Try to include sources for posts
No Covid misinformation, including anti-vaxx, anti-mask, anti-lockdown takes.
This community is a safe space for COVID-related discussion. People who minimize/deny COVID, are anti-mask, etc... will be banned.
Off-topic posts will be removed
Jessica Wildfire's COVID bookmark list
COVID-safe dentists: (thanks sovietknuckles)
New wastewater tracking (replacing biobot): https://data.wastewaterscan.org/tracker
Comment for main concerns within community, will add more to it as I digest and process info.
The site is largely pro-eugenics. Full stop. When historians look back at the absolute shitstorm of the next few decades , the failure of "The Left" in the West to protect and express solidarity with marginalized communities is going to be seen as a major pivotal moment in which the ball was completely dropped. And this site's activity is the perfect recording of it.
For example, the anti-mask sentiment doesn't even end at community care, it extends into opsec. Which is just wild. We've got people literally being kidnapped off the streets, panopticon cameras everywhere, llm's small enough to hide locally and be watching our every keystroke and screenswipe; And yet, anytime I bring up opsec I always get at least one response pointing out that you can't have a perfect defense, so why bother taking action? It's like the "endemic" argument used to do embrace apathy about covid has completely infected the ability to give a shit about doing any sort of planning for the future. I really do wonder if I'm talking to Feds sometimes with how resistant Hexbear is to discussing the most basic preparation strategies.
I very much feel like I am surrounded by people on this site who don't realize that they are basically illegal and the only the reason they're still free is because their dehumanized status hasn't been normalized among a large enough portion of the population, yet. And then these same people, through their own inaction and apathy, contribute to the dehumanizing of marginalized communities all around them.
Now, how can moderation can change that? I don't know. I'm pretty happy with how the comm mods here ban covid minimization. Sometimes I think they're a bit too quick on folks who aren't happy with vaccines given how they don't measure up to what the promise of them was, but I can appreciate the need for it. I don't know that you can really have that sort of quickness of banning minimization of these topics to extend into greater hexbear because it's a site culture issue, in much the same way dunking and shitposts are. This site's userbase very early on decided it wanted to be the Jon Stewart of leftist sites (lots of dunks, no responsiblity) and for the most part they've succeeded in pigeonholing themselves. Most comms that do focus on topics beyond shitposting (covid, vegan) have to be "soft bordered" and then just don't get a lot of activity.
Now, if you haven't figured out by now, I'm not exactly very fond of hexbear at the moment. I mostly find myself coming back for c/covid and then shitpost in the rest of the site to agitate where I can and with what I feel I can get away with. But real conversations largely devolve in to 
with folks that I find myself disengaging from, largely because they're not at all familiar with the topic beyond what they're repeating from seeing in other threads. Hexbear has its own set of misinformation 
on certain topics that have become trope-like at this point, and pushing back against that is just exhausting.
Idk, I don't envy the job the mods and admins have dealing with all this shit (I run my own 
so I get it) but also ever since the c/anti-union debacle I really have lowkey wondered, "WTF, y'all?"
lol, that about what you're looking for?
Just want to say I see you around on here and always appreciate your comments and hardline stance. I mentioned it in my comment as well but yeah, unless this site’s culture massively shifts, I can’t see this issue ever being resolved. I tried to avoid being pessimistic, but I honestly have no hope that this will change any time soon, either just here on hexbear or among the left in general.
Thank you for the kind words, comrade. Much appreciated. 
I wish I could say it's confined to hexbear, but 
My hope is the CC folks start radicalizing and I do my best to agitate with them as well.🤞
It's a shame how inactive the good communities are here. I fully agree on all points. Sorry you're feeling alienated, comrade.
Thanks. Yea, that sure is the word for it, huh. 
There was an anti union com?!
Oh yeah, for like a day. It was melina "ironically" posting anti-union articles.
