Hexbear Discussion Round 2

I figured since their admin has asked them to stop participating over here it may be worthwhile to get a new discussion going that is primarily blahaj. I’m almost certain they’ll still be upvoting so keep that in mind as that may skew things. Worthwhile to check in from instances that have already defederated them. The previous thread definitely left a bad taste in my mouth but what do y’all think?

Old thread can be found here

EDIT: With regards to the post on new federation guidelines here: hexbear.net/post/352119

The current top comment is:

Every instance that has talked shit and got dogpiled should be thanking us for breathing some life into their dead and boring ass websites.

SamPond,
@SamPond@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I would not even call Hexbear extremists or allies, they are just plain trolls who use leftist arguments and tone policing to establish themselves as superior. The current thread on the supposed ableism that is being argued is a clear example of that: Tone policing, forcing absolute rules on who can and who can’t use their dialects, moral judgement on strangers based on absurd rules, and not to mention the flooding and baiting that has been done so far. They are the equivalent of a SomethingAwful leftism, loud, demanding and pointless.

Voting for defederation, if only to clean up the mess that they’ve been making.

temeela,
@temeela@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

If you want my honest opinion, tolerating tankies is not worth whatever kind of project you want to build. I think we should unite forces with trans people on trans issues sure, but giving a platform to tankies ain’t it. They’ll poison discussions, as they already have, name-call and take-over whatever thread they do not like. They like to put on a nice face to avoid being deferated, but I doubt it’ll last.

HellAwaits,

Every instance that has talked shit and got dogpiled should be thanking us for breathing some life into their dead and boring ass websites.

Flinging stupid shit around isn’t breathing life into our “boring” website. I find being a Putin puppet way more boring quite frankly.

Gormadt, (edited )
@Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Not to mention they’re basically saying, “You should enjoy our abuse and be thankful for it.”

Yeah that’s straight up abuser language.

And given that they have a community dedicated to organizing dogpiling, I’d say that the admins are complacent in their abuse of others and that’s not a community I’d want to be associated with or for us to be seen as associating with.

Edit: I accidentally a word

Snowpix,
@Snowpix@lemmy.ca avatar

Why would anybody thank them for doing nothing but spam propaganda and huge emojis and brigading? Absolutely delusional. The instance I’m from defederated from them and it’s been a night and day difference. You guys should do the same.

Strawberry,

I believe in blahaj-hexbear unity and I think we should all hug

StarMage, (edited )
@StarMage@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I think they need to be defederated. Many users over there seem to be very edgy and tankie. I also saw too many very upvoted posts from this instance with bad faith arguments, idiotic takes and strawmen, with lots of users supporting this crap

Strawberry,

Where in the blahaj rules does it state that you must be squishy and also be a supporter of the deadliest, most antisocial and most destructive economic system humanity has ever seen

Switchboard,

Are you trying to argue in bad faith on purpose? StarMage’s post mentioned nothing about being pro-capitalist or anti-communist.

Strawberry,

Well they seem clearly anticommunist

spaduf,
@spaduf@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Tankies are authoritarians. You know what they meant.

Strawberry,

Tankies are whatever the user or the word wants it to mean. Plenty of liberals use it to mean anyone left of Bernie (although I’ve even seen it used about Bernie for his comments on Cuba and because he visited the USSR). So no I don’t.

I also find the word authoritarian to be unhelpful and nonspecific in many of the instances it’s used when referring to communists

Switchboard,

Tankie has a definition and we’ve been using the term in line with that. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie#:~:text=Tankie is ….

kawaringe,

Being completely honest here, I don’t think we should defederate from them. I don’t see a point why. They are clearly pro-LGBTQ+, have huge support to our fellow trans brethren.
It also rubs me wrong in every single way to outright scrutinize one of the oldest still active Lemmy Instances, we all have to clearly remember which folks precursor the majority of us. Those being the left wing folks, we should respect their space and we respect theirs, otherwise it will be like mocking them to their faces. I have seen it with many others users treating them like garbage, how about we don’t? It is like inviting guests to your house and them stealing that home and turning it the way they want, and when you complain they start spurting crap about you being horrible, etc, etc.

