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.
I'm not an admin, this is just my opinion.
And yes, I can also denounce unnecessary American invasions in the name of "freedom" at the same time. This isn't some kind of sport, I don't need to pick a team and stick with it. I simply find it kind of hypocritical that a lot of the same people hypercritical of American intervention on a global scale are cool with Russia's invasion because it is "anti-NATO" or some such. People are fucking dying, it's hell, not a game. That plus, no matter how you slice it, Putin's regime is certainly worse than the current American climate - I can at least actually vote for the next president and criticize what they're doing without fear of falling out a window.
I'm not talking about right now, it's common and easy to condemn America's past crimes in today's climate, I'm saying you would have been supporting and peddling American propaganda back then too. You don't listen to what we actually say. we don't like Russia. We don't think the invasion is "cool". We think the USA provoked them (and ruined peace talks). we view America as the great Satan that oppresses the world and crushes communist and anti-colonial movements everywhere, and anything that destroys its hegemony of the globe is a good thing in our eyes, even though it's a fucking travesty that working class Ukrainians and Russians are dying right now in a proxy war between Russia and the United States. That's why we advocate for peace talks.
And there's where you not only lose me but get me to think that anyone peddling that kind of absolutist rhetoric should be defederated from. There are things worse than America, if you can believe that.
I would love to hear what you think is worse than this empire that is founded on settler-colony genocide and slavery, and has legitimately been a cartoon level evil villain for a 100 years
Gee I dunno, a country with even worse civil rights that has no free elections and is actively performing an invasion right now?
America can be bad and Russia can be worse. It's allowed.
who gives a shit about who has better "civil rights" I care about my country bombing children in the middle east. Regardless I don't wanna hear shit about civil right from an American, we imprison more people by number and per capita than anywhere else on the planet. Our police departments are run by fucking criminals, and you want to compare civil rights? Ask communists like the Black Panthers what civil rights they got - oh wait you can't, because our government assassinated and arrested them
Ok. Now what? Do we keep bitching or are we going to actually do something?
I give a shit about civil rights because people live here? Ideally a country would have decent civil rights codified into law and not bomb children abroad.
Yeah all that shit does and did happen. I said "even worse" for a reason.
Russia is still worse off in that field. Which is why picking them to root for purely because it might put a dent in America's influence (spoilers, it's not even - if anything it's strengthened it) is just... I don't understand.
EDIT: You know I feel the need to just extra-emphasize this:
This kind of shit is why no one likes tankies. It's almost stereotypical.
give me examples. there's not a single fucking thing that Russia is doing that we aren't either actively backsliding into or are already as bad or worse. We oppress communists harder, we have more problems with racism, red states are actively genociding trans people while the dems act like they're powerless to stop them, I'm sure gay marriage is next on the chopping block, we imprison more people than them, we have invaded and bombed way way way more countries than them, we actively coup other nations, what are we doing better than Russia in? Climate action , maybe, I haven't looked into it...
You really need to stop reading only western news outlets, have you not seen what's going on in South America and Africa?
You know I feel the need to just extra-emphasize this: you totally sidestepped my point about the genocidal nature of the United States and how it's wrapped into its very being. Probably because you don't care about the plights of indigenous people, or at least not enough to actually work towards rectifying that harm
You guys are arguing about things you cannot ever change. We get born in random spots on the planet, and we have evil leaders at the top of every country and organization in my opinion. There is no point trying to force your world view on someone else. They won't change their mind.
Human leaders want power, not peace. The only rational thing is to despise all of them.
People who argue go like "they did a, b,c - see how evil they are? Other side: yeah but what about x, y, z that is even more evil?".
It's just wasting your lifes arguing without any chance of making any progress convincing the other side.
I disagree, strongly, but that's a more respectable opinion than wanting to ban an instance because they disagree ideologically
I think it's about moderation in practice. Mods would have a huge workload to moderate all kinds of heated discussions.
There’s not that many hexbear users, quite a few of them want to stick to hexbear anyways
What a misanthropic worldview.
Yup.
Did you have an opinion on the killings in the Donbas from 2014-2022? People getting locked in a union hall that was set on fire? The promotion of neo-Nazis to "handle" the ethnic Russians there?
Or did you only begin caring about Ukrainian lives when it was 24/7 on Western media, acting like Russia's invasion had no background, like Minsk II never existed, etc?
A follow-up: have you opposed the US-backed Saudi genocide in Yemen with the same ferocity? That one doesn't get as much play in the media, but a child dies there every minute or so due to the US-backed blockade, preventing basics like food from getting to the population.