I saw a post that talked about racism towards people and when I talked about it the response I got was very heated and a person even called lemmy.world a community of ‘hitlerites’
I have been around for a week or so and this is my first time seeing such explicit vulgar reaction towards another community, is this a one-off or should I block hexbear?
Hexbear.net is a Left-Unity instance populated mainly by Marxists and Anarchists. They generally don’t get along with Lemmy.world, whose admins defederated from the major Marxist-aligned instances.
Whether you block Hexbear is up to you, I enjoy my time there a lot but it’s also because I’m a Marxist. The ones saying they are “pretending” to be Leftist never seem to be able to explain why a large group of people would all ironically have theory reading groups and ironically support trans rights for years, even before federating with anyone else. What would they have to gain?
If I were you, I’d ask on an instance actually federated with them. You’ll get different perspectives than you will here, which is always the case when it comes to controversial topics like Marxism, where opinion varies greatly from instance to instance.
I really don’t think they are a left-unity instance considering that they get very upset and unpleasant to talk to if you don’t support authoritarianism or their alternative “facts.”
Like I’m cool with all sorts of different leftist viewpoints and I think it’s necessary that we support each other, but I draw the line at authoritarianism and rewriting history.
Anarchists are explicitly welcome, so authoritarianism is definitely not a requirement. And what “alternative facts”?
Things like the denial of the tiananmen square massacre or claiming that North Korea is a free and prosperous nation, both of which I have seen with my own two eyes on hexbear.
While I am not an anarchist, generally I am cool with them. Who I am not cool with are Marxist-Leninists, which are authoritarian.
From the wikipedia article on Marxist-Leninists:
In the words of historians Silvio Pons and Robert Service, elections are “generally not competitive, with voters having no choice or only a strictly limited choice”. Generally, when alternative candidates have been allowed to stand for election, they have not been allowed to promote very different political views.
The people of the soviet union, at least as far as Pat Sloan experienced in ~1937, had the most limited choice: any person
I have, while working in the Soviet Union, participated in an election. I, too, had a right to vote, as I was a working member of the community, and nationality and citizenship is no bar to electoral rights. The procedure was extremely simple. A general meeting of all the workers in our organization was called by the trade union committee, candidates were discussed, and a vote was taken by show of hands. Anybody present had the right to propose a candidate, and the one who was elected was not personally a member of the Party. In considering the claims of the candidates their past activities were discussed, they themselves had to answer questions as to their qualifications, anybody could express an opinion, for or against them, and the basis of all the discussion was: What justification had the candidates to represent their comrades on the local Soviet?
As far as the elections in the villages were concerned, these took place at open village meetings, all peasants of voting age, other than those who employed labour, having the right to vote and to stand for election. As in the towns, any organization or individual could put forward candidates, anyone could ask the candidate questions, and anybody could support or oppose the candidature. It is usual for the Communist Party to put forward a candidate, trade unions and other organizations can also do so, and there is nothing to prevent the Party’s candidate from not being elected, if he has not sufficient prestige among the voters.Several things in there I dislike:
Raising hands does not seem like an accurate way vote. Peasants who employed labor couldn’t vote. People could vote even if they weren’t citizens. No mention of being able to vote for non-communists. There are trade-unions and other candidates but it doesn’t mention their political alignment
To defend non-citizens voting, the Soviets valued labor over nationalism and anyone could vote despite not being citizens if they worked there. Kinda like if the US allowed immigrants to vote who weren’t yet citizens.
Trade Unions were often independent as well. Really, the book itself is fascinating.
I support immigration but allowing non-citizens to vote seems like an easy way for foreign governments to swing elections in their favor.
Yes, I get that the trade unions were their own thing but that doesn’t mean they can’t also be communist.
No mention of being able to vote for non-communists
???
Anybody present had the right to propose a candidate, the one who was elected was not personally a member of the Party
???
I don’t really understand what you’re getting at here, you’re being very vague. I’m a Marxist, I enjoy my time there, I don’t really think I can say I share your same views on it.
