Lots of people who are seeing top-level postings about Hexbear. Net are probably confused about what has been going on and I want to give an SRD-style overview of the whole thing.
Note: As a user of Blahaj.Zone, I am not a neutral party in this and I do not pretend to be. This is how the whole thing has played out from my perspective.
Hexbear. Net is another Lemmy instance that had relatively recently started to federate with Blahaj.Zone and other Lemmy instances. It had previously been known as Chapo.Chat because it began as an instance for fans of the podcast ChapoTrapHouse.
Recently users from Blahaj.Zone (as well as other Lemmy instances) began to complain about the behavior of Hexbear users. The complaints were about rude, obnoxious behavior: Hexbear users calling people “libs” as an insult, denying crimes of Russia and China, denying the crimes of Stalin,…
Such behavior was not necessarily forbidden on Blahaj.Zone, but certain sub-Lemmys had their own rules on these subjects.
One of the threads about Hexbear: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/1854795?scrollToComments=true
After an ever increasing number of users calling for defederating from Hexbear. Net, Ada (admin of Blahaj.Zone) opened a thread to talk about it. The thread was quickly inundated with Hexbear users, complaining in turn about being called out in this way. Though many of their comments exploited a current bug in the Lemmy code which resulted in emoji’s being embedded as pictures which results in lots of image spam.
Ada responded by removing top-level comments in the thread which were not from Blahaj.Zone’s users, because she wanted to get the feedback of her own community, not from anybody else.
This happened originally in this thread: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/1959801
The discussion on Blahaj.Zone was a back and forth: Lots of people calling for “leftist and queer unity”, others complaining about getting harassed by Hexbear users.
Meanwhile, elsewhere: Lemm.ee, a Lemmy instance operated and managed by someone from Estonia, also opened a discussion about Hexbear - at least partially motivated by the admin’s increasing unease of the rampant denial of soviet atrocities and the occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union. Russian propaganda in regards to the war in Ukraine was also an issue.
Lemm.ee was largely encountering similar problems as Blahaj.Zone, though the Lemme.ee admin admitted that the Hexbear admin was generally responsive to reports and complaints.
The thread on Lemm.ee: https://lemm.ee/post/4543536
The thread was also flooded with comments from Hexbear users. The admin of Lemm.ee also responded by hiding most of the comments from Hexbear.
https://mastodon.social/@brooklynman/110911292961470110
Back on Blahaj.Zone, a tangent opens up: A Hexbear user complains about c/196, the new home of Reddit’s r/196 which had relocated to Blahaj.Zone and has been its biggest community ever since. The Hexbear user complains about their comments being removed, comments that called out the use of the r-word and other call-outs. The user posts pictures of the removal notices.
Blahaj.Zone’s admin Ada steps in and intervenes on behalf of the Hexbear user, having a stern word with the c/196 mod responsible for the removal of the comments.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/2136643
A Hexbear admin also gets involved and sends a message to the mods of c/196 demanding the removal of the sub-Lemmy’s banner, because it contains “fuck tankies²”, arguing that tankies is a slur. The c/196 mod refuses and publishes their message.
[²"Tankies" is a pejorative term for authoritarian socialists in the vein of Stalin and/or Mao.]
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/1961004
While the discussion if Blahaj.Zone should defederate from Hexbear is still ongoing, the Hexbear admins defederated from Blahaj.Zone without warning from their side, because of…
unaddressed ableist removals from the /c/196 moderators, defense of chasers, no-quarter rules regarding our users, leakage of good-faith DMs from our admin team, and a general lack of initiative to punish these behavior
In her a response to these events, Ada points out in a comment that she never had the chance to adress the ableist incident (she was in bed) while other issues had happened in the past and had been adressed at the time. Thus she could not react before Hexbear defederated.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/2135406
TL;dr: Blahaj.Zone’s users complain about ill behavior of users on Hexbear. Net. A discussion about defederation begins on Blahaj.Zone. Meanwhile Hexbear users complain about Blahaj.Zone in turn and Hexbear. Net defederates instantly and without warning.
