Just throwing in my 2 cents, I've had the most infuriating argument with some braindead fucking hexbear tankies, but I absolutely still believe defederation is not the answer. As a leftist, I believe in free speech and freedom of autonomy and association. I just block the worst ones.

If hexbear can keep a reign on their users and they understand they need to follow other sub/instance rules when posting there, and proactively bans abusers, then that's good enough.

edit: also @sunaurus your post is excellent btw

Since lemm.ee seems insistent on staying federated with Hexbear, can anyone recommend a working instance (.world keeps crashing on me) that's defederated them?

I'm not tech savvy enough to know how to check whose defederated them and personally I find that their low-effort high-spam trolling in every thread they see to be off putting enough that I've been going back to Reddit because it feels less toxic. I liked the culture at Lemmy before Hexbear showed up and if possible I'd like to get that back. Thanks in advance!

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.

Please never apologize for this. The Soviets were some fucked up people who did fucked up things to tens of millions of people. Nobody should be eyeing their symbology favourably.

I appreciate the post and your thoughtful reflections. I think I agree on your perspective: defederation should be the absolute last resort (at least for a "generalist" instance like ours, not specifically dedicated to a group of vulnerable people).

I'd like to see what the users of Hexbear have to say, even if I might not agree with them.

I'd say let's keep them federated and see how things go. If resources permit it, mods should keep a watchful eye for propaganda and other unacceptable content.

Also, if users have the ability to block comminities (which is something I was not aware of), they should do it, if they so wish.

Again, thank you for your thoughtful message and for asking our opinion.

FWIW, that's someone directly saying that their goal is to go out and proselytize.

First off, thank you @sunaurus ! Being an admin is tough. Being an admin that tries to build bridges, is even harder.

I vehemently dislike the "if you don't like them, you can block them" advice that is frequently given out. As a thought exercise, what is the equilibrium state of that method? New users to a community, coming in without a mature block list, would see 3 sets of users: a far-left echo chamber, an everyone-else echo chamber, and a verbal brawl of trolls in the middle. This is not a welcoming scene and will drive new users away.

With Lemmy, I ask myself what is the intent of moderation. "To enforce the rules!" is shallow reasoning. Why do we have rules? I put forward that the rules are there to maintain and build a community (dictionary definition). They are not there to enforce a particular worldview or economic system. While I staunchly oppose hexbear and grad viewpoints, I would not defederate them over their political views. That said, it is extremely hard to stay engaged on Lemmy when there is background of constant, shallow hate and derision thrown at me and my views. The atmosphere created by these comments go beyond simple political views.

Hexbear is confounding. On the rare occasion when the topic is kept nonpolitical, I find the comments helpful or informative. However, it's a sad fact of humanity that you can make anything political if you try and if you've built a strong personal identity around political views, this happens almost automatically. And that is where things go very wrong. Taken as a whole, that brigading effect is hard to ignore. You ask yourself if you're really welcome here, do you belong? "GO BACK TO REDDIT IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT!"

I am an American and another person's observation really resonated with me: it felt like arguing alone against a crowd Fox News viewers. There was an entirely alternate set of facts and you were instantly labeled, stereotyped, and insulted for holding a different opinion. Do I really want to spend a lot of time in Fox News land? And if this analogy holds, is it the intent of Lemmy's various admins to allow for one instance to mandate the tone for the entire Fediverse?

I do not share your optimisim that things will improve based on an updated code of conduct. Hexbear admins have good intentions to balance their ideals with good fediverse citizenship. I think we will continue to see friction between worlds without much stronger rules of engagement.

Thanks for all the work you've been doing admining this instance @sunaurus.

My immediate opinion from this post was that we should defederate from hexbear, since I've felt myself put off of browsing lemmy because of what I perceived as their annoying comments. I'll admit, by annoying I meant constantly bringing up leftist ideology into threads where it was just plain irrelevant. I'm liberal myself, just not as leftist as the average user on hexbear is. But sometimes I just want to browse my memes in peace, y'know?

But after reading through the comments on this thread, I'm now a little more apprehensive about supporting defederation. It's now apparent to me that the reason why their comments have leftist undertones is because that's what characterizes the instance. Hexbear wouldn't be hexbear if their userbase were centrist or right-wing. Hexbear is hexbear precisely because (for better or for worse) they provide a home for leftist ideology.

Furthermore, there are a couple of reasons why it seems like they're "brigading muh memes." One is because they're such a large instance (larger than us, but certainly smaller than lemmy.world). The other is that their interface doesn't allow downvotes, so the only way they can voice disapproval of an opinion is by literally voicing their disapproval in the comments. I personally think this is an excellent system, if it can be moderated well. I see it as promoting discussion. However if it's not moderated well, good discussion ends up getting drowned out by the shouting of village idiots.

