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:
- 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
- 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
- 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.
Small caveat: the United States dropped two nuclear weapons to end a fascist dictatorship in Japan that ran a war of oppression against over a billion people. Including countless warcrimes and crimes against humanity that killed millions of people in occupied countries.
I think that point just reinforces your argument.
This is propaganda. I am not claiming you are aware of this or are intentionally spreading it, but it's propaganda all the same. It was invented to whitewash the mass, unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of Japanese civilians by the U.S.
When you read about Hexbear users getting a little chippy, this is the type of thing they are generally getting chippy about: propaganda that excuses great evils.
Noted commie rag Foreign Policy: The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan. Stalin Did.
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey:
I couldn't have said this better myself. All I have to add is shaun_vids' seriously detailed (and long) compilation of all the information we have regarding the decision of of dropping the nukes. The conclusion is that the Japanese were already trying to establish surrender negotiations but were being entirely ignored, the US didn't care and instead dropped both bombs despite being well aware the war was already over. They mainly just wanted to be seen as the 'sole victors'.
Over 200,000 civilians murdered solely for capitalist posturing.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=RCRTgtpC-Go
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Good response, thank you for being civil
🥰
That may be your belief, but that doesn't make you RIGHT.
JFC. You are smugly self righteous.
I myself have spent considerable time researching WW2 history, have visited the Hiroshima traveling exhibit, and have listened to survivors interviews.
Yes, the bombings were horrific. Yet I still think they lead to less loss off life than a dual amphibious assault on the 4 Japanese mainlands by Russia and the United States.
Japan had a long history of militancy and they were a fascist state. They murdered millions of people and invaded what, 7 countries? They were attempting to occupy and colonize all of East Asia. Australia was on the list. War crimes and crimes against humanity were rampant. Nanking. Unit 703. Bataan Death March. List goes on. Their government did not value life.
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Following the first nuclear bombing, the military leadership also attempted a coup by attempted kidnapping of the emperor. A good chunk of their leadership was betting on the US running out of steam and giving up. Japanese are super fanatical which is something I don't think westerners understand.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident
This was after TWO nuclear bombings. You think these guys would give up without a fight?
How many times have you been to Japan?
Even ignoring the fact that the necessity of doing so is still hotly debated to this day, in my opinion that was always a hard argument to defend. We're talking about upwards to two hundred and fifty thousand civilians.
Non-nuclear air raids in Japan killed as many as 900,000. 1.3 million wounded and 8.5 million homeless.
The war was absolutely horrific but focusing on two an ball nuclear bombs in a condo lift that killed what, 53 million people is in my opinion myopic.
That's the equivalent population of the entirety of South Korea wiped out.
Good point. They didn't just test the nuclear bomb on Japanese civilians. They also tested napalm.
These bombs were at no point necessary. The US murdered these people to show off a new weapon. I'm sorry, but this talking point is a product of how history-- as the general populace knows it--has been shaped by US dominance. It has no actual basis in reality.
This is a perfect example of something that's come up a few times here in this thread. People are saying 'Oh, they're so angry. They're so angry.' Well why is that? It's because beliefs like these are so deeply ingrained within the culture of the US and the broader hegemonic core, and are so completely removed from reality, that it's utterly tiresome being inundated by them day in and day out.
The USSR already defeated Japan. They just killed 100s of thousands innocent people to show the world what they would be willing to do.
The soviet invasion of Manchuria which absolutely decimated the fascists army in less than a month is attributed by historians to be the far more likely cause of their surrender.
The soviet combat performance was much less important than the fact that Russia had just broken their alliance with the incredibly war crimin' Japanese Empire. Not exactly something that I would want to call out if I was on Team Red. Just sayin'.
Liberals will just make up anything
So you support defederation then. Interesting.
We support dunking. We thrive on it. We're used to libs saying the dumbest shit we've ever heard, but at least put a modicum of effort into your blatant lies please. Raise the hoop above our ankles, we yearn for a challenge.
If you'd actually like an in depth and informed history on the use of nuclear weapons in Japan and soviet intervention in the pacific theater of WWII, this video is an unparalleled resource in its thoroughness and conciseness.
https://youtu.be/RCRTgtpC-Go
I know there's irony in calling a 2hour video concise, but hey, history unfolds over months and years, so cutting it down to 2 hours is in fact relatively concise.
What does that even mean?
Are you so incapable of having an online discussion and are worried you might not "win," so you have to invite all of your "online friends" to gang up on a thread to discredit an idea.
This just shows your logic skills are weak. Maybe you should look in a mirror and reflect on your motivations and how you engage with your fellow humans.
I'm just getting the feeling that you are "dunking" (whatever the heck that means) in bad faith.
Dunking is pointing out the stupidity and hollowness of liberal rhetoric with flare. It's cathartic to call the smug morons who think they're the good guys idiots with easily demonstrated facts. For example, all the self-respecting morons who have swallowed historic revisionism regarding the use of atomic weapons vaporizing 200,000+ civilians, one of the greatest war crimes of the 20th century, and still somehow think America are the good guys when it comes to foreign policy.
Your wild inferences about fear and ganging up are pretty weak logic in action lmao. You don't know what a word means so you just guess wildly and immediately start drawing inferences from your (incorrect) guess work? You must be real cool at parties. So sorry that there's more communists than you thought and we're an active instance
Non-aggression pact =/= alliance. It was signed after 7 years of hostilities along the border and in the context of existential threats to both powers being prioritized.
This is literally just shit you can read on Wikipedia, a notoriously anti-communist source. Libs do be wildin' out here with easily dunked claims.