I think a little clarification is needed. No. I don’t actually think everyone there is insane. I don’t care about the bans so stop trying to use that. HB enthusiasts coming here and trying to call me out achieves nothing besides proving my point
Edit: Feel free to keep trying to brigade me. It’s not going to scare me to take this down
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Thank god for hexbear and lemmygrad though. Imagine the effort needed to block them all individually if spread over all the other instances.
If you’ve heard of Chapo Trap House that’s them. If not, most of those kids/idiots/trolls are the type of terminally online fake leftists that give other leftist a bad image in general. They were so ridiculous Reddit got tired of their shit and banned them a couple years back.
They were banned when reddit cracked down on any leftist thought, not because they were especially bad from what I saw.
They were banned around the same time as The Donald because everyone was tired of the shit both groups were doing.
I do remember that, and I remember them half-assing the Donald by just letting them make a new sub (or overrun conspiracy irrc)
Yeah they immediately took over Conspiracy and consolidated the hold on Conservative. Made me really sad as conspiracy used to have some incredible rabbit hole posts. Then one day it was just TD all over again.
IIRC, the fun conspiracists moved to r/high_strangeness or something like that.
That sub is trash also. I think the whole conspiracy theorist subculture has been taken over by the alt right and is highly politicized at this point.
The days of mild and fun conspiracy theories are over. The entire community has been fully consumed with qanon/maga/antisemitism insanity. Their minds are irrevocably broken.
It’s a shame. I grew up on xfiles and loved all the lore around the culture.
I was afraid of that (which is why I phrased it less definitively than I could have). Good to know!
Do you know if there’s a Lemmy version?
The_Donald was dead amd had migrated to a non-reddit forum a month before the ban. It was typical “both sides” bullshit from a dude who always uses the kiddy gloves with fascists while throwing the book at any leftists
They were banned while saying John Brown did nothing wrong and that slaveowners deserve to die.
Sounds pretty cool to me.
While true there was a lot more behind the decision than that final post. They had been fighting with the admins for a long time.
There actually isn’t any such logic presented for the decision. Mostly just allusions to celebrating violence, the only examples of which were the anti-slavery posts I referenced.
Maybe because you didn’t observe it happening. Reddit admins were busy as hell cleaning the place up. All kinds of rightwing subs like some of the incel gathering spots. Some for straight up Nazis like frenworld or whatever it was where they were using honk honk as code for heil Hitler. When the admins made site changes due to complaints about right wing subs, Chapo made the list because they engaged in similar activities with the main complaint being brigading other subs. Their mods refused to change to meet the new rules. The admins eventually removed some of the mods. They still refused to change afterward. Which eventually got them shut down.
Maybe because you didn’t observe it happening.
I did, actually. I made some of the John Brown posts lol.
Reddit admins were busy as hell cleaning the place up. All kinds of rightwing subs like some of the incel gathering spots. Some for straight up Nazis like frenworld or whatever it was where they were using honk honk as code for heil Hitler. When the admins made site changes due to complaints about right wing subs, Chapo made the list because they engaged in similar activities with the main complaint being brigading other subs.
Brigading is not an activity similar to supporting incels or Nazis.
I remember the subreddit mods sharing their attempts to communicate with admins on this, offering to make whatever changes would be needed, and getting stonewalled. The subreddit itself adopted a no-brigading policy and included it with an pinned automod comment on every post.
But this is neither here nor there because the ban announcement said nothing about brigading. Instead, they said it was about content violating their new anti-hate policy and a vague statement about mods not “reining” in users. Prior communications and the timeline suggested the only content violations were anti-slavery posts.
Their mods refused to change to meet the new rules.
How so?
The admins eventually removed some of the mods.
Which ones and why?
They still refused to change afterward
Such as?
The reality is that most of this was actually opaque.
evidence? I see people say this but from what I remember the mod team was repeatedly stonewalled by the admins, or at least that was their claims, and I don’t think the admins ever disputed that
Hardly, the mods kept refusing to do anything about the brigading of other subs. To the point the admins stepped in and removed a couple of them. Then afterward the sub decided they’d rather go private than comply. At this point most of back and forth is wiped out because the sub is locked. But there was far more going on for a while than their claim that one post shut them down immediately. They had already been in trouble for a couple months.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/bp39gb/chapotraphouse_gets_a_call_from_the_admins/
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fmfirtv1vndy21.png
I wasn’t clear enough, what I meant wasn’t that the admins literally never said anything to the mods, I meant they made it relatively unclear what exactly they needed to do to stop getting warnings and eventually getting banned. no conversation, just relatively vague commands from down high also, as you can see in the SRD thread it was never made clear if they were removed for anything besides the john brown posting. However, even this is more clear communication than I remembered so I’ll admit fault on that at least.
funny thing I found browsing the thread is this comment about why chapo got banned, which mentions brigading, something people constantly accused/accuse hexbear users of doing:
…
The second aspect of this is that chapo is becoming so large that it is capable of effectively “brigading” threads without any direct co-ordination on the subreddit. By this I’m referring to stuff like the police dog situation, in which any meaningfully upvoted thread on /r/aww and other “cute” subreddits gets a shitload of “40%”, “ACAB”, and other anti-cop rhetoric. While screenshots of this often get posted to /r/chapotraphouse, the vast majority of the time this is AFTER the thread has already been “brigaded” by chapo users scrolling through /r/all or the specific “cute” subreddits. This behavior is not against the TOS, but it is incredibly annoying to /r/aww mods and therefore concerning to the admins, because the “cute” subreddits are the easiest to manage and please, and more importantly, the most advertiser friendly. When chapo users fuck that up, there’s a problem.
