A summary of what happened between Blahaj.Zone and Hexbear.Net
A summary of what happened between Blahaj.Zone and Hexbear.Net
Lots of people who are seeing top-level postings about Hexbear. Net are probably confused about what has been going on and I want to give an SRD-style overview of the whole thing.
Note: As a user of Blahaj.Zone, I am not a neutral party in this and I do not pretend to be. This is how the whole thing has played out from my perspective.
Hexbear. Net is another Lemmy instance that had relatively recently started to federate with Blahaj.Zone and other Lemmy instances. It had previously been known as Chapo.Chat because it began as an instance for fans of the podcast ChapoTrapHouse.
Recently users from Blahaj.Zone (as well as other Lemmy instances) began to complain about the behavior of Hexbear users. The complaints were about rude, obnoxious behavior: Hexbear users calling people "libs" as an insult, denying crimes of Russia and China, denying the crimes of Stalin,...
Such behavior was not necessarily forbidden on Blahaj.Zone, but certain sub-Lemmys had their own rules on these subjects.
One of the threads about Hexbear: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/1854795?scrollToComments=true
After an ever increasing number of users calling for defederating from Hexbear. Net, Ada (admin of Blahaj.Zone) opened a thread to talk about it. The thread was quickly inundated with Hexbear users, complaining in turn about being called out in this way. Though many of their comments exploited a current bug in the Lemmy code which resulted in emoji's being embedded as pictures which results in lots of image spam.
Ada responded by removing top-level comments in the thread which were not from Blahaj.Zone's users, because she wanted to get the feedback of her own community, not from anybody else.
This happened originally in this thread: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/1959801
The discussion on Blahaj.Zone was a back and forth: Lots of people calling for "leftist and queer unity", others complaining about getting harassed by Hexbear users.
Meanwhile, elsewhere: Lemm.ee, a Lemmy instance operated and managed by someone from Estonia, also opened a discussion about Hexbear - at least partially motivated by the admin's increasing unease of the rampant denial of soviet atrocities and the occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union. Russian propaganda in regards to the war in Ukraine was also an issue.
Lemm.ee was largely encountering similar problems as Blahaj.Zone, though the Lemme.ee admin admitted that the Hexbear admin was generally responsive to reports and complaints.
The thread on Lemm.ee: https://lemm.ee/post/4543536
The thread was also flooded with comments from Hexbear users. The admin of Lemm.ee also responded by hiding most of the comments from Hexbear.
https://mastodon.social/@brooklynman/110911292961470110
Back on Blahaj.Zone, a tangent opens up: A Hexbear user complains about c/196, the new home of Reddit's r/196 which had relocated to Blahaj.Zone and has been its biggest community ever since. The Hexbear user complains about their comments being removed, comments that called out the use of the r-word and other call-outs. The user posts pictures of the removal notices.
Blahaj.Zone's admin Ada steps in and intervenes on behalf of the Hexbear user, having a stern word with the c/196 mod responsible for the removal of the comments.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/2136643
A Hexbear admin also gets involved and sends a message to the mods of c/196 demanding the removal of the sub-Lemmy's banner, because it contains "fuck tankies²", arguing that tankies is a slur. The c/196 mod refuses and publishes their message.
[²"Tankies" is a pejorative term for authoritarian socialists in the vein of Stalin and/or Mao.]
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/1961004
While the discussion if Blahaj.Zone should defederate from Hexbear is still ongoing, the Hexbear admins defederated from Blahaj.Zone without warning from their side, because of...
unaddressed ableist removals from the /c/196 moderators, defense of chasers, no-quarter rules regarding our users, leakage of good-faith DMs from our admin team, and a general lack of initiative to punish these behavior
In her a response to these events, Ada points out in a comment that she never had the chance to adress the ableist incident (she was in bed) while other issues had happened in the past and had been adressed at the time. Thus she could not react before Hexbear defederated.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/2135406
TL;dr: Blahaj.Zone's users complain about ill behavior of users on Hexbear. Net. A discussion about defederation begins on Blahaj.Zone. Meanwhile Hexbear users complain about Blahaj.Zone in turn and Hexbear. Net defederates instantly and without warning.
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I've had two major issues with these guys. While not necessarily worth defederating everyone, I really don't want to deal with hexbear because:
- ALL of their content is political. When they first showed up on my feed, I watched what posts/communities came up and how their users interacted on non hexbear posts. I've done my best to remove all politics from my social media. These guys only talked about politics and would go to other communities to turn a normal conversation political.
