I saw a post that talked about racism towards people and when I talked about it the response I got was very heated and a person even called lemmy.world a community of ‘hitlerites’
I have been around for a week or so and this is my first time seeing such explicit vulgar reaction towards another community, is this a one-off or should I block hexbear?
Hexbear, together with Lemmygrad and Lemmy.ml are left wing, communist instances here on Lemmy.
A lot of (new) users of Lemmy have very strong - as in negative - feelings about them because of their ideas. Which to me makes sense because a lot of these users tend to be more centrist in their views and have never read Marxist literature before.
I will be honest with you and tell you my experience: they can be dickish and straight up trollish in their behavior, but not anymore than your average online trolls. The actual main reason people dislike them, is because they stick together and sometimes “brigade” post which nominates them and talk shit about them.
I personally was on the receiving end of their trolling when I first joined Lemmy too. But among the trolls, there were also very nice users who gave me friendly replies. And I had great conversations with them.
Eventually I even decided to open an alt account in one of those instances to learn more about their views and engage with them on their political knowledge. I really enjoy learning from them and having open conversations about politics with them. Even when sometimes I see their more extreme opinions, I still try to always be open minded at first. More often than not, I will learn that something I used to think on a subject, was the result of historical misconceptions or straight up propaganda. That is not to say that they can’t be wrong of course. But it pays off to be receptive about new points of view.
There are some elements that can be considered extreme, especially to someone from the general public who has never engaged in political conversations with someone who is very much to the left. It takes a little adjustment if you want to try and engage because so much of the media and literature we consume reinforce our views on the system while they specifically try to be critical of it.
Bur FOR SURE you will never see that instance be racist or bigoted. I have lost counts how many times I’ve seen that in other instances, but with them, you know exactly where they stand on that. As in, they do NOT tolerate that.
Tldr: Hexbear (with Lemmygrad and Lemmy.ml) are openly communist instances on Lemmy. They are very vocals because they have a large userbase. They can be trolls that stick together sometimes. If you are politically interested/involved, I instead recommend joining one of their instances to see for yourself.
Edit: you can also tell how much people here have a negative feeling about those instances by the reactions in this post. Everything remotely critical is upvoted, while anything that even hints a positive opinion of them, will be downvoted. And then more and more users will start downvoting without even reading the comments. And they will start attacking users because they disagree and feel the need to attack them because “that instance bad”…in a way not too dissimilar from the brigading I mentioned before for some of the users from those instances. Showing you a real life example of how there are extreme users in every online community
I think this is probably the fairest description. Hexbearians are dickish trolls sometimes. Unfortunately, because Hexbear was the biggest Lemmy instance for the longest time, a lot of communities found this initially overwhelming, plus the big jump in political perspective is too jarring and can seem nonsensical.
But I believe anyone who takes a moment to engage in good faith with the cool users, and ignore the trollish ones, will see you can have constructive, interesting and caring discussions and realise what the attraction of the community is.
Sorry this is not true. They are very aggressive and attack every viewpoint harshly when it disagrees with their very radical beliefs. The reason instances ban them is they are not here for the conversation. Nothing good comes from that community, only confrontation.
Sorry this is not true.
It is true. That’s MY experience with them
They are very aggressive and attack every viewpoint harshly
And? I do too when I’m heated about a topic. If your viewpoint is to defend fascism, why not attack it? And I’m not talking specifically about you here. But if we’re debating, I expect someone to bring a good debate.
The reason instances ban them is they are not here for the conversation
Sorry this is not true.
And I already gave my explanation as to why in my original comment.
Nothing good comes from that community, only confrontation
So just like your comment? Lol jokes aside, I already addressed everything you said before. But I’m happy you were able to disagree and get it out of your system. I’ve noticed a lot of Lemmy users have this weird obsession with those instances, when in reality they are just instances. They have both shitty and normal users. It’s always more nuanced than that.
Just cleaning up after your whitewashing. Good try though. Their community is just a bunch of trolls like you said. I’m glad the instance I use block overtly toxic ones.
