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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

Well written. We’re luck to have you.

Russian disinformation is generally either refuted in comments or removed by mods

I mean all you have to do is glance at any Ukraine thread on any instance federated with hexbear to know this is a lie.

These people are trolls, plain and simple. The mods/admins are no exception, they are just slightly more self aware than their users when it comes to diplomacy. They will say whatever they think you want to hear in order to get one more day worth of trolling in.

I just gave up and started blocking all of their subs.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I've seen more posts complaining about Hexbear than actual objectionable things they've done. Maybe that's a sign of effective moderation, but in general I agree that defederation should always be a very last resort, and it doesn't feel like we're even close.

Also, with the ability for users to block instances coming soon, I think everyone will be happy then. At least, users anyway, it will still be down to the admin team to determine if the moderation workload is excessive and act accordingly - but that decision is and should be up to you.

This was a good post and I think you have the right attitude.

To be clear about something, it should be stated tankies are not really left wing. They take the side of Russia and China and defend such actions as you mention. They are quite fascistic in ideology when you break it down. They also remind me of MAGA hats a bit in their rhetoric and I do think given enough time they will/are nationalistic in regards to Russia and China.

I don't think we should defederate from them, as of now, as long as lemm.ee has clear rules on bigotry and other things that are disruptive. Russian or Chinese propaganda should be either removed or have users downvote them and hidden. Regarding their shit posts, i think it should be allowed on certain dedicated subs. Like, 196 had their posts hit all but their culture stayed contained on that subreddit and instance.

And before anyone comments on me not being part of lemm.ee, I am planning to make an account and most likely make it my default but I am watching everything before I make a decision.

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.

Glad to read this.

Appreciate your approach.

Personally I've seen a lot of hexbear commenters out for blood, seemingly very ready to argue and name-call. Also I've seen many comments and some posts suggesting lemm.ee is for racists.

I assume that is just the "wreckers" someone mentioned.

I don't believe this instance is racist and I don't believe hexbear is all propagandists and lunatics, but I must admit I've been readily blocking subs of theirs. They honestly just seem quite angry with the world and the west. Sometimes for good reason, but sometimes so reflexively it comes off as Russian or Chinese bot posting.

I could be wrong with my personal reflex, but that engagement isn't why I'm on Lemmy at all.

Yeah, I generally agree with your stance on it, which is a little bit of a change from previously, but more so understanding better what was already there.

My main problem with their instance is the sub-group of more antagonistic and condescending users, which have an overlap with the ones posting what you've described as "Kremlin propaganda".

Although said propaganda isn't quite exclusive to Russia, there's also Chinese propaganda stuff there too from what I can understand, which again has that same sort of overlap in users, if not the same users as the Russian propaganda sources.

Also, some of the culture of the instance is a bit off-putting, namely the allusions of sorts to pigs, but that could just be my Autism causing me to feel more offended by that than normal.

As it is, politically speaking, I'm not fond of Capitalism, I'm aware of the general historical problems of authoritarianism that have taken over what attempts at communism have been tried, and so I can agree with a decent amount of the views taken there.

But the pro-Russian stuff that shows up there is absolutely wild to me; a country so actively hostile to LGBTQIA+, and yet it's getting support from people in an instance that is inclusive to that same persecuted group? The same country that doesn't even appeal to their ideals of leftism and/or communism in modern day? And the same country that blatantly commits to violations of human rights? It doesn't make any logical sense.

So to your point, it's a moderation issue mainly, and an issue that actually is being addressed, so nicely done to the admins/moderators there for that, and well done to you for bringing that to attention here as well.

And hopefully as you've said, once people start getting used to the rules and connection to other instances, said antagonism, condescension, and trolling will reduce with time.

And apologies for the absolutely flowing sentences that go on for way longer than normal, I blame the Autism/ADHD, as it's closer to how I actually speak vocally. I try to space it out so it's more readable, and less of a wall of connected language that blurs together, especially for those who might have dyslexia.

After reading through the comments here and seeing the level and type of hexbear participation I've lost my qualms and am fully in favor of defederating.

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.

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.

Kind of hilarious that in the midst of this drama, Hexbear themselves have defeded another left wing instance over petty debates about terminology and language. We're giving them more of a benefit of the doubt at this point than they give their own allies, lol. The far left eating its own in a quest for ideological purity is a song that never ends it seems.

Everything in this post describing your choice, to me affirms that I have found the right instance to make home. Thank you for your transparency and sharing how your background influences your perspective. Thank you for engaging in healthy reasonable discourse with those using the hammer and sicle (not a communist, but discussion of political ideologies is important and shouldn't be censored). The ways and places where you chose to draw the line show, to me, a lot of integrity and I greatly appreciate and admire your willingness to engage with perspectives other than your own while remaining intolerant of bigotry- I think that balance is something perhaps everyone could aspire to doing better.