- Everything was extreme and obnoxious. I don't understand why everyone keeps calling them polite. There was a constant "you're with us or you're against us"/"my beliefs are always right" behavior that was really annoying, especially in a public space that wasn't polarized before they got there. It reminded me of this one girl from middle school who would walk into a room and loudly talk about whatever she wanted until all the other conversations petered out.
They're more than welcome to behave like that in their home, but they can't go to a public space and expect everyone to cater to their beliefs.
Not a part of blahaj, but the impression I've gotten from what I've seen (primarily in the lemm.ee megathread) is that for better or worse hexbear takes the concept of radical transparency and debate to its fullest extreme. For the better, it can produce some intensely thought provoking discussions--I've had to reevaluate and reconsider my own personal ethics more in the past week or so than I have in the past few years.
But the downside is that it's Just. So. Exhausting. I fully agree that everything they discuss has a political undertone to it in some way. It feels like they just cannot turn off, and I always have to be on my guard when they get involved in any discussion, even if it's nominally about a completely non-political topic. Even when they're making high effort posts instead of spamming emojis and pig poop balls, every discussion feels like a minefield, where the slightest misstep gets you punished with a "here's a response that implies/outright states you're woefully misinformed at best and a protofascist nazi at worst, here's a link to an obscure book written by a communist scholar 50 years ago that you should read before even trying to discuss this topic." Hexbear getting involved in a discussion is the discourse equivalent of a group playing 4-player FFA Smash Bros. with items on and someone rolls up and demands 1v1, no items, tournament ruleset only.
I feel like I just cannot relax when hexbear is active in a discussion, and it's not even like I really disagree with their points--yes, the US is too powerful, yes, capitalism is bad--but I strongly disagree with their conclusions (supporting China and Russia because it weakens the US is the equivalent of voting for Trump because Biden/Hillary isn't liberal enough.) It's just that they are so laser-focused on debate and so ready to believe the worst in everyone (they called using "top kek" a holocaust denier dogwhistle FFS, that shit originated from freaking world of warcraft, and was popularized on 4chan back when it was just a shithole instead of a racist shithole! I occasionally use it because I'm an elder millennial and I like making dated references!) that even if you support their overall goals and philosophy, you still walk away mentally exhausted because of how carefully you had to parse your words to avoid stepping on a landmine.
Tbh I thought the admins of Lemmy.World were being overzealous when they preemptively defederated from HexBear before we even had a chance to see what federating with them would be like, but from where it stands now I think they made the right call. It doesn't seem like anything of value was lost.
Despite apparent assurances from the HB admin team that their users are to be on their best behavior outside of their echo chamber, it seems they just can't help themselves.
Zookeeper insists the elephants will behave outside their enclosure
Hexbear is what happens when kids (I hope they're all in their early 20s or teens, because otherwise this gets much sadder) spend years reading on leftist theory but have zero real world experience. They get intense, volatile, argumentative and have no idea how those points reflect on themselves and in reality. This is why they go around prancing those absurd beliefs and fencing anyone who disagrees out, while also dogpilling and swarming communities that don't agree: They only know what its like to be leftists in theory.
The one person who made the """"""peace"""""" thread had an earlier post here in Blahaj saying that since working under capitalism is coercion then everyone who solicits sex workers is a rapist, and that's basically the level of being disconnected from reality that they operate in. Unfortunately for them, their echo chamber is going to go on and be the equivalent of a left wing /pol/. For us - and hopefully all other major instances - its a relief to be rid of such crowd.
Hexbear is what happens when kids (I hope they’re all in their early 20s or teens, because otherwise this gets much sadder) spend years reading on leftist theory but have zero real world experience.
Unfortunately that does not match my experience. Because Hexbear was a ChapoTrapHouse fan instance in the beginning (and still its largest community), most of these people are likely in their late 20s and older, because that is most of Chapo's fanbase (which rose to prominence in 2016).
It somewhat reflects who the ChapoTrapHouse hosts are: They are all "nepo babies", a bunch of people who came from relatively wealthy or at least well off backgrounds. They are all white people from the upper crusty suburbs who love to tell you what they think socialism is supposed to be. And their audience isn't much different from them.
I came from wealth. It certainly didn’t make me a communist. What did that, was the years I spent working in healthcare in various developing countries, and watching people die because they couldn’t afford proper treatment. Although I suppose thinking about where I came from also helped.
Good for you and all the props for you that you decided to go out there. The problem with the Chapo bros is: They really did not. They had not-particularly-successful careers as comedians prior to starting their podcast. Whatever your impression of them may be, I think it's hard to argue that they have a particular insight into poor people's lives or working class politics.