Just cleaning up after your whitewashing
What crimes exactly has any of those communities committed? I must have missed those posts.
Also…I admitted some views can be extreme/incorrect. I never said they are the perfect instance. None is. And that’s not how you use that term by the way, my friend
Their community is just a bunch of trolls like you said
That’s not what I said :) you are very obviously misquoting my comments
I’m glad the instance I use block overtly toxic ones
Neat. Good for you then, that’s the beauty of the fediverse
The amount of pride these people take in their ignorance is astounding… anything that conflicts with their worldview, well it must be fake and you must be lying!!
Note to OP: probably not best to take advice on a topic from people that, in having explicitly blocked that topic from their feeds, have sheltered themselves from it in its entirety and aren’t going to have in-depth knowledge aside from their own worst experience with it or some rumor they heard of someone else’s experience.
You ever see the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the Enterprise is about to get ripped apart by an energy wave that responds more and more violently the more power they put into their shields?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_Worship_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)
There’s an analogy for your disparate experiences in the context of your dickish attitude.
Hexbear, lemmygrad.ml and lemmy.ml are the “Tankie Triad”.
Hexbear is the worst most extreme of them and lemmy.ml is the least which is why they’ve managed to avoid getting defederated from world (either that or because they’re like the third largest instance behind only .world and SJW)
Hexbear is pretty widely defederated
A lot of .ml users and communities are there just because it was the only big instance much earlier on. I’m in no way a tankie but still use .ml a lot (a community I run is on there) because it was the first one I made and i’m too lazy to look into new instances or switch.
Note: being on Lemmy for about a year, I didn’t live through the early days of this place. Here’s what I can recollect, as neutrally given as possible.
TL;DR The recent conflicts between two politically different groups on Lemmy have radicalized many people, and many Hexbear residents in particular. Unless you are to discuss the far-left ideas and are very radical about disadvantaged groups, you are safe to block it.
Hexbear is a far-left (as in actually communist) anti-discrimination community, initially more of a safe haven to promote equality and foster a healthy and welcoming place for leftists to come together.
With core developers of Lemmy also being far-left, Hexbear naturally fitted the landscape along with the official Lemmy.ml, heavy far-left Lemmygrad.ml and others.
As time went on, however, all sorts of left-leaning and apolitical folks, not just far-left, came to the platform, filling other instances like Lemmy.world (now the most populated of them all), sh.itjust.works and many others.
As a result, Lemmy has two groups of people with radically different political views: one is a group of more or less organized far-left, and the other is everyone else, most commonly liberals. This distinction has caused a lot of conflicts and heated discussions based on political adherence.
Most notable case is latest US elections. The far left side generally called not to vote Democrat as Biden has failed to deliver on many of his promises and empowered Israel to commit war crimes in Palestine, while the liberal audience called to vote Democrat to not let Republicans take the lead, which may arguably lead to an even worse outcome than unaccountable Dems can make.
This divide has raised a lot of mutual hostility, brigading, and uncivil behavior, which has radicalized many on both sides of the conflict, the consequences of which you have got to experience.
What to do with that is up to you to decide. Hexbear is very politically uniform and very political overall, so if you’re not here to discuss communism, you won’t lose much and will gain additional peace of mind.
This is by far the best and most informative answer. The only thing it’s missing as another couple commenters pointed out is hexbear is all about their oversized memes and emojis, making anytime you happen upon one of their posts extremely conspicuous (even if politics aren’t being discussed).
I would block hexbear. I’ve done it server-wide. They are mostly very loud trolls pretending to be communists. Some could be actual communists, but I don’t buy anyone actually wanting to be in such a toxic environment and believe what they claim to believe.
They’re “communist” if you believe that supporting the CCP is “communist” and that the usa is “capitalist”. It’s all just political tribalism to them, that’s why they are also anti-Liberal and at times very anti-Democracy. The actual definitions of any of these political identities is completely lost on them, all of these words only mean west or east to them.
