Admin update - Hexbear Defederated

I have been watching my love tie herself in knots over the last several days, having to deal with the drama that has been brought on, trying her best to bring everyone back together.

There's been bad behaviour from both sides, and I'm really disappointed to see that some of the worst of it came from our users, who didn't keep to the moral high ground, disregarded our instance rules and stoopped to levels of behaviour worse than that leveled against them.

There have been accusations against us (or Ada specifically) that we are a safe harbour for bad behaviour and cause harm to trans people through our inaction.

This is perhaps the cruelest accusation they could have leveled at Ada, as she works tirelessly to maintain a safe space for our community, and while I was hoping, for all the effort that she was investing into this issue, that she could make it work despite my own reservations, this last attack on her impeccable morality has made me very angry.

I'm sorry for those that wanted to remain federated, sorry that it came to this, but I am glad it's over now, purely for the mental health of my precious beloved.

I think not much value would be lost by defederating.

They are denying genocides, they are supporting regimes which are not compatible with LGBT+, they don't discuss in good faith, there is a lot of whataboutism. They want to dunk people and be right and not have their view challenged.

Unfortunately they have so radical ideas about it all (mostly US centric whataboutism as far as I can tell). They fall into fascist/authoritarian traps where they can't even recognize they are fighting against people like me or us. They dehumanize people.

I don't think their views are compatible with LGBT+ spaces and values even though they claim to be one while cheering for the people who would remove them from existence the first chance they would get.

Some people are moderate over there and that were the only pleasant interactions I had with them. I can't tell if the radicals are a loud minority or the majority. They poison the well though.

Even after all that said I don't know if defederation is the right choice. I mean they provide some good content and in the end they are a big community. On the other hand I have already blocked the instance using the Connect app and my experience improved a lot.

I think in summary they create a hostile space for all people. Even left leaning people are not safe due to their radicalized views and it is exhausting to have every thread derailed with some unrelated rant by them.

When I moved from Reddit to Lemmy, I made an account on blahaj.zone because I wanted to be on an instance that's run by progressive trans people. Being able to trust that the admins will run an instance that's actually protective of its members is such a relief, especially coming from Reddit.

Experiencing Lemmy for the first time was an adjustment. I was using "all" when I normally don't, and that brought a lot of new things, good and bad, into my feed. There were some posts and comments that I found gross, but the things were dealt with or not so bad.

I started noticing a lot of NSFW posts from lemmynsfw with women that looked very young, and I found myself thinking about whether or not to report the content and how the moderators were verifying content. As young looking as possible while being legal and without getting banned was obviously the purpose. I was relieved when defederation happened. All of a sudden my feed was still diverse content, just minus jailbait-simulator. I missed the A+ posts by some of the guys, an Adonis or three, but I survived.

Things were great, then I started noticing the "fuck Ukraine, NATO is evil" posts along with "Tianamen square deaths are CIA propaganda". That's when hexbear federated. Lemmy.ml brought different perspectives, and they were valuable regardless of me agreeing or not. Hexbear is different.

Touting LGBT rights in Cuba, that's great, and I didn't know about the the changes in 2022. TIL. That's my entire list of positive hexbear posts I've seen so far. I'm sure there's more, but the community doesn't seem to prioritize showing that. "Dunking" and snark are not valuable contributions, and the simping for Putin is straight up evil.

Ada and other admins/mods, thank you so much for your thoughtful consideration, your work, and everything you give to make this community run. I'm just a lurker, but I appreciate you all so much.

I really really really dislike how fast so many people here are to discount their members and clamor for defederation. Queer solidarity, Trans solidarity, and Left solidarity is important. The people from hexbear aren't an "other" we're all in the same boat, it just happens that people from hexbear tend to be more jaded with the systems that a lot of us are slaves to in the west and in first world countries. Every single one of us is one little disillusionment away from holding the same or similar views as any person from hexbear, (I was already moving in that direction and have already made my own account there, though I started my lemmy usage here on Blahaj.)