It really feels like the people who grew up on 4chan and later came out as queer, but never learned how toxic that was
The one person who made the “”“”““peace””“”“” thread had an earlier post here in Blahaj saying that since working under capitalism is coercion then everyone who solicits sex workers is a rapist
That person isn't necessarily wrong. That's one of the reasons sex work is illegal in most jurisdictions, if I'm not mistaken.
I know this comment is kinda old, i hope you dont mind me responding.
The notion isnt wrong, but it is misguided and overly simplified. There is coersion under capitalism, but there is also personal choice about how to engage with that system. Sex work is not rape any more than working at mcdonalds is slavery.
Comparing the two reeks of too much theory with too little experience. It is over simplifying things in a way that is troubling because it devalues the intensity, horror, and evil of things like rape and slavery.
Sex work is not rape any more than working at mcdonalds is slavery.
I would call the latter slavery, yes. Wage slavery, to be precise. Certainly no one aspires to flip burgers and not even get paid enough to afford to eat one.
Comparing the two reeks of too much theory with too little experience. It is over simplifying things in a way that is troubling because it devalues the intensity, horror, and evil of things like rape and slavery.
Tell that to all the homeless people roasting on the streets of Portland right now. They may not be getting whipped, but they are suffering all the same.
Ive never been a slave, but i have been homeless & currently work low paying jobs. I really dont think my experience is anywhere even close to that of the countless victims of american chattle slavery, forced prison labor, or sweatshops.
Ive also been raped, and that was an entirely different experience than any sex work ive done. My experiences are also in a completely different category from people who have been trafficked or sold.
I get that its a rhetorical technique to use emotionally charged words to serve a point, and that the term 'wage slave' has a long history in communist writing. My goal was mostly to provide an additional perspective to other people who might stumble on a week old post like I did.
I appreciate that you obviously care about other people, and we clearly agree that the current system is terrible. I hope you get some good praxis in this week, cheers 🍻
Edit to add this reddit post with a good discussion of the employee / slave comparison. Lots of interesting points from both sides:
Not entirely true, before the defederation I browsed their communities and I've seen casual threads about manga, recovery from Alcoholism, talking about insects... and everyone was polite there.
It's just that when it comes to politics they get EXTREMELY loud, and everything else is drown out.
Honestly, where I've seen the flooding of politics is outside of their own communities. Their instance is already an echo chamber, so there's no need to spread propaganda. But as soon as they venture to other instances, they need to make sure everyone knows how they feel, and if you disagree or just don't want to talk about it, they instantly turn to personal attacks
Everything is political. Not taking sides here, just confused that you don't like politics. If you've removed politics from your feed doesn't that mean you've removed all content?
...what? I think we are in two very different corners of the internet. I follow animal groups, hobbies, work related stuff, and art. None of that should have people screaming about politicians or voting or laws or anything related to politics. I can get all of that from informed sources like AP or Reuters, and when I'm done with the news for the day I'm done. My social media feeds have zero politics, which is why I didn't like hexbear users - they were injecting politics into my non political spaces.
I'll vote when I can and protest when I can, but I don't want to doomscroll through a bunch of angry people when interacting with them has no personal or social benefit.
Animal groups, hobbies, work, and art are political. Art is the best example: artists are often said to hold a mirror up to society. Work's conditions are dictated by the conditions of capitalism and the entire act of work is an endeavour in practicing capitalism under the direction of a boss who can control you at the office. Animal rights issues are also obviously political, and hobbies is a really vague umbrella term but there's a whole lot of politics under that umbrella.
Politics is defined by nearly all dictionaries as the field concerning power and decision making in groups. Everything relates to that. I don't understand what these "non-political" spaces you're talking about are like. Do you mean being alone? Because if you're not in a group, then you're right there wouldn't be any participation in group decision making. Is that what you mean? That you like your solitude?
You're talking about an ideal, a theoretical idea of what politics is.
Abigail is talking about her ability to use social media without being drowned out by transphobia and other awful events.
It's not 100% achievable, but we can work towards the experience we want. Abigail has made her preferences clear, and this space exists specifically for that reason. There will be no "what aboutism" or "just asking questions" style of transphobia. Anything like that gets banned/blocked immediately. Shitty stuff happens, everyone in this discussion is aware of it. We do our best to make sure those conversations are opt in instead of opt out though.
Everything is influenced by politics, but not every discussion is about those politics. So no, in this space, not everything is political, except in an abstract sense.
If you're looking for a different experience to that, you may struggle with the moderation policies of this instance.
I'm trans and I've spent my whole life being told my gender is political. I believe that.