When the instance I’m on was still federated with hexbear I did go and check them out to see what they had to say and with my own two eyes I saw people there denying the tiananmen square massacre and claiming that North Korea is a free and prosperous nation. Not to mention that when visiting other instances, such as the one I’m on, many would be extremely rude, which is why they got defederated.
Hexbear’s stance, and most Marxists in general, on Tian’anmen is that hundreds of protestors and PLA officers were killed in Beijing that day as the PLA advanced towards the square, but that the square itself was evacuated peacefully, which matches leaked US cables and the CPC’s official stance on what it calls the “June 4th incident”. This is a rejection of the commonly reported story of 10,000 people being killed on the square itself, which originated from a British diplomat’s cable. Said diplomat was later confirmed to have evacuated well before.
I reiterate, Hexbear’s stance isn’t that the massacre didn’t happen, but that Western nations intentionally sensationalize the quantity of deaths and the character of the events. This is also why Western Nations don’t frequently report on the South Korean Gwang-Ju massacre that occured around the same era, where the South Korean millitary murdered thousands of High School and College students protesting against Chun Do-Hwan’s dictatorship. All of what I said is backed up by the Wikipedia page for Tian’anmen Square Protests and Massacre, such as Alan Donald revising his estimate from 10,000 to the low thousands yet BBC continuing to report the 10,000 figure:
In a disputed cable sent in the aftermath of the events at Tiananmen, British Ambassador Alan Donald initially claimed, based on information from a “good friend” in the State Council of China, that a minimum of 10,000 civilians died,[237] claims which were repeated in a speech by Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke,[238] but which is an estimated number much higher than other sources provided.[239][240] After the declassification, former student protest leader Feng Congde pointed out that Donald later revised his estimate to 2,700–3,400 deaths, a number closer to, but still much higher than, other estimates.[241]
As for the DPRK, I’d have to see what you mean as an example. The common consensus is that the DPRK has a well-documented “defector storytelling industry” where defectors are paid for outlandish stories, and due to their unverifiability gets passed on as truth. A good documentary on this subject is Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul. Therefore, really, very little can be trusted on the subject. Brutal executions being reported such as one official being eaten to death by 120 dogs end up being reported uncritically, despite said official turning up alive later and the story originating from a Chinese satirical column, akin to the Onion.
This is where the joke of “Juche Necromancy” comes from, because supposedly executed officials regularly turn up alive.
Left-Unity instance
I doubt it or I’d be over there. Instead, I got attacked and mocked by a circlejerking mob of angsty teens from Hexbear operating in bad faith for remotely questioning something about communism and then got permabanned from Lemmy.ml. I didn’t even attack it! 😂
Do you have a link? Would be interested to see.
Remember that they don’t consider liberals to be leftists
The reason they got defederated from so many major instances is less to do with the politics and more to do with the spam, brigading, and bad faith interactions that had no intention of civility.
This is objectively untrue, Lemmy.world refused to ever federate, as, in their own words, a “pre-emptive last resort”.
In their statement, the reasoning they explicitly highlighted was Hexbear’s stances like being against western propaganda and disliking the mass overseas wars driven by the US. Don’t believe me? You can read it here - https://lemmy.world/post/2498330
So no, Hexbear was very explicitly defederated because of politics.
The world mods also outright support Israel.
You can tell someone is terminally reddit brained when they’re still accusing people from federated instances of “brigading”.
Credit where credit is due, youre honest and youre correct. Have my upvote!
I try to be both, lol. Thanks!
The issue with hexbear isn’t Marxism or anarchism or communism, it’s apologism for violent authoritarian regimes to the point of insisting on an “alternative facts” version of “history”.
Alternative facts is when you refuse to admit you were wrong after carrying water for a single source white supremacist even when all the major media platforms that boosted the claim dropped it years ago.
So for years, as a ‘good leftist’, you continue repeating blood libel while you scream at people to support a capitalist committing genocide.
I really can’t tell what you are talking about.
Adrian Zenz
A place with a high amount of queer and trans socialists that all the cishets on the fediverse mald about. The instance is something like 66% queer / queer adjacent and 51% are trans / trans adjacent. Essentially, a lot of people are very aggro about the fact that they have carved a safe space out for themselves prior to lemmy becoming popular recently. Tldr:
Here’s some of their demographic surveys.