Can they be a little overwhelming? Sure. But again, their users trend towards individuals fed up with the systems in place and are past the point of engaging in ways that look "respectable" or in their words, "liberal."

Edit: It's also kinda insane how they're being treated by certain mods even when they argue in good faith. image

Personally I don't agree with the decision to stay federated with them given the kind of community they foster. A great example is that the top post on the thread where they announced the rules change that was enough to remain federated a little longer is straight up abuser language.

I'd recommend checking out the thread and sorting by top to see what the most popular sentiments among the users over there is in regards to other instances.

Don't participate, but it's fairly eye opening.

I do hope that when you run the poll you have a way of ensuring that only people in our community can vote on it because given that they have a community on their instance dedicated to dogpiling and brigading I don't trust them to not interfere with it.

hexbear users are trying to stir so much shit, we're better off without them

I'm happy to remain federated; I think the communities, mods and the instance admins (thanks!) do a good job of curating the community, and by and large hexbear users interacting with us on this instance seem to do so in good faith.

That being said, I would make the observation that, from my perspective at least, there seem to be more than a few hexbear users that are apologists for authoritarian regimes. I want to preface this by saying that I am of an anarchist bent, so am not exactly enamoured with 'Western' political systems either, but this should not preclude criticism of (bringing up the most often contested examples) the USSR or China.

That being said, discussion of these things are important and differing views should be seen, as I have often found enlightening articles or overlooked areas of history through reading these kinds of discussion.

Bottom line: I would remain federated, but ensure we maintain the character of our instance.

It was inevitable after their atrocious behavior. It sounds horrible to be caught in such a crossfire as an instance admin. Especially because they used their queerness as a weapon to paint us as the bad ones for splitting the community. A painful reminder that not all queer people are necessarily good people.

Thank you for dealing with this situation and making this instance a safer place.

I'm super disappointed in the reaction of a lot of blahaj users to hexbear. Sure they were out of line in the initial post in Blahaj Lemmy Meta but they have breathed new life into to fediverse left (if you don't like the left, what the heck are you doing on a queer instance). They are also significantly queer in numbers and have done a lot of work in terms of their rules and Lemmy customization (like forcing pronouns on all display names) to make their instance as LGBT friendly as possible. The rest of the fediverse could stand to learn a thing or two from that.

They have the potential to be our good friends as we all face the same oppression and share in the same struggles. How about we take a step towards queer unity and left unity in the Lemmy fediverse and not be so trigger-happy with the defederation.

Hexbear is a bare-knuckle community that encourages group think and hair trigger mockery ("LIB!" and variations). In general, they bring that mentality wherever they go. It reminds me of the Goons from SomethingAwful in that way: you could spot a group of Goons regardless of the game, site, whatever.

Those communities can be fun (a supporters section at a football match, for example), but you have to go in ready to take a stray punch or two.

I have an account on another instance for when I want to be out in the world and suffer the slings and arrows and look at shitposts on !chapotraphouse. Sometimes I'm in the mood.

But I think part of the intended vibe of blahaj.zone is that it's somewhere that as highly marginalized people we can come and not expect to have slurs thrown around, 0-100 name calling criticism, etc.

The culture of hexbear is the opposite of that; it's not about not subscribing to !chapotraphouse, it's about how the instance approaches the whole idea of online interaction.

I'd like to thank you (@Ada) for keeping everyone in the loop and dealing with the (sole) legitimate issue that a hexbear user raised as promptly as was possible for you, given that everyone has to sleep and have a life.

Defedding is an unfortunate step, but in this case it felt inevitable. Yes they were very good on issues surrounding representation for all kinds of 'minority' groups and there seemed to be a few good apples amongst them but the majority of that instance see absolutely everything through the lens of totalitarianism so its possibly not a surprise that that totalitarianism ethos spilled over into their interactions in the wider fediverse. Totalitarianism forbids dissenting or different opinions, no matter how innocent or minor the opinion and that seemed to me to be the essence of hexbear. The fact that their shade of totalitarianism included respecting trans/queer/non-white/differently abled people is both a good thing and still not enough to justify the rest of their rigidity. I intrinsicly mistrust anyone who is so absolutely certain about every part of their mindset that they cannot brook any kind of differing view, no matter how minor the difference being expressed is. Online, that results in dog-piling, brigading and flooding other instances and all that happens then is users on the recipient instance get bored with dealing with it and stay away.

