I originally summarized my observations replying to Blaze in a different thread

I figured I’d include them here because in case anyone wants to correct my interpretation.

I had asked how he feels about posting in a com alongside people who are calling other users ‘removed roaches’

He brought up that Hexbear users using the word roaches to refer to people too, my response:

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From that link pretty much all of the usage is talking about the literal insect, or talking about reactionaries/fascists using it to refer to muslims, immigrants and other ‘undesirables’.

Out of the handful of remaining uses, it’s stuff like in the hexbear thread on this meanwhileongrad thread:

This is the most questionable usage I found, and it’s referring to fash/reactionaries.

That’s not the main point though, the bigger issue was getting called a ‘removed’ that’s pretty much a red flag that someone’s a cryptofash.

citing db0 on this one:

compare the use of the term on shit vs on hexbear:

While looking I found this one on hexbear from 5 years ago, almost 90 upvotes shitting on stalin for criminalizing homosexuality, and quoting him calling someone removed. I read this as extremely critical of Stalin:

All the usage on hexbear I see is either self-deprecating or discussing (negatively) about people using the term.

Vaush this year defended the idea that he is allowed to call trans people shit like “subhuman, removed, mentally ill, leeching off society” if they step out of line and oppose him or his breadtube friends.

meanwhile on meanwhile on grad:

My experience on lemmy is vastly improved after blocking lemmygrad, lemmy.ml, hexbear, beehaw, and pawb. Wiped out vast swathes of removed from my feed.

hmmm, calling people removed and complaining about commies, progressives and furries.

Goat seems fine with replies calling people he doesn’t like removed:

more examples:

Wouldn’t be surprised to hear they are, but nonetheless the chapo trap house removed that make up hexbear and grad are real. They do believe the dumb shit they say. It can’t all just be explained away with CCP and FSB boogeymen unfortunately, that would honestly be better imo. I’m sure some of it is, but mostly it’s people crazy enough to believe the stupid bullshit they spout.

On the shit main community someone deleted their posts after getting called out for this behavior, this is a known issue:

‘removed tankie roaches’

site admin calls it out, entirely downvoted lol

Like you might think I’m being melodramatic, but I really don’t see how meanwhileongrad isn’t a nazi bar.

As I said, I don’t have a dog in this fight, it seems indeed bad to have such comments on both sides.

I really hope you re-assess both sides, because they are not equivalent.

I understand, there’s plenty of problematic posters to go around, the issue I have is that it’s normalized calling an instance which is overwhelmingly trans and queer ‘removed’, that’s a major red flag, and it’s behavior like that which was why hexbear defederated shit in the first place.

sh.it doesn’t seem to have improved in that time

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As a bonus here’s some fun clips from this latest two minutes hate thread:

Goat has been really worked up lately, I arrived after the defederation happened, but I read the hexbear threads related to this not long after I started lemmy and his interpretation of events is comically conspiratorial.

The chronology was that hexbear had been off doing its own thing for like 3 years, and only re-merged with lemmy due to the technical issues maintaining a separate fork. That happened to coincide with the major reddit wave, correct me if I’m wrong but nobody here is taking orders from dessalines, right?

It looks like Hexbear tried to broadly fedarate, some users were looking forward to it, but others apprehensive and preferring to keep everyone else out. Once it became more clear how toxic and unmoderated most of the fediverse was, they made the decision to defederate.

Also is there a discord? The only matrix groups I’m aware of are for mods and the trans space. People should probably be aware that there’s potentially nazi trolls hanging out there.

One last one for the road, goat upvote policing and accusing db0 of being pro-uygher genocide.

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so what’s the official hexbear line on calling people removed or cockroaches?