Hey folks

I have been receiving a lot of messages every single day about federation with hexbear. Some of our users are vehemently against it, others are in full support. The conversation does not seem to be dying down, rather, the volume of messages I receive about it seems to be increasing, so I am opening this public space where we can openly discuss the topic.

I am going to write a wall of text about my own thoughts on the situation, I’m sorry, but no tl;dr this time, and I ask anybody participating in this thread to first read through this post before commenting.

Before I go any further, I want to be clear that for anybody who participates here, it is required to focus on the quality of your posts. That means:

  • Be kind to each other, even if you disagree
  • Use arguments rather than calling people names
  • Realize that this is a divisive topic, so your comments should be even more thoughtful than usual

With that out of the way, there are a few things I want to cover.

On defederation in general

First of all, I am a firm believer that defederation must be reserved only for cases where all other methods have failed. If defederation is used liberally, then a small group of malicious users can effectively completely shut down the federated network, by simply creating the type of drama between instances which would inevitably result in defederation. In my view, federation is the biggest strength of Lemmy compared to any centralized discussion forum, so naturally I think maintaining federation by default is an important goal in general.

I am also a believer in the value of deplatforming hateful content, but I think defederation is not the best way to do this. Banning individual users, banning communities and establishing a culture of mutual support between mods and admins of different instances should be the first line of defense against such content. There are some further steps that can be taken before defederation as well, but these are not really documented anywhere (in order to prevent circumvention). The point is: for myself, defederation is the absolute last resort, only to be used when it is completely clear that other methods are ineffective.

Finally, I am wary of creating a false expectation among lemm.ee users that lemm.ee admins endorse all users and communities and content on instances we are federated with. Here at lemm.ee, we use a blocklist for federation, which means our default apporach is to federate with all new instances. We do not have the resources (manpower, skills and knowledge) necessary to pass judgement on all instances which exist out there, as a result, users on lemm.ee are expected to curate their own content to quite a high degree. In addition to downvoting and/or reporting as necessary, individual lemm.ee users are also able to block specific users and communities, and the ability to block entire instances is coming very soon as well.

Having said all that, in a situation where all other methods do indeed fail, defederation is not out of the question. Making such a call is up to the discretion of lemm.ee admins, and doing it as a last resort is completely in line with our federation policy.

Regarding hexbear

Hexbear is an established Lemmy instance, focused on many flavors of leftism. They have quite a large userbase who are very active on Lemmy (often so active that they leave the impression brigading all popular Lemmy posts). One important thing to note is that while some forms of bigotry seem to be quite accepted by many hexbear users (but seemingly not by mods - more on that below), they at least are very protective of LGBT rights (and yes, I am quite certain that they are not just pretending to do this, as many users seem to believe). Additionally, while I have noticed quite high quality posts from hexbear users, there are also several users there who seem to really enjoy trolling and baiting (very reminiscent of 4chan-type “for the lulz” posting), and it’s important to note that this kind of posting is in general allowed on hexbear itself.

The reason this whole topic is important to so many people right now (despite hexbear being a relatively old instance), is that hexbear only recently enabled federation. A combination of their volume of posts, their strong convictions, the excitement about federation, and the aforementioned trolling has made them very visible to almost all Lemmy users, and this has sparked discussions about the value of federation with hexbear on a lot of Lemmy instances.

My own experience with hexbear

I want to write down my own experience with interacting with hexbear users, mods, and admins over the past few days. I believe this experience will highlight why I am hesitant to advocate for immediate full defederation from hexbear at this point in time, and am for now still more in favor of taking action on a more individual user basis. Please read and see how you feel about the situation afterwards.

Background

My first real contact with hexbear users was in the comments section of a post in this meta community requesting defederation from hexbear by @glimpythegoblin@lemm.ee. That post is now locked, because several hexbear users very quickly started doing the aforementioned “for the lulz” type spamming of meme images in the comments (these are actually just emojis, but they are rendered as full-size images on all instances other than the source instance, due to a current Lemmy bug).