Thanks for this! I personally find most of Hexbear annoying on a personal level, but that’s a problem I can personally solve with community blocking (and I mostly surf my subbed communities anyway). The way the original metathread devolved put them on thin fucking ice as far as federation is concerned. They seem to have a large proportion of people who are assholes for assholes sakes and haven’t learned that just because you believe you’re right about something doesn’t mean you have a pre-ordained right to be a fucking asshole. Or at least I’ve seen a lot of those folks, which has left a bad taste in my mouth.

I'm pretty new to this instance, having moved from .world recently. I haven't interacted with anyone from hexbear yet but I've seen some of their members behaviour on other instances and followed threads back to that instance.

They seem to have a self fulfilling persecution complex centred around their political opinions. I see them on their own instance saying things like 'any instance that doesn't believe the exact, very narrowly defined ideology that we do are stupid and they hate what we stand for', then they go onto the other instances and make even the most innocent posts that have nothing to do with politics into commentary on their ideology. It's like they can't see the world in any other way, or respect that others might. Then, when they get banned, they head back to their instance and say 'see? they're just intolerant boot lickers'. It often feels like they're trying to get banned, or their instance defederated simply so they can happily confirm to each other their belief that everyone is out to get them.

It can get pretty mentally exhausting seeing people say something utterly innocuous like 'I like chips' and then a bunch of hexbear users launch into a long winded political sub-thread on what a dick you are for liking NATO-loving, liberal, colonialist chips.

They are trans and lgbtq+ allies and that's a good thing. I'm just not sure that that one aspect of their makeup drowns out all the baggage that comes with it. I always feel it comes with conditions attached - we'll be your allies as long as we can flood your instance. I have no doubt that if this instance were to defed with them, their allyship would no longer extend to blahaj members.

If we stay federated, I will being leaving Blåhaj. I suspect that atleast a handful of users feel the same. Just being pro-LGBT doesn't give you a pass to be a terrible person to other people. Like denying literal genocides. It feels like a "I have a black friend so I can't be racist" argument. Its just as convincing. I'll deal with the bullshit for a week because that concession was already made. But I'm not dealing with it longer.

Just want to throw some admin appreciation in here. Sudden drama like this taking off like a wildfire can be pretty difficult to handle (particularly in the face of brigading) and I appreciate y'all staying level headed and legitimately trying to foster broader trans community outside of our instance. It's an important niche and I'm glad to be a part of it.

EDIT: I think this is especially important to mention as the discourse has kind of soured from both sides. Sure it's understandable that tensions are running high but it's important to remember that there's real people on the other end of it, in some cases doing free labor for a community that they love.

Just purge it already.. There may be some decent people there, but it’s pretty clear that the instance as a whole glorifies reprehensible rhetoric and behavior. If they feel such a need to be a part of spaces here, then they can make an account here. Don’t poison the water hole to save a few drops.

There can be no solidarity with people who support Russian invasion of Ukraine and the existence of the Taiwan state at least not with me

I really don’t understand the hate towards Hexbear – sure, some users may be problematically argumentative, but that seems to be true of many instances. Meanwhile, as a trans person, Hexbear was actually one of the first places I felt safe when I started looking for a reddit alternative, and, to me, that means a lot. I’m glad I eventually found Blahaj Zone (both the lemmy and hajkey instances), but Hexbear really does feel like a good, queer-friendly, solidly leftist space, which we need more of on the internet, imo.

Like, we may disagree with their politics at points, but I’ve seen conservative and neoliberal users from other instances being awful to Hexbear users far more often than the other way around. I also think it speaks heavily in favor of Hexbear that some of the anti-Hexbear comments on the previous meta thread were from transphobic users from other instances.

