And if something did maybe happen, it’s the CIA’s fault

  • OpenStars@discuss.online
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    2 months ago

    hexbear.net is known for discussion of what goes on in the rest of the Fediverse (I went and found a recent example to show you: https://hexbear.net/post/3645205). Whereupin people with accounts that are able to often brigade places that if we take the narrowest view of who “hexbear” users are, they would not have access to. It just goes with the territory of (a) being passionate about a subject, along with (b) caring not in the slightest bit about the consent of the recipients.

    I myself have multiple alts, and went to some trouble to ensure that it is barely recognizable which I am using (identical name and icon). I started on Kbin, and before it went defunct it got slower and slower so I switched to StarTrek, but it got slow for a bit too so now I made my final home on Discuss.Online. And when possible I will love to try out Sublinks, and probably I’ll try Piefed too then.

    If someone switches from their hexbear.net account, where they heard about this post, to their Lemmy.ml one for the express purpose to downvoting and trolling this post with their “commentary”, I would call those hexbear users. If you read hexbear posts, it won’t be all that long before you find people not only admitting but being outright proud of doing precisely that. Here’s a very tame one to get you started: https://hexbear.net/post/272530, here’s another: https://hexbear.net/post/277508, and another: https://hexbear.net/post/280770, and there are links from there and available by searching.

    • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      They even explicitly stated in one of their old federation threads that their sole purpose in federating with other instances is to “dunk” on anyone they disagree with and send brigades. This has been a longstanding problem with them, nothing they do outside of their instance is in good faith.

      • OpenStars@discuss.online
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        2 months ago

        Multiple of those links say that yeah. And the one where the admins took the vote, then ignored it and did the opposite of what the community asked. They are so toxic that they’ve even run off their own developers (I’m not sure if that really meant admin, but seeing as how iirc hexbear predates Lemmy it does make sense as actual developer too).

        Some hexbears have left hexbear bc they were kicked out - too toxic for them even - but also some were not toxic enough, as in even they could no longer stand it there.

        The only thing we absolutely must be intolerant of is intolerance.

        • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          And the one where the admins took the vote, then ignored it and did the opposite of what the community asked.

          That never happened. All votes are pretty easy to search if you feel like it.

          I don’t know about any of the other things you’re talking about, other than a bunch of users getting purged during the first year or so for being transphobes or western chauvinists or whatever.

          • OpenStars@discuss.online
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            2 months ago

            All votes are easy to search for and read, if you spend even a second doing so. Here, I’ve even done that for you: https://hexbear.net/post/1712067. One result is 41 to remain federated with lemm.ee vs. only 4 to defederate, that’s >91% pro vs. <9% con, but the admins ignored the 91% and did it anyway.

            Similarly, 27 to remain federated with programming.dev vs. 19 to defederate, not quite as dramatic but the former still is the majority at 59%, which is more than “significant” i.e. nowhere close to a tie that could have swung differently based on one or two or even 10% of all votes (which would be a little less than 5 votes, or 4.6 if we aren’t rounding to integers, but the difference here is 27-19=8 votes, so almost twice that).

            The admins even gave a lengthy explanation about it, including their reasons for having done so:

            As an admin team we have never wanted to prioritize growth, and we wanted to give federation with liberal instances a try, however we consider providing a safer browsing experience for marginalized users more important than the opportunity to dunk.

            I find the last phrase to be particularly revealing, wherein it is explicitly pointed out that the entire reason to have federated in the first place was for hexbear to spread its ideals, and even more to the point, to make fun of others by rubbing their purported “wrongness” in their faces. I hear nothing here about “interesting conversations”, or “listen to the POV of others”, or even “I might learn something by having wider access to the Fediverse outside of my echo chamber”. Instead it’s “the opportunity to dunk”.

            Now all those facts aside, the thing is, I said:

            And the one where the admins took the vote, then ignored it and did the opposite of what the community asked.

            Which I have now proved happened - bc 91% usually is thought of as being >9% by reasonable people. Though in response you said:

            That never happened. All votes are pretty easy to search if you feel like it.

            B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but, it did in fact happen. So even if there were good reasons for doing so, it is statements like this that makes me distrust everything that you choose to say. Bc you did not say that “There were good reasons”, you instead said “That never happened”. How long would it have taken you to search hexbear locally for the key phrase “defederation”? How is it that like an AI, you feel so free to state in such a confident sounding tone of voice that what I said happened had never happened - no caveats added like to your (very limited) knowledge, no asking me for a link to where I believed it happened, you weren’t asking whether or not it happened, you confidently asserted that it had not, ever. But in fact, it had.

            So now if you tell me that the Tiananmen Square massacre did not happen, … well it’s too late, I’m not listening anymore. You aren’t careful with your words, or your facts, proving that you don’t even “know” yourself what you think you believe. And I wish I could help you there, at least I kinda do - but I can’t, bc I don’t know how, and it takes far too much energy & time, e.g. for me to write all this out every time someone who does similarly, deciding (consciously or otherwise) to try to win a conversation by these kinds of tactics, e.g. sea lioning. But at least this much I can offer, just in case it could help someone.

            TLDR: If you don’t want people to think that you are trolling, then don’t act in the same manner that a troll would. Now you know.

            • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
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              1 month ago

              Well said! Unfortunately I doubt they’ll have a real response to it and just downvote instead.

              • OpenStars@discuss.online
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                1 month ago

                Thank you for the support. I doubt it too. It’s far easier to bully people who don’t respond back with factual discourse, so they’ll probably move on to lower-hanging fruit.

    • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 months ago

      That’s a fair way to look at it, yeah. I blocked the instance a whole back after being the target of the dunking culture and classification of statements like “peoples historically oppressed by a country can be reasonably expected to turn to terrible geopolitical powers, if faced with existential threat from said historical oppressors without other recourse” labeled as “fascist apologia” (referring to the USSR’s invasion of Finland, a country that was occupied and used as a battleground and colony by Sweden or Russia for centuries, leaving them with few options but the nazis to try to maintain a semblance of independence that they had previously won from the Russian Empire). If one can’t examine the mistakes of the past, they aren’t serious about trying to avoid them in the future and I ain’t got time for that shit.

      • OpenStars@discuss.online
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        2 months ago

        There are lots of REAL leftists here on Lemmy. I haven’t researched enough to even know if I am truly one, but anyway it’s obvious that they are children (of whatever physical age) merely playing at philosophical and political concepts.

        They constantly claim to be the victim, citing how “unfairly” they are treated, always conveniently ignoring that it’s not their political beliefs that turn people away, but their abusive toxicity. Using tactics such as controlling the conversation, which apparently works on their instance, but can’t hold a candle when talking with a real adult.

        However, since anyone who even so much as politely asks (if not sufficiently obsequiously enough) the wrong sort of questions there are promptly removed, the ones who remain are absolutely convinced in the rightness of their cause, seeing nothing first-hand to counter such a claim. Echo chambers can really be dangerous.

        Hexbear users are just like Maga conservatives, only on the other side of the spectrum - or at least claiming to be.

        Lemmy.ml users on the other hand, are a much more eclectic bunch. Some are great to talk to, though conversely whenever I receive the most batshit insane replies, even after blocking Lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net sth like 99% of the time it is a user from lemmy.ml. I find it highly relevant that a LOT of hexbear users went over to Lemmy.ml when Lemmy.world defederated from the former. So after resisting for a long time and even arguing with others against doing it, I finally relented and just blocked Lemmy.ml too. I find my sanity greatly improved as a result:-).