…
sounds familiar doesn’t it?
No, The Donald was encouraging political violence and was becoming a legal liability for Reddit to continue hosting. But they needed to ban a major left wing subreddit at the same time to do a “both sides bad” thing and preempt the fascist talking points about social media having a liberal bias.
Seeing the ban coming, they financed and suffered alpha and beta of the Lemmy platform we all enjoy. Then, they chose to become the most GLBTQ+ friendly destination on the internet.
As it’s always been, they cope with the horrible events with satirical, sarcastic humor. And, in the middle of that will be a well-reasoned, nuanced, and quite serious post.
But, perhaps the part I like most is the struggle sessions. The entire community will heavily focus on a current topic, then hash it out with good faith discussion.
Their shit isn’t convenient or comfortable. It’s not easy to understand. And, I fucking love them for it.
edit: Lazy coders need choose a randomized target value and timing or be a moderator to avoid detection by the user. Perceiving is easy when your code is trash. Ask for help from an industrial engineer.
Their supposed support of LGBTQ+ is all for naught when they openly fawn after Stalin
Honestly what is with the comrade/them shit they do about? I thought it was ironic like they were making fun of neopronouns or they were the 4chan people who popularised them in the first place
There’s much to learn from Stalin. But, advocating his authoritarian means is a bannable offense there just as they are in any meritable leftist forum. They tolerate a minority of revolutionaries ideologically leading the lumpen as it’s a historically very well-supoorted position. But, that doesn’t extend to physical force as that’s also a historically very well supported position.
It’s much easier, convenient, and comfortable to demonized them than understand them. They even provided proactive assistance when many were deciding if they should defederate. They voted internally for defederation to defend their community from the medicrity of the masses.
If not enjoying the image posts of young Stalin as some sort of brilliant maverick is mediocrity, well, so be it. They are clowns, and their beliefs structure is just like trump claiming he “loves the gays”
Young Stalin is where the good stuff is. It’s his implementation of those idealistic principles that’s unethical.
The rest of what you’ve said is strawman. Most important is the implying that they’re all of one mind. Diversity of ideology is perhaps their greatest strength.
🥱
Literally out here defending Stalin stans
Ad hominem is literally the best you had when confronted with facts that didn’t fit the shallow narrative you chose.
As it’s always been, they cope with the horrible events with satirical, sarcastic humor. And, in the middle of that will be a well-reasoned, nuanced, and quite serious post.
Oh yes, they are so funny, misunderstood, thoughtful and nuanced thinkers.
F them and f you for defending them.
This ~1800 comment thread about whether lemm.ee should defederate with them is all you need for some eye opening, in case anyone needs that.
Above screenshot is from said thread.
The comrade in it 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 your moment!
though, to be fair, kulaks are bad.
fuck off
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Perhaps now is the time.
No, Time for condoning class war and murder is never and nowhere.
Go back to hexbear, you poor, uneducated, lying, bolshevik piece of shit.
But thank you for showing anyone who may have not had an experience with you before what type of people you are.
One can always count on that, you morons just can’t help yourself.
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Your portrayal of them just being made into regular peasants seems to me viewing the whole affair with more than rose colored glasses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization
All kulaks were assigned to one of three categories:[4]
Those to be shot or imprisoned as decided by the local secret political police. Those to be sent to Siberia, the North, the Urals, or Kazakhstan, after confiscation of their property. Those to be evicted from their houses and used in labour colonies within their own districts.By most people’s reckoning in most of planet earth they stole the lawfully earned property of kulaks and either murdered them or otherwise destroyed their lives. Treating them worse than most developed nations treat burglars and thieves.
If someone shot your grandpa and your uncle, send half your people to Siberia to die out there, and sent the other half to prison locally of course you would flee with whatever you could carry and of course you would at that point be an enemy of the regime that destroyed your life.
So if the original commenter’s great grandparents were kulaks who “suffered at the hands of the soviet union,” they deserved it.
I don’t understand your justification for what is ultimately pretty horrific treatment foisted on people ultimately just participating lawfully in society up until that point.
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America didn’t go from legally sanctioning a behavior to murdering the people today who were behaving lawfully yesterday even if they were immoral fucks. If you don’t understand that then you don’t understand how normal societies run.
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Yes, please read what the .ee admin says about where the bigoted users originate and the actions of the hexbear mods in response. It certainly speaks for itself.
But, perhaps the part I like most is the struggle sessions. The entire community will heavily focus on a current topic, then hash it out with good faith discussion.
I’ve never seen this - not just from that instance, but literally anywhere on the internet, even back in the forum or bb days. But I’ve been looking for something like that for years, and I’d be interested. Do you know of any specific examples of this happening?
The best example I’ve experienced online is hexbear’s process to derive forum ruleset with respect to their minority of GLBTQ+. The consensus was that many understood and that those that did not would follow in faith, assuming that they would soon understand. The second best online example was the GME subreddits’ cultural response to initial scaling. The consensus was that each should individually choose and the collective’s purpose was to educate, this strengthening individual wisdom.
But, my guidance would be to first pursue such things in real life. A leftist’s best work is almost always grassroots local.
I also haven’t seen this but it seems to make fun of the authoritarian excesses in Mao’s China (struggle session).
The Three Body Problem show features this, leading a character to go mad and wanting to destroy humanity.