I've seen a few people from there on here and my experiences have been nothing but pleasant.

On the other hand, the communities I've seen there seem almost troll like. Like the dumbest worst right-wing circlejerk except some insane left ideas and they hate on "liberals"? It's so confusing to me.

Definitely some very cool people are from there though, from what I see here. I am conflicted. I don't want the shitshow some of their communities starting over here.

I honestly think the hate toward hexbear is mostly manufactured. A lot of the people complaining are the same ones erroneously comparing them to places like exploding heads, claiming they're nazi trolls, that they go on downvoting raids (they can't even downvote btw), accusing them of terrible things, but then don't (or won't) provide any proof of them acting this way. And when people like me who aren't on hexbear question it, we get accused of being a "hexbear in disguise" and ignored. It all feels very dramatic and reddit, and I thought the point of lemmy was to not be like reddit. Defederating from problematic instances I get, but defederating because you hate tankies or because of a few bad members seems more of an 'echo chamber' choice than a 'keep the community safe' choice to me.

Sometimes the trash takes out itself.

after I saw the first 2 posts about hexbear i actively searched for posts and comments from hexbear users to get an idea how big of a problem it really was and I found very little. I think defederation should always be the last resort. as long as there is no coordinated brigading and the admins can bereasonedd with to sanction the worst behaving users I simply see no need for it.

Yeah this is tough. I posted a comment in the original thread and had a really great interaction with someone explaining their thoughts but also just troll comments. It felt like a representation of their whole community: a mix of really passionate people who want to spread a message and left-wing 4chan-esque belligerent trolls. I think that ideally they can let us know (not through their words, rather their actions) whether their community values discussion over "dunking". If the main point of their federation is only to find people to argue with, we should defederate. If they actually want to be involved in good faith interactions, we can individually block users or communities that push it too far.

They are literally spamming duplicate "fuck democracy" posts in a thread about community feedback, you can't make this shit up. And as a cherry on top it has some fucking untagged gore that straight up loads as a thumbnail for me without clicking.

How about you start setting some actual standards for behaviour around here and actually keep things safe for folks Ada? Carrying water for the tankies like this must be exhausting. A person's/communities transness doesn't excuse or offset their shitty behaviour.

EDIT: oh cool it looks like those posts got deleted, thank you. I think them being here caused my original post to come out more aggro so apologies. The rest of it stands though.

Imo Moss should not be a moderator

I get that people aren't a fan of their type of leftist politics but I don't think they really do that much harm. I at least haven't seen any brigading or vitriol from them and I think they're valuable as a trans-positive space.

Lots of good points in this thread, but I'd like to offer that even if everyone on hexbear were terrible annoying people, I'm an adult who can block content for myself.

Defederating is good for when an instance is hosting illegal content and you need to keep it off our servers, or if an instance is spamming stuff with bots and abusing the fediverse, but when it comes to content I do or don't want to see, I want to make that decision myself.

I don't know what Hexbar is, all I know is that tankies make online spaces toxic. I don't really care if they're federated or not (I am new to fediverse idk what this means), but from what I gathered about Hex they're not good people

I'm going to use my last post here before the vote to say, it was massively irresponsible to federate with these trolls before consulting with the community you administrate. I'm sure they spun you a good sob story but they've hurled abuse at your users that you're apparently happy to let go unanswered. And you say they deserve a second chance. Wait staff gets your order wrong? That deserves a second chance, restaurants are chaotic and shit happens. Person shows up to work late? So much shit happens in the Dat to day, you can't possibly plan for everything, absolutely give a second chance. A bunch of tankie trolls use your instance as their entertainment? Absolutely fucking not. You get a second chance for a mistake, not active malice. I'd buy into the "Trans solidarity" lie if they didn't admit in their own instance this was about "dunking on us". They're here to recruit and make fun, and they made no bones about it on their own server. Not to put too fine a point on it, you fell for the first nazi at the bar. For the tankies, I know you're not nazis, you just use the same style arguments and are equally as tolerant of people who dont share your beliefs.

