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1y ago

Hexbear federation megathread

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.

1.8K 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.
  
  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.
  
  In addition to doing hate speech against protected minority groups such as landlords and factory owners we also discriminate against other minority groups such as: war criminals, slave owners, Nazis, and fascist paramilitaries
  
  Count the number of pictures or references to guillotines.
  To be fair, I see those memes about guillotines and "eat the rich" all over the Internet.
  
  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).
  
  killing someone does not remove their humanity
  
  Is there a way to block instances as a user now?
  
  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.
  
  Don't worry about them, they're just salty rentoids who are jealous of landchads being based 🥰
- 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
  
  Come chat to us more then. Jesus would have done the same as us, he chased the money lenders out of temple by beating them with a whip.
- 🥰

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".
  
  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.
  
  anti-fascists except for the Kremlin propaganda that's coming from the fascist regime in Russia?
  but I guess at least people can't use the R-word, just heavily insinuate that Ukraine deserves to be invaded and that both side suck in that conflict.
- 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.

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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Statement I was looking for!

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)...

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.

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.
- Hell yeah dude
  Edit: or dudesse, or enby
- I blocked the_dunk_tank in particular because it’s pretty toxic
- You sound like you've got Stockholm Syndrome. Blink twice if the tankies are in the room with you
- 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.
  
  is anyone who says anything positive about hexbear going to be branded a "hexbear bot"?
  
  Comments like this are why we get the reputation for being bullies. Comments like this are why we won't miss you if you defederate from us.
  
  I've posted this same comment before I think, but I have to do it again: God damn do I wish I could go through life like this. Anything even remotely threatening to my world-view = bot, absolute drivel, automatic and instant disregard. A cozy little bubble where everything I believe is always good and right, and everything else is bots.
  
  wut? They're from ur instance.

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.

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.

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.

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.
  
  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.
- 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.
- 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"?
  
  Don't conflate communism with tankie shitposting. I'm fine with communists. I don't want troll comments. But this isn't my instance.

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.

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.
- Indeed. I chose lemm.ee in part due to the federation policy, and I hope if we defederate it's because of hexbear "directly harming lemm.ee users", and not because people don't like the content.

as a lemmy.world user, I can’t tell you all enough about how much our quality of life has improved since we defederated form hexbear.net. far less moderation is necessary and general browsing is far more pleasant not having to constantly be bombarded by those awful stickers and brigades of trolls with their endless baiting and attacks.
why should users and mods be constantly burdened day I and day out with users from an instance whose entire ethos is that of shitposting trolls? if lemm.ee is supposed to be a nice place, why would you intentionally let in a group of people you know have zero intention of comporting to your expected code of conduct and have a well-established pattern of behavior that’s hostile, combative, and toxic towards a large portion of your user base?
yes, defederation is a last-resort option, but what other choices do you have when current user and mod options simply aren’t sufficient? defederation isn’t permanent, and if, by some miracle, hexbear users suddenly become well-behaved, lemm.ee can always re-federate with them. if they weren’t the titanic problem they genuinely are, several other instances wouldn’t also be currently discussing defederation in addition to those which already have.
I’m reminded of an old post I once saw about a bartender who kicks out any Nazi who enters his bar, even if they're well-mannered and isn’t bothering other patrons. Even though they may be polite and bothering nobody, eventually, they come back with a friend, then another, then then 10 others, and then BOOM, you’e a Nazi bar.
Don’t make lemm.ee a toxic, hostile, troll-filled hexbear bar. keep it nice. keep it safe. ❤️
edit: not even a day later, and I get this pvt message from a lemm.ee user warning me of this scary-ass comment they got with a stalking/death threat they received from a hexbear troll, with a list of users they feel slighted them and other hexbear users.
HEXBEAR USERS ARE DANGEROUS. HEXBEAR USERS ARE TERRORISTS.
names blurred for safety

i don't have anything in particular to add, I just want to repeat that clicking on "all" isn't brigading.

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.