I have said this one, and I will say this again;

For fuck’s sake keep your mouth shut, and move on(This doesn’t apply to fascists/conservatives). (This comment is not meant to come as rude, I am just stating my honest opinion.)

kawaringe, (edited )

update: I noticed the mods went ahead and defederated with hexbear. I am going to say I am not exactly the happiest with this decision, because of the mere fact of going against one of the most trans friendliest we have in Lemmy, all because of their conflict between ideology.When is the line crossed between security and delusion? I think this time it passed that line…I am just disappointed.ignore what i said here, i am very dumb sometimes and misread the instances section.

C4RC0S4,
@C4RC0S4@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Where do you see this?

miryem,

I dont think they defederated; i still see hexbear in the linked instances section. You can see it at the bottom of the page in the browser if you click the ‘instances’ link.

kawaringe,

oh, i misread it rapidly. welp, the first reply is unnecessary, i might delete that reply rq.

kawaringe,

That’s just my observation, ideology does come into play in some kind of way. What I meant by passing a line(in my POV to note) is just to me it rubs the wrong way to defederate with them upon the principles calling them “tankies”(tho, that’s not as clear) and their behaviour being assholery(that’s a bit justified on the part of the mods if I am being honest, but it could have been handled differently and with open discussion between both the mods and communities of each instance). Other than, it is just how I felt on that part.

I tried my best to explain my view, so if you have any criticism go ahead tell.

C4RC0S4,
@C4RC0S4@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

But lemmy.blahaj.zone has not blocked hexbear.net I just went into the lemmy.blahaj.zone/instances and hexbear is still linked.

kawaringe,

i did notice that XD

DLSchichtl,

Woah woah woah, Ada flips her shit at a young looking porn model (that was age verified) and defederates from lemmynsfw with zero warning or community input, but you guys are taking your time talking defederating an unapologetic troll instance. What the fuck is with the priorities around here.

ezri,
@ezri@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

This is a Blahaj meta post, this is a place for members of our instance to discuss. Why are you here and why do you care?

NuMetalAlchemist,

Fine, I’ll use my Blahaj account. Yall need to realize that folks got accounts on several instances, so tho we may chime in with the wrong account. They need to figure out how to keep a post local, cause these posts showing up on all is gonna just add to the confusion.

ezri, (edited )
@ezri@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Lol ok. Y’all need to realize that when you post from an account on another instance, it looks like some rando from another instance telling blahaj what to do

spaduf, (edited )
@spaduf@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

To be fair, they did explicitly change their rules after how the last thread went. I think it’s reasonable to have another discussion with that in mind. That said I am in favor of defederating.

KiriM,

I’ve said almost all I care to on this matter except to point out that it has taken less than a day for a Ukrainian war related post to appear on 196 and for hexbear “Marxist Leninists” to start proudly proclaiming their pro Russia opinions. You give these people a platform by staying federated and they will do this, and whether or not you consider their opinions to be offensive is somewhat subjective (I do) they are at the very least a major vibe killer. Anyways, I was right and if this shit keeps popping up in my feed I’m out, peace.

Gormadt,
@Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Yeah I’m a strong supporter of Ukraine in that conflict not just for political reasons.

I know 3 people who’s lives have been massively impacted by it; a friend who went home to defend his home who has been unreachable for a year, a friend who lost his whole family less than a month into the conflict, and a friend who now has his parents and younger brothers living with him because they fled Russia when it all kicked off.

To say I have strong opinions about the conflict is a bit of an understatement.

KiriM,

I’m so sorry about your friends. At this point the admin has made it clear they have no problem with this behaviour. Literally making excuses for and handwaving a cryptofascist state ravaging one of its smaller neighbours doesn’t constitute harassment.

