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.

  • BionicSpud@lemmyverse.org
    4114·
    11 months ago

    As an instance owner myself some of this is concerning. I understand why lemmy.world would want to defederate from them. I won’t defederate on my instance at this point, but if personal attacks start to happen or rules get broken, then it will be considered.

    • AnonymousLlama@kbin.social
      308·
      11 months ago

      This i feel is the best take for most instance owners. Wait, watch and react. Good to keep federation going until you actually observe them participating in bad faith

        • gullible@kbin.social
          2615·
          11 months ago

          I’ve watched this song and dance, and participated in it, for decades. Putting up with gross people because they might feel like being decent is just delaying an ever escalatingly divisive and inevitable bandaid pull. Saw it with voat freezepeach, saw it with trump freezepeach, saw it with several hateful freezepeach sites. The lemmy.world admins did the right thing.

    • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
      2527·
      11 months ago

      Let me ask you a question: if an instance popped up that said their purpose was to collect child porn, would you wait until you saw some child porn before defederating? What about something more mild, like if their mission was to dox and harass climate activists?

      I think the exception to defederating being a last resort is when you have an instance that says upfront that they are going to be a problem. In that case, I think we should believe them.

      • ImOnADiet@lemmygrad.ml
        3419·
        11 months ago

        my jaw just dropped did you just compare a socialist instance to CSAM and doxers bahahahaha

        • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
          2422·
          11 months ago

          That’s such a tired style of argument. No, I didn’t draw any equivalency between them. I made an analogy that was further on the spectrum to make a philosophical point. And then I picked another analogy that I clearly pointed out was way more mild. What’s your answer to the question? When someone says they’re going to do something bad, do you just stand there and wait for them to do it?

          • ImOnADiet@lemmygrad.ml
            2421·
            11 months ago

            they’re both shit analogies is my point, why even start with CSAM and nothing hexbear does or would do is close to doxing. Their admins aren’t encouraging brigading and I would be surprised if you could even find 5 comments actually encouraging that in the federation post (and no, saying that you must dunk on the libs with me comrades!!! type posts are not threats to brigade, they’re jokes lol)

            • joe@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2315·
              11 months ago

              “it was just a joke, bro” has never convinced anyone.

              Your post history is a pretty good indicator that lemmygrad should be next up on for defederation. Additionally, it was pretty easy to find a comment on one of your posts calling for violence. Upvoted, of course.

              • ImOnADiet@lemmygrad.ml
                1612·
                11 months ago

                link it then. I’m not seeing anything in my first couple pages of comments… Unless you meant the death to America comment?

                And yes, when people are making jokes amongst themselves they do get to say it’s a joke, it wasn’t meant for you???

                  • ImOnADiet@lemmygrad.ml
                    1711·
                    11 months ago

                    holy shit I thought you meant a comment I had made, you went looking through posts on my profile? that’s 8 posts down what are you doing lol. Anyways yeah that’s not against our rules, they didn’t make that comment in someone else’s instance I don’t really understand what the issue is. they weren’t threatening anyone directly, that’s just venting

              • AnonymousLlama@kbin.social
                128·
                11 months ago

                People can have different opinions on topics mate. This whole “one user said XYZ I don’t like, we should defederate” needs to end.

                • joe@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  159·
                  11 months ago

                  One user advocated for violence, the comment is upvoted, and it’s a top level comment on a post the guy I responded to posted, so I can be reasonably sure he saw it. So, the options we have in front of us are that he did the right thing and reported it, but the mods/admins didn’t act, or he saw it and didn’t report it.

                  Which one screams “we want these people to be federated with us”?

          • HEISENBERG@lemmy.world
            75·
            11 months ago

            It is this kind of back and forth we would be having if we didn’t defederate. It’s tiring.

      • BionicSpud@lemmyverse.org
        3·
        11 months ago

        I’ve defederated from lemmynsfw.com because someone subscribed to them and I saw the pornography on my instance and that is against one of the site rules. The same would be said for any other pornography or breaking of site rules no matter where it came from. At this point though, hexabear have not harassed anybody on my instance or broken any of the site rules, so there is no basis to defederate them. If that does happen, then a decision will be made.