A lot of people are pointing out how 1.4k of the 1.8k comments on this post are from hexbear users. That's ~5.8% of the instance's 24.5k member userbase. The remaining 400 or so comments come from a mix of lemm.ee and other instances. Assuming all 400 other comments from from lemm.ee users, that's 2% of our userbase. Undoubtedly, the percentage is even less because that assumption is definitely false. Thus, hexbear has a participation rate that's almost triple ours (with the best case assumptions in our favor). I'm sure the probability of encountering one (or many) of their village idiots is high. This probability is undoubtedly increased due to the fact that their instance systematically encourages participation because of their lack of downvotes. And if Trumpists demonstrate anything, it's that stupid likes to participate.

I'm intentionally avoiding using the word "discussion", since I recognize that participating in a thread and discussing in a thread are two very different things. Both village idiots and good-faith intellectuals participate, but only the latter's participation can be characterized as discussion. I've seen both types of hexbear users in this thread.

I'm wary of us defederating from hexbear. It seems like we'd be condemning a political community for the actions of their (admittedly rather vocal) village idiots. On the other hand, it's not clear to me if that community's moderators really care about controlling their village idiots, especially since they are undoubtedly wreaking havoc on other communities. My guess is that the wisest course of action is to wait and see how their rule changes take effect. If their new rules are able to control their village idiots, then I see no reason to defederate.

There needs to be a way to block entire instances at the user level.

I find myself having conflicting thoughts about defederation in general.

Much of mainstream social media these days leads to isolation of ideologically-opposed communities from one another and pushes together more like-minded communities ("echo chamber"). I think that's a bad thing.

I don't find Hexbear's culture a good fit for me, and though I share many of the same political sentiments, that's why I'm using lemm.ee and not hexbear.

I would not enjoy it if a large group of alt-righters suddenly federated with us and became a very vocal presence, even if a large number of their users were often polite, because I am so strongly opposed to those politics.

How to balance between an "all or none" approach and avoid perpetuating an echo chamber? I'd say continue bolstering controls for individual users to decide and federate widely for now. The more visibility the instances have among each other, the more overall awareness there will be in the user base of which communities are truly bad actors vs. large, vocal, and a little immature.

From my own experience hexbear has been very annoying lately, all I see on my Lemmy feed is politics (which is generally ok I am also here for politics but they literally spam it) and rage-bait by them, also their custom emojis are huge (I don't know if it's just me since I use sync) and often take up entire comment sections.

The same way as with tolerating open fascists, just letting them be around as long as they're "nice" will give them ample opportunity to spread their propaganda in a more covert way. Some things will look innocuous enough and won't be cleaned up, other will create drama on being moderated, so the mods might have harder time deciding. This won't break their echo chamber, as such things existed even in the ever-open reddit. Just cut them off, it will be better both for the communists around, and for the "non-ideological" crowd.

I believe you handled this situation well, kudos for keeping a level head and trying discussion rather than employing a knee-jerk reaction and blocking the entire instance (or defederating)! Especially considering some of the comments made (like those about your country) seem to have hit you in the feels.

Imho some hexbear users make really high quality posts / comments and engage in discussion or discourse.. While some shit-post and meme everywhere and anywhere. I would be lying if I claimed that I never cracked a smile over a few of these :3

As always, users have the option of blocking any community they find distasteful. I maybe biased in this regard though as the major reason I joined .ee was the "open" approach to federation.. If users are seeking more of a "curated" environment may I suggest one of the many, many instances which would better suit their preferences.

MHO... I would not miss Hexbear at all if they were defederated. Most of the content I see from them is pretty obnoxious, and even the "nice, polite" posts have a strong sealion scent to them. I block most of their communities when I encounter them in my All feed, and will probably block the instance once Lemmy has that capability.

That being said, I support the decisions that @sunaurus is making in regard to Hexbear. His decisions about site administration and moderation have always been sensible and competent.

I'm all for staying federated. They're style of posting isn't to my taste but I'm not seeing any broad trends that lead me to see the requirement for defederation.

Thank you for your candour, and much respect for you going against what could have been personally easy for you to do. Your adherence to your principles over your emotions and personal experiences show a really strong character.

This instance is my go to, recommended instance. You've shown great technical leadership and now you're showing leadership in moderation. If people don't want to see hexbear, they have a choice in .world or beehaw (who seem to defederate quicker than Chelsea putting in a bid for a player they've just heard of). The fact that .ee can differentiate gives users that freedom to choose.