It doesn’t seem possible to me that you can maintain a safe and inclusive space for all queer people while allowing a minority to engage in war apologism and all other manner of Soviet themed, larper bullshit. I really don’t want to actually try to address why what they’re doing is inexcusable because frankly they live for that kind of engagement, but its fucking shameful that this has become an issue at all, let alone a permanent feature of the community.

I really hope that your friends stay safe.

Gormadt, (edited )
@Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Hexbear literally has a community for organizing dogpiling and brigading (even Ada mentioned it) and Ada’s only problem was when it was used on them and their community.

That’s not behavior that should be condoned by our community.

By not condemning it it makes us look like we support that idea, which could easily lead us to being defederated by choosing to associate with Hexbear still.

I don’t want to see our friendly instance get defederated because our admin won’t defederate from an openly abusive instance.

marionberrycore,

I want to give them a chance, I liked most of the times I came across them aside from the previous thread. The previous thread was pretty concerning though ngl - I don’t think they intended to brigade but it still happened. I want to have solidarity with them, but so far, coexisting with them has been hard for a lot of people here. I’m hoping they settle down somewhat and listen to their admins requests such as staying out of c/main discussions and not spamming emojis, so it doesn’t have to come to defederation.

Snowpix,
@Snowpix@lemmy.ca avatar

They do intend to brigade. They actively discuss spreading their forces across other instances to shut down discussion and deny everyone else a platform, or to troll. They aren’t around to participate in good faith.

some_guy,

The previous thread was pretty concerning though ngl - I don’t think they intended to brigade but it still happened.

I think it’s hard to deny that when other people start talking about your community then you are likely to feel somewhat attacked. I say judge on any thread except the ones that are about them. Base it on their behavior and comments in the wider Lemmiverse. Personally, I want to try to make things work rather than being reactionary. That said, I had one (and only one) user from there try to talk a bunch of shit at me. I just stopped engaging and things were fine.

Lux,

I have never had or seen an interaction with another instance that makes me want to defederate them. I’m sure there are vaild reasons for defederating some instances, but defederating with every community that has trolls in it will eventually have us disconnected from every instance.

dueytwo,

My opinion is please defederate, thank you

Catoblepas,

I’ve never heard of them until now, but nothing I’m seeing makes me feel like I’d miss anything if blahaj defederated from them.

Gormadt,
@Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Straight up I’ve blocked more people from hexbear than anywhere else

At this point I’m looking forward to defederating from them due to how toxic they are

Kes,
@Kes@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I switched from Infinity, the client I’ve been using for years since Reddit and love dearly, to Sync, just so I could block the entire instance. The only people I’ve blocked on Lemmy are Hexbear users because all they do is spam anti American, anti capitalist takes everywhere they can and spam comment sections with essays denying the wrongdoings of any nation that is nominally communist. They’re more preachy and aggressive than street preachers, and my experience on Lemmy has been significantly more relaxed with them blocked

paris, (edited )

I feel like every time I see a comment from hexbear, it’s a tankie with the most insane take possible. I often see them use their emotes/memes not to add to a conversation, but to deflect or avoid directly responding to criticism. I also keep seeing entire comment threads taken over by hexbear as soon as one of them replies to someone. Almost like a bat signal goes out to call in reinforcements. I’m sure that’s mostly a product of them being terminally online and not necessarily malicious, but I have to block like ten hexbear users for every one I come across that isn’t like that.

It’s worth noting that most of the hexbear users I see are under politics stuff posted on large instances like .world and .ml, so these issues may be less prevalent or even non-existent on posts hosted on blahaj.zone. But fuck I really hate the energy they bring on. Honest to god I almost stopped using lemmy altogether because of how bad it gets under most of the posts I come across. I’m sure a lot of hexbear users are fine, but I don’t like constantly blocking half of a comment section because the tankies came out of the woodworks to say some dumb shit about Ukraine or whatever. I doubt I’m the only one constantly blocking tankies from hexbear.