TLDR: they are right-wingers pretending to be left wing
Why would supposed right-wingers be holding Leftist theory reading groups, hosting mutual aid comms, donating to Palestinian gofundmes, and supporting trans rights to some of the highest degrees on the fediverse? Irony? Seems like a silly hypothesis.
posted from lemmy.ml
I don’t see how that discounts anything, why would right wingers create a relatively isolated community to read Marxist and Anarchist theory, protect and advocate for trans rights, and frequently pin donation threads for Palestinians? Seems like way too much effort to be ironic, and defederating from other instances would hurt their supposed goal of “trolling.”
You’re forgetting that Hexbear and lemmy.ml tend to support Russia and the CCP, both authoritarian dictatorships with Russia being openly Fascist. This is because of the general “America bad” viewpoint on these instances.
While the US has its… problems, that doesn’t mean their geopolitical rivals are then magically all-benevolent. Multiple sides in conflict can be shitty, and ignoring the genocides that Russia and China have been committing over the past few years is unacceptable.
Hexbear, lemmygrad and (in great part) lemmy.ml are tankie instances.
They basically deny any crimes of Stalin, Mao etc…
Hexbear users will bully you to hell the very second you say something they disagree with. In my case, I said South Park is a funny show. They also think Putin is a good guy and at the same time they pretend 90% of their users are trans. Basically it’s a bunch of douche kids playing revolutionaries and intimating anyone they disagree with. My 2 cents.
Cis man declares himself the arbiter of trans-ness, only trans people who agree with him politically are valid. (He’s an ally okay, don’t point out his rampant transphobia or he gets pissy)
Yerbouti is a thin-skinned french canadian who is still bitter to this day that he went to a chapo show and they made fun of french canadians.
I’ve never seen anybody on hexbear say Putin is a good guy. And it seems pretty transphobic to say that they’re just pretending to be trans.
I’ve never seen anybody on hexbear say Putin is a good guy
Well I’ve seen a lot of user refusing to say he’s a authoritarian dictator so it’s basically saying he’s a good guy.
The same thing goes with refusing to vote Harris: that was basically saying you don’t mind letting Epstein’s closest friend rule the country because you don’t want to vote for a “lib”. Good job.
And again, I didn’t say people are pretending to be trans, I said I don’t trust Internet polls, especially anything that mones from hexbear. It seem hard to understand for you, but it’s not the same.
Now here’s my question: are you trans yourself? Because if you’re not, that would be incredibly transphobic and discriminating from you to pretend you can speak in the name of a minority group. Please reassure me.
Look man, if you’re just going to engage in this kind of wildly bad faith behavior, I really don’t see any point in continuing to engage.
I agree that this is not going anywhere But I’m not speaking in bad faith, I’m sharing observations from interactions I had with Hexbear users. Maybe you should ask yourself why, on a left-leaning website like Lemmy, almost all the instances have chosen to dissociate from Hexbear. Maybe if you believe everyone around you sucks, you’re the one that does.
Also, why can you just answer my last question? It’s a fair question since every god damn time the hexbear subject is brought, people like you call tranpshobic anyone who dares to criticize it. I will give you much more credibility on the subject if being trans is your reality. BTW, why would you call me “man”? Bold of you to assume that I’m a man.
🙄
Lots of accusations but can’t answer questions.
They mandate trigger warnings for pictures of cheese.
Base line Lemmy has a left skew. Hexbear people are the basis for probably a quarter of conservatives talking points.
Seems this post is being brigaded by hexbear alts fyi
Why don’t you asked them yourself? [email protected]
Probably a bad idea to ask about a Marxist instance on a .world community, since .world is known to be quite biased against Marxism.
I’ve frequently noted that you tend to get a very one sided answer when you ask, for instance, Mormons about Mormonism. Likewise, I wouldn’t expect a balanced and fair assessment of hexbear by asking hexbear mods and users.
The opposite is true, when you only ask people not federated with Hexbear you get equally imbalanced opinions. OP already did that, may as well ask on Hexbear as well to get the other side of the story.
Hexbear removes any questions or opinions they don’t agree with. They heavily censor the discussion and consider it a feature of their community.
