this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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Blahaj Lemmy Meta

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Blåhaj Lemmy is a Lemmy instance attached to blahaj.zone. This is a group for questions or discussions relevant to either instance.

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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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[–] [email protected] 183 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (25 children)

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

[–] [email protected] 85 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I just don't understand the defense of Soviet Union and China. Just because western civilization committed atrocities doesn't make "communist" ones any better. "We're" suppose to be better than that. Actual communism wouldn't need to commit atrocities

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago

Zookeeper insists the elephants will behave outside their enclosure

[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

It really feels like the people who grew up on 4chan and later came out as queer, but never learned how toxic that was

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

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

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[–] [email protected] 125 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Haha.... They can deal out the punishment but they can't take it themselves... Thought so. Never in my life have I been called a slavery apologist, but 10 mins in hexbear was all I needed.

[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 year ago (26 children)

Yeah, they've created their own little echo chamber of propaganda + bots and lost touch with the real world.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago

It's beyond an echo chamber in there.

It feels sort of like an isolated village of eldritch abomination worshippers in a Lovecraftian horror story.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago

Any level of nuance or logic is frown upon. Did you not make sure to say how evil America was in your post? That normally calms them down.

[–] [email protected] 100 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, look at that. The trash took itself out.
Indeed, fuck tankies.

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[–] [email protected] 84 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago

Fuck 'em.

Fuck tankies.

[–] [email protected] 78 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (17 children)

reminder:

left-unity means authoritarian entryism

tolerance must function as a social contract, or not at all.

reject auth apologists.

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Reminds me of the often-told story of the punk bar bartender and nazis

based on @iamragesparkle;s tweets

I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, “no. get out.”

And the dude next to me says, “hey i’m not doing anything, i’m a paying customer.” and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, “out. now.” and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed

Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, “you didn’t see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them.”

And i was like, oh,ok and he continues.

"you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.

And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it’s too late because they’re entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.

And i was like, ‘oh damn.’ and he said “yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people.”

And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven’t forgotten that at all.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

That may be the best story I read all week. Thanks. Ha "and then he went back to ignoring me."

[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I have been so glad that Sync allows instance blocking at a client level. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, but after seeing 4 posts from their instance that were just in bad faith "but it's a joke". I went ahead and filtered them and luckily haven't had to see it.

[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 year ago (5 children)

When I first saw some of their posts I thought that we'd federated with a right wing instance tbh.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It really was incredible. I blocked and unblocked the instance three times, each time thinking I was overreacting, but finally just left it. There were some interesting discussions but it was absolutely drowned out each time by attention-seeking edge lords.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

Ya. Took me really sifting though posts to realize it wasn't right-wing. I came to the conclusion it was all trolls. Trolls I can ignore if it's silly fun like there pig poop thing but they where a bit much with the owning libs part. But then they where super defensive with their queer members so... I just left them be and laughed at their antics. Guess it's quiter round here now.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 year ago (1 children)

ok il note to add fuck tankies to the sign on of a social home instance

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Fuck hexbear. I don't know if they just didn't try to federate with pawb.social or if they got preemptively blocked (or maybe they went, "ew furries" and nothing of value was lost), but I'm very glad they aren't federated here. It means I only get exposed to them via comments, and the ones I tend to see don't shine a good light on the community, especially when they brigade instance meta posts.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago

Drama is so exhausting.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago

My best wishes to the Admins, the whole thing must have been exhausting and depressing. I purposefully stayed out of the entire discussion since I'm not a member of Blahaj. I think it's for the better, because I have read a lot in hexbear and the people there are absolute toxic and unhinged. The mentioned Lemm.ee thread was absolutely swarmed with people from hexbear. Like, 3/4 of the comments must have been them. Anyway, wish you all the best.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago

I ended up filtering the whole instance. The users there are just so obnoxious

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"you can't fire me, I quit!"

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I made an account on blahaj zone a while back. seeing hexbear posts on the all feed (coming from lemmy.world, they're nowhere) with a load of troll and straight up unhinged commenters was really off putting :/

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

I have to be honest here, I’ve done a lot of my casual browsing the past week on my Lemmy.world account because of this. A lot of communities were just awash in the same three talking points that read like straight off Sputnik.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (17 children)

I like hexbear, but i suppose it comes down to a rather ... "abnormal" type of "liking".

There is definitely a pattern of asshole behavior from hexbear users, but they're fun to verbally spar with and they make Lemmy feel lively.

In the same way that capsaicin causes spicy food to be spicy by stimulating nerves that are intended to warn us of pain and injury while in fact it's actually harmless, I find hexbear's vociferous users to be endearingly abrasive.

Because turnabout is fair play, they're fair game to be rude to. By choosing to interact in a hostile nature, they are consenting to receive hostility. It's only fair. If they can't handle it, then they shouldn't be dishing it out. However, the exchange must be proportional and bigotry can not be allowed.

"Tankie" is not a slur any more than "Lib" is. If they honestly believe that it's socially acceptable to use "Lib" as an insult, then it's sheer hypocrisy to object to "Tankie". But all other known slurs, ableist slurs, sexist slurs, racial and ethnic slurs, are out of bounds and should be reported, and offenders ignored.

If they don't like this arrangement, then they have no business acting like they do outside of their instance and defederation may in fact be necessary.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Makes me happy to be on beehaw where we never had to deal with hexbear in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Is that why I haven't heard of them before? I switch between Beehaw and Programming.dev and I just noticed them everywhere on the latter

Politics aside, I find their comments to be callous, elitist, and rude. And I heard "a few bad apples" arguments but honestly it doesn't seem to be a few. All of their posts in my feed are aggressive. And have huge "look what this idiot dolt said before I owned him" energy

If admins aren't willing to defederate then I'm happy Sync has an instance-wide block

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I actually left lemm.ee because the sentiment there was anti-defederation. I don't regret it, my experience here has been far better without them.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago

I just started using my .world alt for the same reason when my lemm.ee account use to be my main. Hexbear just made lemmy unusable for me. If I wanted to wade through Russian apologia and genocide denial I'd be on twitter.

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