I’ve been trying to find a good Marxist instance, but Lemmygrad and Hexbear are widely hated. Why is that? Are there any good leftist instances?

    • Luke
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      1 year ago

      Hexbear in particular has been annoying in the past with nonsense comments from users there, and so many unhelpful replies that are just a tiny animated image and nothing else. I’m not even sure they actually are leftist as much as just trolls a lot of times, so I’ve blocked the instance in general so that serious leftist conversations aren’t being drowned out by that nonsense.

      If it looks like someone from hexbear (such as yourself here) is making a real contribution then I’ll reveal that comment and engage. It’s a shame there are so many goofballs on that instance, apparently. Maybe their moderation has improved though?

      • Doubledee [comrade/them]
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        411 year ago

        I think there was a culture shock when federation first hit. We had a ton of ‘engagement’ from people who were using ableist, racist, and transphobic slurs, which brought out strong reactions from our community because we believe its important to shut that stuff down on solidarity with our comrades. And as things got heated I think our willingness to believe people wanted good faith debate eroded.

        We do love a good dunking though, and I think overall the community has a lower threshold for going full pig poop balls on people than I would prefer.

      • spectre [he/him]
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        1 year ago

        Valid criticisms tbh (I even could say the same as a day 0 account lol)

        Moderation isn’t going to “improve” because they generally are fine with everyone being goofballs, so I wouldn’t expect that.

        Some people have the cascade of shitposting and useless emojis coming with their crappy views, but I don’t think our instance is great at propaganda or ROE, which is unfortunate. Would love to see what we could do with a little discipline.

        Also the emojis on every other instance and all mobile apps look more obnoxious because they don’t downscale to their intended resolution.

      • livus
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        61 year ago

        so many unhelpful replies that are just a tiny animated image and nothing else

        Here on kbin I don’t even see that, just text links with names like “pig poop balls”.

      • @Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Not to mention that before federating, hexbear always had a soft aura of antisemitism floating around it. They’ve cleared house of it since but I remember wondering why they were so disproportionally vitriolic about Trotsky until I learned he was Jewish, then it all started to click.

        Honestly I wouldn’t even be remotely surprised if I found out in a couple decades that website was run as controlled opposition. Feels like everything there is designed to either placate or turn people away from communism rather than push them towards understanding it. Compare it to Lemmygrad where they’ll reach a hand out to help reactionaries be less reactionary but on hexbear they just post a picture of a pig shitting on its balls and hurl harassing comments their way as if that’s somehow going to make them any less anticommunist. (and as a fine bonus, all those comments boosts their reactionary bullshit to the top of the federation for everyone to see)

        • davel [he/him]
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          91 year ago

          Opposing a settler colonial, apartheid State, which has been ethnically cleansing for three generations and is committing genocide as we speak, is not a “soft aura of antisemitism”.

          • @Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Obviously not, i’m talking about the people there who were using the leftist environment to shield their actual antisemitism. That shit’s been since wiped off the platform but that wasn’t the case back when I was there.

            You know the kind. The ones who would call them “Jews” rather than “Zionists” where if it was posted on reddit nobody would have trouble seeing the antisemitism for what it was but because it was hexbear it obfuscated their actual intentions. Outright antisemitism would get punished pretty hard which is why it’s a soft aura, since it just kinda hung around in the background seeing how much it could get away with. The mods/admins tendency to just ban people who went against the grain resulted in that shit being passively protected for years until the federation forced them to be at least somewhat accountable where blatantly silencing criticism wasn’t going to fly anymore.

      • @fred@lemmy.ml
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        11 year ago

        How did you manage to block the instance individually? I thought that feature wasn’t released yet…?

        • Luke
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          21 year ago

          I’m using Connect which has the feature to block instances. It shows comments from all users on a blocked instance collapsed behind a spoiler of sorts that can be clicked to reveal if desired.