Some other contributing factors that haven’t been mentioned here yet:
They were their own instance for over 3 years before joining federation. That’s 3 years of growth that all the new big instances from rexit didn’t have, so when they joined, they were INSTANTLY one of the loudest voices in the room.
Their original goal for federating was to actively spread their ideology, and they were VERY aggressive and trolly about it (as they are about basically everything, that’s essentially their inside joke). This ended up generating a lot of extra moderation work for instances and communities that have rules against being actively disruptive. There was eventually enough communication between admins and mods across hexbear and other instances that they toned back most of the trolliness, at least outside of their own communities.
They just shit up the place. Better off without them
My understanding is that it’s not so much a “controversy” as a general dislike. We tend to dislike people who we feel are interpreting every little thing we say, no matter how innocuous, in the worst possible light. We tend to dislike people who hurl insults at us unprovoked, who respond to simple questions with weird pictures of Gargamel and other such content.
And then there’s the existence of communities they have solely for the purpose of harassing other non-hexbear users and brigading communities from instances with the misfortune of federating with them, harassment campaigns which appear to be tolerated, if not encouraged, by certain other instances ending in .ml
While I have some serious political concerns with some of their shared views, I also think I’d have a lot in common with them – a concern for LGBT+ rights, for instance – and for the plight of the working class. Sadly, my experience has led me instead to instantly blocking any hexbear account on sight and disengaging with any of their content. I think other users in the fediverse have had similar such experiences. I’ve seen entire instances attempt to tolerate them, only to find that they’re just inviting piranhas to the goldfish tank, and consequently defederating them.
I think you’re leaving out the elephant in the room: They’re supposed “leftists” who want nothing but to shit on the very people that the left needs to embrace.
They’ve taken the “burn it all down” approach, and would rather just have a genocide of anyone on the right, anyone in the center, and anyone who asks them any questions about their beliefs.
They have zero tolerance for inquisitiveness and regard all interaction thats not leftist snark to be in “bad faith”.
They are more than likely a honeypot disinformation campaign meant to siphon off the most fervent leftist believers and incapacitate them via self-ostricization.
You will only get anti-hexbear answers because iirc theyve been defederated. Hexbear is a communist instance that has its roots from /r/ChapoTrapHouse. They’re disliked by some beause they’re aggressive and often intentionally inflammatory.
What they’re NOT is alt right trolls in disguise as some idiots claim. Some people just can’t comprehend that there’s any position to the left of neoliberalism.
What they’re NOT is alt right trolls in disguise as some idiots claim.
Kinda not hard to see it like that because a lot of them seems to defend Russia.
I’m sorry, but this is asking for a mental gymnastics meme.
Mental gymnastics: They don’t defend Russia. They just recognize that the US is bad. It’s better to have a counterbalance in geopolitics. They’re still lefties. It just happens that Russia fills that niche. They don’t actually like Putin.
Mental non-gymnastics: They claim to be lefties. They seem to defend Russia. They’re strawmen.
But no, I agree with you that (at least a good deal of) Hexbear is actually left wing. Except there are probably some right wing poser trolls among them, and it’s hard to say how many. There are probbably right wing poser trolls among us too. Hehe among us.
They’re disliked by some beause they’re aggressive and often intentionally inflammatory.
Yes. This is the only reason I dislike them, to be clear.
What they’re NOT is alt right trolls in disguise
No. This is ridiculous. It’s also ridiculous when people say that Marxism is “just as bad” as Nazis. I’m not Marxist myself, but this is an absurd comparison I’ve seen a lot of people make.
Personally, seeing pig that’s crapped itself is an instant block.
Other than that, they seem quick to troll, but have generally been helpful when I’ve asked an honest question.