Hello comrades. In the interest of upholding our code of conduct - specifically, rule 1 (providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all) - we felt it appropriate to make a statement regarding the lionization of Luigi Mangione, the alleged United Healthcare CEO shooter, also known as "The Adjuster."
In the day or so since the alleged shooter's identity became known to the public, the whole world has had the chance to dig though his personal social media accounts and attempt to decipher his political ideology and motives. What we have learned may shock you. He is not one of us. He is a "typical" American with largely incoherent, and in many cases reactionary politics. For the most part, what is remarkable about the man himself is that he chose to take out his anger on a genuine enemy of the proletariat, instead of an elementary school.
This is a situation where the art must be separated from the artist. We do not condemn the attack, but as a role model, Luigi Mangione falls short. We do not expect perfection from revolutionary figures either, but we expect a modicum of revolutionary discipline. We expect them not simply to identify an unpopular element of society 
, but to clearly illuminate the causes of oppression and the means by which they are overcome. When we canonize revolutionary figures, we are holding them up as an example to be followed.
This is where things come back to rule 1. Mangione has a long social media history bearing a spectrum of reactionary viewpoints, and interacting positively with many powerful reactionary figures. While some commenters have referred to this as "nothing malicious," by lionizing this man we effectively deem this behavior acceptable, or at the very least, safe to ignore. This is the type of tailism which opens the door to making a space unsafe for marginalized people.
We're going to be more strict on moderating posts which do little more than lionize the shooter. There is plenty to be said about the unfolding events, the remarkably positive public reaction, how public reactions to "propaganda of the deed" may have changed since the historical epoch of its conception (and how the strategic hazards might not have), and many other aspects of the news without canonizing this man specifically. We can still dance on the graves of our enemies and celebrate their rediscovered fear and vulnerability without the vulgar revisionism needed to pretend this man is some sort of example of Marxist or Anarchist practice.
Many of the posts and comments that got removed were not lionizing him though. They were simply presenting him in a positive way without including an essay on how he is actually bad and wrong.
This comment and others like it are correct, there is nothing I disagree with in iie's comment, but it's missing a big piece of the problem. Like you correctly said, there is a difference between lionization and critical support. But people here who do give him their critical support are also being told they're bad and wrong too, and that their comments and posts need to be removed.
Also, I should have called out this wording earlier but I was trying to wind down the conversation, not get deeper into it:
That wording, “writing an essay about how he is actually bad and wrong,” kinda treats the whole thing like a big joke. Why? The guy retweeted a post mocking trans people. It almost feels like you’re rolling your eyes at the idea that we need to disavow that here, on a site where half of us are trans or nonbinary.
That kind of ambiguity is why the mods are taking the stance they’re taking.
It doesn't at all treat it as a joke. It points out the absurdity of having to prove your ideological bona fides every time you want to post a meme.
Once again, not at all. We should and do disavow his transphobia. I certainly do as a non binary person. I take transphobia extremely seriously, partly because I have no choice not to. However we are still capable of praising him for what he did, as we should in my opinion (though I'd never punish people for not doing so while it seems there are at least a few here want to punish me for doing so). There are actually many people in this world who are, sadly, surely transphobic, but still get my critical support. While Luigi is absolutely not the same as the Iranian state, the following analogy fits because your implication that I should not have the right to praise him reeks of liberals telling me I don't have the right to praise Iran, seeing as they are misogynists and more. It is here that I often explain to them the meaning of critical support. I wouldn't have thought that necessary to do on hexbear. And please don't be like that wrecker who got banned or the other people just trying to win a bad argument by saying "but but Iran is a totally different thing than some guy doing an adventurism! (no shit?) How dare you even talk about them in the same sentence!" and intentionally missing the point. Which is that the concept of critical support is widely applicable, as it clearly applies in both situations.
That kind of ambiguity does nothing to make me feel safer. I wasn't even sure I wanted to come right out and announce to people on this site I'm nonbinary (not because there aren't awesome NB and trans people here, just because I don't want that used against me at some point by wreckers or fascists from federated instances). I also know my experience doesn't apply to all non binary people, but especially if you aren't trans or NB, don't use us to try to score points. I also wouldn't say I feel "unsafe" by mods making this rule, but I certainly feel unwelcome because of it. I certainly feel like the overreach is real and obvious, and I've already given a big example of a well-reasoned and very thought out comment by a trans woman whose comment got removed for bogus reasoning. That doesn't make me feel safer here as a queer person, it makes me feel like people here will use me as an excuse to do what they want to do anyway, something I'm painfully familiar with.
Until you responded, I wasn’t sure, we’ve never spoken before, which was what I meant by “that kind of ambiguity”—the ambiguity of whether someone lionizing Luigi on hexbear knows about his transphobia and just doesn’t care.
I looked in the modlog, and this is maybe two comments. It’s not worth having a struggle session over. Fundamentally, moderating what we can say about a CEO-killing transphobe is not an exact science.
