MolotovHalfEmpty [he/him] @ MolotovHalfEmpty @hexbear.net

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Joined

5 yr. ago

We weren't asked to leave it alone. In fact your mod told ours that we were welcome. If we had been asked not too, we have specific instance rule to abide by that.

And plenty of users, including me, have been doing their best to keep this thread on topic despite a lot of hate, lies, and abuse thrown at Hexbear users. Because we like lots of the people here, want to explore more, and are we supposed to be a community and engage with each other or not?

I know what you're talking about and you've misread the context to mean nothing happened at all and no one died, but I'm trying to help keep this thread on topic for the benefits of the mods and lemm.ee users. So if you want a clarification go there and ask, debate it, or feel free to start a new post with a good faith request for what we think.

I'm not trying to argue with you (and here wouldn't be the place to get into it) but that characterisation is false and I stated such for the benefit of other readers, not specifically to try and change your mind.

That has been a nice addition recently.

"Tianenmen Square was a wholesale fabrication by the west"

No one on Hexbear claims that and if they did they'd be thoroughly ridiculed for it. I was active in that thread, the spread of opinion was pretty wide, but no one advocates anything close to what you posted above.

I feel a little sorry for the Lemm.ee users here that came to make measured, personal posts specific to the annoucement. There's a fair amount of long off-topic arguements happening in bits of the thread now and that probably makes it harder to read and manage.

This is something that's often been pointed to as a pure result of Hexbear users or federation with Hexbear and given rise to accusations of 'brigading here and in the past'. While I don't think every segue into debate has been useful here, and have also told comrades that I didn't think this was the place for specific comments (which they removed) I also think there's some important context to point out - and I hope it helps lemm.ee users wondering about all this traffic not to fall into the trap of assuming the worst based on a couple of comments:

• Hexbear is a very big and very active instance. A very small proportion of users posting in a thread (especially one explicitly about them) can seem like a lot to a lot of instances.
• Hexbear doesn't have downvotes and Hexbear users do not have the ability to downvote posts or comments on other instances. This creates a culture where if people disagree, they tend to reply, not downvote instead. Another reason we're very active.
• This thread has constantly been at the top of people's feeds on Hexbear. if they're not only set to 'local'.
• Finally - and I say this fully acknowledging and appriciating the many ordinary, good faith, pleasant lemm.ee commenters that I've enjoyed reading and talking too even when I totally disagreed with them - a lot of these off-topic arguements and more heated comments do not come from nowhere. While not at all the majority, I do see a pretty shocking amount of actively hostile, hateful, and insulting behaviour here. Sadly, quite a bit of it would be banned under Hexbear's moderation policy against things like slurs and hate speech too.

So try to keep in mind if you see salty Hexbear users replying to people that, just in reading through this thread myself, I've the following instances of abuse or smears against my comrades (and they continue popping up). So I absolutely support them defending themselves (as long as they stay within the rules here):

• Dimissal as the pejorative "tankie" - 4 times (although we actually think this one is pretty funny usually)
• Users stating that Hexbear users are propagandists - 8 times
• Stating that people from Hexbear are specifically paid Russian/Chinese bots/propagandists - 10 times
• Direct equivalences of Hexbear posters to Nazis or just straight up calling us Nazis/fascists - 7 times
• Insults regarding mental health or IQ that would be classed as ablism on Hexbear - 8 times
• Dismissing users as children - 2 times
• Claiming Hexbear users are using vote-manipulation (impossible, as explained above) - 4 times
• Accusations of deliberate brigading rather than just commenting, being active - 11 times

I've tried not to count repeated instances from the same users. But sadly that's not all. Just a handful of the following are comments that have been made against Hexbear users in this thread, without any kind of equal hostility. As far as I can tell they all still remain:

• "You guys are like cancer"
• "Braindead fucking tankies"
• "Get fucked"
• "Asshole" (multiple)
• That our beliefs are "moralistic bullshut"
• That some of our beliefs are "a criminal ideology"
• A comment that simply states "No Russians"
• That we're "evil" (multiple times)
• An elaborate comparison to us "vandalising a Jewish graveyard" and other Nazi equivalences
• And of course a comment that explictly minimised the Nazi death toll with glee, seeming to imply they should have killed more. On the subject of disagreeing with equating the hammer and sickle to the swastika (hidden with spoiler tag, for those who don't want to see it repeated)...
  spoiler

There's also been numerious instances of users misgendering Hexbear users. I'm not going to put all of these down to malice, but at Hexbear we display our pronouns for a reason - we love our trans comrades! You don't have to, but could you please at least respect them and not misgender them?

Again, this isn't the majority, but it's honestly disappointing and worth keeping in mind amongst some of the louder, minority yells of 'brigading' etc.

I have actually had supersized emojis visible on Hexbear posted by users of other instances too. It's a broader Lemmy issue, but yes, a bug as you said.

I agree comrade, and that was my original post to the mod in question on our thread, but I don't think here is the place to relitigate it. Anyone who wants to come and debate it can do, but this thread is for Lemm.ee users primarily to have their say and I don't want to dilute that.