I'm firmly in the "tone it down" camp on Hexbear (especially on other instances) and I appreciate people's patience and I'm glad that some people have gotten past our rough exterior. I'm hoping things will quiet down and stabilize before we burn our bridges. I'm glad to hear that your experience with our mods was positive and that you're focusing more on that, over the years I've come to trust our mods and I believe they're committed to making this work.
As has already been mentioned and acknowledged, clarification on Kremlin propaganda would be appreciated. I agree with removing false information, but I'm of the belief that it's important to understand the positions and perspective of every nation, especially those considered enemies, for the sake of peace. I do not trust any source from any state implicitly, but rather I believe in gathering information from a variety of sources and critically examining each. I grew up in a "post 9/11 world" and in that context, any attempt to understand the motivations or historical context behind that event, beyond "They hate us for our freedom," was treated with suspicion, along with all sorts of lies about Muslims in general. Since then, I don't go along with hating who I'm told to hate, at least until I feel I've investigated the matter fully. To that end, I think there is value in listening critically to state-affiliated sources, from every side.
I look forward to having productive discussions in the future.

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.

Well written. We’re luck to have you.

Defederating from Hexbear would be a hugely disappointing move. They have a lot of insightful posts that I want to see interleaved with my other subscriptions. It would be a true shame to defederate from them because a subset of their users are immature/shitposters (where isn't that the case?). The point of federation was to not require every user to have N separate accounts on every forum. They show up in everyone's feed because they have a lot of users and activity. That's a ~~feature, not a bug~~ success!

I'm a fan of hexbear and like being a lemm.ee user. Hopefully things work out.

For anyone keeping count, I've switched to my lemmy.world account (which has defederated from Hexbear) and the comments on this thread are at 209. When I logged out of my Lemm.ee account there were over 800, so that means roughly 600 of the comments on a meta thread for the lemme.ee instance are from Hexbear users, or in threads started by them.
Edited to remove some slightly frustrated and possibly less than civil comments.

I just gave up and started blocking all of their subs.
- Why not hop over to an instance that has them defeded? Even if you block all their subs, you're still going to see all their users.
- They're called comms on lemmy. Please go back to reddit.

Props for staying calm throughout all this. The initial rush of excitement seems to be pretty much over, which means things ought to mellow down on the timeline. I'm sure Hexbear can coexist with the fediverse the same way /r/cth coexisted with reddit, which is to say by showing up and ballin' for Marx and pushing the boundaries of acceptability. Except this time there are no ad revenue sources to placate by banning anything outside of the Overton window.
I can totally understand your strong feelings towards the USSR. I understand you've conceded that the hammer and sickle isn't strictly soviet symbology and can represent other things, but I would like to ask you whether or not you would think of the "stars and stripes" or the "union jack" (or really most western iconography) as hate speech given the centuries of pillaging, rape, genocide and dehumanization that they represent in many parts of the world.

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.

Good, I like having them around. They give the fediverse the spice of life that prevents it from becoming just another necrotic pool of internet backwash filled with stale memes and pandering comments like what late Digg became and what reddit has been turning into.

This post already has a lot of comments, but as a relatively new Lemmy user, I also want to add that I agree against defederation except as a last resort. However, that said, I do find most of these hexbear posts and users very annoying.
I consider myself extremely left-leaning, but I’m also not someone who enjoys engaging in political discussion online. One day recently, my Lemmy feed was suddenly inundated with these “chapo” posts (I don’t even know what a chapo is) and the attitude of the posts and comments is very disheartening. They are obviously aggressive and angry, and while I don’t like homophobes, transphobes, xenophobes, and so on, I also don’t want every other post on my feed to be a hate post. Even hating the bad guys gets old really fast. I get it. I was a hater when I was younger too, but I can’t take two steps online today without stumbling into rage or hatred.
A couple weeks ago when I joined Lemmy, it was still feeling cozy enough and positive enough for the most part that it felt like a little safe haven. I started telling all my friends how great it was (as long as you don’t mind porn or are willing to filter out NSFW) and I was excited to post and comment to contribute to the content. But all of a sudden one day these hexbear posts and users started popping up and now I’m embarrassed that I even recommended this place.
I generally agree with their messages when they are standing up for the rights of others and talking about tearing down corrupted establishments, but the sarcasm is so dense and dripping with hatred that it’s almost impossible to tell what they’re talking about or advocating for, so I absolutely do not want to get involved with their discussions.
Anyway, all I’m saying is even though the content is not what I want to see and not what I think is healthy for this sort of site, defederating is serious and breaks one of the best parts of what Lemmy has to offer. We should let the instance moderate itself for a while, even if it means putting up with some noise while things calm down. Letting users filter entire instances will be a fantastic feature when/if it arrives, but for now I’m fine just ignoring the posts or blocking the communities if they are really bothering me

