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:

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. 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.

    • ennemi [he/him]
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      171 year ago

      I was mostly trying to point out that you’re not as well informed as you think you are. Landlords being “evil” isn’t something I’m interested in demonstrating because there’s nothing materialist about that analysis. It’s just cathartic maoposting.

      I can spend some time explaining why rent-seeking is unethical and a net loss for society. When I get back home and if I’m not too drunk.

      • @Firemyth@lemm.ee
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        11 year ago

        Great- I readily admit to not having read much Marxism or communism as the basics of it don’t make sense to me. And from the interactions I’ve had with your community I’ve no desire to ever pursue it. If you people are the example I know what I need to know already.

        If you can explain why rentseeking is unethical without devolving to “I have a philosophical disagreement” I’d be happy to hear it. Even better if you have a real alternative for people that doesn’t involve stealing people’s property.

        • ennemi [he/him]
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          1 year ago

          Frankly, you seem like a decent enough person. I see no point in being condescending anymore. But before we seriously talk about housing, we have at least two hard problems to solve. The first being :

          without devolving to “I have a philosophical disagreement”

          It may very well lead to that. If I believe that not only housing but also housing security are inalienable human rights, and you instead believe that these things should be earned, then what we have there is a hard contradiction. If you and I agree on that, and you happen to believe that capitalism with well implemented reforms is the best way to achieve that goal, then we could get somewhere.

          Even better if you have a real alternative for people that doesn’t involve stealing people’s property.

          This also poisons the well a little bit. When the French overthrew their monarchy, they effectively “stole” land from the royal family and privatized it. Was that going too far, in a nation where serfdom was practiced? In other words, are property rights more important to you than human rights?

          Conversely, when the soviet union collapsed, how do you think all that land was de-collectivized? Did they go back in time to 1917 and retrieve all the deeds of long-since-dead people, trace their descendants and just give the land to them? What if those descendants did not exist? No, what happened was : gangs armed with AKs and armored vehicles roamed the streets and enforced their claims. The Russia we know of today is the product of that period of time.

          They are not unique in that way. In the western world, probably every single inch of private land was at some point under the dominion of a now-extinct polity and taken by force of arm. Is there a statute of limitations on “stealing” land? It’s kind of a big question right now, since we’re re-litigating the status of native Americans and all that stuff.

          Now, if I argue that our economies should serve humanity rather than the other way around, are we in agreement?

          If I argue that the simultaneous existence of empty houses and unhoused people on its own should be interpreted as a massive failure of our economic system, are we in agreement?

          I suggested earlier that repeating strong and succinct messages was far more effective at shattering axioms than any form of long-winded debate. You interpreted that as promoting demagogy, and I can’t really blame you. Still, we can argue if we are comrades. Otherwise we’re in conflict. Does that make more sense now?

          • @Firemyth@lemm.ee
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            11 year ago

            I believed in a perfect world everyone should have everything they need. I also believe we do not live in a perfect world.

            Do I believe the current system is broken? Yes. Do I believe reform would work? Yes. Do I believe I’ve seen any kind of plan or actionable theory of how to change it? No.

            Do I believe empty houses while people are homeless is wrong? Morally, yes. Realistically- not my fault and not my problem. Can’t fix that but I can do what I am doing.

            Ideally yes governments and economies would serve humanity- again we don’t live in an ideal world and the human condition will always prevent that.

            We probably won’t get anywhere because:

            I also believe that if these things were to be done it would involve the government- not me- providing these things. In this ideal situation I would also be allowed to buy property(or whatever thing) and rent it to those who can’t afford it themselves. This means more taxes and excluding lobbying, gerrymandering, corruption in general. I believe every system fails to corruption because that’s just the human condition.

            Yes that’s sort of what happened when ussr collapsed- not entirely. A lot of the apartments went to the current residents… like alot alot. There’s a reason I know this. However what you mentioned also happened. And it sucks. It’s not fair. But there’s no way to be fair about it. Now the legitimate (uncontested) government has control of things and that’s just where we go from now. Going back through history is pointless.

            I also disagree that shouting at people is effective. Especially when you appear to be shouting x when you really mean y.

            I’m much more willing to listen to someone who lays out a well constructed argument rather than some rhetoric that on its own makes no sense.

