Hey folks
I have been receiving a lot of messages every single day about federation with hexbear. Some of our users are vehemently against it, others are in full support. The conversation does not seem to be dying down, rather, the volume of messages I receive about it seems to be increasing, so I am opening this public space where we can openly discuss the topic.
I am going to write a wall of text about my own thoughts on the situation, I’m sorry, but no tl;dr this time, and I ask anybody participating in this thread to first read through this post before commenting.
Before I go any further, I want to be clear that for anybody who participates here, it is required to focus on the quality of your posts. That means:
- Be kind to each other, even if you disagree
- Use arguments rather than calling people names
- Realize that this is a divisive topic, so your comments should be even more thoughtful than usual
With that out of the way, there are a few things I want to cover.
On defederation in general
First of all, I am a firm believer that defederation must be reserved only for cases where all other methods have failed. If defederation is used liberally, then a small group of malicious users can effectively completely shut down the federated network, by simply creating the type of drama between instances which would inevitably result in defederation. In my view, federation is the biggest strength of Lemmy compared to any centralized discussion forum, so naturally I think maintaining federation by default is an important goal in general.
I am also a believer in the value of deplatforming hateful content, but I think defederation is not the best way to do this. Banning individual users, banning communities and establishing a culture of mutual support between mods and admins of different instances should be the first line of defense against such content. There are some further steps that can be taken before defederation as well, but these are not really documented anywhere (in order to prevent circumvention). The point is: for myself, defederation is the absolute last resort, only to be used when it is completely clear that other methods are ineffective.
Finally, I am wary of creating a false expectation among lemm.ee users that lemm.ee admins endorse all users and communities and content on instances we are federated with. Here at lemm.ee, we use a blocklist for federation, which means our default apporach is to federate with all new instances. We do not have the resources (manpower, skills and knowledge) necessary to pass judgement on all instances which exist out there, as a result, users on lemm.ee are expected to curate their own content to quite a high degree. In addition to downvoting and/or reporting as necessary, individual lemm.ee users are also able to block specific users and communities, and the ability to block entire instances is coming very soon as well.
Having said all that, in a situation where all other methods do indeed fail, defederation is not out of the question. Making such a call is up to the discretion of lemm.ee admins, and doing it as a last resort is completely in line with our federation policy.
Regarding hexbear
Hexbear is an established Lemmy instance, focused on many flavors of leftism. They have quite a large userbase who are very active on Lemmy (often so active that they leave the impression brigading all popular Lemmy posts). One important thing to note is that while some forms of bigotry seem to be quite accepted by many hexbear users (but seemingly not by mods - more on that below), they at least are very protective of LGBT rights (and yes, I am quite certain that they are not just pretending to do this, as many users seem to believe). Additionally, while I have noticed quite high quality posts from hexbear users, there are also several users there who seem to really enjoy trolling and baiting (very reminiscent of 4chan-type “for the lulz” posting), and it’s important to note that this kind of posting is in general allowed on hexbear itself.
The reason this whole topic is important to so many people right now (despite hexbear being a relatively old instance), is that hexbear only recently enabled federation. A combination of their volume of posts, their strong convictions, the excitement about federation, and the aforementioned trolling has made them very visible to almost all Lemmy users, and this has sparked discussions about the value of federation with hexbear on a lot of Lemmy instances.
My own experience with hexbear
I want to write down my own experience with interacting with hexbear users, mods, and admins over the past few days. I believe this experience will highlight why I am hesitant to advocate for immediate full defederation from hexbear at this point in time, and am for now still more in favor of taking action on a more individual user basis. Please read and see how you feel about the situation afterwards.
Background
My first real contact with hexbear users was in the comments section of a post in this meta community requesting defederation from hexbear by @glimpythegoblin@lemm.ee. That post is now locked, because several hexbear users very quickly started doing the aforementioned “for the lulz” type spamming of meme images in the comments (these are actually just emojis, but they are rendered as full-size images on all instances other than the source instance, due to a current Lemmy bug).