I am trans and hate hexbear. It’s not because they’re largely queer, it’s because they’re tankies.
Blahaj is dope, hexbear is not.Well, cool, but you’re a highschooler so you don’t have much real world experience, though being a closeted queer as a highschooler is definitely a hellish and radicalizing experience, I’ve been there. Also, as a trans person thats been transitioned for a long time, you begin to realize the number of allies you have is very few and debate is very much a waste of time (fun for cis people, terrifying for trans people) and its far more important to build independence and resilience for the community and remove awful people from your life. Hexbear has mutual aid drives and housing support groups that have saved many trans people from homelessness and even their lives. Think: does SJW or lemmy.world do the same, or are they just all hot air and complain about ‘tankies’ in a vague way while doing nothing? Is it fine to be rude to people who think debating your existence and the existence of other marginalized people is good fun?
ITT: everyone says they’re bad without giving any examples, telling you what to think instead of letting you form your own conclusions.
Worse moderation than Reddit subs. Will ban any views that don’t fit their narratives. Just got a server wide ban for giving links showing how the ceasefire was reached by promising the right wing factions more of the West Bank as Trumps largest donor intended.
You know mod logs on Hexbear are public, right? It’s very, very clear that “giving links” is not why you were banned.
Hexbear is pretty overwhelmingly queer/trans and anarchist/communist.
If you’ve never run into a transfem communist IRL it’s probably because you’re not in many queer or left wing organizing spaces.
I’m actually pretty new to Lemmy in the last year and in that time I’ve seen way more .world posters being toxic about .ml/hexbear and making vague posts about how bad they are. I have to imagine that’s why you’re now seeing backlash to .world. Also most of the time I see people complaining about these instances and I dig into the modlog it’s overwhelmingly because they got banned at some point for being reactionary and are bent out of shape about it.
In my experience as a queer leftist, world is toxic as hell. I’ve had numerous moments where I’ve considered banning the whole instance but there’s communities on it I like. So i ban individuals who drink too much liberal kool aid and think team blue can do nothing wrong and genocide is perfectly reasonable because the other guy is worse! and they have been crying non stop since they lost and continue to blame the left for having a backbone rather than look in the mirror.
Needless to say my whole account got banned on world for being a Luigi supporter and anti-democrat. So im on an anarchist instance now, and even after a minor disagreement with an admin over the concept of copyright it’s still nice.
We disagreed on copyright?! That’s a ben, landlubber!
It had to do with AI training on data (individual peoples artwork for example) without permission.
I don’t care about corporate stuff being stolen but individual artists getting screwed doesn’t sit well with me. And it’s the one and only time I’ve ever said nice things about adobe of all companies! because they compensate artists who’s work they train their ai on.
Guess I’m gonna have to change instances again lololol (please don’t ban me I like it here)
I was clearly joking! all good!
Hexbear is cool. I’ve learned a lot from them. the thing is, some of the people there can be a little brash at first. I recommend looking around the instance a bit before you decide on blocking it. some of them can be a little brash but they mean well.
Do not interact with them destroy it with fire
block hexbear, lemmygrad, and lemmy.ml. And any user named “UniversalMonk” on any instance. You’ll thank me later.
I’d probably be more selective about blocking users from lemmy.ml, but I’m a bit biased in the question given the server I chose when I joined Lemmy
is it possible for lemmy user to “federate them in”/include in single feed?
Hexbear.net, lemmy.ml and Lemmygrad.ml have a lot of extreme leftists who have very wild takes that could be mistaken for right wing takes.
I personally don’t recommend blocking them because outside of political threads they make up a lot of the content/memes/discussions, but up to you if you want to try that out.
God forbid any of these genocidal white supremacists calling themselves leftists and parroting 1950’s red scare propaganda self select themselves out of our hair
Tankies
It’s an instance meant to seem attractive to western youths while explicitly only serving the needs of the Chinese Dictatorship.
