I am also still quite worried about the amount of distinct users on hexbear who have posted Kremlin propaganda. I so far don’t have reason to believe that these users are employed by the Russian state, but the fact that they are spreading the same hateful content which can be seen on Russian television seems problematic to say the least, and it remains to be seen if moderators can truly keep up with such content.

This was why my eyebrows raised when I saw the Hexbear admin response when they claim that "Russian disinformation is generally either refuted in comments or removed by mods". Kremlin propaganda is rife in communities like chapotraphouse, and it certainly seems like the mods there let anything slide as long as it is isn't outright incitement to violence.

I challenged claims made in a couple of different anti-Ukraine posts and despite the fact there were maybe one or two users whose responses were thoughtful, the majority were outright calling me an idiot and a ~~retarded liberal~~ (edit: correction; dumb fuck)

So far, my impression of HB's userbase is pretty negative because the posts on there that make the front page here tend to be the more shit-posty ones.

That said, I appreciate @sunaurus for the stance he's taking. There is some positive and thoughtful content on HB - you just have to block the noisier and more idiotic communities so it doesn't get drowned out.

I generally agree. I thought hexbear was fine until I saw some of the spam/trolling you mentioned, and then the genocide denial... That got me to start blocking communities there.

With that said I think exploding heads is probably just as bad, if not worse since the mods aren't against the content posted there. I know you said you didn't want to defederate and I kind of understand why, but at least keeping a close eye on the users there would be appreciated.

update 19/8/2023: i have first heard about hexbear 1 day before this thread, i really didn't give care about them before

after they did an excellent job to introduce themselves in this thread, i'd like to change my stance to DEFEDERATE NOW! 😆

Many users (including hexbear users) correctly (and politely) pointed out to me in DMs that the symbol has a much broader use than just as the symbol of the USSR, and people elsewhere in the world may not associate it with the USSR at all

imagine i vandalize jewish graveyard, put swastikas all over the place and my defense is "man, swastikas were used all around the word through history, they don't just belong to nazi germany, you know?" is your reaction going to be "well, you raise some interesting points"?

i doubt that.

"argument" like that is just an asshole trying to obfuscate the facts and delay the consequences of their own action, it is classic propaganda method.

Hexbear admin response After the above events had played out, I reached out to hexbear admins for clarification on their moderation policies and how they handle such cases. I was actually very happy with their response:

do you feel that response is actually going to change something and it is sincere, not just an effort to obfuscate the reality in the line with what i said above?

or is it like this?

the comrade below actually suggests that there is a time and place for such rhetoric, it is just not right here, right now. you have to think politically and wait for our moment, comrade!

i generally agree with your liberal approach to federation, unfortunately sometimes the reality forces you to take some pragmatic steps and i don't think anyone would blame you if you took the easy solution, you are not obligated to dig through pile of shit.

i am also not a fan of pseudoliberalism in the style of "just let everyone make their own decision". it is like saying we don't need police, lets just let everyone to deal with the world themselves. it is obvious nonsense, most people just want to go about their business and they appreciate the fact there is relatively safe environment behind their apartment door.

Thanks for that very thoughtful statement. I am fine with keeping them federated and letting individual users block what they don't want to see. I find it interesting to see what different communities have to say, even if I find it abhorrent.

Personally, I would rather see hexbear stay federated. I've never run into problems with their users and a few annoying trolls does not define a community. I would be disappointed if this instance starts defederating from instances that don't break any local or international laws.

as a lemmy.world user, I can’t tell you all enough about how much our quality of life has improved since we defederated form hexbear.net. far less moderation is necessary and general browsing is far more pleasant not having to constantly be bombarded by those awful stickers and brigades of trolls with their endless baiting and attacks.

why should users and mods be constantly burdened day I and day out with users from an instance whose entire ethos is that of shitposting trolls? if lemm.ee is supposed to be a nice place, why would you intentionally let in a group of people you know have zero intention of comporting to your expected code of conduct and have a well-established pattern of behavior that’s hostile, combative, and toxic towards a large portion of your user base?

yes, defederation is a last-resort option, but what other choices do you have when current user and mod options simply aren’t sufficient? defederation isn’t permanent, and if, by some miracle, hexbear users suddenly become well-behaved, lemm.ee can always re-federate with them. if they weren’t the titanic problem they genuinely are, several other instances wouldn’t also be currently discussing defederation in addition to those which already have.

