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sunaurus @lemm.ee

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:

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. 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.

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1.8K comments

  • 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 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.

      • This helped put it in perspective for me honestly. It's bizarre to read somebody much further left than I, explain why my "not left enough" is destructive. I totally get it. Sometimes it's the "well idk... it's better than my OTHER option." But that's such a stupid hill to stand on. We (USA) need to push for more personal powers.

        How do you feel about leftism, including those that lemmy.world, say are denying genocide?

        Or have I just been fed anti-china sentiment on the whole thing? "China Bad. China hates brown people" kinda shit. Has the UN weighed-in on the situation? I'm very ignorant on the topic and would love a world perspective on it.

        • First off as I already said I'm obviously also just some guy on the Internet, who might know less about things than it sound like. But when I say liberalism is destructive what I mean is that the ideology proposes systems of representative democracy, free markets and nation states, systems which are fundamentally not equipped for many of the problems the world is facing. Obviously a big motivator here is climate change, but even if you think there is a path within those systems to solve that, there is a nuclear and general arms stockpile that is currently still growing, there is exploration and alienation of the wage worker in the modern world and so on and so on. And I just cannot see a reasonable path until we collectively move on from liberalism.

          That's why from some point of view I find mindlessly regurgitating Chinese propaganda, more acceptable than mindlessly regurgitating cnn or whatever, it's mostly just down to me having read the liberal side so often I got tired of it, with the CCP side there's at least ideologically interesting content there, it's just mixed with( post )empire nationalism, Chinese exceptioalism and whatever. So obviously a nation state obsessed with whatever the CCP is obsessed with is bad, but it's trapped in the same destructive system as a country that other countries make their ideolical foundation. All of them are bad, which makes ranking them just sort of stupid unless you are trying to honestly understand the differences or relationships off these countries.

          Also systems and people change over time so pinning a people down for the systematic destruction they cause is a difficult thing to do both practically and ideologically, looking at denazification and errinerungskultur, of post ww2 Germany shows this fairly obviously.

          Every people will have an uncomfortable time and a difficult discussion about their commited destruction at some point I hope, especially I Believe the West owes this debt to the global south, but there are countless instances of this debt around the world, weather it's Armenians, Palestinians, Roma, Tibet, Bosnia, Uighur, Natives of the Americas, Religious minorities... but it's hard to force this realization.

          TLDR: Yeah everyone in the West has eaten tons of anti China bullshit,

          China Bad. China hates brown people

          Is obviously too reductive for what is a very complicated and deeply connected world, even taking the UNs stance and looking at it gives us just a single additional data point, because while it is a conceptually deeply radical organization, it also has it's own biases. This is true for almost everything you can think of because everything is touched by politics in some way.

          Generally trying to learn more philosophy has helped put a lot of this chaos of ideology into perspective. So read or watch something about that, and let new or foreign things in to the point where you feel an understanding about wether you can accept (parts) of it or discard (parts) of it. Thank you for the reply and if you're as terminally online as me I can certainly collect a few YouTube channels I'd recommend.

          • Personally, I believe a bunch of billionaires have fucked up in a major way with some bad short-bets. So, I unfortunately have to try to see the world through the eyes of these massive corporations (banks/hedgefunds/fed/USGOV/DTCC/Cede&Co/etc) until their bets fail, and my group has the money to fix ((or persuade?)) the world. Do I want to play their game? Fuck no. But we're going to "win" in order to fix this clusterfuck that we've found ourselves in.

            These are the same motherfuckers that propagandize our news for profits.. Looking through that lens, even with a massive fucking bag of salt, can be beyond exhausting. I want to know what's "actually" going on, but I also want to know the kind of news/info the massive hedge funds in, say, China want their population to believe.

            But yes, I'm always online as well. Always trying to learn more about the the years of geopolitical interactions I wasn't around for.

            No half measures.

    • (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.

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