I’m mostly posting this to see if others feel the same way or have had similar experiences. I’ve searched for posts about hexbear a couple times over the past week and haven’t seen one until here right now. I’m going through the first post from two days ago and it seems like I might just be coming across a very loud minority from their instance. If that’s the case, then defederating seems extreme and unnecessary. But if this is just what most of hexbear is like, I’d prefer to defederate and let the non-tankies make a new account here or on another instance that we federate with.

Update after two days: I’m officially casting my vote as “defederate from hexbear please god,” final answer. The tankies and trolls are exhausting and I’m sick and tired of dealing with them. Either they can’t be reigned in or they simply aren’t. It’s not even just their politics. Now that I’ve been thinking consciously “is this comment’s bad politics indicative of the whole instance” I’ve noticed that a lot of people from hexbear are kind of just assholes. I don’t want to deal with them anymore. “The good ones” can make another account here or somewhere that we federate with. But honest to god, most of their instance is a drain on my mental health and I can see that I’m not the only one from blahaj zone that feels that way.

I know they come off as trans-friendly, but they also let tankies run defense for authoritarian countries that don’t treat queer people like me well. If hexbear keeps up like this I’m just gonna stop using lemmy altogether. Logging on isn’t worth the excruciation of dealing with their instance. I know Ada wants solidarity with other trans-friendly instances, but I don’t think the tankies and trolls at hexbear care about that, and I don’t think the rest of their instance cares enough to get them to chill out. It feels like they’re taking advantage of blahaj zone’s charitability to keep vomiting authoritarian apologetics and brigading any comments or posts that call out that behavior. Dealing with that isn’t what I signed up for.

In the interest of transparency, this comment was at 38 upvotes when I added this update.

spaduf,
@spaduf@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

almost stopped using lemmy altogether

I definitely empathize with this

nan,

It’s not a bat signal, likely the thread popped up into their “all” feed and a bunch see it at once.

Some of the stuff is because they were already a very established community with their own culture, who has only just recently federated with others. They are bringing their culture, which is full of memes and shitposting, out to where a good portion of normal Lemmy users don’t even know how to post a picture, and it is a lot all at once. It does seem that their admins want to have relatively good citizens, and it seems like most of what Blahaj really cares about is compatible (they are possibly even more extreme with caring about it). Being disruptive in political threads does not seem like a good reason to defederate an instance.

ada,
@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

In this case, it was very much a “bat signal”. They posted about it and linked straight to my post in their “dunk on a lib” community

some_guy,

Ada in another post:

That’s the issue I raised with their admin. The admin deleted the post in question and made changes to stop it happening again.

ada,
@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Yep, they did. Which is why I’m pushing to remain federated. They took action and addressed the issue. But there very much was an issue before they did

ada,
@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Almost like a bat signal goes out to call in reinforcements. I’m sure that’s mostly a product of them being terminally online and not necessarily malicious

In the case of the last defed thread, it was because someone posted a link to one of my posts in their “dunk on libs with shit takes” community.

That’s the issue I raised with their admin. The admin deleted the post in question and made changes to stop it happening again.

Going forward, it’s going to come down to this. If they dogpile on any blahaj lemmy community, or any external queer or trans communities frequented by our users and impact the ability of blahaj members to use those spaces, we’ll be talking defederation again. I’m hopeful that it won’t come to that though

Mr_Buscemi,
@Mr_Buscemi@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

That explains why I saw a bunch of them commenting on a few random posts over the last few days. Randomly a comment had a reply from a hexbear account and then over a dozen replies in a comment chain of mostly just hexbear users.

I thought it was just luck that they all saw each other to meme together, but them having a community for posting comment links makes sense.

neuracnu,
@neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I’d be suspicious of drawing those kinds of subtle lines in the sand. Malicious groups savor those kinds of guidelines so they can dance around them and test their firmness.

The spirit of their dialogue is designed to be disarming, giving them a foothold in this community. Their chosen behaviors and methods of influence are not what I want to see in a virtuous fediverse.

Maybe this is because I have a guarded heart after being burned a lot, but if you’re giving someone “one more chance”, that’s a good sign you’ve given them too many chances already.