The funny thing is that this post is sort of a struggle session, an attempt to build consensus against socialists.
it’s not really making fun of it, more just a tongue in cheek joke about large arguments
i don’t think they really helped with the financing of lemmy, although their coders did/do make many valuable contributions to lemmy’s code base. out of curiosity, do you have an account on another instance? I’m surprised to see a sympathetic comment like this from an account on an instance that has them defederated
I don’t think they really helped with the financing
All the computational resources the users tested the code base on must’ve been free.
I’m surprised to see a sympathetic comment like this from an account on an instance that has them defederated
Identity politics from .ml?
If you’re surprised at such small acts of individual praxis, you’d be amazed at what we’ve accomplished in groups.
All the computational resources the users tested the code base on must’ve been free.
fair enough I just think of direct monetary donations or something when I see financing like that but looking at like that isn’t incorrect
Identity politics from .ml?
I mean kinda? I normally expect people who hold sympathies towards hexbear to use an account on like lemm.ee so they don’t have to use more than one account to browse everything they want to see
when I see financing like that but looking at like that isn’t incorrect
None of the devs got paid. There are no other expenses.
I normally expect people who hold sympathies towards hexbear to use an account on like lemm.ee so they don’t have to use more than one account to browse everything they want to see
You expect the convenient implementation of MLK’s white moderate. But, my content should give no indication of that stereotype.
I’ll answer your previous question: I’ve personal accounts on world, ee, ml, and hexbear. The fediverse doesn’t limit viewing content from multiple accounts concurrently. One must only choose an account to post. The only obstacle to such a tool is a means to avoid burdening the fediverse with duplicate responses to content requests. We solved that problem in a few hours.
If you want actual insight communicated properly then you should ask in the correct venue. For example, I’d have no issue explaining in nuance on hexbear because the majority has a strong understanding or conversion of theory to praxis. I’m not even needed. Others would adequately explain on my behalf.
I think my comments have been too ambiguous then, I didn’t mean for anything I’ve said to come across as hostile in any way, I apologize. I’m a lemmygrad user, made this account because I browse through .ml at work and been meaning to make one so i can comment while there.
I’ve perceived only good faith from your posts. I apologize if I’ve not demonstrated that in my responses. It’s difficult to do here.
Yeah they kept being able to back the most ridiculous claims and then suddenly I was like “oh no they were right all along” and got radicalized 🤷
Coming up with theory in an echo chamber isn’t hard.
and how they kept being able to back it up?
That’s the whole point of an echo chamber yes. You can say whatever you want without being challenged by other viewpoints and make anything seem plausible.
but they are linking a lot of outside sources. That’s what I mean by “backing their claims up”, studies about covid, about the ukraine war, about Israel, it’s not just someone making a claim and then everyone is nodding along.
What I am saying is they were able to completely upend the way I see the world and you just can’t do that by claiming thengs and linking to some other claims you make.
Wait until you hear about Scientology! Not the criticism from haters but the really mindbending stuff they have figured out.
What you’re not accounting for is how they curate who is allowed to post in the first place.
It’s surprisingly easy to backup horrible ideas, but that shouldn’t be your only concern. You also need to think about the morals and what happened last time it was tried.
The ends do not justify the means. The means are the ends.
The last time what was tried? This sounds like historical “knowledge” derived from memes.
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Hello, low effort neolib troll. Thanks for the opportunity to continue to speak truth.
There’s a cultural similarity to what 4-chan was prior to the LOIC. But, they’re definitely not tankies. Sincere expressions of authoritarian means are soundly defeated and usually result in permabans. The principle and practice is consistent for MAGA, neolibs, and other authoritarians.
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Definitely not a neolib
Language analysis of your post history says differently. If you’re not a neolib troll then perhaps you should stop presenting as such.
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Did I fault your content or your presentation of it?
Nice strawman. You just can’t help yourself.
is everyone
in hexbearinsane?Yes.
All animals are equal… But some more equal than others.
8 billion stupid monkeys
Seconded
Source: am stupid monke
Hexbear is sort of like a village of eldritch abomination worshippers in a Lovecraftian horror story - isolated, insular, entirely wrapped up in their own esoteric rituals and ideas and language, and immediately and collectively hostile to outsiders.
It’s not just you
And increasingly lemmy.ml, sadly
They’re getting there, but so far it’s only a few users that I’ve noticed.
One guy seems to be following me around to attempt mockery.
They’re very much getting to “everyone who isn’t farther left than me is a right-wing nazi” mentality.
They aren’t even really left. They are super authoritarian.
I blocked them since they spew Russian and Chinese propaganda points and take revisionist stances on Tianman square and deny the Uyghur Genocide.
One of the mods is an actual Russian troll. [email protected]
Pro-Russian mod who keeps pretending they’re not.
“If those kids could read…” meme would be fitting lol
I mostly agree with you, but that’s the reason why I picked an instance that does not block them: sometimes it is good to see the world from a different point of view. And it’s not like the other Lemmy instances are completely free of propaganda either.
Yeah it is when you’re not affected by them I guess. But their rampant ableism and transphobia would have made me leave lemmy if there wasn’t a way to block.
2·3 months agoAbleism? Transphobia? Where
time for some bans it seems.
Many people playing “leftist” are this way, sadly. And <insert religion here>, and <insert country name here> as well, but my favorite example is “conservatives”… who despite both the name itself and the claim to want to return to “traditional” values, instead want to radically overthrow everything that has arisen for the past several hundreds of years.
It turns out that it is really, really, really hard to be truly honest with oneself, about whatever it is that we choose to believe.