I'm gay and I've been told me whole life my sexuality is political. I believe that.
I'm pagan and since I became religious, I've been told that's political. I believe that.
I'm neurodivergent and I've been told asking to not be the victim of hate speech is political. I believe that.
Patriarchal society says everything good and decent in my life is political. I believe that. Everything good is political, and politics is awesome.
My whole life people who talk like Abigail have told me that apoliticism means they get to be transphobic. Homophobic. Sexist. Neuronormative. Ableist. Religiously intolerant.
I don't want people to talk like Abigail anymore. People who talk like that are mean. I want a safe space with lots of politics and trans people and gays and pagans and NDs and disabled people.
What are my options here? I could act like Abigail. I could use the language of my oppressor and say I hate politics, and redefine politics into whatever I don't like. I could implicitly accept the control of the ruling class and use their words to try and defend myself and the rest of the trans community. I could try to make my identity palatable to capitalism. "I'm not political, I promise. I won't disrupt the status quo"
Or I could say screw that, I'm political and I'm proud. I could reject the premise of the game that capital plays with my life. I could say the things they're doing are wrong, and I won't participate. I could use words as I see fit, and use them to protect myself and the community. I could construct a worldview that makes sense and doesn't oppress anyone.
And that worldview says: everyone loves politics. You're human beings, and that's a political identity.
lemmy.blahaj.zone/u/ada
You can be an advocate, you can be visible and loud and queer. But what you can't do is insist that everyone else has to do the same.
I'm like you in that I'm openly, loudly and proudly trans and queer. I do advocacy work, community building, public speaking, I've done queer community radio and will likely do so again in the future.
But for my own mental health, I sometimes need spaces where my life isn't that. Where I can browse and engage and talk about stuff in a light hearted way, without having my guard up all the time.
What I would suggest is that you take it to cis people, and you take it to gender diverse folk who are looking for those discussions. What you shouldn't be doing though is pushing politics on trans folk who, like you, have to navigate the reality of anti trans politics already in their daily life. Give them space to recover spoons and exist without the doomscrolling.
I think you're misunderstanding my intention. I don't want Abigail to get into arguments about hot button issues. I want Abigail to voice their disdain for arguments about hot button issues in a better manner. I want Abigail to say "I dislike controversy" instead of "I dislike politics". I think Abigail is embracing a definition of the word "politics" that harms trans people and a lot of other groups, and I think the entire issue could be solved by swapping one word for another. I completely understand and accept Abigail's dislike of controversy, but I think they've been tricked by politicians into thinking controversy and politics are the same thing. I'd like them to have a better understanding of the word "politics" and use it in places that don't remind me of transphobic arguments.
And what I'm saying is that this sort of talk of the semantics of queer discourse needs to be opt in for your peers, because not everyone has the spoons to deal with that discussion. Some people are explicitly trying to get away from it.
The only people that you should be forcing conversations on to are the people who oppress us, not your peers who share your oppression.
Seeing other queer people say they hate politics is triggering to me, because it reminds me of the way transphobes have attacked my gender in the past. Subjectively, it feels the same as seeing a slur. And I know that this language has horrible effects on the queer community, because I've seen it happen. I've seen gay people attack bi and trans people for being political. I've seen trans people attack enbies for being political. I've seen enbies with more acceptable genders attack xenogender people and neopronoun users for being political. And I've seen white people all over the queer spectrum attack BIPOC queer people for being political. I know from experience that speech like this is going to radicalise queer people against minorities and may contribute to someone being abused.
A person's right to avoid having anyone disagree with them ends when they harm other people. And this speech is harmful. If the goal is to make everyone safe and prevent hostile disagreements, then the place to start is with removing harmful speech that embraces the narratives of the oppressor and ends with people getting hurt. Nobody had to go and use this speech, it was a choice. It wasn't an informed or considered choice but it was still a choice that impacts other people. That's why it needs to be informed and considered. It's inflammatory and controversial in the impacts it has on how other people think, and I don't want to see it here. Removing political controversy means removing speech like this.
My dude, no. You completely twisted around my words and made a strawman. And your comment proves my point - this is exactly the type of behavior I was seeing from hexbear users. Following a community where people post pictures of their pets has nothing to do with animal rights/activism. I do not want to talk about animal rights, I want to see cute puppy pics and talk about how cute said puppy is. Ditto for all of your other slippery slope arguments.
All groups are inherently political? Please touch grass.
