will spew liberal propaganda, leftist will spew leftist propaganda, the Russian state spews Kremlin Propaganda, conservative Christians will spew conservative propaganda. You have it quite right in how that process happens.
But firstly, you me and everyone, can learn to recognize types of propaganda, and decide which propaganda to accept, and which to reject. Many people here are probably quite adept at this already, but I think the ones that look at the hexbar front page and see a united front of foreign propaganda have likely accepted a certain type of liberal propaganda, and reject much everything else as propaganda, and as such are not properly equipped for a more honest understanding about what the users there are saying.
To that point, I’m obviously spewing leftist propaganda by defending hexbear, but my argument can still be good, and you should be able to accept or reject it despite your biases, by trying to understand it.
And secondly ( and this is roughly following the admins thoughts as well ) liberalism it’s propaganda and followers are very common and in my view extremely destructive, sure not as destructive as conservatism or fascism would likely be, but definitely destructive enough to reject it in favor of leftist(communist, anarchist, socialist) ideology instead.
The large majority of (newer) lemmy users likely grew up under liberalism and so surrounded by it’s propaganda to accept it at least partially. This includes me, but throughout my life I’ve learned to reject a lot of liberal propaganda and accept different propaganda instead, because even though liberalism is so common it tends to explain and predict things less accurately and less completely, than socialist or anarchist theory does at least as far as I can see.
I’ve seen more posts complaining about Hexbear than actual objectionable things they’ve done. Maybe that’s a sign of effective moderation, but in general I agree that defederation should always be a very last resort, and it doesn’t feel like we’re even close.
Also, with the ability for users to block instances coming soon, I think everyone will be happy then. At least, users anyway, it will still be down to the admin team to determine if the moderation workload is excessive and act accordingly - but that decision is and should be up to you.
This is exactly my perspective. I understand why people are conceptually concerned, but I’m not really seeing problematic content. Are others (moderators) doing a good job and preventing me from seeing that? Or is it just not happening in the way people are saying?
The one thing that jumps out to me is what appears to be the goal of propagandizing. I understand the goal of discourse, and advocacy. I understand arguing against capitalism and fascism. All of those things can be done in good faith. But I see propaganda as almost inherently bad faith. Is my understanding of the meaning of propaganda incorrect? It very well may be.