The comment and post removal has been going on for longer than this thread has been around, and most of them are now below the recent threshold. For example, I was especially irked by the removal of Awoo's 80+ upbeared comment near the beginning of the thread. If you look at the modlog, it is no longer visible because so many other modlog actions have happened in the meantime. But I started commenting in response to her before the comment was removed because I had been watching all the other removals that had been happening for the past couple days prior. None of those are now visible unless you look them up by username. It is worth having a struggle session over mods removing posts and banning users for, for example, making really cogent, theoretically consistent comments like Awoo's.
You're right, it's not. Which is why I can't get behind the idea of mods making it a rule to remove or ban things that are just a little too celebratory (depending on the mod at the time and their mood) of something when we should be taking advantage of the groundswell in mass support of this individual for their actions.
Is that the one where she said she'll work with any anti-capitalist who isn't an outright Hitlerite? The one she immediately copypasted and repeated after her ban was lifted? I doubt you agree with this, given what you say in this comment chain, but if that would actually be your stance, that would mean you would welcome any transphobe, racist and sex pest into your org as long as they are also vaguely on the same page about the bourgeoisie as you. I'm not picking these examples for nothing, we see leftists collaborate with such elements for the sake of building a greater movement over and over again, and it reliably fails, because you are throwing the most revolutionary elements of society, which are always overrepresented in the marginalized groups, under the bus for the sake of courting the chauvinist labor aristocrat reactionaries, the least revolutionary element within the working class. This is how the US bourgeoisie was able to utilize racism in the trade unions to split labor activism, this is how Antideutsche split the German left with their support for zionist racists, outright terfs and known abusers within leftist orgs. It's the mistake Lenin made when he told the German communists to work with the social chauvinists who murdered their comrades and sided with the restaurative forces who ended up enabling the Hitlerists. It's the mistake that Stalin made when he ordered Mao to work with the Kuomintang against the Japanese imperial army, which fortunately ended in less of a catastrophy, but still led to thousands of Chinese communists being murdered by the KMT forces they were ordered to cozy up to.
This is a dead end. You can only build coalitions with people you can trust to not actively harm you. Tey do not have to be perfect, but they do have to be reasonably safe to be around. You cannot put that trust in people so deeply infected with reactionary thought. You can try to educate them, people can change for the better, we have examples for that on this site, but you do not change them by tolerating their chauvinism. You have to show the chauvinist where he is wrong and where he has to respect the boundaries of his comrades. This is not possible when chauvinism is treated as normal and irrelevant or even acceptable, as it reliably is in the removed comments.
Also, nothing of this has to do with not "taking advantage of the groundswell in mass support". Nobody here is arguing that you should completely disavow Luigi's actions, or should scold people who are having an awakening rn due to them. Literally nobody here says "it's bad that this guy shot a CEO". All that is taken objection to is that pointing out his views on this site, among PoC, trans people and women who are directly targeted by his eugenicist, transphobic and misogynist views is actively brushed aside by some people.
At this point, outside of this site it's just memes and being happy about a dead CEO. Which is cool and good. I appreciate that. It's something all of us can and should actively work with to radicalize people. But as this progresses, there will be situations where we have to educate people about the limits of his views, and we are not prepared for that when we hero worship this guy or engage in wishful thinking where we make up redemption arcs for him.
I don’t really want to litigate specific comments, especially this late at night, but, while I think I see where she’s coming from, I don’t think it’s a shocking overreach that her comments were removed.
When you draw a line, some things will be near the line. That’s a pretty unavoidable part of moderating any website.
We’re shitposting to each other on a niche forum, we’re not taking advantage of anything to do anything.
Well, I and about 80 other people here disagree. She also couldn't come back and defend herself since she was banned too.
Good reasoning not to start drawing unnecessary lines.
So is it a shitposting forum, or is it the only ideologically pure umbrella leftist hub? Is this just a casual place where we shitpost so the things we sat don't matter "irl," or is it imperative that we refrain from praising anyone here who is not in line with our ideals lest we "support" a fascist? The answer is that it's always whichever one most fits with the argument someone is trying to make. I have spoken with people I met in the lemmyverse over zoom and then as I got to know them better, directly over our phones. They told me I was one of the biggest reasons they became a leftist, and that they learned what a leftist even was while in the lemmyverse. Maybe you're "not taking advantage of anything to do anything," but don't apply your shortcomings to me.
They banned Awoo? What the fuck
she caught a three day, spoke in private to someone, got that three day cleared up, then came back and did the same thing that got her banned in the first place catching a 7 day. She'll be back, people need to chill.
for dm harassment. get a fucking grip.
It is a forum where everyone is already a communist.
What you say here on hexbear, you are saying to an audience of 99.9% communists and 0.1% people who wandered in.
So, praising Luigi here is not “taking advantage of anything to do anything.”
When you are recruiting, off hexbear, say whatever you need to say. Praise Luigi all you want. Most members of the public barely know anything about his reactionary views. But here on Hexbear, which is supposed to be a safe space, his views are common knowledge, and we’re all communists already, so there’s nothing to be gained.
(The italics is just for emphasis, I’m not trying to sound like I’m shouting.)