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.
This is entirely reasonable to me. I don’t believe there is any good reason to federate with instances that are intending to astroturf, censore dissenting information, and peddle propoganda. You can see their vote brigading in a post on c/fediverse discussing this situation.
Federating with such instances does more harm than good, providing an audience for propoganda aimed at fomenting extreme perspectives thru deviant misinformation and content/narrative control.
Creating those kind of fringe echo-chamer instances is how we end up with toxic and extreme groups like SRS and incels or the donald (on reddit). They can even start out as satire and then quickly devolve into toxic hate.
The argument that we want a diverse fediverse doesn’t mean that we should federate with toxic instances with bad intentions. That’s not the kind of diversity that we should be promoting. That’s the kind of toxic userbase that should be quarantined…
“Echo-chambers are bad, and that’s why I support defederating with instances that I disagree with”
EDIT: The reason Hexbear disabled downvotes is because we want people to talk to each other rather than downvote and move on.
What did I say that was wrong?
Sorry brother, the hive mind detected wrongthink and you have been punished for it.
What you said wrong was provide a false equivalent.
Protecting users from toxic instances is not a bad thing, and is not counterintuitive to producing a healthy and diverse fediverse.
Whereas lemmy.world allows criticism of all governments and governing styles. The only anti-free speech instance in this discussion is hexbear.
You summed a lot of their points up into one blunt sentence, which also implies that you were not actually looking for discussion here.
Comments like this are almost like a different flavour of a downvote.
Your comment had no counter arguments, no questions, no sources or reasonings, no related points, but instead it’s just a very shortened “quote” of what you were responding to.
Your comment also didn’t really actually add anything to the discussion other than showing that you think of that person’s comment negatively, just like a downvote would have shown.
Irony, imo.
I think the point I was making was obvious. You’re just being obtuse on purpose.
To spell it out:
Hexbear is going out of its way to avoid becoming an echo chamber by federating with liberal instances. Blocking Hexbear is obviously more echo chamber-like than allowing it, and opposing echo chambers is clearly a nonsense reason to defederate.