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A note on fedposting / threats of violence
(hexbear.net)
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this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
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I think it would be good to set some real parameters here on what makes a comment a fedpost. There's a difference between wishing death on someone and making an explicit threat to a specific individuals life (aka actionable threat). Can I not say I wish Netanyahu would just fucking die? Can I not say I wish Trump were killed by a foreign state power? Can I not say I wish Gavin Newsom never makes it to the 2028 election due to an unforseen accident? Seriously, I'm not saying those things, really, I'm only asking if I can.
The heinous stuff we said on reddit that made us notorious was "slave owners should be killed." That's not fedposting. I really fucking hope we will always get to say that and things like it, even things like as mentioned Death to America. I can't imagine HB ever mandating that we can't, at least not until the fascists cracking down all over the net really kicks into high gear. But at that point, I feel like it wouldn't really be Hexbear anymore.
It really does come down to keeping this place as a site and community safe and functional and even more so keeping the users here safe in general. So clear boundaries on what is and what isn't considered fedposting would be an important thing for us to establish, and it might even need to change as the slide into more overt fascism continues apace.
Agreed but I never thought Hexbear would have done something as cringe as banning the "Lionization of Luigi". Not Hexbear's finest hour.
And that rule still stands.
It does? That's news to me.
It is news to you that the rule still stands? Well I could be wrong but it would be news to me if it had been retracted.
It was never an admin-agreee policy. Like at most I would zap someone for posting something like a list of addresses to CEOs houses while using a picture of Luigi as the thumbnail image.
Thirst-posting, news posting, bickering over whether or not anything has particularly changed since then, or even thirst-posting him while saying he's both innocent and being used as a scapegoat, I would say is free game.
I'm not sure how involved you were at the time, but there were plenty of people simply saying positive things about him, no worse than like "Luigi Rocks!" and getting their comments removed for it. You may have had a more understandable policy for how you enforced it, but the rule was made for silly reasons. The thing is, that rule was made for the purpose of removing posts and banning repeat offenders that held him up as a person who had done a good thing. But he is a person who did a good thing.
Thirst posting is always removed, as it should be. But one of the mods, former now, who was also enforcing the anti-lionization rule was doing so because they believed, still do apparently, that he was innocent and being used as a scapegoat.
Damn. We should ban Alaskaball for thirsting then
Anyways, as long as there's no actual fedposting, take it from this horses mouth you'll be Gucci
I'm not too concerned about what I can and can't say now regarding Luigi Mangione. I think we all at this point wouldn't bat an eye at anyone "lionizing" him as described in the rule announcement post. But I'd be lying if I said it doesn't still grate on me every time I'm reminded of it and that it technically is still a rule.
I don't mean to stir months old shit, but I still bring it up because I don't feel like it was ever rectified. Like one of those things all the involved (users and mods and admins) just tiptoed away from after it became more and more apparent how bad of a rule it was and how messed up some of the mod actions were around it (see below). It was a problem that never got addressed, and the rule is to my understanding technically still in place. I'll put a spoiler tag on the rest to make it easy to ignore for anyone who doesn't care and to not further derail OP's discussion of fedposting. But it still is important in my opinion to acknowledge what went down, and it does have actual relevance here where we're talking about potentially new rules on what constitutes fedposting.
spoiler
You said it was news to you that it was still a rule, but it is still a rule, isn't it? Just not one that gets enforced anymore.
The rule announcement, that I linked to in a previous comment, was made by an admin of the site, not just a moderator. I think it's safe to say it even became something of a struggle session. She may have mostly forgotten it at this point, I don't know, but I think @Awoo@hexbear.net would attest to it. Below is the text that still sits as just a Removed by Mod comment with 92 upvotes that you see a couple comments down if you follow the rule announcement I linked above. (92 upvotes on a removed comment. I wonder what the record holder is on Hexbear for upvotes on a removed comment, I would bet that one's in the running.)
If that's too hard to read and opening it up in a new tab doesn't work, you can see it here https://hexbear.net/modlog?page=1&actionType=All&userId=430 since it's not like Awoo has much in the modlog. (The supposed DM harassment also turned out to be a bogus excuse). I'm assuming you don't mind me pointing this out and tagging you, Awoo. I'll delete it in a second if you want me to.
I just really hate it when this sort of thing comes up around what is considered permissible speech here and the whole Luigi lionization episode slash struggle session is pushed aside or memory holed. Especially when that rule, as far as I am aware, still stands.
At this point I think the only thing going for it is the argument that he might not be the person who did it. In which case any lionization is essentially also the belief that he did it.
With that said, I think there is a struggle that needs to happen around this topic. On one side you have people arguing that such action doesn't amount to anything, but on the other side I argue that it did, it marked a complete turning point in people's view of violence. Before luigi you would NEVER get a liberal to admit political violence is necessary or good. After Luigi? Well that shit has changed. And not just in america, it rippled through views and the way people speak in europe too.
You want a revolution? You need the population, ALL the population, to believe in violence. These actions are a pre-requisite to revolutionary action as a whole.
The "DM harassment" was not really an excuse though. I did DM someone to argue my corner. I made mistakes in that whole thing too. Just turned out to be some other slimy shit going on that absolved me in the end when it was discovered people involved were US troops.
Many such cases!
Mmm hexbear is not immune to infiltration or ops
I'll say it more clearly. Porkrollposadist is not a site admin. This so-called site rule was not made by an agreement with agreement by multiple admins. The admin involved was repudiated for their decision behind closed doors. Awoo was both unbanned and restored to her previous positions. The only point I will agree to is that there was no public repudiation of the rule and that is purely because it is literally more trouble than it is worth to reopen struggle sessions.
I think most of the instigators in that shitshow are gone at this point. Frauddog deleted their account in shame after being outed as a vet. /c/gossip is no more (I'm lumping "we can't lionize^TM^ Luigi" together with the whole /c/the_dunk_tank debacle because the two struggle sessions involved the same people both pro and con). Lyudmila, the last defender of /c/gossip's existence also deleted her account presumably in protest over the closing of /c/gossip among other things.
Once the site gets rid of this anti-lionizing rule, the site can finally move on.
I think it was discussed that the rule wasnt really being imposed a couple of months after the fact, but I don't remember it being a pinned post or anything obvious like that. May have even just been a comment that I saw somewhere. But makes sense if you didnt see it I am just... Way too online lol
I just think we shouldn't cause he's innocent
Yeah pretty much, like saying "Death to the IDF" I'd imagine is fine, or Death to America, but I'd say no to "someone should shoot Elon Musk in the face with a high powered rifle", if that makes sense.
That makes perfect sense, yes. I just think it would be a good idea if in the "no fedposting rule" we defined precisely what the differences are between those two statements. Just so it's very clear to everyone where exactly the Trevor Line is on this site.