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.
The statement literally says, “follow the rules of the instance you’re in.”
This reaction is very weird.
it’s because they’re disguising their anti-communist ideology with concern trolling
Not very well, though, which is why I’m surprised so many people are eating it up. I have noticed lemmy world is probably the most liberal of the instances, as well as the one with the biggest fascist presence. It really is the instance that feels most like Reddit 2.0, in the worst ways.
Do you really believe that will stop their users from trolling? They explicitly say that they won’t impose consequences for actions on other instances, so it’s basically just a friendly suggestion. Add to it their statement’s elsewhere implying there will be non-lemmygrad brigading and it’s kind of hard to believe they really care all that much about their users not trolling “the libs”.
Carcosa (i.e., the same person who said follow the rules on other instances):
And them on lemmygrad:
do you think lemmy.world users that come in to troll and call us tankies on lemmygrad should be banned? that doesn’t ever happen I promise
I think lemmy.world’s admins should absolutely ban their users who go to other instances to troll, and they should be criticized for not doing that. Instances should 100% be held to account for not reigning in users who intentionally go to other instances to be disruptive.
that’s fair enough I guess. I don’t think it should be held against Hexbear as a point against defederation if .world admins don’t do it themselves
That’s also very fair. Federation only works if the interchange of users doesn’t degrade the communities in each instance. If it’s just a bunch of safe home bases that can go out and be assholes as long as it’s somewhere else the whole thing falls apart.
Why would a ban on one instance merit a ban on another? Instances have different rules for reasons.
If the reason for the ban is explicitly (as presented by the user) “being an asshat”, then yes, the source instance should consider banning them as well. Defederation is exactly the expectation (from Carcosa in their post) if too many users from an instance go elsewhere to be asshats.
Why would they be banned on Hexbear for violating another instance’s rules? That makes no sense.
The user didn’t ask about being banned for breaking rules, they asked about being banned for “being an asshat”.