Update:
The comments from this post will not be removed as to preserve the discussion around the announcement. Any continued discussions outside of this thread that violate server rules will be removed. We feel that everyone that has an opinion, and wanted to vent, has been heard.

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Original post:
Yesterday, we received information about the planned federation by Hexbear. The announcement thread can be found here: https://www.hexbear.net/post/280770. After reviewing the thread and the comments, it became evident that allowing Hexbear to federate would violate our rules.

Our code of conduct and server rules can be found here.

The announcement included several concerning statements, as highlighted below:

  • “Please try to keep the dirtbag lib-dunking to hexbear itself. Do not follow the Chapo Rules of Posting, instead try to engage utilizing informed rhetoric with sources to dismantle western propaganda. Posting the western atrocity propaganda and pig poop balls is hilarious but will pretty quickly get you banned and if enough of us do it defederated.”
  • “The West’s role in the world, through organizations such as NATO, the IMF, and the World Bank - among many others - are deeply harmful to the billions of people living both inside and outside of their imperial core.”
  • “These organizations constitute the modern imperial order, with the United States at its heart - we are not fooled by the term “rules-based international order.” It is in the Left’s interest for these organizations to be demolished. When and how this will occur, and what precisely comes after, is the cause of great debate and discussion on this site, but it is necessary for a better world.”

The rhetoric and goal of Hexbar are clear based on their announcement: to “dismantle western propaganda” and "demolish organizations such as NATO” shows that Hexbar has no intention of "respecting the rules of the community instance in which they are posting/commenting.” It’s to push their beliefs and ideology.

In addition, several comments from a Hexbear admin, demonstrate that instance rules will not be respected.

Here are some examples:

“I can assure you there will be no lemmygrad brigades, that energy would be better funneled into the current war against liberalism on the wider fediverse.”

“All loyal, honest, active and upright Communists must unite to oppose the liberal tendencies shown by certain people among us, and set them on the right path. This is one of the tasks on our ideological front.”

Overall community comments:

To clarify, for those who have inquired about why Hexbear versus Lemmygrad, it should be noted that we are currently exploring the possibility of defederating from Lemmygrad as well based on similar comments Hexbear has made.

Defederation should only be considered as a last resort. However, based on their comments and behavior, no positive outcomes can be expected.

We made the decision to preemptively defederate from Hexbear for these reasons. While we understand that not everyone may agree with our decision, we believe it is important to prioritize the best interests of our community.

  • thoro@lemmy.ml
    1·
    2 years ago

    L.

    And that’s why I’m glad my main accounts are not on world, which has just been a different flavored, smaller Reddit since its inception.

  • rist097@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 years ago

    You guys really just want people who think the same way as you on your instance. You should clearly state that instead of letting people waste their time here.

  • Outcide@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 years ago

    Personally, I’d rather just block the stuff I don’t like rather than have lemmy.world trying to decide “who’s worthy of federation”.

  • Deftdrummer@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 years ago

    Right, so because a community has different views than the leftists you all think it’s your place to “protect” users preemptively without discussion or reason, basically fucking worse than Reddit?

    You’d better think long and hard on that.

  • amcjv12@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 years ago

    This is too quick of a movement towards defederation. Except in the most extreme of circumstances, it should be up to individual users whether they want to engage with other communities, and users can always block communities they find objectionable. It is not in the best interest of users to treat them as being incapable of making their own reasoned decisions about this kind of thing.

    Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of the fediverse, I can just make a new account on a different instance and start engaging with Lemmy that way. Anyone have any recommendations on alternatives to lemmy.world?

  • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 years ago

    Gotta say, pre-emptive defederation seems like a bit of an over reaction. There’s plenty of leftists in other instances, not just hexbear and lemmygrad. Hell, I’m an anarchist that regularly comments on political/social threads in this instance, it doesn’t seem to be an issue. Lemmy in general is pretty obviously far left leaning. I don’t see the harm in federating with hexbear, unless they show themselves to be actively harassing or trolling. But you’d have to federate first to find out if they will

  • odbol@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 years ago

    I have no idea who Hexbear is, but it’s well documented how th IMF and World Bank work to endebt developing countries to the US’s corporate rule and then steal all their resources… Are we… Not allowed to talk about that here?

    • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
      1·
      2 years ago

      I would like to second this. The OP reeks of opinionated bullshit. Being against NATO and a western hegemony in the world is absolutely a legitimate political opinion, whether you agree with it or not.

      • ClamDrinker@lemmy.world
        01·
        2 years ago

        The opinion of Hexbear doesn’t seem to be the problem, and because of certain ideological overlap to users here that should be quite obvious in my opinion. You seem to have focused on the wrong part of the OP.

        The problem is that they are presenting themselves as an ideological army. And especially that the admins of Hexbear seem to support this position, rather than it just being some rogue users.

        Imagine if a Lemmy instance opened up for a specific religion and their whole point was to inject themselves into as many discussions as possible to push information favorable to their religion. The problem isn’t that they believe in their religion, or even that they want to make the best case possible for it. It’s the fact that they are trying to wield open discussions as a sword to convert people regardless of relevance or appropriateness.

  • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 years ago

    I echo the dissatisfaction people have with this and won’t be donating again. This is Lemmy.world not Lemmy.(we need a safe space from the communists)

    The fact you were upset about Beehaw’s defederation but then turn around and do this is massive hypocrisy.

    This is you imposing your personal ideology on your users. The fact you lead with those 3 “concerning statements” tells us everything. You only like free speech when it aligns with your own beliefs.

    Shame.