Admin update - Hexbear Defederated

This is an admin post, intended for blahaj lemmy users. Top level posts from members of other instances will be removed.

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Edit - Hexbear announced plans to deferedate from us.

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After recent events, it feels to me that sentiment has shifted and more people are asking for defederation of hexbear than previously

I’ve been doing my best to try and mend bridges and keep us connected, as it’s my hope that we can maintain trans solidarity and work with them, despite the friction, however, ultimately, I feel that this is an issue for the blahaj lemmy community to decide, not the admins alone

So here’s what we’re going to do

We’re going to leave things as they are for a week. That will give time for things to calm down whilst we see if we can work together. After a week, I’ll put up a vote and get a feel for where the community is at in regards to our continued federation with hexbear. That poll will run for a week. If there is a strong will to defederate (a clear majority), then that’s what we will do

Thedogspaw,
@Thedogspaw@midwest.social avatar

There can be no solidarity with people who support Russian invasion of Ukraine and the existence of the Taiwan state at least not with me

nan,

Your instance is federated with them fam.

Nioxic,

Being pro russian is being pro terrorism.

Its what shitty people do.

clutchmattic,

Yes, west Taiwan is a problem

AceProgrammer42,

It was inevitable after their atrocious behavior. It sounds horrible to be caught in such a crossfire as an instance admin. Especially because they used their queerness as a weapon to paint us as the bad ones for splitting the community. A painful reminder that not all queer people are necessarily good people.

Thank you for dealing with this situation and making this instance a safer place.

Gormadt,
@Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Straight up, who you choose to associate with says a lot about a person

I’ve known plenty of people in my life who turned out to be shitty people who I stopped associating with due to them being shitty people.

Hell one of my former friends was pan and non-binary. I stopped associating with them due to various personal and political reasons but the straw that broke the camel’s back was them insisting that, “being bi was transphobic,” a few months after they came out to me as non-binary. (I had come out as bi almost a year before they came out to me as non-binary.)

I was friends with them for 6 years, yeah it hurt at first but the bliss that came from stopping to associate with them was nice.

Being able to cut shitty people out of your life is something more people need to find the strength to do.

EremesZorn,

What is this bullshit? You shouldn’t give tankies a voice anywhere. They are absolutely bottom-feeder scum and no better than right wingers. They support regimes that are against trans rights.

threegnomes,

hexbear users are trying to stir so much shit, we’re better off without them

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

they honestly just seem like reactionary kids no different than the maga kids who only want to show up and argue and there’s really no chance in getting positive contributions from them. 🤷‍♀️

my kingdom for a user level instance block function from lemmy

Echidna, (edited )

Two years ago a Hexbear mod (transcomrade69) harassed me (by calling out my username among many) into reading Leslie Feinberg’s Trans Liberation : Beyond Blue and Pink.

Possibly one of the most significant events in altering the trajectory of my entire life.

Yes, we can be too rambunctious at times. Yes I view present politics and past history through a lens of dialectical and historical materialism.

Yes we will likely have significant contradictions on many issues which are impossible to resolve through the Internet where we’ve already entrenched our positions. But were you on my verandah with a good duriff maybe we’d get somewhere.

I think both communities will regret this and broadly the future looks bleak for everyone, but extra bleak for Trans and Non-binary folk everywhere.

Echidna,

Leslie Feinberg also wrote a very good book on Cuba, ranging from pre-colonial history to the early 20th century, to the revolution, the UMAP camps, the HIV crisis and the rough present it’s free to read here

dueytwo,

If we stay federated, I will being leaving Blåhaj. I suspect that atleast a handful of users feel the same. Just being pro-LGBT doesn’t give you a pass to be a terrible person to other people. Like denying literal genocides. It feels like a “I have a black friend so I can’t be racist” argument. Its just as convincing. I’ll deal with the bullshit for a week because that concession was already made. But I’m not dealing with it longer.

spaduf,
@spaduf@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Isn’t the significant presence of hexbear folks here pretty solid evidence that their admins don’t have good control over their users (or rather that they have no interest in following their own rules)? They were specifically told to stay out of metas for other instances.