The term “authoritarian” is so fraught that under these circumstances it might as well just mean “opponent of the United States” or “organized at all”.
The examples you have provided are quite absurd.
Tiananmen Square (which you misspelled) is indeed poorly understood in The West, including the historical conensus that there was no massacre in the square itself. It is, in fact, historical revisionism to suggest otherwise. In addition, Tiananmen Square is just a place, a very popular one to visit that has been the location for all kinda of events. In China, the events are called the June 4 Incident / events. Calling it “Tiananmen Square” is sometimes a sign that a person is not familiar with the history as they are using the common but misleading term that is virtually only used to forward the previously-mentioned historical revisionism to a Western audience that is in no way interested in understanding.
Re: Uyghurs, I would suggest that you read into this much more, as the topic is full of misinformation, think tanks with shady ties, fake universities, charlatans pretending to be experts, literal teenagers treated as satellite photography analysis experts, and really weird NGOs, including pro-Trump ones. One good topic to focus on is calling it a genocide at all and how that came to be the discourse. In particular, what The Newlines Institute is, why they were amplified by the US State Departmwnt, their rationale, and, of course, why none of that is taken seriously outside of a very specific political block. Following their members, funding, etc is actually a pretty interesting rabbit trail to follow. Bird’s eye view, the rhetorical treatment of Uyghurs as the subject of genocide was more or less invented, and this is is why you naturally don’t see math death, destruction, refugees, or forced migrations of the Uyghur population. This does not mean bad things haven’t happened there nor that policies were not hamfisted, but just compare how China treated a series of sectarian knife attacks (education, jobs, vocational training, investment, banning extremist Salafist practices) to how the West treated and treats Muslims (invading and killing millions).
So, anyways, I hope that you can continue your education and engage with these realities in gold faith.
Thanks for posting your thoughts, I don’t get many opportunities to hear tankie brainrot as it’s often purged from my feed before I even open the comments.
#1 whatever did or did not happen at the specific location of Tiananmen Square doesn’t address that the Chinese government murdered student protestors. Doesn’t matter if it was two blocks over or on the other side of the country. The CCP will use lethal force against protestors.
#2 a think tank has nothing to do with all the Uyghurs whose family members have disappeared without a trace. The CCP makes people disappear and they offer zero transparency into their judicial process.
You’re quibbling over minor specifics and ignoring the undisputed parts that are most damning. Stop being a propagandist for a government that doesn’t even align with your proported beliefs just because ”america bad".
Thanks for posting your thoughts, I don’t get many opportunities to hear tankie brainrot as it’s often purged from my feed before I even open the comments.
I can see already how much of a good faith engagement this will be. Would you be surprised if people reacted negatively to your introduction?
#1 whatever did or did not happen at the specific location of Tiananmen Square doesn’t address that the Chinese government murdered student protestors.
What I was doing was pointing out that the most common understanding is an absurdity and historically revisionist. There is plenty more that could be discussed if one wanted to, but the common understanding is a cartoonish falsehood based on memes and not any actual attempt to read and understand. The way that parent made their reference indicated that they shared this false understanding.
Doesn’t matter if it was two blocks over or on the other side of the country. The CCP will use lethal force against protestors.
What matters re: the point I made is that there is a conflict with the common mental image and suggests that perhaps a person should recognize when they do not really know something. It might even jostle a person to not reach for the next-worst type of sourcing and instead do a deep-dive that challenges themselves. Wouldn’t want to get caught out like that again, right?
#2 a think tank has nothing to do with all the Uyghurs whose family members have disappeared without a trace.
This is the same illogical structue of the previous response. It sounds like what you would really like to say is that there is something related that you think is important so you would like to skip over what I said. Feel free to make another thread with these other points and I can respond to them there.
You’re quibbling over minor specifics and ignoring the undisputed parts that are most damning.
Ad I said, the entire narrative shift is based on an absurd propaganda apparatus and not any evidence on the ground. The use of the big G word.
The fact that OP is repeating this again suggests a lack of investigation. And yet they are so dismissive! I would hope that they might become interested in doing some media criticism. Maybe ask a question. Sometimes people do this and only tell you until much later.
Stop being a propagandist for a government that doesn’t even align with your proported beliefs just because ”america bad".
Now you are just making things up.
All I want to hear from you is an admission that the CCP murdered protestors, and that they jail people without giving families or the international press any contact.
On behalf of my Uyghur friends who haven’t spoken to their parents in years, because they were imprisoned for their children emigrating: fuck you. A really deep, heartfelt fuck you.
Please engage with what I said rather than leveling personal attacks.
Have you ever tried choking to death on a boot?
Please, tell us more about your Uyghur friends and their imprisoned parents.
What’s it like to completely make stuff up and post it online pseudonymously?
I don’t know, you tell me.
Found one guys!
Tianmen square test: Failed
Uyghur test: Failed
I love this litmus test so much lol.
You saw them run over the guy in the square too, didn’t you? Incredible.
Got another one here!
What did I say that was inaccurate?
Lol your copy pasted “answer” sounded like Donald Trump tried to wriggle out of a tough question.
You showed that you don’t accept the Tianmen square massacre, nor the Uyghur massacre. What’s next, denying the holocaust?
what about märtsiküüditamine? and im not translating for a tankie, kuradi hull!
They didn’t mention it so why would I address it? You don’t seem particularly ready to have a good faith discussion, either.
oh noes the tankie is scwared thwat his narwatiwe of genocide deniwal is being exposed as stupid. now get blocked as i have to gamble gold in roblox flying skibidi toilet tycoon
There’s at least one interesting fellow in this very thread sharing extremely predictable opinions.
