On sh.itsfulla.chuds, and the plan going forward

Greetings gamers and those who wisely abstain,

It has become clear to us that even in the short while we’ve federated, the situation with sh.itholefor.nazis is entirely untenable and we will be defederating immediately. Multiple instances of ableist and homophobic slurs directed at our users, overwhelming litigiousness against even the most innocuous comments by our users, and just a general ethos of reactionary behavior. We’re done and out.

One of the concerns with embracing TC69 thought on site bans with federation is that the user would basically be just hexbear-side hidden and blocked from our comms, free to post reactionary content without the fear of Lenin behind them. That was a silly concern. We will resume our pre-federation policies regarding site bans.

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One of the concerns with embracing TC69 thought on site bans with federation is that the user would basically be just hexbear-side hidden and blocked from our comms, free to post reactionary content without the fear of Lenin behind them. That was a silly concern. We will resume our pre-federation policies regarding site bans.
Call me a Dengist (
), but I think that continuing to uphold TC69 thought post-federation is a bad idea, and one which actively inhibits our ability to engage in ideological struggle with other instances. It had it's time & place in kicking out stupidpol posters, and transphobic elements endogenous to the community when we were isolated from others; which was desirable at the time. However, we can't exactly moderate other instances, or impose any real penalties on the users there, other than by inflicting our presence, and the mass of our voices & opinions on them; and making their instances hell for them to use.
Of course we're going to get pushback from doing that, and that's going to take the form of them trying to harass our users & subject them to derogatory statements. But complaining about that (or at the very least using it as a justification to self-isolate our own community from other instances) is like complaining about the fact that fascists would fight back against you in a revolutionary situation. Of course they would do that, that's intrinsic to the nature of revolutionary struggle. Shying away from that, means shying away from struggle.
In short, my position is that "A walled garden cannot prosecute a revolution.", and so we should start thinking about ceasing to be one.
If I'm to receive an infraction for this take, I accept it, but I'm still gonna make the argument itself because I think it has merit.
- the best idea I've heard to handle this is to set up a contamination zone instance that federates widely and that hexbear proper federates with. it avoids splitting the userbase while providing people a mechanism to choose whether they have the energy to wade through the toxic sludge on any given day while still maintaining our presence on the wider lemmyverse.
  
  Isn't this just lemmy.ml? Their mods are decent at banning the most egregious fascists and they leave out the libs for us to talk with and convince.
  
  I was thinking more something that maintained our unique culture
  
  Bring back chapo.chat !
  
  That place was filled with libs to bully.
  
  That is a fair proposition. I personally would probably want to be in the "containment" instance most often, tbh.
  
  probably mostly the same for me but I need to duck out every so often when the transphobia gets intense.
  
  I concede that that would be a valid concern for you, yeah.
  
  what exactly is the goal here? I want to think about whether or not it is technically feasible...
  Because I think what you are describing would lead to all hexbear comments not being visible to the secondary fedded servers (libs chuds etc), only ourselves and the containment instance.
  
  posts on hexbear itself, yes. but the point is that the secondary server would be the one people actually use when they're in a mood to fight with libs and chuds. the problem right now is that everyone is always exposed to it and there's no good way to go have quiet conversations with each other.
- If we're actually trying to foment a revolution, keeping hexbear a safe space for having unmolested leftist discussions and coordinating brigading on other instances would be far more helpful. There's no point in an unwalled garden if you're gonna let everyone stomp all over the flowers.
  
  hexbear ain't fomenting any revolutions, posting is not praxis, please log off
  
  Lmao.
  
  take drugs and shitpost that's all this place is for, I think we just need to strike a balance of keeping it based and keeping it movin' (actual users). If we become too based, we become too niche and if we become too movin' we get too many libs
  
  But, Pagliacci, you are the lib.
  
  It's like standing lessons but for taking steps
  
  There's no point in an unwalled garden if you're gonna let everyone stomp all over the flowers.
  There's a fair point to that. My main issue is that we've just reflexively defederated from every single instance that we've had any amount of ideological disagreement with at the drop of a hat, and I think that's bad praxis.
  If SJW is especially egregious then, whatever, but we did the same thing with Blahaj & a bunch of other instances which were much easier to agitate in. And IMO it speaks to an actual problem in our own instance culture.
  