I’ve had two major issues with these guys. While not necessarily worth defederating everyone, I really don’t want to deal with hexbear because:
- ALL of their content is political. When they first showed up on my feed, I watched what posts/communities came up and how their users interacted on non hexbear posts. I’ve done my best to remove all politics from my social media. These guys only talked about politics and would go to other communities to turn a normal conversation political.
- Everything was extreme and obnoxious. I don’t understand why everyone keeps calling them polite. There was a constant “you’re with us or you’re against us”/“my beliefs are always right” behavior that was really annoying, especially in a public space that wasn’t polarized before they got there. It reminded me of this one girl from middle school who would walk into a room and loudly talk about whatever she wanted until all the other conversations petered out.
They’re more than welcome to behave like that in their home, but they can’t go to a public space and expect everyone to cater to their beliefs.
Not a part of blahaj, but the impression I’ve gotten from what I’ve seen (primarily in the lemm.ee megathread) is that for better or worse hexbear takes the concept of radical transparency and debate to its fullest extreme. For the better, it can produce some intensely thought provoking discussions–I’ve had to reevaluate and reconsider my own personal ethics more in the past week or so than I have in the past few years.
But the downside is that it’s Just. So. Exhausting. I fully agree that everything they discuss has a political undertone to it in some way. It feels like they just cannot turn off, and I always have to be on my guard when they get involved in any discussion, even if it’s nominally about a completely non-political topic. Even when they’re making high effort posts instead of spamming emojis and pig poop balls, every discussion feels like a minefield, where the slightest misstep gets you punished with a “here’s a response that implies/outright states you’re woefully misinformed at best and a protofascist nazi at worst, here’s a link to an obscure book written by a communist scholar 50 years ago that you should read before even trying to discuss this topic.” Hexbear getting involved in a discussion is the discourse equivalent of a group playing 4-player FFA Smash Bros. with items on and someone rolls up and demands 1v1, no items, tournament ruleset only.
I feel like I just cannot relax when hexbear is active in a discussion, and it’s not even like I really disagree with their points–yes, the US is too powerful, yes, capitalism is bad–but I strongly disagree with their conclusions (supporting China and Russia because it weakens the US is the equivalent of voting for Trump because Biden/Hillary isn’t liberal enough.) It’s just that they are so laser-focused on debate and so ready to believe the worst in everyone (they called using “top kek” a holocaust denier dogwhistle FFS, that shit originated from freaking world of warcraft, and was popularized on 4chan back when it was just a shithole instead of a racist shithole! I occasionally use it because I’m an elder millennial and I like making dated references!) that even if you support their overall goals and philosophy, you still walk away mentally exhausted because of how carefully you had to parse your words to avoid stepping on a landmine.
I just don’t understand the defense of Soviet Union and China. Just because western civilization committed atrocities doesn’t make “communist” ones any better. “We’re” suppose to be better than that. Actual communism wouldn’t need to commit atrocities
It’s an interesting one, I find myself defending China a lot because people just say the wildest stuff without the slightest context - I defend America in conversations with people from around the world who irrationally hate everything American too.
I can really see how someone would get caught up in the trap of realising that China is nothing like how it’s presented in Western media then take that too far to overlook the genuine problems there. A big part of it is intent, it’s easy to overlook bombing a baby milk factory when it’s ‘your’ people doing it as you KNOW that they’re just normal good folk like you and me so anything bad was an accident or mistake but when a sinister foreigner does something then you can imagine it like a comic book where it’s part of an evil plot just for the sake of being cruel.