Strawberry,

no not really

booty,
@booty@hexbear.net avatar

We were told to stay out of metas where it’s clear we’re not welcome. The OP here implies that it’s okay for us to reply to comments, but that we are unwelcome to make top level comments. If that is incorrect, all the mods need to do is make that clear and we’ll go away.

Our mods are extremely active and responsive, they do not have trouble controlling their users lol

nonbinarytwink, (edited )

I honestly think the hate toward hexbear is mostly manufactured. A lot of the people complaining are the same ones erroneously comparing them to places like exploding heads, claiming they’re nazi trolls, that they go on downvoting raids (they can’t even downvote btw), accusing them of terrible things, but then don’t (or won’t) provide any proof of them acting this way. And when people like me who aren’t on hexbear question it, we get accused of being a “hexbear in disguise” and ignored. It all feels very dramatic and reddit, and I thought the point of lemmy was to not be like reddit. Defederating from problematic instances I get, but defederating because you hate tankies or because of a few bad members seems more of an ‘echo chamber’ choice than a ‘keep the community safe’ choice to me.

kitonthenet,

17 of the favorites on this comment are from hexbear users

nonbinarytwink,

I’m sorry are you trying to imply that not all lemmy users should get the right to vote on comments?

kitonthenet,

??? No?

nonbinarytwink,

Then what was your point?? Cause it sounded like you’re implying that hexbears don’t have the right to vote on comments. And if that’s what you meant, thats kinda messed up honestly.

kitonthenet,

It's the top comment on a post where users from other instances are not allowed to make top comment posts, the OP specified the thread was for Blahaj users specifically, so I think that's relevant information to put up front

nonbinarytwink,

users from other instances are not allowed to make top comment posts

but I’m from this instance??

Natanael, (edited )

Have you really not seen any threads on stuff like Russia’s war? There’s liberal literal defense of genocide coming from there. They swarm threads, in a way that looks somewhat coordinated.

Defederating them doesn’t create an echo chamber. Keeping them around is giving them permission to build their own echo chamber in your spaces by chasing away everybody else who want a chill space to hang out in.

vzq,

They swarm threads, in a way that looks somewhat coordinated.

They are not subtle. If you check their post history you can see the communities where they coordinate.

Now, I get pointing terrible posts and laughing at them. I’m ex-SRS. But you gotta show some restraint when you post in the threads or people will end up hating your guts.

nonbinarytwink,

Have I seen individuals say shitty things? Of course, but I don’t assume every person on hexbear is an enemy. For instance, over on lemm.ee I just had a convo with someone who was vehemently pro-landlord and hated “communism” while admitting they’ve never read any communist literature. Should I assume this is what everyone on lemm.ee is like? I’ve run across a TON of trolls and anti-leftists on lemmy.world… should I assume everyone on lemmy.world is a troll? Lemmynsfw is constantly throwing up communities that somehow bypass the nsfw filters. Should I make assumptions about everyone on lemmynsfw too now? That is a slippery slope into an echo chamber imho.

Give users the ability to block whole instances, and only defederate when a WHOLE instance is geared towards disruption, like explodingheads. I wandered around hexbear yesterday looking through their communites and posts, and there’s definitely some opinions I don’t agree with, but I’m not seeing calls to flood posts on other instances like people are claiming. All I’m seeing is a lot of in-jokes, memes, and civil discussions.

Natanael,

It’s not just singular anecdotes. It’s the proportion of users who are like that. A huge fraction of the activity from that server is specifically this type of horrible replies, and their admins aren’t doing anything about it. They absolutely flood many threads with trash and make many conversations entirely unreadable. At that point when you do nothing about filtering out that trash then you’re inviting them to hijack your community.

nonbinarytwink, (edited )

Show me where “a huge fraction” of them are doing that NOT IN RESPONSE to people badmouthing them and accusing them of shit, but for no reason. Show me these hijacked communities you keep mentioning. Show me these many conversations that are “entirely unreadable”. Show me anti-trans rhetoric that isn’t swiftly dealt with by their admins.