I’m reminded of an old post I once saw about a bartender who kicks out any Nazi who enters his bar, even if they're well-mannered and isn’t bothering other patrons. Even though they may be polite and bothering nobody, eventually, they come back with a friend, then another, then then 10 others, and then BOOM, you’e a Nazi bar.

Don’t make lemm.ee a toxic, hostile, troll-filled hexbear bar. keep it nice. keep it safe. ❤️

edit: not even a day later, and I get this pvt message from a lemm.ee user warning me of this scary-ass comment they got with a stalking/death threat they received from a hexbear troll, with a list of users they feel slighted them and other hexbear users.

HEXBEAR USERS ARE DANGEROUS. HEXBEAR USERS ARE TERRORISTS.

names blurred for safety

I posted a comment in the_dunk_tank without noticing where I was. While many people were heated over what I said, it was a misunderstanding due to a lack of specificity and ignorance on my part. After I clarified what I was intending to say, discussion ensued and it was ended on good terms.

The vast majority of users I interact with from hexbear are thoughtful, insightful, kind and genuine individuals that care deeply about humanity and moving forward. The hate that they have is for fascism and actual fascists.

To defederate hexbear would be a disservice to the idea of federated social media.

First of all I would like to offer my support to Sunaurus for this post. I thank him for raising this issue to our instance and for continuing to be discussion led and transparent. I also ask that we discuss this so we are best informed on the Hexbear subject.

I also agree what Sunaurus is saying but would add;

We try to encourage people to engage in a healthy way here on Lemm.ee. Also looking throughout the Fediverse which is growing at the moment we look to encourage that same engagement. This will ensure it’s long term success and resilience. I believe that healthy discussion promotes new ideas, innovation and learning. I do not believe that any abuse, victimisation, harassment or active discrimination has a place.

In the recent days I have seen increased reports coming from content or comments made by Hexbear users. However from what I am seeing although there is a lot, mostly they do not cross the line for significant action although a minority do. So at this time from what I have seen Defederation is not obvious a decision to me. I am expecting the behaviour and style of comments to calm once the excitement of Federating passes. I am also encouraged by the positive steps of the Hexbear admins.

I'd like to stay federated with hexbear. They bring important information to conversation that people are otherwise not exposed to. American school-taught history is NOT the gold standard in truth.

I've seen the hexbears at work and don't doubt that they'd class some of my views as woefully liberal but in the main I am enjoying being on a site where the left is so unapologetic, doesn't go for all this centrist bollocks and is unafraid to call out bullshit.

Having seen the Overton window constantly shifted to a narrower aspect ratio and then shifted rightwards on reddit was a very disheartening experience and I think seeing active hexbears on all threads will be useful in stopping the uptight right when they inevitably decide that that the fediverse needs shifting towards their own Volkish views.

I'm more exhausted at everyone constantly going to defederation as a first response to not liking an instance.

Defederation should only be done against instances that are full of bots or have technical issues (such as that one instance that had its time wrong for a while, causing problems.)

I understand the tension between the communists and the anti-communists here (and that's not going to be resolved in this thread), but the most baffling perspective in this thread are the people just wanting instance blocking. Why are you browsing All and then being upset that it's full of posts from outside your normal bubble? Lemmy's All filter is just like r/all: a mess of wildly different people, interests, and viewpoints. That's kinda the point, isn't it?

Lemmy provides subscriptions to specific communities based on your personal interests. That's going to have the most relevance to you. Settings in every app allow you to pick it as the default view. Use the community explorer to find new communities that actually interest you.

In either case, the focus on instance seems weird. Lemmy is deliberately built around communities. It shouldn't matter where your Lemmy account is hosted: you can subscribe/lurk/participate/ignore any community regardless. It seems like instances are more of an implementation/infrastructure detail. Anytime we start deliberately filtering/censoring/breaking the infrastructure, the more useless it becomes. Defederation actively undermines the network effect that makes Lemmy compelling.

If we defederate then I probably wouldn't be against it but I lean more towards having individual users block individual communities.

I myself have blocked a whole bunch of hexbear communities because I'm mainly a comments section guy and I find their style of posting to be really annoying even though I occupy the same end of the political spectrum.

However as annoying as I find many of their users, I haven't really seen anything that would warrant defederation. Sure you'll see some tankie propaganda but you'll see that over other Lemmy instances too.