I do think that those opposed to federation with hexbear are a loud minority and using the same arguments as was applied against lemmygrad and lemmy.ml. In many cases they aren't nuanced views, just recycled lines repeated. It's so frequently and so similar, I have wondered if it's brigading. Is this people who were on exploding heads that are still angry and trying to get even?

Please ignore the initial hot response you'll get, and give people time to come to terms with and accept what you've said. They often push and push and push until you yield, and you need to keep strong to maintain this as your choice, which it should be. Even if you do defederate later, do it on your terms and based on clear criteria of what you feel is right. Many will agree with my view, but don't always wade in on debates. Often the ones that respond are the ones that are most emotionally agitated. I am responding to show support for you and what you have been through, and thank you for your transparency. I respect your integrity.

For disclosure: I am a leftie, but personally opposed to communism. I am opposed to authoritarianism on both sides of the political spectrum. I welcome debate with people that differ from them views. I'm already frequently immersed in debate with Americans that have a very different view of capitalism, and I can live with that. I ain't a snowflake, and I don't endorse cancel culture (I do feel a whiff of irony here and I think it's important to raise that rhetoric the right often throw at at the left, because if you believe if free speech, you believe in free speech).

From what I've seen of hexbear users in the wild, we wouldn't lose much by defederating. Their shitposting and general antagonism to anyone right of Stalin adds nothing to instances beyond their own

Thank you for the very well thought out and detailed post!

I specifically chose lemm.ee because I want to moderate my own experience to a large degree. I'd more support defederating from from spammy instances like lemmit.online which just repost threads from Reddit.

Nice to meet you and thanks for hosting this instance !

I was insulted pretty crudely by a couple hexbear users, unprovoked. However I also understand not everybody has anger issues and I can give other users the benefits of the doubt. I would vote to not defederate.

I agree with you. Also I want to say that it's not just hexbear, I have seen groups of users demand defederation from other instances (not just on lemm.ee) because they don't like seeing NSFW and politics (and other topics I'm sure). If we resort to defederation for any conflict then why are we even here trying to grow Lemmy, it's clear that it wouldn't go anywhere and we should just pack up and go back to Reddit and beg u/spez for forgiveness.

Federation is the main point of these platforms, otherwise they are just a bunch of obscure forums walled out from each other, none having enough resources nor userbase to grow into anything meaningful, and quickly being abandoned.

Can't wait until users are able to block instances so this becomes a non-issue. Probably a compromise could be defederating until the feature is ready, not sure if that's possible, and on the event Hexbear admins/mods not do enough to moderate.

As someone who has gotten many, many, many rude comments from hexbears, I felt the need to share my experience. (Some of the comments from hexbears were polite though.) These comments had me brooding over them all day long for a couple of days. (I have since then moved on.) I listed the links to the rude comments below, but I think I should make it clear that while I used to support the idea of defederating from them, I have changed my stance since I heard about the upcoming changes to Lemmy allowing users to block instances. I am no longer in favor of defederating from hexbear.net. People should be able to decide this for themselves, but it is too much effort to switch instances to decide which instances you don't want to see.

Please do also note that I chose to leave out the polite comments in the list below. If you don't want to click on every link, just check out the first one and the last one.

(roughly in chronological order)

There are so many people who believe that the ideology suppressed by the government is always bad. While this is sometimes the case, this is definitely not the case for authoritarianism. (Edit: what I meant was that the ideology suppressed by the government is authoritarianism, which many hexbears seem to support)

Edit 2: Before this is inevitably pointed out, I should admit that some of my comments were rude as well. I apologize for those comments.

Defederation should only be done against instances that are full of bots or have technical issues (such as that one instance that had its time wrong for a while, causing problems.)

My instance defederated from them without much explanation. My first experience with their users was quite negative, super sketchy posts with WW2 type stuff in the comments on an unrelated post. Generally, I try to avoid culture war type stuff, but the few shocking things I've seen, have unfortunately been mostly coming from that instance. Couple of aussie and shit just works ones too, but the majority from the aforementioned one.

I'm a fan of hexbear and like being a lemm.ee user. Hopefully things work out.

I appreciate your well written post. After reading, I get the impression that I joined the correct instance.

Thank you for your hard work here.

Thanks for the write up. I came to lemmy.ee because lemmy.world is defederation happy. That's how I first heard of Hexbear. Several defederations later, here I am. You're right, us, users can block communities and users from whichever instance they come from. We all curate our lists of communities. We are in charge of our experience if we are allowed to. I did not feel like I was in charge on lemmy.world and that's why I'm here. Defederations should really be thr very last resort and even then considered super carefully and perhaps put to discussion like here or a poll.