Defederating isn’t the answer, giving individuals the ability to block whole instances on every platform they use is the answer.

Natanael,

Literally just this

lemmy.zip/comment/1646384

Everyone of them defend Russian war crimes, pretend Russia is not the aggressor, and pretend self defense is deeply immoral, they pretend Russia’s provocation propaganda is valid to give their hatered false moral cover.

These people are not your allies.

These are amoral opportunistic assholes using the same kind of logic as trumpists to justify hate against their own approved targets.

You fundamentally can not trust people who support hatred against all members of an entire group based on reasons which do not define the whole group (because that’s literally prejudice), like in their case defending torture of the people because they don’t like who the people’s government is associated with.

They aren’t speaking out against specific bad behavior. They’re not targeting individuals who are doing bad things. They’re targeting entire groups based on nationality with guilt by association logic.

I repeat, these people are not your allies. If they think it’s acceptable to attack them and defend violence against them, knowingly using fabricated evidence to support their hate, then they can turn against you too. And they will turn against you whenever that becomes more convenient to them than trying to get your support.

I’m pretty sure most of them also aren’t part of the minorities they claim, just like the astroturfing by the trump campaign.

Jakeroxs,

Is this link supposed to be something other then a yahoo finance article with no comments

lone_faerie,

This exactly! In posts about defederating, they’re commenting like war documents and saying that if you live in the US you’re in support of them commiting genocide. And the amount of comments I’ve seen with nearly identical wording about how Cuba is the most LGBTQ+ friendly country in the world.

Like ok, yeah, the US is a horrible country that’s committed war crimes, and maybe Cuba is LGBTQ+ friendly, I don’t really know, but that has absolutely nothing to do with defederating from an internet forum. They have a very holier than thou vibe.

Switchboard,

I’m going to use my last post here before the vote to say, it was massively irresponsible to federate with these trolls before consulting with the community you administrate. I’m sure they spun you a good sob story but they’ve hurled abuse at your users that you’re apparently happy to let go unanswered. And you say they deserve a second chance. Wait staff gets your order wrong? That deserves a second chance, restaurants are chaotic and shit happens. Person shows up to work late? So much shit happens in the Dat to day, you can’t possibly plan for everything, absolutely give a second chance. A bunch of tankie trolls use your instance as their entertainment? Absolutely fucking not. You get a second chance for a mistake, not active malice. I’d buy into the “Trans solidarity” lie if they didn’t admit in their own instance this was about “dunking on us”. They’re here to recruit and make fun, and they made no bones about it on their own server. Not to put too fine a point on it, you fell for the first nazi at the bar. For the tankies, I know you’re not nazis, you just use the same style arguments and are equally as tolerant of people who dont share your beliefs.

Long story short, I could not give less of a shit what Hexbear does on their own server but they’ve been extremely detrimental to our own communities and that not being considered a factor at all is beyond absurd

As an admin you have a duty to those you administrate and you’ve essentially told them that the abuse they’ve suffered is inconsequential in the face of Trans solidarity The same Trans solidarity Hexbear uses to abuse your users, willfully and maliciously. That’s not good enough for me.

some_guy,

I don’t think admins owe anyone a vote on federating in good faith. I have no critique of your others points, as they are all your opinions and my disagreement with them is simply my opinion. But I think calling out an admin for trying to grow the Lemmiverse (federate with a new instance) is asinine. It’s on them to take proper action as needed after, not before.