(And yes I know they purposefully and knowingly bombed the baby milk factory to cause economic and social unrest, that it was an illigal war of aggression predicated on lies and used to enrich a few very powerful people, etc**)
When someone starts yelling about how terrible china is and that don’t have any concept of how their elections work, how their media works, how their social systems work, the geography, culture, history, or anything else at all beside the handful of shocking stories they’ve had pushed on them by a very biased media then it’s annoying as hell. Especially when offering the slightest bit of context gets you labelled as a fascist tankie demon - nuance is incredibly complex and even more incredibly important in actually understanding things.
Tbh I thought the admins of Lemmy.World were being overzealous when they preemptively defederated from HexBear before we even had a chance to see what federating with them would be like, but from where it stands now I think they made the right call. It doesn’t seem like anything of value was lost.
Despite apparent assurances from the HB admin team that their users are to be on their best behavior outside of their echo chamber, it seems they just can’t help themselves.
Hexbear is what happens when kids (I hope they’re all in their early 20s or teens, because otherwise this gets much sadder) spend years reading on leftist theory but have zero real world experience. They get intense, volatile, argumentative and have no idea how those points reflect on themselves and in reality. This is why they go around prancing those absurd beliefs and fencing anyone who disagrees out, while also dogpilling and swarming communities that don’t agree: They only know what its like to be leftists in theory.
The one person who made the “”“”““peace””“”“” thread had an earlier post here in Blahaj saying that since working under capitalism is coercion then everyone who solicits sex workers is a rapist, and that’s basically the level of being disconnected from reality that they operate in. Unfortunately for them, their echo chamber is going to go on and be the equivalent of a left wing /pol/. For us - and hopefully all other major instances - its a relief to be rid of such crowd.
Hexbear is what happens when kids (I hope they’re all in their early 20s or teens, because otherwise this gets much sadder) spend years reading on leftist theory but have zero real world experience.
Unfortunately that does not match my experience. Because Hexbear was a ChapoTrapHouse fan instance in the beginning (and still its largest community), most of these people are likely in their late 20s and older, because that is most of Chapo’s fanbase (which rose to prominence in 2016).
It somewhat reflects who the ChapoTrapHouse hosts are: They are all “nepo babies”, a bunch of people who came from relatively wealthy or at least well off backgrounds. They are all white people from the upper crusty suburbs who love to tell you what they think socialism is supposed to be. And their audience isn’t much different from them.
I came from wealth. It certainly didn’t make me a communist. What did that, was the years I spent working in healthcare in various developing countries, and watching people die because they couldn’t afford proper treatment. Although I suppose thinking about where I came from also helped.
The one person who made the “”“”““peace””“”“” thread had an earlier post here in Blahaj saying that since working under capitalism is coercion then everyone who solicits sex workers is a rapist
That person isn’t necessarily wrong. That’s one of the reasons sex work is illegal in most jurisdictions, if I’m not mistaken.
I know this comment is kinda old, i hope you dont mind me responding.
The notion isnt wrong, but it is misguided and overly simplified. There is coersion under capitalism, but there is also personal choice about how to engage with that system. Sex work is not rape any more than working at mcdonalds is slavery.
Comparing the two reeks of too much theory with too little experience. It is over simplifying things in a way that is troubling because it devalues the intensity, horror, and evil of things like rape and slavery.
Not entirely true, before the defederation I browsed their communities and I’ve seen casual threads about manga, recovery from Alcoholism, talking about insects… and everyone was polite there.
It’s just that when it comes to politics they get EXTREMELY loud, and everything else is drown out.
Honestly, where I’ve seen the flooding of politics is outside of their own communities. Their instance is already an echo chamber, so there’s no need to spread propaganda. But as soon as they venture to other instances, they need to make sure everyone knows how they feel, and if you disagree or just don’t want to talk about it, they instantly turn to personal attacks
Everything is political. Not taking sides here, just confused that you don’t like politics. If you’ve removed politics from your feed doesn’t that mean you’ve removed all content?
…what? I think we are in two very different corners of the internet. I follow animal groups, hobbies, work related stuff, and art. None of that should have people screaming about politicians or voting or laws or anything related to politics. I can get all of that from informed sources like AP or Reuters, and when I’m done with the news for the day I’m done. My social media feeds have zero politics, which is why I didn’t like hexbear users - they were injecting politics into my non political spaces.