I did not want to take further actions in that thread in general (for archival purposes), but I did take one action, which in retrospect was a mistake: I removed a comment which contained the hammer and sickle symbol. I ignorantly associated this symbolism with Kremlin propaganda, and the atrocities my own people suffered at the hands of the soviet union during the previous century. Many users (including hexbear users) correctly (and politely) pointed out to me in DMs that the symbol has a much broader use than just as the symbol of the USSR, and people elsewhere in the world may not associate it with the USSR at all. I am grateful for users who pointed this out to me without resorting to personal attacks.
Let me be clear here: while I do not have anything against leftism or communist ideas in general (in fact in today’s world, I think discussion of such ideas is quite necessary), Kremlin propaganda has no place on lemm.ee. Any dehumanizing talking points of the Kremlin on lemm.ee are treated as any other bigotry, and if communist symbolism is used in context of Kremlin propaganda (that is the context in which I have been exposed to it throughout my whole life), then it will still be removed. But there is no blanket ban on communist symbolism in general on lemm.ee, and discussing and advocating for leftist and communist topics (as distinct from the imperialist and dehumanizing policies of the Kremlin) is certainly allowed on lemm.ee.
Hexbear user response
Coming back to the events of the past few days: soon after my removal of the comment containing the symbol from the meta thread, two posts popped up on hexbear. One was focused on insulting and spreading lies about me personally. Another was focused on diminishing the horrors of the soviet occupation in my country. In the comments under both of these posts (and in a few other threads on hexbear), I noticed some seriously disturbing bigotry against my people. There were comments which reflected the anti-Estonian propaganda of the current Russian state, things like:
- Suggesting that my people has no right to exist
- Stating that my people (and other Baltic nations) are subhuman
- Claiming that anybody critical of both nazi and soviet occupations is themselves a nazi and a holocaust denier
I expect to hear such statements from the Russian state - here in Estonia, we are subjected to this and other kinds of bigotry constantly from Russian media - but to see it spread openly in non-Russian channels is extremely disturbing. Such bigotry is completely against lemm.ee rules in general. Additionally, my identity is public information, because I feel it’s important for the integrity of lemm.ee that I don’t hide behind anonymity. Considering this, I’m sure you can understand why I am very worried about my own safety when people leave comments in many unrelated threads (where my original posts are not even visible), baselessly calling me a nazi and a holocaust denier.
Note that the goal of this post is not to start a new debate in the comments about the the repressions of the soviet union in Estonia or other occupied territories, but if the topic interests any users, I can recommend the 2006 documentary The Singing Revolution (imdb). The trailer is a bit cheesy, but the actual film contains lots of historical footage from the soviet occupation, and also many interviews with people who experienced it, who share stories which are deeply familiar to all Estonians. If anybody is interested in further discussion, then I suggest making a post about it in the Estonian community here: !eesti@lemm.ee.
Hexbear admin response
After the above events had played out, I reached out to hexbear admins for clarification on their moderation policies and how they handle such cases. I was actually very happy with their response:
- They immediately removed the personal attacks and dehumanizing comments containing Kremlin propaganda from Hexbear, and assured me that such content is always handled by mods
- They told me that while there are all kinds of leftists on hexbear, Russian disinformation is generally either refuted in comments or removed by mods
- They implemented some additional rules on hexbear to try and reduce the trolling experienced by many other instances, including ours: https://hexbear.net/post/352119
My personal take-aways
Let me play the devil’s advocate here and employ some “self-whataboutism”: among all users that have been banned on lemm.ee for bigotry, the majority were actually not users from other instances, and in fact people with lemm.ee accounts. If we judge any larger instance only by bigoted posts that some of its users make, then we might as well declare all instances as cesspools and close down Lemmy completely. I believe it’s far more useful to judge instances based on moderation in response to such content. Just as we remove bigoted content from lemm.ee, I have also witnessed bigoted content being removed from hexbear.
At the same time, I am aware of some internal conflict between hexbear users over the more strict moderation they are now starting to employ, and I am definitely keeping an eye on that situation and how admins handle it.
