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.”

Overall community comments:

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.

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.

  • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
    14653·
    1 year ago

    What the fuck?

    I was assured by this server that it has no problem with socialists. This is worse than I expected it to be, I expected a half-hearted attempt to justify this action through means other than “they’re socialists and hold socialist views”.

    To the three points here:

    1. “Western propaganda” - Is capitalist propaganda. Of course socialists oppose it, we oppose capitalism.

    2. “Nato” - An anti-nato position is held by literally every single socialist organisation in Europe. You will not find a socialist org with a pro-nato position. Ffs just look at DiEM25’s position on this, it’s probably the most well known cross-nation alliance of socialist groups and parties in europe including people like Yanis Varoufakis, Jeremy Corbyn and Zizek to name a few but that really doesn’t do the size of the DiEM organising alliance justice. Even Noam Chomsky is anti-nato ffs. What the fuck are you doing acting like this is a fringe position not held by a huge number of people over here in Europe and at the forefront of leftist politics on the continent? Taking the position “you’re not allowed to be anti-nato” is blatant american imperialism.

    3. “It is in the Left’s interest for these organizations to be demolished.” - Duh? What the fuck do the liberals running this instance think socialists believe exactly? When Marx calls for revolution do you think that we mean to continue the organisations that existed prior? No, we seek to abolish them and create new socialist organisations that serve the new socialist state we seek to create.

    Absolutely mindblowing that this instance ever pretended it was going to play nicely with socialists. I’m disgusted.

    Every single take above is also the take you will get from every single socialist community over on reddit. The anarchist communities will also even have an anti-nato position. Like jesus christ. I expected this post to be bad but I didn’t expect it to be “Yeah fuck socialists, oh and fuck what anarchists believe too”.

    I’m flabbergasted that @ruud@lemmy.world just completely lied about not intending to block based on ideology, and it’s extremely telling that Hexbear gets a pre-emptive defederation for this shit while literal actual nazis were a chore to get defederated.

    • necrxfagivs@lemmy.worldEnglish
      416·
      1 year ago

      I’m shocked by this post. And looking for a new instance.

      I wanted an instance that doesn’t defederate based on ideology (except fascist instances) and of a generalist nature. I want to browse the wide fediverse from an instance where I’m allowed to be a socialist, but clearly lemmy.world is not the one for me.

      Any recommendations?

      • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
        243·
        1 year ago

        Lemm.ee has a great, reliable admin and doesn’t defederate unless instance rules are explicitly broken or network abuse occurs, as far as I know.

      • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
        83·
        1 year ago

        Lemmygrad. Most users are ML. But users joining discussions and asking questions in good faith is welcomed and encouraged. It rarely defederates from any other instance. MLs argue for the ‘ruthless criticism of all that exists’ so it doesn’t make sense to ignore speech (i.e. defederate from instances) that one doesn’t agree with ideologically.

      • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
        127·
        1 year ago

        Lemmy.ml probably? Otherwise I don’t know. It is the most competently run in terms of not engaging in this defederation bullshit outside of illegal/hate content, but it also took part in actively trying to push users to move here. I’m almost certain that they’ll regret having done that given what this community is doing though and won’t be actively promoted by lemmy.ml anymore.

        Will take some time to go through the others and figure out who isn’t being ridiculous. Then I guess everyone will start promoting the one that makes the most sense.

      • chrisbit@leminal.spaceEnglish
        43·
        1 year ago

        I run a general leftist instance that you could check out. I only intend to defederate fascist and NSFW instances.

      • Lazz45@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        12·
        1 year ago

        Sh.itjust.works has been run very well so far imo. No signs of the admin injecting their opinion into what you can/can’t see

    • chrisbit@leminal.spaceEnglish
      157·
      1 year ago

      I have no skin in this game as I run my own instance, but well said. I couldn’t agree more with your counter points. This move, taken with the delay in defederating from fascist instances, has to be a big concern for the leftist community on LW.

    • Buelldozer@lemmy.world
      63·
      1 year ago

      Absolutely mindblowing that this instance ever pretended it was going to play nicely with socialists.

      There’s folks from lemmygrad.ml and lemmy.ml all over in here which is empirical proof that lemmy.world will “play nice” with Socialists. They’ll even play nice with Communists. What they’re objecting too is the Tankie Army assembling over at hexbear and their stated intention of propagandizing every instance in the fediverse.

      If you don’t like it that’s cool. Spin up an account on another instance and go on with your day. This isn’t your instance and no one here owes you anything.

    • GONADS125@lemmy.world
      1319·
      1 year ago

      Hexbear stated explicitly their intent to [allow only specific narratives (explicitly anti-free speech), they openly stated their intention to engage in content manipulation tactics and pushing propoganda, and they have a delusional take on russia’s aggression and atrocities.

      You all talk about this decision being against free speech when hexbear doesn’t even permit it! So hypocritical… Even if most users on hexbear have good intentions, it doesn’t justify the nefarious means that they openly plan to engage in. If hexbear wants open discussion, then they would permit topic criticism of communism; not suppress dissenting information/discussion.

      I don’t care if it’s left, right, independent, apolitical… Instances like this create echo-chamers which leads to extreme views and unhealthy communities. They shouldn’t be given an audience to try to gaslight and astroturf. And if you don’t like this decision to defederate, you can join another instance.

      Saying lemmy.world is anti-free speech for this is a joke. Lemmy.world doesn’t have rules disallowing criticism of governing styles or specific governments. Hexbear does… If you all want to criticize NATO and capitalism on lemmy.world, go for it! That discussion is healthy. An instance like hexbear which only allows specific narratives and encourages nefarious practices is not a healthy instance…

      • Carcosa@lemmygrad.ml
        86·
        1 year ago

        You are literally quoting the WRONG INSTANCE’S rules I know that liberals are loath to read past the headlines but this is so egregious it is hilarious.

      • Historical_General@lemmy.world
        77·
        1 year ago

        An instance can behave like a sub or community if they wish to, assuming what you said is even true. Iirc the entire point of the fediverse is to allow groups of users to be free from spez like ban-happy/profiteering behaviour. Lemmy doesn’t exist to make you personally happy. Hexbear has its own rules for its own instance and if their community is happy with it it’ll survive and thrive.

        Lemmy dot world’s decision is disappointing because they seemed open and neutral politically. But are seemingly very much not neutral and damaging for Lemmy.

        • Buelldozer@lemmy.world
          53·
          1 year ago

          Lemmy dot world’s decision is disappointing because they seemed open and neutral politically.

          Bah. There’s plenty of users in here from Lemmy.ml, lemmygrad.ml, and other leftists instances. It’s quite clear that the lemmy.world is pretty darn open ideologically. Hexbear is getting ban hammered because they’ve made it very clear that they aim to misbehave.

          • Historical_General@lemmy.world
            11·
            1 year ago

            I don’t think they were going to, since Hexbear doesn’t actually have downvotes. Only upvotes. And the post above apparently cuts out the part where they’re told to follow the rules.

            If they wanted to misbehave they could do it already. I’ve personally had posts and comments mass downvoted and people have complained elsewhere. The only thing this defederation will contribute to is an increase in alt accounts and the very misbehaviour you fear. This is a Lemmy problem, not a Hexbear one.