I did not want to take further actions in that thread in general (for archival purposes), but I did take one action, which in retrospect was a mistake: I removed a comment which contained the hammer and sickle symbol. I ignorantly associated this symbolism with Kremlin propaganda, and the atrocities my own people suffered at the hands of the soviet union during the previous century. Many users (including hexbear users) correctly (and politely) pointed out to me in DMs that the symbol has a much broader use than just as the symbol of the USSR, and people elsewhere in the world may not associate it with the USSR at all. I am grateful for users who pointed this out to me without resorting to personal attacks.

Let me be clear here: while I do not have anything against leftism or communist ideas in general (in fact in today’s world, I think discussion of such ideas is quite necessary), Kremlin propaganda has no place on lemm.ee. Any dehumanizing talking points of the Kremlin on lemm.ee are treated as any other bigotry, and if communist symbolism is used in context of Kremlin propaganda (that is the context in which I have been exposed to it throughout my whole life), then it will still be removed. But there is no blanket ban on communist symbolism in general on lemm.ee, and discussing and advocating for leftist and communist topics (as distinct from the imperialist and dehumanizing policies of the Kremlin) is certainly allowed on lemm.ee.

Hexbear user response

Coming back to the events of the past few days: soon after my removal of the comment containing the symbol from the meta thread, two posts popped up on hexbear. One was focused on insulting and spreading lies about me personally. Another was focused on diminishing the horrors of the soviet occupation in my country. In the comments under both of these posts (and in a few other threads on hexbear), I noticed some seriously disturbing bigotry against my people. There were comments which reflected the anti-Estonian propaganda of the current Russian state, things like:

  • Suggesting that my people has no right to exist
  • Stating that my people (and other Baltic nations) are subhuman
  • Claiming that anybody critical of both nazi and soviet occupations is themselves a nazi and a holocaust denier

I expect to hear such statements from the Russian state - here in Estonia, we are subjected to this and other kinds of bigotry constantly from Russian media - but to see it spread openly in non-Russian channels is extremely disturbing. Such bigotry is completely against lemm.ee rules in general. Additionally, my identity is public information, because I feel it’s important for the integrity of lemm.ee that I don’t hide behind anonymity. Considering this, I’m sure you can understand why I am very worried about my own safety when people leave comments in many unrelated threads (where my original posts are not even visible), baselessly calling me a nazi and a holocaust denier.

Note that the goal of this post is not to start a new debate in the comments about the the repressions of the soviet union in Estonia or other occupied territories, but if the topic interests any users, I can recommend the 2006 documentary The Singing Revolution (imdb). The trailer is a bit cheesy, but the actual film contains lots of historical footage from the soviet occupation, and also many interviews with people who experienced it, who share stories which are deeply familiar to all Estonians. If anybody is interested in further discussion, then I suggest making a post about it in the Estonian community here: !eesti@lemm.ee.

Hexbear admin response

After the above events had played out, I reached out to hexbear admins for clarification on their moderation policies and how they handle such cases. I was actually very happy with their response:

  1. They immediately removed the personal attacks and dehumanizing comments containing Kremlin propaganda from Hexbear, and assured me that such content is always handled by mods
  2. They told me that while there are all kinds of leftists on hexbear, Russian disinformation is generally either refuted in comments or removed by mods
  3. They implemented some additional rules on hexbear to try and reduce the trolling experienced by many other instances, including ours: https://hexbear.net/post/352119
My personal take-aways

Let me play the devil’s advocate here and employ some “self-whataboutism”: among all users that have been banned on lemm.ee for bigotry, the majority were actually not users from other instances, and in fact people with lemm.ee accounts. If we judge any larger instance only by bigoted posts that some of its users make, then we might as well declare all instances as cesspools and close down Lemmy completely. I believe it’s far more useful to judge instances based on moderation in response to such content. Just as we remove bigoted content from lemm.ee, I have also witnessed bigoted content being removed from hexbear.

At the same time, I am aware of some internal conflict between hexbear users over the more strict moderation they are now starting to employ, and I am definitely keeping an eye on that situation and how admins handle it.

I am also still quite worried about the amount of distinct users on hexbear who have posted Kremlin propaganda. I so far don’t have reason to believe that these users are employed by the Russian state, but the fact that they are spreading the same hateful content which can be seen on Russian television seems problematic to say the least, and it remains to be seen if moderators can truly keep up with such content.