On an unrelated note, I joined Lemm.ee to ease the burden on the larger instances but I'm very happy to have found this place being led by an extremely level headed person. Thank you

My view is that this federation of theirs is just sketchy. Their announcement post reads as some barely veiled call to propagandize the Fediverse, and the instance itself seems almost proud in a way to have developed their particular methods in their isolation. Though from what I've seen, those methods are mostly just whataboutism and "just asking questions", not anything particularly novel.

If there was much content or interaction from them that was just neutral, it'd be much easier to swallow, but everything they post or comment always seems be a dog whistle at minimum. And maybe I'm just not noticing all the users not doing that, but the ones I do notice are all over.

All in all, I'd be more in favor of defederation. I've seen enough of this from the right already to have an idea of where this is going, and barring a larger effort from the instance to change, would rather it just got nipped in the bud.

Thanks for all the work you've been doing admining this instance @sunaurus.

My immediate opinion from this post was that we should defederate from hexbear, since I've felt myself put off of browsing lemmy because of what I perceived as their annoying comments. I'll admit, by annoying I meant constantly bringing up leftist ideology into threads where it was just plain irrelevant. I'm liberal myself, just not as leftist as the average user on hexbear is. But sometimes I just want to browse my memes in peace, y'know?

But after reading through the comments on this thread, I'm now a little more apprehensive about supporting defederation. It's now apparent to me that the reason why their comments have leftist undertones is because that's what characterizes the instance. Hexbear wouldn't be hexbear if their userbase were centrist or right-wing. Hexbear is hexbear precisely because (for better or for worse) they provide a home for leftist ideology.

Furthermore, there are a couple of reasons why it seems like they're "brigading muh memes." One is because they're such a large instance (larger than us, but certainly smaller than lemmy.world). The other is that their interface doesn't allow downvotes, so the only way they can voice disapproval of an opinion is by literally voicing their disapproval in the comments. I personally think this is an excellent system, if it can be moderated well. I see it as promoting discussion. However if it's not moderated well, good discussion ends up getting drowned out by the shouting of village idiots.

A lot of people are pointing out how 1.4k of the 1.8k comments on this post are from hexbear users. That's ~5.8% of the instance's 24.5k member userbase. The remaining 400 or so comments come from a mix of lemm.ee and other instances. Assuming all 400 other comments from from lemm.ee users, that's 2% of our userbase. Undoubtedly, the percentage is even less because that assumption is definitely false. Thus, hexbear has a participation rate that's almost triple ours (with the best case assumptions in our favor). I'm sure the probability of encountering one (or many) of their village idiots is high. This probability is undoubtedly increased due to the fact that their instance systematically encourages participation because of their lack of downvotes. And if Trumpists demonstrate anything, it's that stupid likes to participate.

I'm intentionally avoiding using the word "discussion", since I recognize that participating in a thread and discussing in a thread are two very different things. Both village idiots and good-faith intellectuals participate, but only the latter's participation can be characterized as discussion. I've seen both types of hexbear users in this thread.

I'm wary of us defederating from hexbear. It seems like we'd be condemning a political community for the actions of their (admittedly rather vocal) village idiots. On the other hand, it's not clear to me if that community's moderators really care about controlling their village idiots, especially since they are undoubtedly wreaking havoc on other communities. My guess is that the wisest course of action is to wait and see how their rule changes take effect. If their new rules are able to control their village idiots, then I see no reason to defederate.

For anyone keeping count, I've switched to my lemmy.world account (which has defederated from Hexbear) and the comments on this thread are at 209. When I logged out of my Lemm.ee account there were over 800, so that means roughly 600 of the comments on a meta thread for the lemme.ee instance are from Hexbear users, or in threads started by them.

Edited to remove some slightly frustrated and possibly less than civil comments.

Lol I am so glad I left. What a garbage instance and such a spineless admin

I've seen more posts complaining about Hexbear than actual objectionable things they've done. Maybe that's a sign of effective moderation, but in general I agree that defederation should always be a very last resort, and it doesn't feel like we're even close.

Also, with the ability for users to block instances coming soon, I think everyone will be happy then. At least, users anyway, it will still be down to the admin team to determine if the moderation workload is excessive and act accordingly - but that decision is and should be up to you.

I'm firmly against defederating anyone. It's sad that so many just want to remove voices they don't like from a public forum. I believe that we should avoid defederating at all costs, it should be the absolute last measure contemplated after everything else fails. I didn't like their posts for a couple of weeks doesn't even come close to being a good reason IMO.