Wtf. That's a terrible idea
much of melina's posting was terrible
Ironically, I remember melina being really good on COVID—I think fae was actually a mod on this comm
I vaguely remember this. I think it was supposed to be ironic? I was around, but I can't get my brain to remember the context.
dsplayer being a shithead
I can feel my fucking brain grasping like a shitty underused muscle to try to connect these words and names I recognize into a coherent narrative of an event that I was present to witness.
dsplayer/melina getting so many chances from moderation has been one of the more damaging trends to site health since Chapo.chat
Can you please elaborate on the "this site is largely pro eugenics" point? I have not noticed widespread anti-masking sentiment on Hexbear If anyhing I've been pleasantly surprised to see people talking about covid outside this comm. But I have of course seen irl that most people around me simply will not mask up anymore, many of them leftists
It's implicit. I've been a lurker for some time; check any of the social megathreads and you'll certainly see people constantly going on about clubs, gatherings, restaurants, organizing this and that in person. These people are not masking. The ones that are will be talking about it, because it is impossible to be masking in the current year and also be social without noticing the dissonance. Any pushback to this point will be met with apathy at best, hostility at worst. It seems to be treated like veganism, where there is an unspoken policy that everyone acknowledges it is the correct stance to take...but if someone is not following it through for whatever reason, they just aren't going to mention it at all, and doing so is breaking decorum. In this case "don't ask don't tell" doesn't work when you still mingle about going to bars or concerts or whatever else like nothing is going on. This itself is a form of (normalized) violence, which is where "this site is pro-eugenics" comes from, a sentiment I am in agreement with because the base of modern society is pro-eugenics.
going on about gatherings, restaurants, organizing this and that in person.
Literally a thread about having 600 kids showing up to one location for Halloween on the front page right now lmao
Maybe the kids were all in costumes that doubled as hazmat suits but I really, really doubt it.
Most of these folks are absolutely not masking in their daily lives and it is very apparent in their posting. @mononoke@lemmy.sdf.org hits the nail on the head 
(especially the comparison to veganism, something I myself am still largely guilty of.) but to add to that, while the site is for the most part okay with mentioning that covid still exists, you will often get crickets in response to the suggestion they should mitigate it or have to look at the consequences of it. Not to toot my own horn but I've been around here since pretty much the beginning throwing a lot of bits at the wall and I have a feel for what comments and posts are going to land and what to expect and anything I make that mentions/implies that the general hexbear populace should be masking tends to take longer to gather upvotes or just flatout tanks. It's funny because people have a habit of just upvoting all the top level comments and I can't tell you how many times over the years I've dropped the first comment of a post mentioning masking and when I come back later in the day like every top level comment in the post will have around the same number of upvotes but the pro-masking one will be significantly less despite containing the general sentiment of the other comments. And that's if I don't get pushback, because occasionally you will still get someone that does not believe covid is a thing anymore, repeats that "just a cold/flu" shit, or just gets flat out offended at the implication they're contributing to eugenic policy.
I can't remember the exact wording, but y'all folks remember the New Years Log Off Touch Grass and Kiss Someone post that got so popular a few years ago? If there was a moment where we really lost the site, I think that was it. That wasn't the specific post that caused it, but in many ways c/covid eventually being forced to take such a hardline stance against minimization without the admins following through on the rest of the site was probably a point of no return.
I apologize for questioning what you said, now I've seen it here too.
Well, shit. No worries. Sorry you had to deal with that. 
I’m pretty much fine with how this comm is moderated. Sometimes covid denialism shows up in the comments here and stays up for a bit, but I understand that it’s a pretty low activity comm and most of the people here are burned out, so it makes sense that covid denialism won’t always be caught right away. Usually that sort of thing is removed once it’s been reported and someone is able to take a look at it, so no complaints from me there.
As for the rest of the website, I would like to see covid denialism be taken more seriously, even more casual forms of it. It’s very frustrating that there are so many people on this website, and on the left in general, who have obviously given up on masking (or taking any precautions at all) and think that they are still my comrades. For instance, I used to post in the trans megathread regularly, but have avoided it for a long time now because it is obvious from the posts many people make about their lives in there that they aren’t masking, and that lack of solidarity makes it clear that people like me aren’t welcome. It says to me that trans lives only matter if they aren’t immunocompromised or otherwise at risk, or if they can delude themselves into believing covid won’t harm them or the others around them. It says to me that a eugenicist mentality is acceptable here as long as you are passive about it. I single out /c/trans because it’s the community I cared the most about and feel the most betrayed by because of it, but this feeling extends to the rest of the site’s community as well. I pretty much only use this site now because it’s just about the only place to talk about video games on the internet that doesn’t tolerate nazis, otherwise I would have just left completely by now.
