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.

  • @[email protected]
    3•1 year ago

    I’m speaking from experience after wasting countless hours trying to have actual conversations. Even tried direct messages but whenever I did that, it felt like I was speaking to a whole different person. They would clam up and be like “sorry, don’t wanna talk about it” or something.

    • @[email protected]
      12•1 year ago

      Can’t imagine why someone wouldn’t want to have a DM conversation with a person who thinks they’re worse than a flat earther

      • lemmyvoreEnglish
        2•1 year ago

        Ah, but they feel fine presenting their views to a large passive audience?

        • @[email protected]
          6•1 year ago

          …a forum post, where you might actually have something resembling a real discussion, is of course preferable to someone who thinks you’re an idiot bothering you in your DMs.

      • SovereignStateEnglish
        13•1 year ago

        You should see what happens over on the 'grad when we give liberals reading recommendations.

        “Fucking tankies, never willing to open their minds to new ideas.”

        “Here’s some new ideas!”

        “No.”

        • @[email protected]
          15•1 year ago

          A liberal on Lemmygrad thinking he’s got some new ideas to show the tankies is hilarious.

          ”Have you even read Xi’s Wikipedia article?”

          • @[email protected]
            8•1 year ago

            Let me tell you about how calling a Chinese guy a yellow bear is the funniest thing ever and definitely not an unconsciously racist thought-terminating cliché.

            • @[email protected]English
              -1•1 year ago

              I guarantee you nobody thinks of it like that except those like you who are trying to undermine the actually funny reality that Xi does look like Winnie the Pooh. Chinese people are not fucking yellow anyway, they’re pretty much the same color as “white” people.

              • @[email protected]
                4•1 year ago

                I guarantee you that it is blatantly rooted in orientalism and treating 1 billion Asian people as either agencyless victims or buffoonish idiots, and it’s never questioned that crackers “joking” about him a yellow cartoon character would be a problem. This is a longstanding trope with roots in Western “race science”.

                You can also find it in the ethnic rhetoric used against Russians at the moment - “savages”, “hordes”, “orcs”, and the classic false trope of sending masses to die as an attritional strategy (the last one also being literally Nazi rhetoric). You also saw it in the anti-brown islamophobia after 9/12.

                When the US wants to target an enemy, they have very little trouble playing on the unquestioned racism of their audience. They often don’t even think it’s racism at the time - or even afterwards unless sufficiently embarrassed.