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?

  • DosDude👾@retrolemmy.com
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      They’re “communist” if you believe that supporting the CCP is “communist” and that the usa is “capitalist”. It’s all just political tribalism to them, that’s why they are also anti-Liberal and at times very anti-Democracy. The actual definitions of any of these political identities is completely lost on them, all of these words only mean west or east to them.

    • Ofiuco@lemmy.cafe
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      3 months ago

      To add to your comment: Blocking the instance at user level is pointless, it only blocks their posts,not their users, so you still have to deal with their bullshit and they post their propaganda at every instance that tolerates them so it makes its way to those who blocked it anyway.
      The only solution is to defederate.

  • cm0002@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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

    • Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 months ago

      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.

    • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 months ago

      All I heard of before is that lemmygrad is more “extreme” than hexbear? My instance defederates from lemmygrad, but federates with hexbear, I don’t know the exact reason for this though.

      • Ofiuco@lemmy.cafe
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        3 months ago

        I was in an instance that was like that, but since they even made a post justifying their stance on keeping the federation with hex, I just jumped ship.
        Not having to deal with ml, grad and hex is so much better.

      • cm0002@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Huh yea that’s kinda weird, but it’s also fairly subjective or perhaps your instance admins “straw that broke the camels back” just happened to be coming from lemmygrad at the time. But still weird to defederate from one and not the other regardless of which one was first lol

      • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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        3 months ago

        I think it’s the other way round. They share similiar politics but lemmygrad users don’t have the same abrasive commenting style.

      • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It’s been a while since my instance was federated with either of them, but I remember grad being more extreme in their beliefs and hb being more… annoying. The hb folks did a ton of brigading and picking fights. Maybe they chilled out since then, but the .world threads were exhausting to read with hbs being assholes in every single one, including things that had absolutely nothing to do with politics.

  • Owl@mander.xyz
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    3 months ago

    Hexbear, lemmygrad and (in great part) lemmy.ml are tankie instances.

    They basically deny any crimes of Stalin, Mao etc…

  • archonet@lemy.lol
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    3 months ago

    block hexbear, lemmygrad, and lemmy.ml. And any user named “UniversalMonk” on any instance. You’ll thank me later.

    • Maiq@lemy.lol
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      3 months ago

      Welcome to lemmy! For the most part lemmy is nice place to be. You will still see the occasional crazy though. Defiantly not something you see all the time. If you find a user, community or instance popping off a bunch of crazy the best thing to do is block them. You won’t be missing anything without them.

    • Sciaphobia@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      I nearly left lemmy because of Hexbear. Learning they could be blocked salvaged the platform for me. It’s not just you - they are pretty widely reviled.

    • itsnicodegallo@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Howdy! Can confirm that most people and places I’ve seen on the Fediverse are lovely… Except Hexbear. They’re one wall of cognitive dissonance away from being right wingers and constantly complaining that liberals are all lying to themselves about their liberalism. That THEY are the TRUE left wingers.

  • Whateley@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    It’s a tankie instance. You’re not missing anything important or reality-based by blocking it. You should also block lemmy.ml.

  • atro_city@fedia.io
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    3 months ago

    Wow, I was wondering why I hadn’t blocked a single hexbear or lemmy.ml user here: my instance did it for me! I’ve had multiple accounts on multiple servers and consistently had to block hexbear users until finally blocking hexbear outright. It’s been a much better experience then.

  • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
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    3 months ago

    Oh another one of these

    Short answer:

    “What if 4chan was communist instead of neonazi”

    Similar level of assholety and low post quality. Better politics. Overall don’t bother, not worth it.

  • Allero@lemmy.today
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    3 months ago

    Note: being on Lemmy for about a year, I didn’t live through the early days of this place. Here’s what I can recollect, as neutrally given as possible.

    TL;DR The recent conflicts between two politically different groups on Lemmy have radicalized many people, and many Hexbear residents in particular. Unless you are to discuss the far-left ideas and are very radical about disadvantaged groups, you are safe to block it.

    Hexbear is a far-left (as in actually communist) anti-discrimination community, initially more of a safe haven to promote equality and foster a healthy and welcoming place for leftists to come together.