The normalization of ignoring covid and allowing everyone to be repeatedly infected, and the widespread death and disability resulting from it, is one of the most devastating forms of class warfare we face currently. To ignore it shows a complete lack of principles among the communists here, and I know they know better. I cannot take anyone seriously who tells me “a better world is possible” while languidly allowing this behavior to slide, when being cautious and protecting ourselves and each other is so much easier than any revolution will be.
I guess to reiterate, I would like it if a more active approach was taken to discourage casual covid denialism on this site. I think beyond moderation, that would require a change in culture on the part of users here as well. I’m not sure what that actually looks like or how we get there, maybe taking a similar approach to veganism, where carnist behavior is generally shamed here. Sorry for the rant and thanks to anyone who read this far. I hope I got my point across ok, it’s hard to talk about this without letting my temper flare and losing my train of thought.
said it better than i could comrade 
Been reading here for a LONG time even though I'm new but I want to piggy back on a few points that @JoeByeThen@hexbear.net and @Demifriend@hexbear.net made about covid denialism and eugenics. While these things do exist specifically on this site, and even on this comm sadly enough, the sad fact is that EVERY site these days is a covid denialism and eugenics hotbed. For christ's sake, even the DSA can't be bothered to pass a resolution to mask up, much less the CPUSA or any of the other so called leftist groups in this god forsaken country. It just is what it is at this point.
While this is despair inducing, we can't give in and sink to the lowest depths. There is a need for moderation throughout the site when it comes to the eugenics (subtle or over) and covid denialism, and it needs to come from US, not the mods! There are just far too many instances of this subtly awful behavior getting posted around the site and we have take the time to point it out and shut it down. At the very least, make these user feel shitty enough about their views that they want to reflect and attempt to change. God knows, we leftists love a good struggle session, but we need to focus on not throwing our fellow comrades to the wolves, and instead attempt to point the mirror back at them and reflect their own poor behavior back in their faces.
None of us came to covid willingly and none of us want others to go through what we've been through. We'll never achieve that if we close ourselves off to every single person that has a stupid, shitty view on this issue. Furthermore, we'll never achieve the solidarity that we so desperately desire if we huddle around each other, isolated from the outside world. I see very little advocacy from other members on here, and even less backbone to stand up and for one another. I have advocated for militancy in real life in discussions recently but it is a very, very lonely road. Here though, no one is going to spit in my mouth. I don't have to worry about someone coughing on me and my mask being slightly ajar because I'm chewing gum. No doctor or nurse is going to flatly refuse to wear a mask while I'm forced to take mine off. On here, we can be a community, and we should do more to help our other fellow leftists avoid having their lives completely ruined by this horrible disease if we can.
On that note, from the moderation front Hestia, I'd like to see some more sticky threads on this comm. Its a little ridiculous that there are 47 different sticky posts on the front page, and not a single informative sticky on here. There are a font of resources and information we should be sharing with one another and not just linking back to Reddit.
I agree with you completely, but I'm afraid I've also reached the 'pick and choose my battles' stage of the game. If I were to go after every silent, but obvious anti-mask post I'd be spending all day/every day doing it. There are so many posts every day where folks are very obviously doing shit in large crowds, indoors, without a mask. I'm already at a point where I'm questioning why I come here, if I acknowledge every last one of them aloud (in type, whatever) I don't think I could keep coming back.
Honestly, part of my mental survival nowadays is actively ignoring that the general population doesn't give a shit about the health and safety of each other when I interact with them. IRL, there's a whole list of shit in my head that's like "this is all the shit this person is ignoring and will cut ties with me if I mention it too often" and covid is right there at the top because it's (or should i say the lack of it is) all over their face. 
Speaking of, prop to this guy's daughter in becoming the face of CC and clean air advocacy despite her parents not masking.
I completely get the pick and choose your battles line. I've had to pull back from a lot of the Palestine discussion for the very same reason. As to why you come back, this is part of my point - where else are you going to go? There really aren't any leftist discussion spaces online at this point, and those of them that are still out there, are even worse than this place when it comes to covid. So why not try to work with what we've got, however shitty it might be, in an effort to improve our community?