As a Hexbear user and one of the people your mod and OP interacted with in that thread, I find a good chunk of this post concerning and often spurious.
First, personally, I am one of the people who accused him of engaging in behaviour that was tantamount to Holocaust denial. I did so after his repeated, blunt, assertions of false equivalency between the undisputed horrors of Nazi Germany and those - some true, many disputed, some outright refuted - of the Soviet Union. I explained that this practice is known as the 'Double Genocide Theory' and even linked to articles by Jewish historians and Holocaust academics that explained the issues with the theory and the history of its official use to whitewash far-right movements, particularly in post-Soviet states. Instead of receiving a modicum of serious engagement he instead deliberately and grossly misrepresented and dismissed not only my point but the work of the Jewish academics I linked before leaving with an insult.
Secondly, what exactly constitutes Kremlin propaganda? This is a usually completely baseless claim that is thrown constantly at Hexbear uses, but also almost any marginally left or anti-war figure on the internet. A small but vocal group of cynical users that cannot and will not tolerate opposing viewpoints use it to shut down debate and to smear people. As your mod/OP stated, Hexbear does both refute and ban clear instances of actual Russian (or other) state propaganda when it's demonstrably untrue or breaks our very strict rules on bigotry of any kind. But much of what was smeared as Kremlin propaganda was not, because it was not.
Your very own mod/OP engaged in a version of that in the thread on Hexbear and when pushed on what it meant variably either ignored the question or cast the net as wide as anything Russia (state, politicians, or media) have ever said. Several people made the point that a Russian source can say can say something that's factual, or identify something true and use that as part of a political narrative. Does that objective truth suddenly because false as soon as it's spoken by Russian lips? These questions were ignored.
Personally, I'd prefer that there isn't defederation, that the bad feeling that's undoubtedly been created by members from both instances, is moved on from, and to explore and engage with more of lemm.ee afresh. I also recognise and respect that decision as being lemm.ee's to make, but felt that users deserve to hear some of the other perspective. Especially when I do not believe your mod/OP is either willing or able to be clear eyed or act in good faith around contentious issues like those highlighted in this thread. Which of course is also to be considered, and decided by, users of Lemm.ee.

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.

First of all I would like to offer my support to Sunaurus for this post. I thank him for raising this issue to our instance and for continuing to be discussion led and transparent. I also ask that we discuss this so we are best informed on the Hexbear subject.
I also agree what Sunaurus is saying but would add;
We try to encourage people to engage in a healthy way here on Lemm.ee. Also looking throughout the Fediverse which is growing at the moment we look to encourage that same engagement. This will ensure it’s long term success and resilience. I believe that healthy discussion promotes new ideas, innovation and learning. I do not believe that any abuse, victimisation, harassment or active discrimination has a place.
In the recent days I have seen increased reports coming from content or comments made by Hexbear users. However from what I am seeing although there is a lot, mostly they do not cross the line for significant action although a minority do. So at this time from what I have seen Defederation is not obvious a decision to me. I am expecting the behaviour and style of comments to calm once the excitement of Federating passes. I am also encouraged by the positive steps of the Hexbear admins.

Banning state propaganda is great, but why limit that ban to Kremlin propaganda? US propaganda is just as, if not more, prevelent and toxic. The narrative surrounding the destruction of the Nord Stream is a good example:
American corporate media and government officials were calling for its destruction and outright threatening to blow it up for months prior to the actual attack. Immediately after its destruction, the corporate news outlets and government officials that had been calling for that very action acted as though they had never done so and presented a unified front that blamed Russia for the attack. Doing some critical thinking and realizing that Russia had neither the opportunity nor the motive to blow up their own pipeline is not Kremlin propaganda. Continuing that critical thinking and realizing that the US had both motive and opportunity, and was a likely culprit because they had repeatedly threatened to blow up the pipeline is not Kremlin propaganda. Shutting down all discussion critical of the US by dismissing it as Russian bots is US propaganda.