Switchboard,

Acknowledging full well that I have no say in whether an admin consults their user base before federating or not, I don’t think this federation was done in good faith; and I’d easily put forth the conduct of the instance they federated with as evidence. There’s nothing wrong with trying to grow the lemmiverse but federating with an instance of known trolls is absolutely silly. I acknowledge the fact that Ada may not have known before, but afterwards the trolls came out in force and it doesn’t sit right with me that we’re being asked to give the people who tore up the landscape so recently another chance, with no sort of caveat, given that the only change on their policy was to lay off meta posts specifically. I’m objecting specifically to the way they’ve shat up the instance, so the fact that their only concession is to lay off meta posts is no comfort at all.

Edit: fixed a mobile-ism

nan,

What communities exactly have they been detrimental to?

ada,
@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I’m going to use my last post here before the vote to say, it was massively irresponsible to federate with these trolls before consulting with the community you administrate

That’s how federation works. We are on a blacklist system, which means we federate with anyone and everyone unless they are added to a blacklist, and you don’t add good faith communities on to the black list without exceptional circumstances.

Whether this is exceptional enough to add them varies depending on who you ask within our community, and that is why there is a vote

I’d buy into the “Trans solidarity” lie

That’s my wording, not theirs

As an admin you have a duty to those you administrate and you’ve essentially told them that the abuse they’ve suffered is inconsequential in the face of Trans solidarity The same Trans solidarity Hexbear uses to abuse your users, willfully and maliciously

I have users telling me that they want to stay federated, I have users telling me I shouldn’t federate. There is no path I can take that keeps all of the community happy. Which is why I am administrating, talking directly to their admin, pushing for changes in their rules and behaviour, and putting the final decision up for a vote.

I’m pushing for change, and then making sure that the choice is still there.

That’s what’s involved in administration.

FerroMeow,

I don’t know what Hexbar is, all I know is that tankies make online spaces toxic. I don’t really care if they’re federated or not (I am new to fediverse idk what this means), but from what I gathered about Hex they’re not good people

leraje,
@leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I’m pretty new to this instance, having moved from .world recently. I haven’t interacted with anyone from hexbear yet but I’ve seen some of their members behaviour on other instances and followed threads back to that instance.

They seem to have a self fulfilling persecution complex centred around their political opinions. I see them on their own instance saying things like ‘any instance that doesn’t believe the exact, very narrowly defined ideology that we do are stupid and they hate what we stand for’, then they go onto the other instances and make even the most innocent posts that have nothing to do with politics into commentary on their ideology. It’s like they can’t see the world in any other way, or respect that others might. Then, when they get banned, they head back to their instance and say ‘see? they’re just intolerant boot lickers’. It often feels like they’re trying to get banned, or their instance defederated simply so they can happily confirm to each other their belief that everyone is out to get them.

It can get pretty mentally exhausting seeing people say something utterly innocuous like ‘I like chips’ and then a bunch of hexbear users launch into a long winded political sub-thread on what a dick you are for liking NATO-loving, liberal, colonialist chips.

They are trans and lgbtq+ allies and that’s a good thing. I’m just not sure that that one aspect of their makeup drowns out all the baggage that comes with it. I always feel it comes with conditions attached - we’ll be your allies as long as we can flood your instance. I have no doubt that if this instance were to defed with them, their allyship would no longer extend to blahaj members.

vzq,

It can get pretty mentally exhausting seeing people say something utterly innocuous like ‘I like chips’ and then a bunch of hexbear users launch into a long winded political sub-thread on what a dick you are for liking NATO-loving, liberal, colonialist chips.

This fits my experience to a T. They aren’t interested in having discussions. They want to goad everyone into having the same discussion over and over.

Swiggles,

I think not much value would be lost by defederating.

They are denying genocides, they are supporting regimes which are not compatible with LGBT+, they don’t discuss in good faith, there is a lot of whataboutism. They want to dunk people and be right and not have their view challenged.

Unfortunately they have so radical ideas about it all (mostly US centric whataboutism as far as I can tell). They fall into fascist/authoritarian traps where they can’t even recognize they are fighting against people like me or us. They dehumanize people.