I thought I was annoying when arguing. Still do, but I found someone worse. Doesn’t make me feel better, because it seems I’m sharing a table with them.
everyone who isn’t farther left than me is a right-wing nazi
If one’s a strict authoritarian, thats a pretty sensible thing to say 🤷♂️
How are you blocking full instances? I’ve been playing wack-a-mole blocking communities. I’m using Voyager on iOS, if that matters.
Settings > filters & blocks
Thanks!
Keep in mind that user-level instance blocks are not the same as instance-level defederations. AFAIK, it only blocks the communities. You’ll still see comments and posts from that instance in other communities and that instance will still influence your feed with their votes.
It is better to go to an instance that defederates or to convince your current admin to defederate.
You go to settings -> filters & blocks
Thanks!
Th ability to do so was added a while back.
That looks like Thunder! You should check out the latest version; it has an improved Block Management page.
lemmy.blahaj.zone? Really?
I mean the other two are authorian apologist idiot instances but blahaj?
I can see it, 196 gets a little spicy around critical events
Something about it rubbed me the wrong way
I wonder what that something is?
What does that mean
lemmy.ml has non-unicode emojis?
Nah, not yet at least, I’m just borrowing a Hexbear emoji. If you view the source on a comment using a non-unicode emoji, you can see that it’s actually just an embedded image, which you can then copy and paste to use in comments from any instance. It’s a little unwieldy, but if you know the name of the emoji you want to use it’s usually pretty easy to find what you are looking for.
Is it the trans memes one? If so, yea Im not interested and wanted them off my feed.
Is that a problem?
Lmao, they sure are insane. But if you listen closely they will tell you that sanity is a western psyop and you should enjoy the simple truths of life, like shitting in your own pants and bragging about it online.
Childish? Kinda. Insane? No.
There are three relevant things to say about hexbear.
1. It is not a serious instance. Or at least not completely serious; they’re mostly there for memes, funposting, “I know that feel” etc.
So they’re less like the meeting room of a communist party than like the bar where those communists hang out and drink beer, after the meeting is over.
I feel like this is often misinterpreted, as HB users say something that is mostly a taunt and others interpret as actual argumentation. And it also tends to attract younger users, who… well, behave like young people?
2. Even if not a serious instance, they’re serious about their views. Your typical HB user is communist, antifa, vegan, anti-cop, and interprets things in a very specific way. They’re rather transparent about it.
And, because of #1, they aren’t really willing to spend their time entertaining anyone’s counterpoints. It’ll be interpreted as sealioning or similar.
3. Hexbear was already its own thing before federation. As such it developed social norms that often conflict with the norms typically found in the rest of the Threadiverse (Lemmy, Mbin, Piefed etc.)
For example, even if Lemmy as a whole is prone to intrusive political discussions, HB users tend to do it far more. Because they’re used to an environment where this is typically taken as OK.
When it comes to dealing with HB users here, my advice is the exact same as dealing with other users:
- if you don’t like what someone is saying (because it’s idiotic, obstrusive, or whatever), block the person for some peace of mind.
- if you’re consistently uninterested on the content coming from an instance, block the instance.
This is the most reasonable response.
A lot of people here have long since made up their mind about hexbear based both on repeated meta posting on the topic and possibly a bad experience or two with them on a topic they assumed was uncontested but is a landmine topic for communists of a particular bent
I’ve personally never had a bad experience with hexbears, possibly because I’m more empathetic to their perspective, but more likely because I know when it’s time to disengage. There are users on lemmy who feel strongly about a certain topic that’s abrasive to hexbear users and dig in their heels when jeered at (or maybe feel a personal responsibility to stand them down) and are usually the users here who have the most complaints, because the standard reaction from hexbear users is irreverence (both the users and the mods).
Unlike a lot of liberals coming from reddit, communists often don’t have delusions about the neutrality of moderation and so they’ll ban you on a whim if they think you’re there to stir shit. They use the ban hammer judiciously even with users on their own instance. That’s often the biggest complaint both with hexbear and with lemmy.ml.
Unlike a lot of liberals coming from reddit, communists often don’t have delusions about the neutrality of moderation and so they’ll ban you on a whim if they think you’re there to stir shit.
really well articulated. I feel bad for well meaning people, but so often they don’t realize it comes across as the exact same kind of bad faith trolling that communist online groups have to constantly deal with and so mods and users have little patience for it if it’s not explicitly a thread for that kind of conversation.
To be fair I’ve had a few bad experiences with Hexbears, but I think that most of them boil down to “unfunny guy interacting with unserious kids”. But since I’m often lurking there in my political account, I feel like my opinion about them is a bit less ungrounded than this whole “Hexbear bad! EDIT WOW THANKS FOR THE GOLD KIND STRANGER!” echo chamber.
(I also have a few bones to pick with .ml [the people in charge, not the whole instance], but they don’t apply to LG or HB, it’s a matter of transparency.)
Browsing their coms can be a pretty unique experience, especially if you go in with a preformed idea of what their communities are like. There’s a huge spread of interests and experiences, and sometimes you can be browsing a niche community and forget that these were the people posting BPB on lemmy.world threads a year ago.
Knowing the academic writings and history they’re referencing helps a lot with understanding where they are coming from, even if you may not agree with all of it.
Thank you for saying this in a more detailed way than I have been. This is exactly right. They built their own leftist haven and became a whole culture of their own, and then became federated. There is bound to be an initial clash, but honestly I think most of the people who hate on them never gave them a chance. All they saw were the shitposts and the in-jokes and you closed the door.