  My main issue is that we've just reflexively defederated from every single instance that we've had any amount of ideological disagreement with at the drop of a hat
  We're still federated with lemm.ee because, despite ideological disagreements which got quite heated, their admin was willing to work with ours. The reason for defederating from blahaj and from SJW is that their admins are just as bad as the rest of the instance, and bring that fash shit into the way they moderate.
  
  My main issue is that we've just reflexively defederated from every single instance that we've had any amount of ideological disagreement with at the drop of a hat, and I think that's bad praxis.
  We haven't, though. We're still federated with lemm.ee and lemmy.ml, neither of which are ideologically aligned with us, and both of which are big, general purpose instances.
  
  lemmy.ml admins (the lemmy devs) are communists. But yeah, the way they moderate is pretty even handed. fairer to us than lib instances tho
  
  I think speaks more to a problem of lemmy's inability to maintain a safe instance, personally. If we can't protect our community, then an island we occasionally travel away from is better than a burning city everyone else comes to dump their gasoline.
  Remember, China's great firewall isn't an unnecessary endeavor of authoritarianism; it's a defense against a core step of Capitalism's method of attacking leftist countries through information warfare.
  
  Remember, China's great firewall isn't an unnecessary endeavor of authoritarianism; it's a defense against a core step of Capitalism's method of attacking leftist countries through information warfare.
  I'm not even sure what that actually is, in practice, tbh. Like do Chinese citizens in general actually just not have access to the entire broader internet, or is this a situation like with "Social Credit" or "Wumao"; where there's an entire set of invented & made-up rules that exist only inside the heads of Western China-Watchers that doesn't really exist in practice IRL?
  Either way, my take is that a good offense is always better than a good defense; and if information warfare is a weakness that we have, then while building defenses is a fair enough measure in the short term, but in the long term you want to get better in going on the attack.
  
  China functionally blocks most of the non-china internet, I believe, but it's pretty easy to VPN out. It largely seems to be about controlling the mass flow of information from western capitalist/ corporate influence and protecting their population from data mining rather than worrying about personal browsing activities.
  Federation is currently a double edged sword that puts all defense on numbers and moderation. If you want to attack we need a place we can organize and strategize that isn't going to be easily monitored and undermined.💁‍♂️
  
  it's also a little bit of effort to set up and use a vpn and i'm sure large numbers of people simply can't be bothered because there's not much out here they give a shit about.
  
  Blahaj wanted us to change to accommodate them but wasn't willing to do the same for us. If the mods hadn't pulled the plug but just undid the changes to the dunk tank, blahaj would've defederated with us anyway. There might be a possibility of re-examining it in the future once individual instance blocking is a thing. Imo it was better to cut it there to avoid more bad blood.
  
  My main issue is that we've just reflexively defederated from every single instance that we've had any amount of ideological disagreement with at the drop of a hat, and I think that's bad praxis.
  500 Reply Guy would beg to differ about the "drop of a hat" characterization. Posting isn't praxis. Send Xeet.
  
  That same guy is over at shitjustworks being like “I’ve been blocking hexbears they’re annoying tankies” like what dude you came into one of our threads and posted hundreds of comments lol
  
  There's a fair point to that. My main issue is that we've just reflexively defederated from every single instance that we've had any amount of ideological disagreement with at the drop of a hat, and I think that's bad praxis.
  No, both blahjai and shitjustworks already had defederation threads where everyone voted for defederation. This is just us beating them to the punch.
  
  IMO it speaks to an actual problem in our own instance culture.
  i flatly disagree with this, and i'm kind of tired of the crusader crowd deriding everyone who doesn't want to get conscripted into their cause. functionally every single defederation has been done once it was clear that the instance owners wouldn't control the various flavors of bigotry that run amuck within them. banning bigotry is not an "actual problem in our culture," it is our site culture. the subreddit is dead.
  
  And let's be clear, everyone there already wants to defederate with us. This was true for blahaj as well. It's not like we're just defederating from random instances out of a whim.
- I think it depends whether the misbehavior happens on our comms or theirs personally. If they want to be shitty on their own site, we will dunk to our hearts content. If they want to poison our own site and make it an unsafe place, then they can eat the
  
  If they want to be shitty on their own site, we will dunk to our hearts content.
  I think,the way federation works is hexbear just wouldn't federate their comments so we wouldn't get to see their shit on other instances to dunk on.

321 comments