I don’t think their views are compatible with LGBT+ spaces and values even though they claim to be one while cheering for the people who would remove them from existence the first chance they would get.

Some people are moderate over there and that were the only pleasant interactions I had with them. I can’t tell if the radicals are a loud minority or the majority. They poison the well though.

Even after all that said I don’t know if defederation is the right choice. I mean they provide some good content and in the end they are a big community. On the other hand I have already blocked the instance using the Connect app and my experience improved a lot.

I think in summary they create a hostile space for all people. Even left leaning people are not safe due to their radicalized views and it is exhausting to have every thread derailed with some unrelated rant by them.

StalinwasaGryffindor,

I don’t believe anyone on hexbear is actually cheering for people who would remove us from existence. I’m LGBT+ myself, and a huge part of why I’m against the current capitalist system we live under is that I see it as incredibly harmful for people like me. There are numerous examples, such as anti-trans laws in the US, the extreme anti-trans rhetoric in the UK, the American funding of draconian anti-LGBT+ laws in African countries. I also truly don’t value people in western countries higher than people in the rest of the world, so when I see the death toll from our military interventions and siege warfare in the form of sanctions, it makes my blood boil. 100s of thousands of people were killed by the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan alone; statistically thousands of them were LGBT+. This means the coalition forces killed more queer people than the countries that have actual death penalties for homosexuality.

I don’t love Russia, they’re a capitalist country with terrible laws and a regressive culture, but Ukraine isn’t really any better. They’ve elevated right wing militias which have targeted people like me and banned trans women from leaving the country.

China is behind on LGBT+ rights, but seem to be moving in the right direction. Cuba has the most progressive LGBT+ laws in the world. Vietnam is moving in the right direction pretty rapidly as well.

I hope this helps you understand why at least one of our users thoughts on these issues. I don’t speak for anyone but myself, but I feel certain my views are quite close to the majority of hexbears.

Strawberry,

I had not thought about the similarities between sanctions and siege warfare, that is an excellent observation

jackmarxist,
@jackmarxist@hexbear.net avatar

Sanctions are only meant to hurt people, not leaders. In fact, they politically weaken poorer people who end up trying to stay alive over trying to overthrow the government.

Strawberry,

Yes I know it’s just the specific point about it being modern day siege warfare is new to me

StalinwasaGryffindor,

It’s not an original observation, but it was something that once I was aware of really made me question why sanctions are so normalized.

If you’d like a better explanation from people who are much smarter than me I recommend the podcast Citations Needed. They’ve got an episode that goes into the harm sanctions cause, especially to the most vulnerable people in the target country.

The following link has both the podcast and a transcript if you prefer reading over listening:

…medium.com/episode-106-the-sanitization-of-sanct…

bitterplantfairies,

Thank you for the link!

Strawberry,

Thank you! I will give it a listen/read

Swiggles,

At least half of it is reasonable and I would fully agree with it. Unfortunately then it went of the rails.

I read the same argument the other day with the US/NATO wars/invasions and equated to the persecution of other countries and that’s just ridiculous. If they were sent there and died because they were queer it would be a whole other story, but if they were there because they were equal to their comrades then it was the actual equality we strive for. Not that I support any wars or any military, but that rhetoric is just dumb. Also guess what this is true for any military ever. Queer people exist even if they don’t have the freedom to live their lives in the open.

Regarding Ukraine it doesn’t really matter. Russia is the agressor here. There is no way Ukraine was ever a threat to Russia yet here we are. It is a developing souvereign (!) country with many problems they try to solve one step at a time. Russia is actively working against everything we fight for. Whatever you believe Ukraine is the situation got only worse due to Russia and there is no way the invasion should ever be glorified by any sane queer person at all.

Funny you mentioned Cuba. Cuba still has major problems with corruption and all the LGBT+ laws are very, very recent additions. I want it to be a success story probably for the same reasons as you, but let’s wait and see for a few more years or decades. I dearly hope they manage and so far it looks better than ever, but unfortunately that’s not great yet.