    With core developers of Lemmy also being far-left, Hexbear naturally fitted the landscape along with the official Lemmy.ml, heavy far-left Lemmygrad.ml and others.

    As time went on, however, all sorts of left-leaning and apolitical folks, not just far-left, came to the platform, filling other instances like Lemmy.world (now the most populated of them all), sh.itjust.works and many others.

    As a result, Lemmy has two groups of people with radically different political views: one is a group of more or less organized far-left, and the other is everyone else, most commonly liberals. This distinction has caused a lot of conflicts and heated discussions based on political adherence.

    Most notable case is latest US elections. The far left side generally called not to vote Democrat as Biden has failed to deliver on many of his promises and empowered Israel to commit war crimes in Palestine, while the liberal audience called to vote Democrat to not let Republicans take the lead, which may arguably lead to an even worse outcome than unaccountable Dems can make.

    This divide has raised a lot of mutual hostility, brigading, and uncivil behavior, which has radicalized many on both sides of the conflict, the consequences of which you have got to experience.

    What to do with that is up to you to decide. Hexbear is very politically uniform and very political overall, so if you’re not here to discuss communism, you won’t lose much and will gain additional peace of mind.

    • danciestlobster@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      This is by far the best and most informative answer. The only thing it’s missing as another couple commenters pointed out is hexbear is all about their oversized memes and emojis, making anytime you happen upon one of their posts extremely conspicuous (even if politics aren’t being discussed).

    • Babalugats@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I’m being a little pedantic here, but “far left (as in actually communist)” wasn’t a thing until these recent online debates and forming groups started putting labels on groups and putting them into boxes. Communists are not necessarily left, nor far left. It feels a bit weird to ‘put’ them anywhere. That said, I know nothing about hexbear or this little group on Lemmy and how they identify…

      • Allero@lemmy.today
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        3 months ago

        It is unclear what this excerpt is meant to demonstrate.

        By default, the terms “left” and “right” are describing the level of economic equality/freedom in a given society. The left call for economic equality and redistribution of resources, either through peaceful cooperation and abundance or through heavy state intervention, the right stands for private property above equality and freedom to act in personal financial interest.

        Communists hold economic equality as paramount and vital for society, and put it above all else; in a perfect communist world, everyone always has access to everything that is available in an economy, and as such, there is no money (you can already take anything you need) and no point to privatize anything as there’s no revenue to speak of.

        Thereby, communism is far left.

        • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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          3 months ago

          I assume the rest of it would explain how Stalinism created an economic and social heirarchy at express odds with real Marxism but that still leaves you with real communists being the left. The author is ultimately crying about humanity’s insistence that words mean things and trying to take the word communist away from communists.

  • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    “Anyone right of me is Hitler” sounds pretty on point for them. Instance block and move on with your day.

  • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksM
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    3 months ago

    Tankies, mostly. They’re on my blocklist,but managed to avoid it for a disgustingly long time; they do have some good content from time to time, but in the end seeing the repeated vitriol and genocide denialism simply wasn’t worth it.

      • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        Hmm, I obviously know it’s not cool to use the R-word, but the M-word is also out of bounds now? I will rephrase my comment out of respect for persons of intellectual disability who might happen to come across my comment on Lemmy, while still attempting to convey my feelings about hexbear in an attempt to answer the question posed by OP.

        Yeah I think a lot of Lemmings tried to give them a chance when we first joined, because we are pretty left leaning already so we figured communists couldn’t be that bad. Unfortunately, they’re actually far more stupid and toxic than anyone could possibly imagine.

        I used to recommend for people to make up their own mind whether to block them, but I now feel it’s better to block them immediately, because they’re really just the worst kind of people who will do anything to bring others down to their level of misery.

        If the S-word is also problematic, please provide me some guidance as to how I might describe persons of a certain type without offending anybody. I assume the D-word could be construed as offensive towards certain groups as well. I am asking genuinely, because I have no interest in causing anyone undue distress, but there surely must be a way of using the English language to express meaning precisely, otherwise it wouldn’t be a very useful language.

  • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Yes, you should definitely block Hexbear. They’re a toxic, angry group of people, who have no intention of ever engaging in good faith.