For my two cents- soon lemmy overall will have the option for accounts to defederate as they please, giving a good option to those who would like to avoid this community. I support the decision to stay federated, and I support lemmy adding more tools for users to moderate what they want to be exposed to.

I really appreciate that this instance generally favors letting me filter out what I don't want to see for myself instead of making that choice for me. I just moved from lemmy.world and I really appreciate the transparency in communication, and the focus on remaining federated with other communities. Thanks for facilitating this community space!

For one, the thing I liked about lemm.ee is that they don't seem to enforce an ideology on its users, I consider every participant on this forum to have enough intellectual baguage to deal with propaganda from both sides and to forge their own view on all matters. so as long as people from different instances engage with good faith and arguments they can support with evidence. I can still do my own filtering and banning without having to call for the higher police.

With that said I see alot of distastefull Big ass Gif polluting every controversial thread hexbearians engage with and It makes me just close the thread and not bother reading through the mess or respond to it. I hope it will stop or infinity for lemmy adds a switch to hide those types of comments.

My Opinion for now is wait and see, If they can tune down the edgy shity comments then I can take their opposing oponions, If they keep on polluting the conversation I guess I will be fine if you axe them.

I think the fact that hexbear users couldn't leave this meta discussion to the users of this instance is evidence that defederation might be desirable. Individual users can block users or communities but they'll still show up, and say the same sorta of things they've been saying elsewhere.

I want to defederate from them. The overwhelming majority of interactions I've had with Hexbear users has been profoundly negative, and the user base's politics are, by-and-large chauvinistic and otherwise usually abhorrent. Weird shit like claiming that even trans-friendly spaces on most of lemmy are less trans-friendly than Hexbear.net. Furthermore, every comment out of the website I've seen on The War in Ukraine has been Russia-Sympathetic, which suggests that there's a strong pro-Russia sentiment running through the user base. I don't want anything to do with them.

Let me be honest: every hexbear user I have taken note of has had a massive chip on their shoulder. They want to be targets of hate. They are trolling. If theres been any besides them, I haven't noticed. It's not even agreeing or disagreeing with anything any particular hexbear has said. It's just the attitude. Childish. Trolling. I am not impressed.

Edit: in short I would say defederate if you want. Nothing of value would be lost.

I have no stance on them but I do find the people that post from hexbear to be a little irritating. A lot of them leave low quality shitpost with massive images and I know that's a bug but it still ruins it for everyone else.

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.

Just throwing in my 2 cents, I've had the most infuriating argument with some braindead fucking hexbear tankies, but I absolutely still believe defederation is not the answer. As a leftist, I believe in free speech and freedom of autonomy and association. I just block the worst ones.

If hexbear can keep a reign on their users and they understand they need to follow other sub/instance rules when posting there, and proactively bans abusers, then that's good enough.

edit: also @sunaurus your post is excellent btw

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.

Since lemm.ee seems insistent on staying federated with Hexbear, can anyone recommend a working instance (.world keeps crashing on me) that's defederated them?

I'm not tech savvy enough to know how to check whose defederated them and personally I find that their low-effort high-spam trolling in every thread they see to be off putting enough that I've been going back to Reddit because it feels less toxic. I liked the culture at Lemmy before Hexbear showed up and if possible I'd like to get that back. Thanks in advance!

FWIW, that's someone directly saying that their goal is to go out and proselytize.

First off, thank you @sunaurus ! Being an admin is tough. Being an admin that tries to build bridges, is even harder.

I vehemently dislike the "if you don't like them, you can block them" advice that is frequently given out. As a thought exercise, what is the equilibrium state of that method? New users to a community, coming in without a mature block list, would see 3 sets of users: a far-left echo chamber, an everyone-else echo chamber, and a verbal brawl of trolls in the middle. This is not a welcoming scene and will drive new users away.

With Lemmy, I ask myself what is the intent of moderation. "To enforce the rules!" is shallow reasoning. Why do we have rules? I put forward that the rules are there to maintain and build a community (dictionary definition). They are not there to enforce a particular worldview or economic system. While I staunchly oppose hexbear and grad viewpoints, I would not defederate them over their political views. That said, it is extremely hard to stay engaged on Lemmy when there is background of constant, shallow hate and derision thrown at me and my views. The atmosphere created by these comments go beyond simple political views.

Hexbear is confounding. On the rare occasion when the topic is kept nonpolitical, I find the comments helpful or informative. However, it's a sad fact of humanity that you can make anything political if you try and if you've built a strong personal identity around political views, this happens almost automatically. And that is where things go very wrong. Taken as a whole, that brigading effect is hard to ignore. You ask yourself if you're really welcome here, do you belong? "GO BACK TO REDDIT IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT!"