I’ll vote when I can and protest when I can, but I don’t want to doomscroll through a bunch of angry people when interacting with them has no personal or social benefit.
Animal groups, hobbies, work, and art are political. Art is the best example: artists are often said to hold a mirror up to society. Work’s conditions are dictated by the conditions of capitalism and the entire act of work is an endeavour in practicing capitalism under the direction of a boss who can control you at the office. Animal rights issues are also obviously political, and hobbies is a really vague umbrella term but there’s a whole lot of politics under that umbrella.
Politics is defined by nearly all dictionaries as the field concerning power and decision making in groups. Everything relates to that. I don’t understand what these “non-political” spaces you’re talking about are like. Do you mean being alone? Because if you’re not in a group, then you’re right there wouldn’t be any participation in group decision making. Is that what you mean? That you like your solitude?
Haha… They can deal out the punishment but they can’t take it themselves… Thought so. Never in my life have I been called a slavery apologist, but 10 mins in hexbear was all I needed.
Yeah, they’ve created their own little echo chamber of propaganda + bots and lost touch with the real world.
Blahaj isn’t exactly frugal with defederation either. Or is an echochamber better if you call it “safe space”?
I think you’re focusing on the wrong part.
The problem is the propaganda and bots.
An echo chamber of hugs and shorks rules.
Mosh pits are fun. So are hugs.
Sometimes I want/need to go hang out in a hug box/safe space/echo chamber. If that means there’s less content there, that’s a tradeoff I’m fine with.
Yes, actually we are. Our community took the risk of federating with them under the guise of trans community unification. Hexbear defederated with our community first. We noticed their bullshit and harassment, said we’d give it a full week, and then have votes and discussion on it.
We signed up for that rocky situation, we don’t need a “safe space” - we had a goal and we tried to accomplish it with that community.
Well, look at that. The trash took itself out.
Indeed, fuck tankies.
Fuckin tankies, man…
reminder:
left-unity means authoritarian entryism
tolerance must function as a social contract, or not at all.
reject auth apologists.
Authoritarian is a made up concept in order to make communism and fascism the same thing.
No. I thought Hexbear was right wing at first because they were irrelevantly complaining about Hillary Clinton, using the word “lib” disparagingly (such as “dunking on libs”), and telling those that disagree with them to “get up against the wall”.
All authoritarian echo chambers sound the same.
It’s kinda funny but a lot of modern leftist spaces use the word “liberal” disparagingly, even anarchists and the non-authoritarian. Leftism is radical and niche enough that most people associate the hatred of liberals with the right, but on the left it’s just used to refer to the center who still support capitalism and the status quo.
All political systems exist on some type of multi-dimensional spectrum. Left-right is just one axis, and kind of a made up one where they mean different things sometimes. The authoritarian axis is a real one, and fascism sits on the same end of that axis as so-called “communism”. This doesn’t make them equivalent, but it does mean that they both have some characteristics which are the same and bad. I’m fact, one could argue that their position on the authoritarian axis is all that you need to argue they are bad because authoritarianism is in itself the cause of so much human suffering.
That’s ridiculous, because communism is the opposite of authoritarianism. Communism is defined by Marx as classless and stateless. Whatever you think is just as authoritarian as fascism, it’s not communism. Maybe you think state capitalism is communist and that’s why you’re confused.
Hey, fun fact, “communist” states never existed, because they were socialist, or as Marx would call them, lower communist. They were the transition point Marx talked about to higher communism.
I agree, this “left unity” BS is propaganda and it’s wrong. True unity means making a space welcoming to everyone by kicking out intolerance. Left unity is created by deplatforming authoritarians and transphobes, and building systems that provide justice to the marginalised. Welcoming fascists and bigots means disunity, as much as they love to scream otherwise.