When it comes to dealing with HB users here, my advice is the exact same as dealing with other users
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if you don’t like what someone is saying (because it’s idiotic, obstrusive, or whatever), block the person for some peace of mind.
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if you’re consistently uninterested on the content coming from an instance, block the instance.
I see a lot of leftists (and leaning leftists), even on .world, who would be better off interacting with the users there (maybe blocking the shitposting comms). And outside of those most-seen comms (chapotraphouse and dunk_tank), there is genuine conversation and less shit talking and in-jokes. I believe, with more instances coming in that are federated with them (mine, .ml, and lem.ee? are a couple), some of the Hex-natives are understanding how to interact with curious left-leaning people with unintentionally wrong-headed ideas.
Downvote me all you want, I stand by Hexbear. o7
Answer me this: are they or are they not consistently in support of Russia/China? Because I’ve seen it a lot from them (and blocked the instance soon after joining Lemmy when I noticed the pattern).
Is it just some big joke that went over my head?
Support for PRC? Yes.
Support for the Russian Federation? Purely the anti-NATO role it takes, Hexbear hates Putin and the reactionary nature of the Russian Federation.
With China, mostly yes. With Russia, only in very specific contexts, otherwise they are VERY critical of it (as they are with most burgeois government, but particularly more due to the reactionary nature of the Russian government from what I’ve seen).
I’m curious about this, do you hold the same opinion about lemmygrad?
That is one of the few instances my instance is defederated from, so I haven’t had much interaction with them. I can speak about Hexbear because I see their posts and interact with them.
Lemmygrad.ml is a “serious” community of Marxist-Leninists, and are Dengists as well (or at least largely sympathetic towards Deng).
Hexbear is Left-Unity, and more of a community focused instance.
The views are largely similar, but the tone and goals of each instance are different.
well, views are pretty much the same. typically, grad users shitpost less and are less active as a whole but are more sectatarian because the rules of the instance allow for it, although there really isn’t that much sectarianism on there, the comm with the most sectatarinsm “shitultrassay” has only 20 posts in the last six months, whereas the equivalent comm for dunking on social and conservative liberals has over 100 posts in the last month alone
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Interestingly those points all applied to The_Donald as well.
Ah yes, famously communist, antifa, vegan, anti-cop the_donald.
I think that this is a red herring.
Even if the first two points apply (do they? I don’t think so, but I’m not going to dispute it*), the problem with T_D was neither, it was users there actively promoting hate against marginalised groups.
And, while you can complain a thousand things about Hexbear, they are not promoting hate against marginalised groups. On the contrary - if they even smell that you might be potentially promoting it, they’ll ban you under a “better safe than sorry” approach.
*reason: I don’t care about USA internal politics.
antifa
Yeah, the famous antifa-tankers. Every single person I’ve ever seen that identifies as antifa was a tanker. Other people run away from that label.
I really hate that I need to point this out, because I feel like it will derail the discussion from Hexbear to fascism:
“Antifa” boils down to “people who actively oppose fascism”, instead of either supporting it or sitting on their hands while doing jack shit.
Maybe you can clear this up then:
Why does everyone there unequivocally, wholeheartedly, unquestionably support Russia?
Russia has barely a trace of communism anymore and it is hard right oligarchy that fits almost every definition of fascism. Not to mention HEAVILY racist and anti-LGBTQ (I have multiple friends who were from Russia and they were the ones who originally told me that before I saw it for myself in Russia)
Yet the “antifa” hexbear will literally down vote you to hell and ban you if you say anything even slightly bad about Russia.
Also news@hexbear is 80% articles about the war with everyone citing Russian propaganda as absolute truth and every western media, every human rights group, etc… is completely lying about the war.
An interesting juxtaposition as they are in the same way pro Palestine and cite those human rights groups as telling the absolute truth in that case
I don’t know for sure. I’ll voice a strong belief in this regard, but take it with a grain of salt.
I think that Hexbear’s views on Russia is a specific case of a general tendency that you see all across social media (not just HB or Lemmy): to dichotomise complex matters into exactly one good side and exactly one bad side, while assuming that everyone belongs to those two bags. It should go like:
- NATO bad.
- NATO fights Russia.
- Criticism against Russia assumed to be NATO support.
- Since NATO bad, NATO supporter bad.
- Anyone who would otherwise criticise both NATO and Russia gets screeched at, and eventually shuts up.
- “Russia good” becomes part of a local consensus.
It gets messier when you add Ukraine into the equation, or consider people conflating governments and populations, but it should give you an idea - it starts with somewhat sane premises but quickly devolves into insane lack of logic.
It explains nicely why they’re supporting Palestine, even with the apparent contradiction: Israel is associated with USA and thus with NATO.
IMO their dichotomy in this topic is idiotic. However it is not just from their part, and blaming specifically Hexbear for this, like some people would do, would be unjust (and a self-demonstrating example). We, people using the internet in the 20s, are collectively doing it.
By the way, you see another example of the general phenomenon in this comment chain. Ctrl+F “elephant shit” and look at the comment I was replying to - “you either treat two types of bad as the same, or you’re defending one.”
[Now I probably drew the ire of all sides at the same time. Frankly? I don’t give a fuck; I’m too old and grumpy to play along.]
Why does everyone there unequivocally, wholeheartedly, unquestionably support Russia?
You may not like this, but the simple answer is they don’t.