Snowpix,
@Snowpix@lemmy.ca avatar

I’m not from this instance, but I know exactly what you’re talking about and had the exact same experience. I had to block over 20 accounts per thread when they’d flood in to spread their nonsense and harass people, and it almost made me quit the site entirely. They’re like a horde. When my instance defederated with them, it was a night and day difference for how much better the site is to use. Comment sections are actually usable and you can discuss China/Russia/Ukraine without them flooding in and disrupting everything. As someone from a defederated instance, I believe it is a good idea for you guys to do the same.

ToastedPlanet,

I shared what I learned about Hexbear in the previous thread. As far as interacting with Hexbear goes, if we keep our interactions to sharing memes and support for trans people then I think we will be fine. I like the idea of getting along with them, but they have to meet us in the middle. If they continue to be disingenuous about their political views then I think we will have problems.

melmi,
@melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

What do you mean by disingenuous? I feel like they’ve been very upfront with their political views, to the point of causing problems with how upfront they are.

ToastedPlanet,

I told them upfront that we moderate tankies. I told them I thought the best way for us to get along would be for them to be honest. I said I don’t mind communists, but I do have a problem with authoritarian communists. They insisted they were just communists. One of them seemed to imply I was being presumptuous by putting “authoritarian” in quotes.

Then after about three days of talking, they started giving me authoritarian communist talking points. You can check my comment history. But it’s all in the I Love Twitter Rule post. When I gave them my opinion that they were defending authoritarian government’s like North Korea and the Taliban the two people in question suddenly stopped talking.

Then I posted what I found in the previous meta thread. The same person who had defended the Taliban came on and tried to safe face. I suddenly got a bunch of other replies on the I Love Twitter Rule thread too. One person started defending North Korea and China, and reciting Russian propaganda all in one comment.

The problem I had with it, is those people could have just admitted that they agreed with these authoritarian communist talking points from the get go. Rather than doing that, they tried to gaslight me. If a group of people don’t want to outright admit what they believe when prompted, then that’s an indicator that there is something wrong with those views and that those people know it.

Strawberry, (edited )

Do you really think they identify as authoritarians? I’m guessing from their perspective, it is often a matter of a lesser of two evils question or trying to separate and acknowledge the good in some governments in addition to decrying the bad. Many of them are proponents of critical support of existing socialist movements—meaning support plus criticism. It is a practice of empathy and materialism rather than idealistic good vs. evil thinking.

Side note, how is anyone supposed to know what people mean by Russian/Chinese propaganda when US liberals label anything that isn’t on the official US Democratic Party approved list of acceptable thought as Russian/Chinese propaganda?

ToastedPlanet,

It’s not about what they identify as. It’s about if they agree with authoritarian views.

Tankies aren’t arguing one side is less bad than the other. They claim authoritarian regimes have done no wrong. That oppression is preferable to freedom.

Side note, how is anyone supposed to know what people mean by Russian/Chinese propaganda when US liberals label anything that isn’t on the official US Democratic Party approved list of acceptable thought as Russian/Chinese propaganda?

Please explain what you mean by this. I do not want to guess. What is the official US Democratic Party approved list of acceptable thoughts?

Strawberry, (edited )

It’s not about what they identify as. It’s about if they agree with authoritarian views.

If you ask a communist whether they are authoritarian and they don’t identify as such, they are going to say no whether or not you would later determine them to be authoritarian. I was trying to explain the difference in worldviews causing that disconnect

Please explain what you mean by this. I do not want to guess. What is the official US Democratic Party approved list of acceptable thoughts?

There is a loud subset of hyper-liberal-types on lemmy and especially reddit that will see any criticism of US foreign policy, the CIA, the OAS, NATO, and many clearly biased and Western capital-aligned NGOs, or any acknowledgement of positive aspects/accomplishments of post-revolution China or the former Soviet Union and declare that the person making that criticism is a Russian/Chinese bot. It’s as if some people think that the US and its allies can do no wrong, and China and other socialist states or movements can do no right

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