Long story short, I could not give less of a shit what Hexbear does on their own server but they've been extremely detrimental to our own communities and that not being considered a factor at all is beyond absurd

As an admin you have a duty to those you administrate and you've essentially told them that the abuse they've suffered is inconsequential in the face of Trans solidarity The same Trans solidarity Hexbear uses to abuse your users, willfully and maliciously. That's not good enough for me.

Isn't the significant presence of hexbear folks here pretty solid evidence that their admins don't have good control over their users (or rather that they have no interest in following their own rules)? They were specifically told to stay out of metas for other instances.

I hope we can have camaraderie between them. This issue is very polarising here, so I'm really interested to see what the vote is gonna be.

I'm from hexbear and ngl i'm like, idk, pretty embarassed by how a lot of the other hexbear users were acting in regards to the news of the defed question, i decided to like make an account here too in case of defederation so i can still post in your queer communities too - though i've decided to like not upvote any posts in this thread or cast a vote in the poll next week since i have an obvious bias towards remaining federated with hexbear and think it would be unfair to like, interfer with the blahaj community's decision

Seems like this might be moot now?

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/1997167

I would like to highlight this quote from the admin lemm.ee from their similar discussion on hexbear:

Let me play the devil’s advocate here and employ some “self-whataboutism”: among all users that have been banned on lemm.ee for bigotry, the majority were actually not users from other instances, and in fact people with lemm.ee accounts. If we judge any larger instance only by bigoted posts that some of its users make, then we might as well declare all instances as cesspools and close down Lemmy completely. I believe it’s far more useful to judge instances based on moderation in response to such content. Just as we remove bigoted content from lemm.ee, I have also witnessed bigoted content being removed from hexbear.

This whole thing was a shitshow and I regret that any of it happened. I did add fuel to the fire in the first discussion thread and I wish I didn't. I hope that something like this never happens again. We were definitely not innocent in this drama. It was sort of necessary that either instance defederates as I could see the infighting going on indefinitely. Hopefully Ada can take a well deserved break now.

I've seen their "fite me bro" style comments and a bit of sussy posts, but I'm otherwise unfamiliar with the deep lore. I agree with Ada's proposed solution and perhaps in a week their community will have made changes to this behavior.

After spending some time in their threads, hexbear seems pretty drama-pilled. I think saying we can individually block them is cope, they will just bother anybody who doesn't know about this drama and to block them until the end of time.

Their newsposting and news takes are really good, though.

Thank you, Ada, for your hard work.

I followed the previous threads without participating, so let me just quickly say I'd rather we stay federated. I can see how some people might get really annoyed by their more vocal shitposters and political takes, but I think they're overall good.

Thank you moderators, but especially Moss who I witnessed in the trenches dodging bayonets from those jerks.

How will the vote take place? Is there a way to ensure only non-new Blahaj Lemmy accounts participate?

I'm not sure about them now. I've recently had some good interactions with the users, and they do have some good memes. They are also very accepting of lgbtq (which is part of why I joined this instance). On another hand, some of their communities do post questionable stuff. Maybe we could do what lemmy.world did and block some of their communities but not the whole instance? I don't know how feasible that would be though.

At this point I don't think we should defederate.

I honestly don't know about them that much but I'm fine with what people decide :)

Mostly I just wanted to add that Lemmy needs a way to limit who can reply to posts because it would solve a lot of problems

I don't think it's Hexbear itself that's the issue, I think it's just a few rotten apples that have found their way there causing problems. I was there for a couple weeks and I generally liked it but then it started getting weird and I made a post that apparently someone didn't like and they started harrassing me even after I left and came here.

Like I said though, I think it's just a handful of rotten apples and trolls who have nothing better to do

Hi everybody! I have joined here from Hexbear. I'm not going to vote in anything. I hope we all stay federated but if not I now have two places I can post at from work.