I am an American and another person's observation really resonated with me: it felt like arguing alone against a crowd Fox News viewers. There was an entirely alternate set of facts and you were instantly labeled, stereotyped, and insulted for holding a different opinion. Do I really want to spend a lot of time in Fox News land? And if this analogy holds, is it the intent of Lemmy's various admins to allow for one instance to mandate the tone for the entire Fediverse?

I do not share your optimisim that things will improve based on an updated code of conduct. Hexbear admins have good intentions to balance their ideals with good fediverse citizenship. I think we will continue to see friction between worlds without much stronger rules of engagement.

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.

Please never apologize for this. The Soviets were some fucked up people who did fucked up things to tens of millions of people. Nobody should be eyeing their symbology favourably.

Thanks for all the work you've been doing admining this instance @sunaurus.

My immediate opinion from this post was that we should defederate from hexbear, since I've felt myself put off of browsing lemmy because of what I perceived as their annoying comments. I'll admit, by annoying I meant constantly bringing up leftist ideology into threads where it was just plain irrelevant. I'm liberal myself, just not as leftist as the average user on hexbear is. But sometimes I just want to browse my memes in peace, y'know?

But after reading through the comments on this thread, I'm now a little more apprehensive about supporting defederation. It's now apparent to me that the reason why their comments have leftist undertones is because that's what characterizes the instance. Hexbear wouldn't be hexbear if their userbase were centrist or right-wing. Hexbear is hexbear precisely because (for better or for worse) they provide a home for leftist ideology.

Furthermore, there are a couple of reasons why it seems like they're "brigading muh memes." One is because they're such a large instance (larger than us, but certainly smaller than lemmy.world). The other is that their interface doesn't allow downvotes, so the only way they can voice disapproval of an opinion is by literally voicing their disapproval in the comments. I personally think this is an excellent system, if it can be moderated well. I see it as promoting discussion. However if it's not moderated well, good discussion ends up getting drowned out by the shouting of village idiots.

A lot of people are pointing out how 1.4k of the 1.8k comments on this post are from hexbear users. That's ~5.8% of the instance's 24.5k member userbase. The remaining 400 or so comments come from a mix of lemm.ee and other instances. Assuming all 400 other comments from from lemm.ee users, that's 2% of our userbase. Undoubtedly, the percentage is even less because that assumption is definitely false. Thus, hexbear has a participation rate that's almost triple ours (with the best case assumptions in our favor). I'm sure the probability of encountering one (or many) of their village idiots is high. This probability is undoubtedly increased due to the fact that their instance systematically encourages participation because of their lack of downvotes. And if Trumpists demonstrate anything, it's that stupid likes to participate.

I'm intentionally avoiding using the word "discussion", since I recognize that participating in a thread and discussing in a thread are two very different things. Both village idiots and good-faith intellectuals participate, but only the latter's participation can be characterized as discussion. I've seen both types of hexbear users in this thread.

I'm wary of us defederating from hexbear. It seems like we'd be condemning a political community for the actions of their (admittedly rather vocal) village idiots. On the other hand, it's not clear to me if that community's moderators really care about controlling their village idiots, especially since they are undoubtedly wreaking havoc on other communities. My guess is that the wisest course of action is to wait and see how their rule changes take effect. If their new rules are able to control their village idiots, then I see no reason to defederate.

There needs to be a way to block entire instances at the user level.

From my own experience hexbear has been very annoying lately, all I see on my Lemmy feed is politics (which is generally ok I am also here for politics but they literally spam it) and rage-bait by them, also their custom emojis are huge (I don't know if it's just me since I use sync) and often take up entire comment sections.

I find myself having conflicting thoughts about defederation in general.

Much of mainstream social media these days leads to isolation of ideologically-opposed communities from one another and pushes together more like-minded communities ("echo chamber"). I think that's a bad thing.

I don't find Hexbear's culture a good fit for me, and though I share many of the same political sentiments, that's why I'm using lemm.ee and not hexbear.

I would not enjoy it if a large group of alt-righters suddenly federated with us and became a very vocal presence, even if a large number of their users were often polite, because I am so strongly opposed to those politics.

How to balance between an "all or none" approach and avoid perpetuating an echo chamber? I'd say continue bolstering controls for individual users to decide and federate widely for now. The more visibility the instances have among each other, the more overall awareness there will be in the user base of which communities are truly bad actors vs. large, vocal, and a little immature.

MHO... I would not miss Hexbear at all if they were defederated. Most of the content I see from them is pretty obnoxious, and even the "nice, polite" posts have a strong sealion scent to them. I block most of their communities when I encounter them in my All feed, and will probably block the instance once Lemmy has that capability.

That being said, I support the decisions that @sunaurus is making in regard to Hexbear. His decisions about site administration and moderation have always been sensible and competent.