Where thing stand right now

I am not convinced that we are currently at a point where the “last resort” of defederation is necessary. This is based on the presumption that our moderation workload at lemm.ee will not get out of hand just due to users from that particular instance. My current expectation is that as the excitement of federation calms down (and as new rules on hexbear go into effect), the currently relatively high volume of low effort trolling will be replaced by more thoughtful posts. If this is not the case then we will certainly need to re-evaluate things.

Additionally, nothing is changing about our own rules regarding bigotry. Especially relevant in the context of Kremlin propaganda, I want to say that dehumanizing anybody is not allowed on lemm.ee (hopefully I do not have to spell it out, but this of course includes Ukrainians, LGBT folks, and others that the Kremlin despises), and action will be taken against any users who do this, regardless of what instance they are posting from.

Finally, I am very interested to hear thoughts and responses from our own users. I am super grateful to anybody who actually took the time to read through this massive dump of my own thoughts, and I am very interested to get a proper understanding of how our users feel about what I’ve written here. Please share any thoughts in the comments.

  • thoro
    1027·
    10 months ago

    Think about this way: f they were acting this way while promoting fascism, you wouldn’t even have a discussion post, you would just defederate.

    Yes, because we all agree fascism is bad.

    Because they claim to be communist and left-wing (though their actually still promoting fascism)

    Ah, horseshoe BS.

    No, there is a real, historical, and material difference between fascism and even the most “authoritarian” communist. Communists were literally the first people rounded up by the Nazis and are the mortal enemy of all fascists.

    The instance, at worst, is vehemently opposed to capitalism and Western liberal capitalism, to the point many do support what they deem AES (actually existing socialist) states.

    If you disagree with the role and actions of those states, fair enough. Hopefully, it’s an informed disagreement that can withstand scrutiny.

    Nonetheless, Hexbear’s enemies are the capitalist class, the nations that most support modern neoliberal capitalism, and ,yes, obviously a distaste for those who support those ideals or nations online.

    But you will not find homophobia, racism, transphobia, anti-feminism, master race rhetoric, anti-poor rhetoric, just world philosophy, etc that you absolutely would in a fascist community.

    So I do not think it is correct to equate this instance, whatever your disagreements, with fascist instances like exploding heads that were making posts about how the female body exists for the male gaze and shit.

    C’mon.

    Even if they can be a little aggressive toward a “bad take”, it’s literally and even figuratively just not the same as 4chan.

    The site wide joke is calling each other “libs”, not homophobic/racist slurs.

      • thoro
        615·
        10 months ago

        In the same way the US and China are “allied”, sure.

        There was a non aggression pact, but not sure that’s really the same thing as being ideological or geopolitical “allies”, and there is a A LOT of historical context surrounding that pact outside a high schooler’s understanding of thinking they were best buds actually.

        The USSR actually first offered alliance with Britain and France against Nazi Germany..

        That’s the comparison to US/China relations where they have agreements, yet still obviously are ideologically and politically opposed to each other.

        As for them being mortal enemies, well the poem begins “First they came for the Communists” for a reason.

        And then they literally went to war with each other.

        That’s not even getting into the fact that the USSR does not speak for all communism ever.

        Edit: Wikipedia context, which obviously isn’t even as good as historical accounts:

        At the beginning of the 1930s, the Nazi Party’s rise to power increased tensions between Germany and the Soviet Union, along with other countries with ethnic Slavs, who were considered “Untermenschen” (subhuman) according to Nazi racial ideology.[18] Moreover, the antisemitic Nazis associated ethnic Jews with both communism and financial capitalism, both of which they opposed.[19][20] Nazi theory held that Slavs in the Soviet Union were being ruled by “Jewish Bolshevik” masters.[21] Hitler had spoken of an inevitable battle for the acquisition of land for Germany in the east.[22] The resulting manifestation of German anti-Bolshevism and an increase in Soviet foreign debts caused a dramatic decline in German–Soviet trade.[c] Imports of Soviet goods to Germany fell to 223 million ℛ︁ℳ︁ in 1934 by the more isolationist Stalinist regime asserting power and by the abandonment of postwar Treaty of Versailles military controls, both of which decreased Germany’s reliance on Soviet imports.[17][24][clarification needed]

