this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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Lemmy.World Announcements

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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.

————-

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.

(page 2) 50 comments
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[–] NewDark@lemmy.world 42 points 1 year ago

Being in favor or support of the status quo is also pushing an ideology.

[–] legion@lemmy.world 42 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Taking a glance at Hexbear, it looks ridiculously juvenile.

Doesn't feel like it merits pre-emptive defederation, though.

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[–] necrxfagivs@lemmy.world 41 points 1 year ago

So preemptively defederating from Meta (literally Evil Corp, that backed genocide and fascism) is not okey, but doing the same with communists is.

I'm starting to get a feel of what Lemmy World really is.

[–] MarxMadness@lemmygrad.ml 39 points 1 year ago

"Are you now or have you ever been a member of hexbear.net, or a fellow traveler?"

[–] Ysysel@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I'm a bit new to the fediverse and I came to lemmy.world because it's one of the big ones and thought it would be "neutral". But nothing quoted in this post seems dangerous or against the rules ? You don't even explain what rules they are supposedly breaking ? It's weird that the admins posted this thinking "people will understand". All you are saying is "these people are from the left", we don't like them.

You should clearly states in your rules/description that you are a neoliberal instance and contradictory opinions will be squashed.

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[–] C4RCOSA@lemmygrad.ml 37 points 1 year ago (8 children)

As one authoritarian admin to another, I applaud you on the use of unilateral decision-making without any input from your mods or user base.

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[–] NAS89@lemmy.world 37 points 1 year ago

Not a big fan of cherry-picking posts and comments to pre-emptively defederate because of opposing ideals.

This opinion comes from knowing nothing at all about hexbear prior to this post.

[–] nrbrjb@lemmygrad.ml 36 points 1 year ago (3 children)

preemptively hitting my last resort button

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[–] Kiki@feddit.nl 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

How is the second statement problematic? It is a fact, that is largely documented in academia and many movements everywhere in the world. Disappointing decision....

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[–] SiliconDon@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago

What a disappointingly reactionary approach to federation.

[–] MonsieurHedge@kbin.social 33 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I'm not sure where "global communism" and "fascist state headed by Vladimir Putin" intersect, but it sure ain't anywhere sane. Defederation from the Lemmygrad school of insanity seems like a grand old time.

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[–] Faresh@lemmy.ml 33 points 1 year ago (12 children)

I'm from lemmy.ml, so I shouldn't really have a say in this matter, but I just wanted to give some of my thoughts.

There's no problem in defederating from instances. However, I'm a bit confused by the reasoning given for the defederation. The points highlighted appear to simply be some normal leftist and anti-imperialist ideas, and I fail to see how it signifies intent to violate the rules of the lemmy.world instance (besides maybe point 7, if we were to consider supporting governments deemed "authoritarian" by the west as also being the same as calling for the opression for the people those governments are accused of oppressing (Which I don't believe is valid reason since that's simply not the case. For example, people who reject the idea that there is a campaign against the uyghur ethnic group in China, generally don't do so because they hate that ethnic group, but because they believe the claims are false)).

If leftist instances such as hexbear are problematic, I don't see why instances like lemmy.ml aren't, whose description some time ago was the following:

A community of leftist privacy and FOSS enthusiasts, run by Lemmy’s developers

Some time ago they removed the word «leftist» in the description, but very much still allow people who hold similar beliefs as the ones you highlighted to use the instance and to express themselves.

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[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago (12 children)

“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.

That's pro Putin propaganda, not leftist politics.

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[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If this was a specific-purpose non-politics instance like many are, I'd say power to you. But for an general-purpose instance that advertises itself as being:

A generic Lemmy server for everyone to use.

Lemmy.world is a general-purpose Lemmy instance of various topics, for the entire world to use.

...then there's a need for some serious self-examination. Preemptively blocking thousands of users, and talking about blocking another long-lasting substantial community because some other community made comments about them? This is disappointing, this does not sound properly thought-out.

You're right, defederation should only be considered as a last resort. Not as a broad-spectrum discriminatory first action.

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[–] AlbigensianGhoul@lemmygrad.ml 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What a spez move. Pre-emptively de-federating is just a bad move, no other way to look at it. They're a very diverse group and generally much kinder than most lemmy users. At the very least you should've tested federation for a day or two to see how the interactions play out. But anybody here can go over there and see for themself how nice they can be even when disagreeing, which they do a lot among themselves.

Also where in the Code of Conduct does it say the only ideology allowed is liberalism? Going the way of Reddit with vague justifications and arbitrary decisions will make the administration a lot of profit some day, but there's a reason people left that one.

[–] ghariksforge@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago

Ok, I'm out of here. This is my last post on lemmy.world. I created a new account in a server that (hopefully) does not use defederation for political reasons.

I'm just sorry that I donated here.

[–] aquinteros@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago (12 children)

i dont like extremists on my feed, good work

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[–] Historical_General@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Well this is unfortunate. Seems like a mistake tbh. 20k people is a huge loss.

I'll have to make alt accounts soon if account migration isn't a feature.

edit: This is reminding me of when people were calling Lemmy Devs 'tankues'. Are we being sabotaged again?

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[–] bionicspud@lemmyverse.org 27 points 1 year ago (37 children)

As an instance owner myself some of this is concerning. I understand why lemmy.world would want to defederate from them. I won't defederate on my instance at this point, but if personal attacks start to happen or rules get broken, then it will be considered.

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[–] Tabitha@fediverse.boo 26 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Hexbear is for left-unity and has users that range from all spectrums of the left. The clear message here is, if your on the left, lemmy.world is not the place for you. If you support the free exchange of ideas, lemmy.world is not the place for you. The mods couldn’t even be bothered to lie about which rules hexbear users were supposedly going to violate.

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