Most of their users are bots, human decency is their kryptonite. If ever you are convinced that any of them are your friends, you’re just another mark they intend to make full use of and throw away: you are not a human being in the eyes of Hexbear.
I’m sorry if I sound tone deaf I am new to Lemmy .~.
Hexbear, lemmygrad.ml and lemmy.ml are the “Tankie Triad”.
Hexbear is the worst most extreme of them and lemmy.ml is the least which is why they’ve managed to avoid getting defederated from world (either that or because they’re like the third largest instance behind only .world and SJW)
Hexbear is pretty widely defederated
A lot of .ml users and communities are there just because it was the only big instance much earlier on. I’m in no way a tankie but still use .ml a lot (a community I run is on there) because it was the first one I made and i’m too lazy to look into new instances or switch.
yeah the other two I definately agree with, but lemmy.ml is mostly tame.
It’s all under the surface, the admins, mods and a good portion of users have just as extreme viewpoints, but tend to walk the line quite carefully to avoid being defederated by .world
That’s just not true. They don’t give a shit about .world. They don’t even have to give a shit about .world. They’ve got plenty of traffic to manage without .world. It’s just stupid to do so over some squabbles
Plus, everyone secretly loves the animosity. Like how the Dutch are always making fun of Belgians, but if anyone else ever says anything bad about Belgians, they’ll get a kick in the nuts from the Dutch.
That’s just not true. They don’t give a shit about .world. They don’t even have to give a shit about .world. They’ve got plenty of traffic to manage without .world.
You must not have spent much time over there, go into any .ml threads where .world gets brought up and they’ll shit all over us for being a CIA front, US State Department Mouthpiece, nothin but bots, “Reddit 2.0”, “fake leftist”, front for the US military, to stupid to realize we’re just digesting propaganda and on and on and on
But yet, they won’t defederate and they get awfully mad whenever someone does bring up .world defederating from them.
So I ask you, if they’re so full with traffic to manage, then why do they not defederate from .world?
My guess is as good as any, maybe it’s because tankies need someone to tank against. Can’t be a racist without other races around. Can’t be a misogynist with women around. Can’t be a transphobe without trans people around. Can’t be a .ml tankie without .world people around.
About the traffic, they (used to be or are they still?) the default instance on join-lemmy.org . Thats how a lot of people joined that instance and that’s how they have gained a lot of users and general communities. Maybe that has changed though, I really don’t care enough to actually check current metrics.
https://sh.itjust.works/c/meanwhileongrad
One word, Tankies.
The community I shared rounds up posts that really portray their
PhalusophyPhilosophy really well. Now you would need to scroll down a bit to see some posts from hexbear specifically.but I cannot recommend you enough to stay well away from hexbear, lemmygrad and if possible .ml
Ah yes the liberal cj comm
Quick question, what’s the humor in satarizing a Chinese man as a yellow bear, specificially? Why not a Panda?
You’d have to ask the Chinese internet users who started the meme. Or there is a detailed wikipedia article if you’re interested in the backstory.
Wikipedia actually doesn’t state that it was chinese users that started it, just that the Chinese internet started taking the comparisons down (same with all of the articles I found and the ones Wikipedia references as sources). Additionally, the original image of Xi and Obama together as Pooh and Tigger, and the subsequent picture of Xi and Shinzo Abe as Pooh and Eeyore, emerged as group pictures of world leaders, but only the comparison of Xi to Pooh stuck.
Further, that doesn’t explain the immense popularity among westerners in portraying Xi as a yellow bear, nor why it seems to be especially popular among western right-wingers.
Curiously enough, MWoG is maintained by a gamergater. Curious indeed.
OK maybe not started (couldn’t find a definitive origin), but they did use it quite a bit.
Additionally, the original image of Xi and Obama together as Pooh and Tigger, and the subsequent picture of Xi and Shinzo Abe as Pooh and Eeyore, emerged as group pictures of world leaders, but only the comparison of Xi to Pooh stuck.
Maybe because the others didn’t throw a tantrum about it. Or maybe because Chinese users have to use euphemisms and memes to avoid censorship.