I am also still quite worried about the amount of distinct users on hexbear who have posted Kremlin propaganda. I so far don't have reason to believe that these users are employed by the Russian state, but the fact that they are spreading the same hateful content which can be seen on Russian television seems problematic to say the least, and it remains to be seen if moderators can truly keep up with such content.
Where thing stand right now
I am not convinced that we are currently at a point where the “last resort” of defederation is necessary. This is based on the presumption that our moderation workload at lemm.ee will not get out of hand just due to users from that particular instance. My current expectation is that as the excitement of federation calms down (and as new rules on hexbear go into effect), the currently relatively high volume of low effort trolling will be replaced by more thoughtful posts. If this is not the case then we will certainly need to re-evaluate things.
Additionally, nothing is changing about our own rules regarding bigotry. Especially relevant in the context of Kremlin propaganda, I want to say that dehumanizing anybody is not allowed on lemm.ee (hopefully I do not have to spell it out, but this of course includes Ukrainians, LGBT folks, and others that the Kremlin despises), and action will be taken against any users who do this, regardless of what instance they are posting from.
Finally, I am very interested to hear thoughts and responses from our own users. I am super grateful to anybody who actually took the time to read through this massive dump of my own thoughts, and I am very interested to get a proper understanding of how our users feel about what I’ve written here. Please share any thoughts in the comments.
I think you should likely expand more on this. Your replies are kinda low effort dunks, and we should be clearer about the why's in such a thread where we are defending ourselves.
Don't just describe a contradiction but how the world can be understood through that contradiction and its various aspects. Linking on authority is, of course, always relevant to these claims, but try just a bit harder or don't post onto such a thread, imo. Or just link to another comrade talking about the exact thing, because I've read like 50 better explanations/replies in the past week from hexbear comrades.
Like this one maybe, with the lead up to it (idk how to link the whole thread tbh): https://hexbear.net/comment/3738759
Thank you for your comment. I actually do want to know why some people do not view democracy and authoritarianism as opposites.
Authoritarianism is a buzzword. All governments are organized around the exercise of authority or the threat thereof. In a genuine democracy, unlike the US, the authority is directed by the popular vote, but that doesn't make it less of an authority. The state is the mediator of and apparatus for class antagonism, there is always going to be a class that uses it and a class that it is used against, the question in both cases is merely which class? The Marxist says that the state should be controlled by the proletariat (via democracy) and used against the bourgeoisie as the proletariat sees fit for the current conditions.
If you mean autocracy, oligarchy, or beauracracy, just use one of those words instead because it actually describes something
Not really disagreeing with the other comrade there, but more adding for clarity: the word "authoritarianism" seems to attempt to distinguish some state (all of which are entirely defined by the fact that they have authority over the land/people to utilize violence in implementing the state's dictates/laws) utilizing it's authority vs not utilizing it, but the claim we make is that this distinction is meaningless and undermines itself always.
The fact that is that we can't blow up pipelines because of property rights or else we will have violence done to us (put in prison, or killed if resisting that). This is authority over us. Chinese companies are not allowed to escape regulations within China without significant punishments (see the death penalties for CEOs who break environmental, finance, or labor laws). This is authority over them. These 2 examples are only distinct in who has the authority and who is prioritized in the interaction. But 1 is called authoritarianism and the other isn't. Or compare: in the US, police who hurt journalists, imprisoned them, and saw absolutely no authority punish them vs the USSR, where those who has collaborated with the Nazi's in WW2 were punished by being placed in a penal colony in Siberia to work in a mine. Again, the only real difference in authority is for whom and against whom.
I for one would prefer a world where oil company's property rights were not protected by any authority until astonishingly large changes were to be made for the protection of our environment, and I see the interests of ONLY the capitalist class represented in that authority. Most cases where authority is utilized can be easily tied to the direct interests of a group of people. When a group of people have shared interests based in the basic structure of our economy (private property rights and the ability to profit being the basis here mostly, as well as the ability to sell your labor power as a worker), we call that a class. This is why we say that authority is always performed in the interests of a class (because all actions and decisions of the state either align with or against those interests, even if mostly tangentially or aligned with multiple at once).