I agree with the sentiment on your breakdown, but it's important to recognize the distinction between the technical definition of politics, and the colloquial one: most people mean partisan, mainstream, and/or heated discussion of government policy that's highly controversial. If you stretch that colloquial definition just a tiny bit, once any discussion gets contentious, groups start to form, and they start adopting talking points that fall on deaf ears to the other side, that's when you could get the average person to consider it a "political" subject.
The person you responded to pretty clearly was operating under the popular meaning of the term. I've given people similar spiels to your own, but there's a thing people mean when they refer to something as political or apolitical, and while there's theory and textbook definitions to draw upon, there's also value in getting to the crux what they're trying to say even if they don't use important words in the same you do. There should probably be a succinct disambiguation, is it lowercase p politics as in the workplace latter of office politics, or is it the uppercase P Politics where the discussion is over society-level legislation and policies? Ubiquitous politics vs niche politics? Perhaps there's a book someone wrote on the subject 50 years ago that we can use as gospel on the correct way to refer to these different concepts.
There's a certain level of (near) unanimous group cohesion that doesn't feel political to participate in because everyone present seems to be in agreement to keep the peace. Without a political "other" being formed for each side to mock and deride, disagreements are relegated to personal taste matters that people can just agree to disagree and still allow each other in the same space. I think the key is when people start strategizing how to get more people "on their side", because one of the goals of political action is to rally other people onto a cause. The dynamic is markedly different, with a shared group purpose with the future at stake.
There are times when a subject is worth bringing issues to light to spark politics within a "non political" group. To give an example, I'm really glad that the ethics of designer dog breeding has been called into question and heavily criticized, because some really fucked up things have been done to the genomes and resulting quality of life of countless dogs. I'm sure there were plenty of people who bemoaned the Animal Rights Activists coming in and "bringing politics" into the prestigious activity of seeing whose dog with a genetically squashed-in nose could run the farthest despite its impaired respiratory system. In situations of that vein, where harm is being actively done and bringing attention inspires positive change, the naysayers can cry harder and deal with it. I'm not a vegan but I can get behind the cause especially on a policy level to end meat subsidies and even outright ban factory farms.
But there are plenty of situations where a big-P Political topic doesn't need to be brought up, especially if it's almost entirely tangential (and especially if it goes beyond one or two relevant threads under an innocuous post). If there's an ethical problem, a bad actor, or some other injustice, by all means: speak up. Otherwise, it's best to respect people just having a chat over a hobby or admiring art; not every comment section needs to be railroaded into the same tired talking points about how everything is degraded under capitalism and the climate is being destroyed (points I'd almost certainly agree with you on, by the way). They have their place and they shouldn't be pushed aside entirely, but that place isn't anywhere and everywhere.
There is value in having spaces where people do not have to be reminded of stressful things; we have enough of those already. The mental health benefits alone to not having 24/7 doom spiral content can't be overstated.
At the same time I do think people need to just be okay with ignoring, hiding, or manually filtering out content they don't want to see, because at the end of the day it will pop up in unexpected places from time to time. There are plenty of ways to do that on Lemmy, I know Sync has some pretty good filtering features for those who want them. I would encourage people to make use of said filters as needed, even if just to improve the overall experience and reduce spam that would show up in their feed.
I appreciate you trying to educate this guy, but it's a two day old troll account. They're intentionally being pedantic.
Y'know what, that's a pretty good observation and I feel like I spent way too long on my response either way
You're right that when most people say politics, they mean "opinions I disagree with". But if someone hates hearing differing opinions, they should say that instead of saying they hate politics. And the reason for that is that our belief that politics is disagreement with the status quo is propaganda. The ruling class wants us to hate it when people disagree with the status quo, so they find a name for it and tell us it's bad.
I've spoken to dozens of people who "hated politics", and 90% of them couldn't even define what politics is. Probably because they didn't want to admit that what they hated is differing opinions. The word politics as it exists in propaganda is a thought terminating cliche. It destroys introspection, critical thinking, and rational decision making.
The truth is, human beings are given at birth a tremendous love for politics. Humans are a social species, and politics is the building of society. Humans love that shit, they can't get enough of it. That's why all the best books and movies are political. That's why Disney is "woke". Politics sells because everyone loves it.
I'm not of the mind to bow down to this thought terminating cliche and let people walk around demanding things with no critical thinking. If someone wants to tell me that politics is bad, they better have thought it through, or I'm going to make a fool of them until they stop making a fool of themselves. They better bring a definition to the table, because I've got a definition and it says everyone loves politics. If someone can't define what they hate, then they obviously have no idea what they're talking about and I'm not going to go along with their cliche. They're going to have to explain what they mean and say "I want to stop everyone on the internet from disagreeing with me".