I didn't come here to relitigate that thread with you, because that is not what this thread is about and I did not want to distract from its purpose put of respect to Lemm.ee users. It was only to voice some context that was missing and encourage users to look at the problems of broader, ill-defined subject matter bans especially when enforced by a mod I perceived as having behaved in bad faith faith on the subject. Anyone can go and read that thread in its entirety or out exchanges via my history (I imagine I post less than you do and it would be easier). And despite my natural urge to dig it up again here and go another round, I won't for the reasons already stated. This isn't the thread to hash out our past disagreements (however serious and deeply held) as mods and users of both instances have agreed.

I don't understand how asking straightforward question, with qualifiers to be extra clear, is "bait"? Again, here, I've been polite, factual, and acted in good faith and your response is one of suspicion and disrespect.

I don't think your response is clear at all. It uses an extreme strawman example and then dismisses the issue as obvious. Even the example is needlessly muddled. Do you equate support of the Soviet Union, a state that hasn't existed for over 40 years and whose politics were diametrically opposed with modern Russia's, as support of present day Russia? Is that the issue? Or the idea that a state shouldn't exist? Because if nothing else that would eliminate the principles of a lot of anarchists, as well as liberation and indigenous movements etc. Or is it that Ukraine specifically cannot receive that sort of criticism? For the record I don't support any of that statement. I don't support the first half and the second is irrelevant since it no longer exists.

This thread is the top post on Hexbear when sorting by Hot and All (rather than local). Our own threads in that position regularly get hundreds, sometimes over 1000, comments. The fact that a small handful of Hexbear users offering (mostly) very restrained, respectful comments is frequently referred to as "bridgading" demonstrates how frequently the vague accusations leveled at our (and other) instance(s) are made in bad faith as a mere reflex.

As a Hexbear user and one of the people your mod and OP interacted with in that thread, I find a good chunk of this post concerning and often spurious.

First, personally, I am one of the people who accused him of engaging in behaviour that was tantamount to Holocaust denial. I did so after his repeated, blunt, assertions of false equivalency between the undisputed horrors of Nazi Germany and those - some true, many disputed, some outright refuted - of the Soviet Union. I explained that this practice is known as the 'Double Genocide Theory' and even linked to articles by Jewish historians and Holocaust academics that explained the issues with the theory and the history of its official use to whitewash far-right movements, particularly in post-Soviet states. Instead of receiving a modicum of serious engagement he instead deliberately and grossly misrepresented and dismissed not only my point but the work of the Jewish academics I linked before leaving with an insult.

Secondly, what exactly constitutes Kremlin propaganda? This is a usually completely baseless claim that is thrown constantly at Hexbear uses, but also almost any marginally left or anti-war figure on the internet. A small but vocal group of cynical users that cannot and will not tolerate opposing viewpoints use it to shut down debate and to smear people. As your mod/OP stated, Hexbear does both refute and ban clear instances of actual Russian (or other) state propaganda when it's demonstrably untrue or breaks our very strict rules on bigotry of any kind. But much of what was smeared as Kremlin propaganda was not, because it was not.

Your very own mod/OP engaged in a version of that in the thread on Hexbear and when pushed on what it meant variably either ignored the question or cast the net as wide as anything Russia (state, politicians, or media) have ever said. Several people made the point that a Russian source can say can say something that's factual, or identify something true and use that as part of a political narrative. Does that objective truth suddenly because false as soon as it's spoken by Russian lips? These questions were ignored.

Personally, I'd prefer that there isn't defederation, that the bad feeling that's undoubtedly been created by members from both instances, is moved on from, and to explore and engage with more of lemm.ee afresh. I also recognise and respect that decision as being lemm.ee's to make, but felt that users deserve to hear some of the other perspective. Especially when I do not believe your mod/OP is either willing or able to be clear eyed or act in good faith around contentious issues like those highlighted in this thread. Which of course is also to be considered, and decided by, users of Lemm.ee.

Because honestly very very few online communities are like this one. This community has given each other hours and hours of entertainment, support, and knowledge far beyond anything I've seen before.

I've been here for three years and I've seen people get jobs because of training resources and answers provided by other users. People who were 'leftish' but didn't have library or academic access who were given links to free courses, books, and basically a whole leftist education they couldn't have gotten otherwise. People have started reading groups for learning more and discussion. Gaming and movie watching groups for people who are isolated or just want to hang out digitally with comrades.

People have helped organise for various good causes and trans comrades have been given advice and help to find the medical supplies they need when living in places it would otherwise be impossible. The mutual aid that's happened here has gotten people off the streets, helped unhoused people, paid for meals people otherwise would have had to skip, and kept people's electricity on until payday.

I'm lucky enough not to have needed any of those things, but someone still sent me codes for a couple of video games I was curious about just because I mentioned I was stressed out one month and looking for something new to play. I could have bought them myself, but was a lovely gesture so I thanked them and threw the same amount I would have spent towards mutual aid.

Yeah, there's a whole lot of shit posting, some struggle sessions, and occasional assholery too. But there's a reason so many people are so active here on Hexbear. It's special.

So talk shit, defederate, or maybe approach in good faith without your presumptions. Whatever you choose, we'll be just fine.