Further, that doesn’t explain the immense popularity among westerners in portraying Xi as a yellow bear, nor why it seems to be especially popular among western right-wingers.
If you say so. I for one had not seen this meme for quite some time and had completely forgotten about it until you brought it up.
I brought it up because MWoG uses it as the community icon.
Again, your sources don’t seem to support what you’re saying, there isn’t widespread disapproval of the CPC. According to Harvard, support for the CPC is over 90%.
Yes, I am aware that .ml lives in a fantasy world where there are no dissidents in China. It also helps that speaking ill of the CCP has never been harshly repressed in China.
You can just read the article, they address your concerns:
Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread in China, these findings highlight that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being. Satisfaction and support must be consistently reinforced. As a result, the data point to specific areas in which citizen satisfaction could decline in today’s era of slowing economic growth and continued environmental degradation.
Source on the gamergater claim?
Here’s where they admit to it. They claim to have gotten better, but they were radicalized by it, and their behavior indicates that they haven’t actually moved too far beyond it, such as when they complain about “encountering wokeness.” In another instance, they blame far-right radicalization on “forcing equity,” which is just anti-DEI nonsense.
Idk that calling them a gamergater is fair with that context since that implies they’re an active threat to women but it does explain why they only seem interested in hating communism.
Depends on the degree, complaining about “forcing equity” and “wokeness” to me honestly implies danger in my opinion. Plus, the whole anticommunism being their sole focus thing really doesn’t help.
I would block hexbear. I’ve done it server-wide. They are mostly very loud trolls pretending to be communists. Some could be actual communists, but I don’t buy anyone actually wanting to be in such a toxic environment and believe what they claim to believe.
Honestly, if you’re not a communist, the less you know the better.
It’s not even about being a communist. It’s about being a tankie.
Would you be willing to explain the difference? I don’t know and I did do a google on it awhile back and I guess if I learned anything it didn’t stick…
Signed: idiot on the internet who wants to know these things.
“Tankie” is a derogatory term for Marxist-Leninists. We support AES or “actually existing socialist” states, in contrast to left idealists who support every revolution except the ones that actually succeed, which can always be imagined as perfect because they never had to confront practical reality. We’re known for our opposition to war (except class war) and belief in multipolarity, which is the idea that one nation shouldn’t be the lone superpower with hegemony around the world, and we treat the media with reasonable skepticism when it tries to tell us who to hate - ironically, these traits cause us to be characterized as militaristic, authoritarian, and blindly gullible.
People who have never read any communist theory beyond the Manifesto (if that) don’t think we’re real communists because they have no idea what they’re talking about.
Someone else already commented how tankies got their name.
Tankies in the comments can generally be recognized by:
- Anything that a liberal democratic country does is bad.
- Authoritarian regimes such as China, Venezuela, Russia, North-Korea, … are somehow the good guys, no matter how well documented their transgressions against human rights are. Tankies defend Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for example.
- Because tankies want to present some atrocious regimes and people as the good guys, they have to twist the truth a lot. So they constantly lie and misrepresent/omit facts to push their false narrative.
- Since they’re not interested in an actual discussion or non tankie viewpoints, they employ non-constructive discussion techniques to score points and “win” arguments. And this last bullet point is mostly why everyone else hates them.
As far as I am aware, the primary difference is that tankies are authoritarian. They got their name because they supported the USSR sending tanks into Hungary in 1956. I’ve seen many express positive opinions towards China and North Korea while ignoring or denying things like mass censorship in both countries, China’s concentration camps of Uyghur Muslims or the fact that people and their families risk death if they try to flee North Korea.
I typically add a user note to all tankies I encounter or I just block them.
Edit: I originally incorrectly cited that they got their name because they deny the tiananmen square massacre (which they claim was either peaceful or non-existent). It is still true that they deny it, but it is not the origin of their name.
The name actually came from British communists that supported the USSR sending tanks into Hungary in '56.
Ok that does seem correct. I’ve just always heard from others that it was the tainanmen square massacre that gave them their name.
How unsurprising that someone going around calling people tankies doesn’t actually know anything