Russia has barely a trace of communism anymore and it is hard right oligarchy that fits almost every definition of fascism. Not to mention HEAVILY racist and anti-LGBTQ (I have multiple friends who were from Russia and they were the ones who originally told me that before I saw it for myself in Russia)
Correct. Hexbear critically supports the role Russia plays as an anti-NATO country, and ally to the PRC, who Communists do support.
Communists in general see Western Hegemony as the international proletariat’s largest enemy, as the Global North hyper-exploits the Global South. Michael Parenti explains brilliantly in this short, 2 minute clip. Overall, Communists agree with Lenin’s analysis in Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism, and agree that it remains the number 1 enemy of the international proletariat.
NATO is the military alliance of the largest Imperialist exploiters of the Global South, and therefore weakening NATO Hegemony is a good thing. The Nationalist, far-right Russian Bourgeoisie fights against this, because they were not allowed to join the club after the fall of the USSR like they had hoped!
Hope that helps.
Then what about when they constantly refer to the rhetoric as “truth” how Ukraine was full of Nazis that were genociding the Russian minority and how Russia invaded to save them and has committed exactly 0 war crimes?
I completely get that the US is not a good guy, most of western civilization was built on exploitation, imperialism, and subjugation of people. I even understand the great things China has done as far as huge quality of life upgrades for their people.
But Russia is only similar to china in that they propagate huge anti-US propaganda and technically support each other as an anti-US coalition.
Russia is also extremely imperialist, always has been, and literally has annexed (or tried to) multiple nations in the past decades, and is currently trying to do the same. Russia is everything that hexbear stands against, yet they unequivocally support them without any doubt.
Go say literally any critical things of Russia in hexbear. You will 100% be down voted to oblivion, if not banned. If you say anything against Putin being the greatest leader in recent history, you will be down voted to hell if not banned. I have yet to see any critical speech of Russia on hexbear that didn’t get removed or down voted so hard that the comment will never see the light of day.
I understand being Anti-US, but if Russia was in the US’s position, they would be just as bad if not worse for the treatment of people and propagating imperialism. Then to censor people about it… I can scream on other instances about how stupid the US is until I pass out and I wouldn’t get banned. That is TruthSocial/theDonald/Twitter territory.
I’m sorry, but again, this is a gross mischaracterization. Please actually read the links I sent, you don’t need to read the Imperialism text but at least go through the thread I linked and the Parenti speech.
I have been critical of the Russian Federation and Putin especially on Hexbear, and have been highly upvoted for it. Hexbear’s position on Russia is nuanced, ask them to explain it and you’ll get explanations.
I understand being Anti-US, but if Russia was in the US’s position, they would be just as bad if not worse for the treatment of people and propagating imperialism.
This is 100% correct, the thing is, nobody but the US is in the US’s position. Russia is acting in the manner they are because they aren’t.
https://hexbear.net/post/3025711
https://hexbear.net/post/3379624
https://hexbear.net/comment/5253718 top comment, massively upvoted
https://hexbear.net/post/3232536 - more “all Ukrainians are Nazi rhetoric”
https://hexbear.net/comment/4594619 - more “the war is just a local conflict with everyone on Russia’s side” propaganda that is heavily upvoted. Objectively false. There is way way more nuance than that.
https://hexbear.net/post/3394475 - Russia never does anything wrong. It is just Americans who of course blame it on Russia
https://hexbear.net/comment/5113469 - Russia never does anything wrong. It is actually a conspiracy that Americans did it
https://hexbear.net/comment/5084604 - Russia can do no wrong. Russia is destined to win and take the lands they want to annex
https://hexbear.net/comment/5084494 - yet more Ukraine genocide rhetoric, straight from Russian propaganda
https://lemmygrad.ml/post/4112194 - literally regurgitating unsubstantiated Russian propaganda. Literally one person saying “if you just blindly believed Russian propaganda 100% of the time, you would be right 70% of the time”
https://hexbear.net/post/2763869 - “Russia is extremely generous with these terms”, they only have to give up their land to glorious leader of Russia
imperialism /ĭm-pîr′ē-ə-lĭz″əm/ noun
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The extension of a nation’s authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political dominance over other nations.
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A political doctrine or system promoting such extension of authority.
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The power or character of an emperor; imperial authority; the spirit of empire.
Literally exactly the definition of Putin’s post-socialism authoritarian Russia…
Like “the enemy of my enemy” can only take you so far. Like when Putin blatantly poisoned a political opponent and everyone on hexbear was cheering them and saying “I’m surprised it took them this long”… Supporting a murderous regime because they happen to be against an exploitative corrupt regime doesn’t even seem like a valid solution to me.
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But if you’re anti fascism but pro authoritarianism, you’re still wrong…
I highly recommend you give Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism and On Authority a read. At least On Authority, as it’s a very short piece, but the two combined should give you a basic understanding of the historical and theoretical basis of why marxists defend the use of authority. I can understand where you are coming from, I was more than a little skeptical of authoritarianism when I was younger and still identified as an anarchist, but I think if you take the time to honestly engage with our position then you will at least understand why our stance is what it is, and how we are diametrically opposed to fascism, even if you don’t agree with us.
Blackshirts and Reds was eye opening for me
Plenty HB users are authoritarian. I disagree with them in this; however I don’t think that both things cancel out, given the fascism is orders of magnitude worse than authoritarianism alone.
Aaaand you’re low-key defending authoritarianism…
Yeah, because saying “cat shit is not as huge as elephant shit” is the same as saying “cat shit is not shit”. /s
This guy knows nothing of the political spectrum.
This guy knows nothing of the political spectrum.
