this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023

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Discussion about the aussie.zone instance itself

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Should we defederate hexbear? (aussie.zone)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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We’ve already defederated one tanky instance, and frankly I think I’ve rarely had a positive interaction with Hexbear users. Their defence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or of China’s genocide against the Uighur people, is hard enough to stomach. But what prompted me to post this is their commentary in this thread where even without any of the propaganda-based reasons to justify their beliefs, they seem to delight in being rude arseholes to people.

Personally, I don’t think they provide us any real value, no we’d be better off without them, just as we are better off without lemmygrad and exploding-heads.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Go to Settings in your browser.
Go to blocks.
Scroll down to instances.
Search for and block your instance(s) of choice.

Done! You'll no longer see any content from Hexbear.

We're pretty light touch with federation, and blocking instances is an extreme measure. It affects everyone. I don't think we would do it again without user consultation.

While I'm not personally a fan of their tendency to use their custom emojis in threads, they're an ok crowd. Some of their users do have alternate views on world events, but that's not illegal. They mostly keep that stuff on local. I'd probably step in if any actual misinformation or propaganda appeared here.

I can't recall them being among the commonly reported instances.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

My question about that option is: what effect does it have? My understanding is that if we defederate, they can see our content and reply to it, but only other users on their instance will see those replies.

Does an individual blocking them do the same thing? If so, perfect.

But if, as I suspect, it still allows them to see and reply to comments and everyone else in the fediverse can see it, I cannot support it as a solution to dealing with the kind of bad faith interactions engaged in by Hexbear. It allows them to continue peddling their rubbish without even enabling the person they're cribbing off of to respond.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I respect your absolute discretion as administrator to run the instance as you wish, but I would like to provide my humble perspective.

User's blocking an instance is not an alternative to defederation. I'm not talking about hexbear but if an instance is promulgating hatred and intolerance, then their impact can still be felt through comments and vote manipulation. I'm not talking about an antisocial comment that would attract a moderator's attention. I'm talking about the insidious manipulation of perspectives through vote manipulation that we all know occurs on social media.

FWIW I think every large and well run instance ought to have a policy & process where by federation / defederation is resolved. These are the circumstances in which we will defederate, and this is the process we will follow when considering whether or not those circumstances have been met. Although of course I acknowledge that the time and resources required to develop such a thing are limited.

As an aside, I suspect that the lemmyverse will fracture in the coming years. I'm not suggesting this for aussie.zone but in the future, I think many users will want to have instances federated by white list rather than black list, as in "we only federate with these other instances" rather than just federating by default.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I would like to believe that there are hexbear users that contribute well to stuff, but I'm yet to see it. 90% of the inflammatory posts I see are from their users and I'm yet to spot a single good contribution. I suspect the whole point of their community is to attract people that delight in the unhappiness of others.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I remember one once saying "we are terminally online and proud of that". pretty much the sort of people you would expect

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'd prefer not.

I think the benefits of the extra user base outweighs the negatives a percentage of those users bring.

Lemmy is already small and fragmented enough.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Is it worth growing if the growth is coming from toxic users? Hexbear users aren’t providing us value, in my opinion. Nearly every time I see them, they’re being rude arseholes. They set out to cause other people pain. If the growth of the Threadiverse requires letting in people who are deliberately hurting others, is growth really worthwhile?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I've not seen a disproportionate amount of drama from any particular instance, though I do have a habit of simply ignoring trolls and extremists which has been honed from years of participation on Usenet and forums.

I feel there's more drama being generated at the minute from posts complaining about users from particular instances, than there is from the posts by the users from those instances.

It feels more like tribalism than solving the paradox of tolerance.

It's also going to lead to the exact same bubble that Facebook etc generate by only giving you content you agree with. I'd rather see the content and choose to ignore it or argue against it rather than never see it in the first place.

In my opinion it is better to block the instance on an account level, unless the instance is engaging in more than saying words people don't like.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

@trk Coming from Mastodon, I have already learnt that it's not worth putting up with the negatives just to get a few extra users.

@Zagorath

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

With the ability to block instances yourself in 0.19, there's really no reason to defederate from instances unless they are causing disproportionate strain on our moderation resources and their admins refuse to do anything about it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

The issue isn’t exclusively with our communities though, because they still show up elsewhere.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Just tried to see what you mean in that thread. I can't really see any stand out stuff from Hexbears in particular, as opposed to other instance users.

But i am a pretty local creature, so maybe i'm missing the real egregious stuff from hexbear.

Side note, are Beehaw still federated with Aussie-zone? I thought they defeded from a whole swathe of instances months ago.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yes, we’re still federated with them. You can check the federation status of instances by going to [instance-root-domain]/instances.

In that thread, you’ve got:

Multiple users sarcastically pretending not to know what Beehaw is
A user making fun of them
"Don’t let the door hit you on the way out." Incidentally this is the comment that inspired me to make this post.
A user literally just laughing

And of course many of their users in that thread have the trademark transphobic sarcastic pronoun indicators.

Not one comment from a Hexbear user that’s actually providing valuable commentary. These are comments that are deliberately setting out to be mean, and do nothing more than that.

Many users from other instances that are critical of Beehaw in that thread (some great examples are azuth and donuts) are at least explaining why. Hexbear users are just arseholes, and seemingly proud of that fact.

There are rude users on other instances too, but not in such a high ratio as in Hexbear.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Id consider most of these examples you've provided to just be playful banter. Lemmy is a social network and you shouldn't expect every interaction to be completely serious all the time. Besides, one aspect of Australian culture is "bants with mates at the pub" and none of the things posted by HB users in this thread, or any other thread I've seen for that matter, come close to some of the horrid stuff I've heard be excused as "they're just joking around" IRL.

Why do you think that including one's pronouns in a username or bio is transphobic? Or do you take issue with a particular user's pronouns?

Finally, regarding your point about not being familiar with Beehaw, I'd point you to my first point about banter but also to the fact that Hexbear is a very large and old instance; up untill a couple of months ago they were running a version of Lemmy that did not support federation. The fediverse is diverse enough that unless you're on an instance federated with Beehaw or engross yourself in a meta thread about it, some of the confusion may be legitimate.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

to just be playful banter

Jesus that's very generous. It's "playful banter" in the way 4chan uses the term, or Donald Trump does, maybe. It's toxic behaviour, plain and simple. The only thing up for debate is whether they're doing it out of ignorance or, as I suspect, because they deliberately want to drive out the kinder voices.

bants with mates at the pub

Are usually, I dunno, funny? They're also contextual. You don't rib a mate when he's looking for sincere feedback, you read the room. In their case, they're reading the room and seeing a prime opportunity to prey on the vulnerable.

Why do you think that including one's pronouns in a username or bio is transphobic

It's not. The way they use this incredibly inclusionary tool to make fun of the concept, however, is. Saying their pronouns are "comrade" and "use name" makes a mockery of the concept. It reminds me of that old transphobic "attack helicopter" joke.

Hexbear is a very large and old instance; up untill a couple of months ago they were running a version of Lemmy that did not support federation

Is it theoretically possible that this is the case? Sure. But again you're being very generous to a group of people who have demonstrated themselves not to deserve that generosity. Especially when we're talking about people who care enough about the issue to comment on it in this thread.