You're lucky you have people left to interact with at this point.
I didn't mean to leave you on read, but I'm just not sure I have an answer at the moment. idk, I kinda question whether or not agitating in a place like this (outside of this comm) is productive or if time would be better spent focusing on what I can do irl. I mentioned Jon Stewart earlier and similarly I often wonder if a shitposting site like this is like the empty calories of praxis.
Sorry for the late reply but I was out of action for a bit. We're effectively on the same page here, and this might just be the difference in where we live, but my IRL experience is COMPLETELY worthless, so I figure why not attempt to agitate online. If you see your energy being better used locally, I definitely think you should do that instead. In my experience, its basically pissing directly into the wind either way.
While this is despair inducing, we can’t give in and sink to the lowest depths. There is a need for moderation throughout the site when it comes to the eugenics (subtle or over) and covid denialism, and it needs to come from US, not the mods!
What do you do when the "help" is unwanted? At best, we can do agitation, and I have been barking up this tree IRL and online since the early years. People won't change. They don't want to change. If they do, they are an outlier, and I have not met a single one of them. The only time any of them did anything was when it was policy and under threat of consequences—visible consequences that they can't wave away like degrading health. We won't get there again without it. Even then, not everyone would abide. People were on their deathbeds decrying the existence of COVID. All I, a human being of "the community", have succeeded in doing is burning myself out while no one listens and the party outside goes on unimpeded. What then? As someone else here put it, someone needs to be COVID Stalin to shape the discourse. It will not happen for our part. We have no authority, a fact that is easily confirmed by trying to talk to anyone about COVID whatsoever.
Yeah I try to push for it irl. Whenever some casual acquaintance mentions "oh I dropped off the face of the planet for a couple weeks because I got covid, I'm doing better now (cough cough cough)" I just nod and say sympathetically "damn that sucks, hope you're feeling better. I've never had it because" points to face "I get these bomb-ass respirators from China and wear them indoors". People will nod and say "that's smart of you" and then continue to never touch a mask.
Close friends and family I have struggle sessioned about it with and their conclusion was basically "getting covid once or twice a year is worth the price of not having to wear a mask" and when it comes to the topic of protecting the vulnerable they just throw up their hands in despair and go "well nobody's masking anymore, what can I do? The vulnerable will have to just wear masks themselves. No I'm not vulnerable even though I have all these risk factors. No I'm not old I'm only in my 60s."
Underneath it all is this: They do not want to wear a mask. They just don't want to, and will rationalize to protect that feeling. Maybe they don't have the ability to cope with living life as if there's a dangerous disease going around that could disable them at any moment — after all, a lot of people handle uncomfortable feelings by just engaging in straight up denial. I don't know, but I know nothing has gotten through to a single person I know irl.
I'm firmly convinced at this point that most people aren't going to care about this until their lives are ruined by it in some manner of fashion. I admittedly agree with every one of your points. All I was trying to say is while most of us have given up IRL, given that we have nowhere left to go in leftist spaces, we can at least try to advocate here instead of relying on mods to clean up the random jerkoffs when they pop up.
No one has any authority. I can make the same covid post as I can about peaceful protests. Neither one of them will mean a good god damn in the end. I can only hope that the covid post will have a smaller chance of getting someone to think about altering their behavior.
I don't know if there's anything that can get through to people outside this sub about taking covid seriously. Health authorities said return to normal, so everyone did. It's still killing people, but in numbers people can ignore. It's still degrading everyone's health, but it a mostly subtle way that doesn't draw attention to itself. People aren't seeing the damage it's doing, and meanwhile everyone else is back to normal, so there's not much we can do to change that.
Trying to convince people that it's still a danger feels like trying to sell people on some quack supplement cure at worst, or like telling a smoker that smoking is killing them and expecting them to stop. People just don't respond to it, and probably won't unless covid fucks them up, or fucks up someone they care about, in a way that they can't blame on something else.
Best I think we can do is to keep covid deniers out of here and make sure this sub stays a source of good information.
haven't had a problem in here, wish our mods got to be covid stalin on the rest of the site
Another moderation point I just thought of - I was going to post a thread on the HCA marketplace for 2026 and realized I didn't know where to put it. Maybe we can expand out the remit of this to Healthcare & Covid or something along those lines?