Liberalism in the center? Gosh, this is the most American political coordinates there could be
It’s almost physically triggering how off-base that is
Is there something in the name requiring people to support fascism if it wears the right color?
Is there something in the name requiring people to support fascism if it wears the right color?
Do some people fighting fascism (aka antifa) go overboard? Yes, certainly; that’s bound to happen with any movement, group, or cohort.
For example, someone might miss the target due to witch hunting, or adopt an “ends always justify means” mindset, or even conflate “non-suporter = enemy”.
However. By implying that “antifa is fascism wearing a different colour”, like you are doing, you’re showing to not understand the obvious difference between
- individuals following an ideology grounded on xenophobia, nationalism, racism, militarism, censorship, suppression of your individuality by force, more often than not sexism, homophobia and transphobia; and
- individuals who don’t want the shit above to transform their lives into living hells, including some willing to use force to fight back.
This conflation between both groups is not just immoral. It’s worse - it stinks stupidity and similar filth from a distance. As such I’m not wasting my time further with you, go chew some grass.
Maybe you’re telling on yourself by announcing your disdain for antifascists
Most antifa groups are anarchist collectives. So I’m not sure where you’re seeing this, unless it’s solely from people that are terminally online.
Organized anti-fascist groups often have a mix of left ideological backgrounds, but are mostly anarchists and communists. We work together when it comes to physical defense, barricades, etc.
e.g. many people in black bloc are Maoists even though outsiders tend to assume they are all anarchists.
I’m on lemmynsfw because I like to argue about how shitty society is between wanks
Many of them, yes. They’re among the most radical of the leftist instances, which means that they attract a lot of propagandists and tankies. They have some perfectly reasonable people too, but you know, vocal minority. Its the main thing most people notice about those instances.
Many people block hexbear, Lemmy.ml, and lemmygrad for these reasons.
You are correct. Do your mental health a favour and block that instance along with lemmygrad.
Problem is that blocking the instance doesn’t block these clowns’ comments on other instances, you have to do a lot of manual blocking.
Some instances are defederated from them, which would prevent them from being seen elsewhere.
That would work for some - hexbear.net and lemmygrad.ml - but not for others, like lemmy.ml and maybe Midwest.social. At some point users need to start blocking on their own.
Lemm.ee basically doesn’t defederate anything. You should probably go to an instance that defederates those instances.
While I would prefer defederation in this case, I found being on an instance ran by competent admin small price to pay.
That depends on your client. Connect for lemmy shows a placeholder for comments from blocked instances. You can click to show the comment anyway or just blissfully ignore the high probability rage bait.
I actually like that implementation, because the obnoxiousness of hexbear users is context dependent. On posts about gardening and nolawns I’ll usually see what they have to say. On political posts, I usually regret reading their comments. So it’s somewhat nice to opt-in to comments on a case by case basis.
Do you have any examples of this? Since world is defederated from that instance, I only end up visiting it when people like you come in and talk about how absolutely crazy it is over there, so occasionally I’ll take a curious peek. This time I see… a post about Indigenous rights, a post criticizing capitalism, a post dunking on musk, a post about FOSS… when do I start seeing the crazy?
idk, I’ve seen all the hype around hexbear users being obnoxious around Lemmy (including our own instance debating blocking the instance, followed by several of their members brigading the thread true to form)… but I’ve explored the communities on the instance itself and even subscribed to some of them like mutual aid, gaming etc, and those that I’m watching are actually just normal people doing normal things if more left than some other similar groups. In my experience it isn’t “all” hexbear users, because that would be a dumb generalization.
There are some assholes on that instance to be sure. Show me one that this isn’t true of. I’m glad our instance didn’t block them because I now get to decide for myself. I block communities and/or users if they’re a problem for me. I think that’s a good way.
I’m glad your instance stayed federated because I’ve seen some good takes from lemm.ee users on hexbear threads! 🥰
Yeah I joined this instance not knowing much about any of them and lucked into a very good crew! I did read their defederation policy (not inclined to unless extreme situations) and that is why I signed up here and they’ve been true to that. I think it’s healthy.
The brigading was really annoying though, but I never noticed anything else bad about them. I don’t use ‘all’ very much and that is probably why.
Yeah it was, but it was only a few individuals. It wasn’t the entire population of the instance. I do sort by All quite a bit and honestly I don’t see much of note from any one instance other than weird porn or niche meme communities that I block individually as needed. I just nuke communities and individuals that annoy me.
This is my philosophy as well.
They really don’t “brigade” much except in threads on which HB is mentioned.
However they will pile on in threads that grab their attention, but I think that’s more a result of them being a fairly large instance and their (mostly like-minded) users all finding popular threads organically in their feed.
Hexbear isn’t actually very large. Just very active.
Obviously you can’t lump them all into one category, but the majority of them seem to be willing to cause chaos on other instances for a laugh. Doesn’t sit right with me, so i blocked them
To be clear, this is coming from you getting banned for being a debate-pervert after you claimed Putin invaded Ukraine to “reinstate the USSR” as a secret Commie and refused to take a pro-Palestinian stance, equating Palestinian resistance with a century of settler-colonial genocide.
I think it’s a bit terminally online to run away to a defederated instance to lick your wounds, rather than reflect on why being a debatebro is unhealthy.
I don’t mind communism. I do mind advocating for Russia, in a war where they are clearly the aggressor, and harassing then moving to harass the same left wing for not being as radical or as pro-russian and deluding themselves with false beliefs that they are alone and no one is left wing other than them