This all just has very little to do with any understanding of democracy. The initial term of democracy was basically where everyone votes, but this term is not really used in the contexts we are talking about anymore and is restricted to small groups. We now usually understand democracy as either the sort of chauvinist version westerners use (where being a republic with votes where American observers are allowed is really the only criteria) or just a system which is able to take input from its people and perform in a way which the people approve. Whether this is direct voting, voting for a representative, or public caucuses and discussions is less material than the fact that the information is utilized and the outcomes desired are reached. (Edit addition here, something I thought of while responding elsewhere that fits here well: when authority is used to dictate a majority vote onto a minority, its precisely democratic in a simple sense and authoritarian in every sense. It's why I support a democracy which first has intense debate about what interests and results will arise from policy before it's ever up to vote and implementing it once there's a lot of consensus among parties. Cuba is the best example of this, but Vietnam, China and the USSR are also fine examples)
On these standards, both the USSR and China (as well as most other major socialist countries commonly called undemocratic) are much more democratic than the US or any western state. The approval ratings (even by western polls within these nations) are much higher than western nations. This is because both the authority and democracy is oriented towards workers as opposed to the owners (meaning that private property and owners/management profits is not prioritized over the workers/people who work for wages).
Thank you for your reply. I see what's going on here. We have different definitions for "democracy" and "authoritarianism."
Then what are yours? We can work from there if you'd prefer: I'm familiar with lots of philosophers of lots of traditions who've talked about such
Edit to add: something a lot of Marxists understand in relation to 'we have different definitions" as an attempt to avoid the discussion about the real material thing. Even if definitions are different, we both are attempting to articulate about SOMETHING. That thing doesn't change when the word used for it does. I'm describing very real phenomenon, and I'm sure you have a phenomenon in your head too. We can discuss those, and it doesn't matter what they're called. Otherwise, this just ends all discussion with both able to walk away feeling that they're right while there is still likely a huge contradiction between the phenomenon that needs explored
In this case the the definition of "authoritarian" is taken from a rather anarchist perspective, where any any and all infringements on individual liberties is authoritarian. If your mother calls you in the morning and tells you to get up, that's an authoritarian action because, theoretically, your mother is trying to overrule your individual freedom to sleep for as long as you want. It also means any community you're a part of that has a set of rules (not matter how lax) in place is an authoritarian community because they're infringing on your individual freedom to do whatever you want. Even the Engels piece referenced before implies the authoritarianism of the process of work (if you want to work as a collective you need to agree on certain rules that ultimately infringe on your freedom).
It's a perfectly fine definition if you want to get philosophical, but in your day to day it's a pretty useless definition. By this definition all civilizations throughout history have been authoritarian, because all of us have to sacrifice a piece of our freedom/individuality to co-exist in a society. Even the pre-civilization clan mentality is authoritarian, because you have to sacrifice some individuality to be a part of a clan. Thus accepting some level of authority is a fundamental part of any society which is why the strictly philosophical definition of authoritarianism IMO has no practical value, because it ends up stating that almost everything in your daily life is authoritarian (to some degree).
And to explicitly state why democracy and authoritarianism isn't viewed as opposites, it's because by that same definition democracy is authoritarianism. You willfully sacrifice some individual freedoms to allow the will of the people to flourish.
Yeah dawg that's ... the entire point of the Engels piece - "authoritarianism" is a meaningless buzzword.
Read on authority by Engels for actual explanation. Anything you hear here will be along those lines
I disagree with this. Not with Engels, but that this is really an answer to the above question. In fact, basically the only mention of anything relevant to this specific question is Engels claiming that they are kinda opposites in that democracy requires the subordination of the minority to the majority in a democratic vote. It is the basis for much understanding of authority in general for Marxists in a tactical sense, but we should legitimately stop using it as the end of all discussion about the concept itself and how it relates to others. Even on hexbear we've got anarchists who disagree despite having read Engels.