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I think HB and some of the other groups are mostly trolls or Russian, Chinese, Iranian, North Korean, or aligned operatives trying to gas up trolls or wannabe trolls.
There are definitely some well meaning Americans and others who get suckered into the bullshit tornado that is those sites. They are definitely worth saving if we can. But it's hard. They ban and block anyone with a dissenting voice no matter how calmly presented.
I think HB and some of the other groups are mostly trolls or Russian, Chinese, Iranian, North Korean, or aligned operatives trying to gas up trolls or wannabe trolls.
Do you have any evidence of that at all? Why would Hexbear remain as an isolated instance for 4 years then, only beginning federation in the last year?
Is your question why a propaganda operation focused on disrupting or presidential elections would "go live" 18-ish months before the presidential election?
And are you asking if I have specific evidence that they're trolls? Or that the governments I've listed have troll farms? Or that specifically HB is specifically rife with trolls from this governments' farms? Because I definitely don't have specific evidence. Just the historical evidence of (attempted) general interference from those countries in our previous elections.
Is your question why a propaganda operation focused on disrupting or presidential elections would "go live" 18-ish months before the presidential election?
If your assumption that Hexbear is just bots and propaganda was true, why would it remain isolated for 4 years, with posters talking only to each other? 4 years of training? And, correction on your part, it started federating 10 months ago, not 18.
It makes more sense for these to be people with genuine views and aligned interests.
And are you asking if I have specific evidence that they're trolls? Or that the governments I've listed have troll farms? Or that specifically HB is specifically rife with trolls from this governments' farms? Because I definitely don't have specific evidence. Just the historical evidence of (attempted) general interference from those countries in our previous elections.
So you don't, you're just accusing people you disagree with of being propaganda agents and bots, despite them existing for 4 years in pure isolation. That's silly.
Those poor people spending time only on HB for four years, never going anywhere else, never finding 4/8chan, never even finding reddit....
I see it as the neonazi movement in the US in late 90s and early 2000s. They want to be edgy, but don't have a significant structure to actually do anything important. Around 2006 I ended up stealing a knife from a neonazi that came in to the restaurant that I worked at. It was a Mexican restaurant btw lol
Thank god for hexbear and lemmygrad though. Imagine the effort needed to block them all individually if spread over all the other instances.
Yeah, it's actually helpful to have safe spaces for hateful assholes so they can be corralled away.
If you've heard of Chapo Trap House that's them. If not, most of those kids/idiots/trolls are the type of terminally online fake leftists that give other leftist a bad image in general. They were so ridiculous Reddit got tired of their shit and banned them a couple years back.
Hexbear is sort of like a village of eldritch abomination worshippers in a Lovecraftian horror story - isolated, insular, entirely wrapped up in their own esoteric rituals and ideas and language, and immediately and collectively hostile to outsiders.
Wow, this is such an accurate description of so many online communities that have come and gone over the years, nicely done.
Lmao, they sure are insane. But if you listen closely they will tell you that sanity is a western psyop and you should enjoy the simple truths of life, like shitting in your own pants and bragging about it online.
Childish? Kinda. Insane? No.
There are three relevant things to say about hexbear.
1. It is not a serious instance. Or at least not completely serious; they're mostly there for memes, funposting, "I know that feel" etc.
So they're less like the meeting room of a communist party than like the bar where those communists hang out and drink beer, after the meeting is over.
I feel like this is often misinterpreted, as HB users say something that is mostly a taunt and others interpret as actual argumentation. And it also tends to attract younger users, who... well, behave like young people?
2. Even if not a serious instance, they're serious about their views. Your typical HB user is communist, antifa, vegan, anti-cop, and interprets things in a very specific way. They're rather transparent about it.
And, because of #1, they aren't really willing to spend their time entertaining anyone's counterpoints. It'll be interpreted as sealioning or similar.
3. Hexbear was already its own thing before federation. As such it developed social norms that often conflict with the norms typically found in the rest of the Threadiverse (Lemmy, Mbin, Piefed etc.)
For example, even if Lemmy as a whole is prone to intrusive political discussions, HB users tend to do it far more. Because they're used to an environment where this is typically taken as OK.
When it comes to dealing with HB users here, my advice is the exact same as dealing with other users:
I'm on lemmynsfw because I like to argue about how shitty society is between wanks
Many of them, yes. They're among the most radical of the leftist instances, which means that they attract a lot of propagandists and tankies. They have some perfectly reasonable people too, but you know, vocal minority. Its the main thing most people notice about those instances.
Many people block hexbear, Lemmy.ml, and lemmygrad for these reasons.
You are correct. Do your mental health a favour and block that instance along with lemmygrad.
Do you have any examples of this? Since world is defederated from that instance, I only end up visiting it when people like you come in and talk about how absolutely crazy it is over there, so occasionally I'll take a curious peek. This time I see... a post about Indigenous rights, a post criticizing capitalism, a post dunking on musk, a post about FOSS... when do I start seeing the crazy?
idk, I've seen all the hype around hexbear users being obnoxious around Lemmy (including our own instance debating blocking the instance, followed by several of their members brigading the thread true to form)... but I've explored the communities on the instance itself and even subscribed to some of them like mutual aid, gaming etc, and those that I'm watching are actually just normal people doing normal things if more left than some other similar groups. In my experience it isn't "all" hexbear users, because that would be a dumb generalization.
There are some assholes on that instance to be sure. Show me one that this isn't true of. I'm glad our instance didn't block them because I now get to decide for myself. I block communities and/or users if they're a problem for me. I think that's a good way.
Obviously you can't lump them all into one category, but the majority of them seem to be willing to cause chaos on other instances for a laugh. Doesn't sit right with me, so i blocked them
To be clear, this is coming from you getting banned for being a debate-pervert after you claimed Putin invaded Ukraine to "reinstate the USSR" as a secret Commie and refused to take a pro-Palestinian stance, equating Palestinian resistance with a century of settler-colonial genocide.
I think it's a bit terminally online to run away to a defederated instance to lick your wounds, rather than reflect on why being a debatebro is unhealthy.
I don't mind communism. I do mind advocating for Russia, in a war where they are clearly the aggressor, and harassing then moving to harass the same left wing for not being as radical or as pro-russian and deluding themselves with false beliefs that they are alone and no one is left wing other than them
Not really. They have a lot of bits and in-jokes which are going to seem incomprehensible to anyone from the outside, but most of them are pretty chill if you engage in good faith. It's like a lot of tech communities; if you don't do your research and ask intelligent questions, you're likely to get told to RTFM.