Stating that my people (and other Baltic nations) are subhuman
Oh, that's includes a now deleted comment of mine. Yes, i admit i got a bit overboard here. I wanted only to highlight a certain political tendency in the region. rather than make a blanket statement about any nationalities and ethnicities. It really came out wrong. And while i don't really care whatever this instance defederates or not, here i must apologize since i was clearly in the wrong. I should only dunk on people for what they do, not what they are.
- Wait. You posted a comment which was perceived as "Stating my ethnicity is subhuman", and you think it merely "came out wrong"?!?
  Ok, honestly, that's it. I vote for defederation.
  
  You posted a comment which was perceived as "Stating my ethnicity is subhuman", and you think it merely "came out wrong"?!?
  Actually yes. If i added one more word it would be less ambiguous.
  
  You'll defederate because one user from an instance did a bad thing? (And then publically apologized for that thing?) Yeah, very reasonable
- 🥰

I think we need to stay federated. This is not a kindergarten and people can chose what to read and what not.
If we start de-federating every time someone gets offended and set precedent, we will end up de-federating from everything eventually because guess what: there is always someone getting offended for whatever reason. This is internet, grow up.
The neutral stance is the main reason I joined this instance. The moment this changes - I am out.

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.

Hexbear user here so I've no say in whether you defed or not.
Just wanted to say, I appreciate how level headed you've been in this post and with defederation as a whole even though your previous interaction with Hexbear users has made you the target of comments that were heated (to say the least).

I usually enjoy the conversations they create, could do less with the poopy pig but that's not a big deal enough to defederate IMO.

Sorry for interloping as a new lemmy.ml user -- I wanted to share my perspective because I was one of the very early adopters of hexbear (then called chapo.chat) after the ChapoTrapHouse subreddit got banned. I no longer have an account there because despite the mods best efforts to uphold "left unity", I at best felt tolerated as an anarchist and just stopped browsing eventually. The reddit strike coinciding with hexbear federating convinced me to create a lemmy account to maybe reconnect with some of the communities there.
The great strength of the old subreddit was that it was a safe haven for leftists of all flavors, practically the first of its kind as comparable places like /r/DankLeft did not exist yet. After a few years of relative isolation, I think it's fair to say that hexbear has become more staunchly ideological (and I'm sure some would say for better) and at least to me it lost some of its more broad appeal. My hope for federation was to see some of the more calcified beliefs over there shaken up a bit with an influx of new users. I guess it's also fair to say that that hasn't happened yet, but it's only been a few days so far.
My hope is still twofold: for Lemmy as a whole, I think it's good that there is a strong leftist presence somewhere to avoid the complete flattening of opinion one can experience on, say, /r/worldnews or /r/politics. I'd hope to see more voices that are critical for example of US hegemony, the two-party system and capital as a whole compared to reddit. And for hexbear I still hope that they can reclaim some of their former big tent appeal, they have always advertised themselves as welcoming to everyone broadly on the left and despite my many criticisms, I do think the mods there do indeed stand by that. These hopes may all be a bit naïve, but I do believe defederating from the biggest leftist instance that (at least in theory) is non-sectarian will only lead to more calcified beliefs on both sides. A lot of that is also for hexbear to decide though, they will have to choose what role they want to play in the fediverse.

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.

Defederate. I see some thoughtful hexbear users in this thread, but in other threads most of them seem to be spammers and fanatics.

One thing to also take into consideration is the very pro Chinese government slant by many of the users. Many there claim China is a democracy. While I have not seen Uyghur genocide denial there, I also don't peruse hexbear threads very often. That is something that needs to be looked out for.
Edit: well some of them were nice enough to bring the genocide denial to me. Thanks for that. I didn't really feel like seeking it out. The people denying genocide are fairly prevalent posters around hexbear which tells me that instance is perfectly fine with it. I do not think we should be federating with genocide deniers. It was very nice of them to change my mind on federation.

Personally, I would rather see hexbear stay federated. I've never run into problems with their users and a few annoying trolls does not define a community. I would be disappointed if this instance starts defederating from instances that don't break any local or international laws.

Kremlin propaganda
Okay what is meant by this because I have literally no idea
like, you had previously thought communist symbolism in general was Kremlin propaganda, before it was pointed out otherwise. So what still applies to the term? Any defense of modern russia? defense of the USSR? militant communism in general? Revolutionary Marxism? Its a blanket term that doesn't seem to be fully defined in this post. I would like it if someone clarified this.

