El Chisme

I think this is the best interpretation in this thread so far.

It seems like both sides just talking past each other.

zposter has a legitimate criticism of a forum that has burning flag emojis but, as an exception, censors the flag of the genocidal entity because it has a Jewish symbol on it. The examples of the many flags of christian nations with burning crosses is of course different than israel because of how distant the idea of the symbolism is versus the genocidal entity's flag, but there are certainly many christians in those nations who would see burning their flags as a an attack on christians, people would say that about burning the american flag and it doesn't even have a cross on it.

Flags represent a lot of things and are intentionally using symbolism for their national project, they don't get to own the symbolism because they put it on fabric and hoisted it into the air. The ISIS flag has the Shahada on it, they don't get to own Islam because of their design choices, and if there was an ISIS flag burning emoji on this website that has other burning flag emojis that represent evil groupings of people I wouldn't really think anything of it. Someone else made the example of a nazi flag with a hindu symbol on it. If we had a burning turkish flag emoji, would we censor the crescent for fear of Islamophobia? or would we say, like with every other burning flag aside from the flag of genocide: the flag of a nation represents that nation and not the symbolism that nation chooses to put in their flag.

If you are going to have flag burning emojis and only choose to censor the one of genocide because of a zionist talking point conflating israel with Judaism, you are ceding territory to zionism and censoring the people most impacted by zionism, Arabs, while "projecting Jewish people" using zionist talking points. It isn't about burning a Star of David, it's about burning the actual flag of the actual genocidal nation and not an abstraction of an abstraction. Why have any flag at all if not the actual flag itself? Being for flag burning emojis except for the most hated nation in the world is truly an exception that feels like a microaggression. Not everyone would notice it except for the people it most impacts, and it seems like zposter is getting punished for questioning and challenging this strange exception which they notice because it affects them the most as an Arab person. It is very common for people from oppressed groups to point out microaggressions and be silenced, and often their "tone" and the way they express themselves is used as the reasoning for why they deserve it. It is a textbook example of white people shit, which is probably where the "white pearl clutching" comment comes from. If you want to be a website with burning flag emojis, censor all the flags or none of them. Don't choose to give an exception for the people committing a heinous genocide right now, especially using their talking points conflating their national project with Judaism. Get rid of all the flag burning emojis if you're not going to let people use the one that deserves it the most. Honestly, saying that it is a flag that represents white supremacy and not jewish supremacy is an argument AGAINST censoring the flag: if it is a flag of white supremacists and not jewish supremacists, then burning it should be even less of a complex problem.

I feel like those against zposter in this thread have other historic beef with them and I can't say much about it because I don't know anything about it. I've seen zposter be aggressive in comments, maybe is one of the more consistently forward posters here in that way, but there are quite a few similar posters here who are just as aggressive and even more ultra in my opinion yet don't seem to get much heat. I have seen them post a lot and I would say most of it is not hostile or aggressive, not enough to say they are a troll or bad faith poster. Getting into it with people on very specific topics is what leftists often find ourselves doing, especially amongst each other, and while I'm sure it can be frustrating for mods/admin to navigate, if you are otherwise posting a lot in a way that isn't hostile and have some heated back and forths with people it seems par for the course that there will be debate that gets out of hand on a website like this. I have disagreed with zposter's takes a lot, but I've also agreed with a lot and feel like they are a hexbear regular who I actually like to see around and would miss. I don't know anything about all the alts that sounds like it is probably annoying and a headache for the admins and mods too, I really don't know how much that is real or if random people are just catching stray bans for being assumed to be an alt of zposter. Either way, I stand by this particular take, I think it is strange to make an exception for one flag using a zionist talking point conflating the zionist nation with judaism at the end of august 2025.

edit: just wanted to plug the time I got called out for "jewish exceptionalism" here to show that I am truly a centrist on this topic: https://hexbear.net/comment/6235281

Agreed, this is all getting pretty fucking ridiculous. ZPoster has some contrarian takes, usually because ZPoster constantly speaks entirely in pragmatic terms and not within other frameworks in my experience. Like saying "Russia is more socialist than China" is wrong in every way EXCEPT if you define leftist by its most important aspect--fighting against the global hegemonic power of the US--and define literal confrontation as more important than economic and developmental goals. Then they are, which I think is the claim.

I disagree with that, as I often do with ZPosters claims, but people are often not engaging whatsoever with ZPosters positions. This Zionist flag being protected is absolutely related to Jewish exceptionalism, where a specific symbol's relationship to Judaism is put above its use in a genocide in importance. I think the mods are trying to make a defensive argument to avoid the struggles against anti-Semitism accusation (like Awoo said elsewhere), but I find this a terribly weak argument. We are constantly working to oppose anti-Semitism within the community while being principally anti-zionist. This isn't a shift in that policy at all (we will make the exact same correct arguments as we do now about the destruction of the Zionist entity), but one which removes the unnecessary Jewish exceptionalism imposed by the rest of society.

nakoichi makes death threats constantly FYI, and has had comments removed for it (meaning mods acknowledge their friend does this) but never is banned or removed from moderating comms

Look up their name in the modlog, they list the removals under things like "chill" to avoid it being obvious