Other Lemmy servers allow a diversity of thought and opinion. They allow people to question and disagree.
It’s not about sides of the story, it’s the difference between free discussion of individuals versus a standardized party line that cannot be questioned. The former tends to expose the truth, while the latter tends to obfuscate the truth.
Lemmy.world doesn’t allow any opinions from Hexbear, they defederated from them. That is more censorship, though less obvious because you don’t see the comments getting removed. Even then, comments still get removed for going against the “party line” as well, usually comments critiquing the Democrats.
What’s more correct is that Hexbear is more open and up front with its bias, while instances like Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works try to pretend that they don’t hold bias.
Bias you say? ROFL!
If you said this exact same thing in a community hosted on Hexbear or .ml, about Hexbear or .ml, it would be deleted, and you would be banned- 1st offense.
Don’t believe me? Check the mod logs. The admins there have banned people for far less.
The fact that your comment is allowed and you’re free to express it already belies your entire argument
Huh. Interesting that everyone not federated with Hexbear would have a imbalanced/negative opinion of them, wouldn’t you say? Why do you suppose that might be?
ITT: everyone says they’re bad without giving any examples, telling you what to think instead of letting you form your own conclusions.
Worse moderation than Reddit subs. Will ban any views that don’t fit their narratives. Just got a server wide ban for giving links showing how the ceasefire was reached by promising the right wing factions more of the West Bank as Trumps largest donor intended.
You know mod logs on Hexbear are public, right? It’s very, very clear that “giving links” is not why you were banned.
Yes I’m aware. Please quote or link whatever you think is ban worthy. Nice alt btw.
They’re decent people as long as you don’t argue politics with them… I think
Sometimes I like hexbear, agree with them and laugh with them, and sometimes their insular attitude makes me cringe. I am very critical of the democratic establishment in the US but hexbear’s “blueMAGA” talk is really offputting to me and sounds like the incel / redpill speak from parts of reddit and other online communities.
Given the liberal meltdown post election and inability to self reflect about the landslide loss, blue MAGA is entirely fitting.
MAGA is a movement that glorifies a Hitler like figure who has promised to put tens of millions of honest workers in concentration camps because somehow immigrants are the cause of all their woes. These folks were both willing to deny any loss for any reason and willing to kill their neighbors in a civil war to “take their county back” if they lose.
“bluemaga” are people what mad that America’s Hitler won?
Blue MAGA is the cult like belief that the democrats can do nothing wrong and any criticism of them is a vote for trump. It’s idiotic, just like their red MAGA counterparts. They’re willing to accept a genocide so long as their team wins.
Blue maga is a stupid stupid term by stupid stupid people
You’re just mad because it’s about you. What’s stupid is thinking voting blue no matter who being a winning strategy. That worked out for ya didn’t it. Lost the presidency, the senate, the house, numerous state governments and local elections. Great job liberals! You’d rather lose to fascists than embrace leftist positions.
Holy shit the sea of strawmen in this thread is insane.
I asked hexbear to see how they think in exchange
For people curious, it’s not as bad as it is portrayed and I believe the disdain is only in place because of their overwhelming support of China and USSR
That’s a very accurate assessment. Even on hexbear there’s contentious debate regarding China and Soviet Russia.
I just took a look at your participation in the hexbear thread you are referencing, and I’m confused about the issue. Seems like you got mostly thoughtful and positive replies. There was some .world bashing at the end including the bit you quoted. It seems strange to me that rather than ask questions about hexbear to the actual users there, you came over here to ask on an instance that has daily threads complaining about leftist instances.
block hexbear, lemmygrad, and lemmy.ml. And any user named “UniversalMonk” on any instance. You’ll thank me later.
“Oh no, block the people that want everyone’s needs to be met”
Who is UnversalMonk? Never seen him. Probably because div0 (my instance admin) blocked him for some petty bullshit like calling him an egocentric power tripping keyboard warrior
This post goes into detail about some of his shenanigans. Short version is he’s a ban-evading right-wing troll who pretended to be a big third party supporter up until the election, and now just regurgitates right wing trash all day.