I believe you handled this situation well, kudos for keeping a level head and trying discussion rather than employing a knee-jerk reaction and blocking the entire instance (or defederating)! Especially considering some of the comments made (like those about your country) seem to have hit you in the feels.
Imho some hexbear users make really high quality posts / comments and engage in discussion or discourse.. While some shit-post and meme everywhere and anywhere. I would be lying if I claimed that I never cracked a smile over a few of these :3
As always, users have the option of blocking any community they find distasteful. I maybe biased in this regard though as the major reason I joined .ee was the "open" approach to federation.. If users are seeking more of a "curated" environment may I suggest one of the many, many instances which would better suit their preferences.

First of all, a great hug to you, it's seems that the ownership/moderation of this instance hurts you. As enjoy-er of this instance, you got my gratitude.
I think that de-federation should be only for extreme instances that allow the worst crimes, besides that, i think that every one should be his own judge. As you stated is a problem that you cant block an instance currently, but hopeful this will be solved soon,
Sorry, English is not my first language.

I blocked hexbear my first day of using Lemmy. Its incredible they amassed such a large group of people I don't ever care to interact with. I have yet to see a comment or post from anyone on hex bear that makes me feel like I'm not wasting my time and mental health. No comment on defederation though, I'm just waiting until clients can block all comments too.

I appreciate the post and your thoughtful reflections. I think I agree on your perspective: defederation should be the absolute last resort (at least for a "generalist" instance like ours, not specifically dedicated to a group of vulnerable people).
I'd like to see what the users of Hexbear have to say, even if I might not agree with them.
I'd say let's keep them federated and see how things go. If resources permit it, mods should keep a watchful eye for propaganda and other unacceptable content.
Also, if users have the ability to block comminities (which is something I was not aware of), they should do it, if they so wish.
Again, thank you for your thoughtful message and for asking our opinion.

Well, bully for you for being even handed, but the instant I can block a complete server, hexbear and lemmygrad are going on it. The shit far outweighs the roses from either of those instances.

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 Instance, that was already defederated from Hexbear, shows around 300 comments right now. Watching this from lemmy.world, that's also defederated from Hexbear, shows a similar number.
Looking directly from the lemm.ee instance, this thread has 1300 comments. Whooping 1k difference. I wonder what that could mean? 🙃
Edit: Just to proof my statement:
https://feddit.de/c/meta@lemm.ee
https://lemmy.world/c/meta@lemm.ee
https://lemm.ee/c/meta

I understand the tension between the communists and the anti-communists here (and that's not going to be resolved in this thread), but the most baffling perspective in this thread are the people just wanting instance blocking. Why are you browsing All and then being upset that it's full of posts from outside your normal bubble? Lemmy's All filter is just like r/all: a mess of wildly different people, interests, and viewpoints. That's kinda the point, isn't it?
Lemmy provides subscriptions to specific communities based on your personal interests. That's going to have the most relevance to you. Settings in every app allow you to pick it as the default view. Use the community explorer to find new communities that actually interest you.
In either case, the focus on instance seems weird. Lemmy is deliberately built around communities. It shouldn't matter where your Lemmy account is hosted: you can subscribe/lurk/participate/ignore any community regardless. It seems like instances are more of an implementation/infrastructure detail. Anytime we start deliberately filtering/censoring/breaking the infrastructure, the more useless it becomes. Defederation actively undermines the network effect that makes Lemmy compelling.

I agree with you. Also I want to say that it's not just hexbear, I have seen groups of users demand defederation from other instances (not just on lemm.ee) because they don't like seeing NSFW and politics (and other topics I'm sure). If we resort to defederation for any conflict then why are we even here trying to grow Lemmy, it's clear that it wouldn't go anywhere and we should just pack up and go back to Reddit and beg u/spez for forgiveness.
Federation is the main point of these platforms, otherwise they are just a bunch of obscure forums walled out from each other, none having enough resources nor userbase to grow into anything meaningful, and quickly being abandoned.
Can't wait until users are able to block instances so this becomes a non-issue. Probably a compromise could be defederating until the feature is ready, not sure if that's possible, and on the event Hexbear admins/mods not do enough to moderate.

I think the federation should be able to handle some more trolls if there's also some genuine conversations to be had.
My instance has both Lemmygrad and Hexbear federated and I'd like it to stay that way.

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