        In 1936, Germany and Fascist Italy supported the Spanish Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, but the Soviets supported the Spanish Republic.[25] Thus, the Spanish Civil War became a proxy war between Germany and the Soviet Union.[26] In 1936, Germany and Japan entered the Anti-Comintern Pact,[27] and they were joined a year later by Italy.[28]

        …

        Hitler’s fierce anti-Soviet rhetoric was one of the reasons that Britain and France decided that Soviet participation in the 1938 Munich Conference on Czechoslovakia would be both dangerous and useless.[30] In the Munich Agreement that followed[31] the conference agreed to a German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia in late 1938, but in early 1939 it had been completely dissolved.[32] The policy of appeasement toward Germany was conducted by the governments of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier.[33] The policy immediately raised the question of whether the Soviet Union could avoid being next on Hitler’s list.[34] The Soviet leadership believed that the West wanted to encourage German aggression in the East[35] and to stay neutral in a war initiated by Germany in the hope that Germany and the Soviet Union would wear each other out and put an end to both regimes.

        The Soviet Union, which feared Western powers and the possibility of “capitalist encirclements”, had little hope either of preventing war and wanted nothing less than an ironclad military alliance with France and Britain[51] to provide guaranteed support for a two-pronged attack on Germany.[52] Stalin’s adherence to the collective security line was thus purely conditional.[53] Britain and France believed that war could still be avoided and that since the Soviet Union was so weakened by the Great Purge[54] that it could not be a main military participant.[52]

        “One day before the military negotiations began, the Soviet Politburo pessimistically expected the coming negotiations to go nowhere and formally decided to consider German proposals seriously.[63] The military negotiations began on 12 August in Moscow, with a British delegation headed by the retired admiral Sir Reginald Drax, French delegation headed by General Aimé Doumenc and the Soviet delegation headed by Kliment Voroshilov, the commissar of defence, and Boris Shaposhnikov, chief of the general staff. Without written credentials, Drax was not authorised to guarantee anything to the Soviet Union and had been instructed by the British government to prolong the discussions as long as possible and to avoid answering the question of whether Poland would agree to permit Soviet troops to enter the country if the Germans invaded.[64]”

        Almost like geopolitics is often more complicated than “akshually they definitely were aligned powers”

          • thoro
            12·
            10 months ago

            WTF.

            Yes, there was a non aggression pact. I didn’t deny that.

            I’m agreeing they had a diplomatic relationship for a time, but that doesn’t mean they shared ideological goals and both still considered the other to be geopolitical/ideological enemies.

            The USSR actually first offered alliance with Britain and France against Nazi Germany..

            That’s the comparison to US/China relations where they have agreements and diplomatic relations, yet still obviously are ideologically and politically opposed to each other.

    • WhyDoesntThisThingWork@lemmy.world
      125·
      10 months ago

      They are literally the same and do promote literal fascism. The Chinese government disappears people who speak out against them. Doing it under the moniker of “communism” (which China and Russia absolutely aren’t. They do use sexism and racism as well anyway, your statement that they don’t is absolutely wrong. I was followed around the site by several members after a single comment, who repeatedly attacked over race, sex, and nationality (which they were 100% guessing about and 100% percent wrong about, just assumptions made because I disagreed with them and they think only one type of person can disagree with them,)

      Just because you think calling someone a bougie white male isn’t sexist, racist, and classist (and inaccurate much of the time they use it) doesn’t mean it isn’t. Ism’s are bad, they aren’t magically ok because you dislike the group they’re being used against. Moreover these things are absolutely being used in bad faith to insult rather than discuss.

      The site wide joke is calling each other “libs”

      it’s not a joke if people are feeling attacked rather than laughing. Since you are so super concerned about racism and sexism I’m sure you understand that.

      homophobic/racist slurs.

      they absolutely do

      I never brought up 4chan myself, but being completely honest, but since you did… yes they are the same. In fact 4channers are much more clear that they are taking the piss than hexbear is.