            • ennemi [he/him]
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              1 year ago

              I believed in a perfect world everyone should have everything they need. I also believe we do not live in a perfect world.

              That’s intellectually lazy. I described something that is both easy to conceive of and (in my opinion) completely achievable with modern means. At this point we should be talking about implementation details and not acting like “housing humans” is a pie-in-the-sky idea. You are the outlier if you think it is. You have to defend that abnormal belief.

              Do I believe the current system is broken? Yes. Do I believe reform would work? Yes. Do I believe I’ve seen any kind of plan or actionable theory of how to change it? No.

              I am trying to get there. First, admit that it’s both a possibility and a worthwhile goal. Otherwise we have nothing to discuss.

              Ideally yes governments and economies would serve humanity- again we don’t live in an ideal world and the human condition will always prevent that.

              Again, this is intellectually lazy, and completely without substance. If you truly believe that, then just don’t have opinions. Don’t question the credibility of others. Be a consoomer and live your life never thinking of injustice.

              We both know that’s not how humans work. The human condition is incredibly malleable. We built modern civilization on moral education. We should in theory only get better at that, so long as we can see people’s material needs fulfilled. Historical progress is synonymous with the adoption of shared principles for the greater good of the collective.

              I also believe that if these things were to be done it would involve the government- not me- providing these things. In this ideal situation I would also be allowed to buy property(or whatever thing) and rent it to those who can’t afford it themselves. This means more taxes and excluding lobbying, gerrymandering, corruption in general. I believe every system fails to corruption because that’s just the human condition.

              I despise this idea liberals have that humans are necessarily greedy or corrupt or what-have-you, but if that really is the case, then why would you design your system purely around self-interest? Why would you allow slumlords to run rampant with no accountability? Why not remove greed from the equation and collectivize housing?

              Yes that’s sort of what happened when ussr collapsed- not entirely. A lot of the apartments went to the current residents… like alot alot. There’s a reason I know this. However what you mentioned also happened. And it sucks. It’s not fair. But there’s no way to be fair about it. Now the legitimate (uncontested) government has control of things and that’s just where we go from now. Going back through history is pointless.

              Then there is nothing to enforce its legitimacy other than violence. In other words, the state is legitimate, until it is overthrown with violence. I’m glad we agree on that. Lenin had the right idea.

              I also disagree that shouting at people is effective. Especially when you appear to be shouting x when you really mean y.

              I’m not talking about shouting. I’m talking about appearing cooler and smarter than your opposition. Yes, it’s fucking stupid. Yes, it works. Welcome to modern politics.

              I’m much more willing to listen to someone who lays out a well constructed argument rather than some rhetoric that on its own makes no sense.

              You’ve given me pretty much nothing but prevarication, so I frankly doubt that.

              • @Firemyth@lemm.ee
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                11 year ago

                Well that civility was short lived…

                No, you.

                You are lazy for not looking at how humans have worked since the dawn of time

                You are lazy for thinking you’ve given some actionable plan when you’ve literally done nothing more than “can’t we all just get along.” Saying just give houses to the needy is stupid. Noone is ever going to do that. Petition governments to provide increased housing- sure. Create an initiative to build homes for free- great I’m all for you doing that. Do x thing that helps: sure. You do that. Telling people you need to just give up your stuff and return to monke- not a solution.

                You are… lazy.

                Worse- you think you are smart because you read a book on Marx and try to use ridiculously unnecessary words.

                Why use an extraneous amount of verbiage and syllables when a diminutive amount suffices?

                Pseudo intellectual is the worst kind of intellect .

                • ennemi [he/him]
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                  1 year ago

                  It’s not difficult for me to write like this. It takes very little effort. It’s also a bit sad that it intimidates you so much.

                  There are solutions we can talk about. Rent-to-own, central housing commissions, urban planning reforms. We are not getting there because you are dodging the vital question, which is “are you a shitty person or not”

                  I should have trusted my instinct. You are completely unserious. Hope you grow out of it.

                  • @Firemyth@lemm.ee
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                    11 year ago

                    Oh ninja editing will get you nowhere sweetie.

                    We could talk.about those ideas and they would be solutions. I’ve mentioned them myself numerous times.

                    I’ll just answer your rhetorical question with another:

                    Are you a moralistic antagonistic piece of shit?