Anyway this post is also a great example for the US centric whataboutism I talked about in my initial post.

StalinwasaGryffindor,

I’m very confused by what you mean about sending people to die? I’m talking about civilian deaths due to invasions and sanctions. I don’t believe you can actually be supporting queer people while bombing them and/or starving them with sanctions.

I also don’t fully agree that my arguments are us-centric. I focus on the US and UK because I am Anglo and so am more aware of the role they play in the world.

Swiggles,

Wars are all the same. The argument is just dumb. Either queer people are targeted specifically or it is irrelevant to any discussion about queer persecution.

SuddenDownpour,

I don’t love Russia, they’re a capitalist country with terrible laws and a regressive culture, but Ukraine isn’t really any better.

Fuck off with this bothsides bullshit. Russia did literally outlaw offering gender affirming treatment to trans people last month. Ukraine is far, far behind what should be acceptable both legally and socially, but you can receive gender affirming treatment and change your legal documents. One country is actively regressing in human rights in an attempt to distance themselves from everything they consider “The West”, while the other is doing the very opposite.

It’s still a shithole of a country, but equating them is an insult to all trans people living in Russia and you only felt you had the need to do it because of the never ending struggle of some miopic political factions to instill anti-interventionism sentiment when a country edging on the border of fascism has invaded their neighbours.

GarbageShoot,

Are you familiar with the concept of atrocity propaganda? Like, for example, the Nayirah Testimony?

As I was telling someone else, it is very difficult to discuss the criticisms of us without talking about political issues because those criticisms are predicated on political claims, such as what you accuse us of here.

Swiggles,

Of course there is some propaganda around. That’s nothing new, never was. Stop the notion that you are somehow enlightened or have any information others don’t have. It is ridiculous.

The thing is big lies historically never lasted long if many people are involved. With digital communication around it has become even easier to receive first party accounts of events.

I honestly don’t know what in particular you are hinting at here. None of the things I mentioned would even be terrible if they were lies or have otherwise a huge ilnegative impact. With all the information around it is unlikely that anything is completely untrue though. Not recognizing any of the atrocities and ignoring the situation is seriously terrible though.

Always keep in mind the same argument is also used to deny the Holocaust, other genocides and massacres to this day. It’s a huge gamble all for the sake of dunking whoever…

KiriM, (edited )

They are literally spamming duplicate “fuck democracy” posts in a thread about community feedback, you can’t make this shit up. And as a cherry on top it has some fucking untagged gore that straight up loads as a thumbnail for me without clicking.

How about you start setting some actual standards for behaviour around here and actually keep things safe for folks Ada? Carrying water for the tankies like this must be exhausting. A person’s/communities transness doesn’t excuse or offset their shitty behaviour.

EDIT: oh cool it looks like those posts got deleted, thank you. I think them being here caused my original post to come out more aggro so apologies. The rest of it stands though.

GarbageShoot,

That was a single person who appeared to be a wrecker and absolutely does not represent our views

ada,
@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

That person has been banned, and their posts removed.

But honestly, stuff like this is why it’s being put up to a vote. If our users feel that the balance is wrong, and hexbear users like that are doing more harm than we’re gaining from trans solidarity, then the vote will show that, and we will defederate.

Demographics,

Thank you, Ada, for your hard work.

moonsnotreal,
@moonsnotreal@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

This whole thing was a shitshow and I regret that any of it happened. I did add fuel to the fire in the first discussion thread and I wish I didn’t. I hope that something like this never happens again. We were definitely not innocent in this drama. It was sort of necessary that either instance defederates as I could see the infighting going on indefinitely. Hopefully Ada can take a well deserved break now.

ezri,
@ezri@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Imo Moss should not be a moderator

vzq,

196 is looking for mods. I assume you will be applying.

alycat,

My opinion as well

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