Update:
The comments from this post will not be removed as to preserve the discussion around the announcement. Any continued discussions outside of this thread that violate server rules will be removed. We feel that everyone that has an opinion, and wanted to vent, has been heard.
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Original post:
Yesterday, we received information about the planned federation by Hexbear. The announcement thread can be found here: https://www.hexbear.net/post/280770. After reviewing the thread and the comments, it became evident that allowing Hexbear to federate would violate our rules.
Our code of conduct and server rules can be found here.
The announcement included several concerning statements, as highlighted below:
- “Please try to keep the dirtbag lib-dunking to hexbear itself. Do not follow the Chapo Rules of Posting, instead try to engage utilizing informed rhetoric with sources to dismantle western propaganda. Posting the western atrocity propaganda and pig poop balls is hilarious but will pretty quickly get you banned and if enough of us do it defederated.”
- “The West’s role in the world, through organizations such as NATO, the IMF, and the World Bank - among many others - are deeply harmful to the billions of people living both inside and outside of their imperial core.”
- “These organizations constitute the modern imperial order, with the United States at its heart - we are not fooled by the term “rules-based international order.” It is in the Left’s interest for these organizations to be demolished. When and how this will occur, and what precisely comes after, is the cause of great debate and discussion on this site, but it is necessary for a better world.”
The rhetoric and goal of Hexbar are clear based on their announcement: to “dismantle western propaganda” and "demolish organizations such as NATO” shows that Hexbar has no intention of "respecting the rules of the community instance in which they are posting/commenting.” It’s to push their beliefs and ideology.
In addition, several comments from a Hexbear admin, demonstrate that instance rules will not be respected.
Here are some examples:
“I can assure you there will be no lemmygrad brigades, that energy would be better funneled into the current war against liberalism on the wider fediverse.”
“All loyal, honest, active and upright Communists must unite to oppose the liberal tendencies shown by certain people among us, and set them on the right path. This is one of the tasks on our ideological front.”
- https://lemmy.world/comment/121850
- https://lemmy.world/comment/1487168
- https://lemmy.world/comment/1476084
- https://lemmy.world/comment/171595
- https://www.hexbear.net/comment/3648500
Overall community comments:
- https://www.hexbear.net/comment/3526128
- https://www.hexbear.net/comment/3526086
- https://www.hexbear.net/comment/3652828
To clarify, for those who have inquired about why Hexbear versus Lemmygrad, it should be noted that we are currently exploring the possibility of defederating from Lemmygrad as well based on similar comments Hexbear has made.
- https://lemmygrad.ml/post/158656
- https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/882559
- https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/540170
- https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/446529
Defederation should only be considered as a last resort. However, based on their comments and behavior, no positive outcomes can be expected.
We made the decision to preemptively defederate from Hexbear for these reasons. While we understand that not everyone may agree with our decision, we believe it is important to prioritize the best interests of our community.
What is the point of having over positivity? Let’s have some discussion with those people and roast them. This is censorship. Any criminal activities then defederation is fine. Just because their opinions are not liked defederating for that?
I mean they’re being really clear that they plan to basically do subtle griefing of other NATO friendly instances… They’re also fueled by misinformation and perpetuates it. Honestly the web needs a little censorship. I know that if I really wanted to see them they’re other instances I could be on. This one just cleans up a little better.
There are people who don’t like NATO or outside the western world. Everyone has different opinions. Many of us are misinformed on a daily basis. Not everything we believe is true. And western governments are also good at propaganda and false news spreading.
Absolutely. I never meant to suggest otherwise. I’m just saying, people should spend more time picking an instance.
You aren’t going to reason with them lol.
It is a troll farm, nothing more. They will troll for the sake of trolling. You will be arguing with bots most of the time.
The things you guys don’t see when you aren’t a moderator.
I agree with the defederation.
Twitter and Facebook have killed many during the pandemic thanks to allowing misinformation on their sites. You can’t rely on people to use critical thinking to determine who is right and who is wrong on the internet.
The only large country that wants NATO to fall is Russia. They want NATO to fall so they can pull another Ukraine in another country such as Poland. NATO is a defensive force, so only someone wanting something to not be defended would want NATO to go away. You only want something to not be defended if you intend to attack.
I think you are unaware there are countries which are not white. And not one of them likes nato, most are against, when there is “support” it is only because of the threats being pushed on them.
Do you think Japan likes US? After two atomic bombs? India likes UK after being colonised and treated like second class animals? China and most of Asia?
Or Africa after all atrocities done in the past and present by main nato countries?
Or South America after all documented military and political interface by US?
Come on, they are people too. I have no problem you supporting your side, but use true arguments for it
If there was less political shitposting on their communities I’d be more opposed to their defederation… but as it is, I can’t imagine most of their users being willing to have an open discussion about their views.
Looking at the site there is a lot of dropping memes and political slang terms, and regardless of whether the Hexbear admins say “dont do that elsewhere”, their users will probably kinda do it anyway since that’s what they’ve been used to all along.
Opening the floodgates to an instance with posts of that nature would likely end up degrading the quality of some of the more discussion-oriented communities here. For example, the Fuckcars community with a few shitposters or people taking the community name too literally could decimate and degrade the discussions there.
The few Hexbear users that we would have been able to have a discussion with have opened lemmyworld accounts and commented in here, most of which have made completely valid criticisms IMO.
I personally wouldn’t want to see them. People like that aren’t in it to discuss- they want to ignore you and keep spitting propaganda. Look at yoghaus and his like. No matter how badly you roast him or how effectively tou counter him- he just keeps going. Probably paid to do so honestly.