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.

  • letsgocrazy
    1111·
    11 months ago

    Is it not possible we just have a social media platform where we talk abouts hobbies and computers and not evangelise our political beliefs?

    • planish@sh.itjust.works
      41·
      11 months ago

      That is itself a political belief, though. You cannot in fact have any sort of community without answering political questions about how that community should work. You could say that no external political questions should be discussed in the community, but:

      1. Enforcing that could cast a bigger shadow over the community than the political arguments did.
      2. It amounts to saying that the external political situation is acceptable, or at least relatively safe to ignore.
    • MolochAlter@lemmy.world
      21·
      11 months ago

      Some people are joyless (sometimes literal) communists, who need to spread their misery to others.

      I’m honestly mostly just sorry for them as human beings, but I do loathe their entire worldview so it’s more of a “sad, but it’s mostly on you, really” kind of sorry.

      The kind of sorry you feel for someone who curses being an alcoholic while handing their loyalty card to the liquor store clerk.

      In my experience, healthy communities reject these losers and stay more or less sane, provided they don’t stumble into positions of authority. If they do they’ll inevitably abuse them until the community is just another machine to lure in more people to turn into joyless brainrotted politics obsessed extremists.

      Not unlike viruses taking over cells, the community is dead when that happens.

      Thankfully, us people with things to live for almost always outnumber them, just force them out of your spaces when you spot them.