Blåhaj Lemmy is a Lemmy instance attached to blahaj.zone. This is a group for questions or discussions relevant to either instance.
Recently I was browsing some communities I typically hang out in and I started noticing Hexbear accounts being... well their typical selves.
Which made me check which account I was on because I've got a few, and when I noticed I was on my Blahaj account I had to check and it looks like we're federated again?
Why?
Hey, sorry about the way this unfolded.
I removed hexbear from the blocklist, as they are defederated from us, and I was unaware that it would mean that hexbear users and blahaj users would be able to interact on 3rd party instances. I'll add them back for now.
Ultimately, the reason I removed them from the list now is that once we have the ability to let users block instances on a per user level, I am open to the idea of refederating with hexbear, because I am aware that many of their trans and gender diverse users want the ability to connect with our trans communities, and trans solidarity is something that I hold to be very important. Enough that I am willing to give this all another go.
However, it was only meant to happen after blahaj users had the option to opt out of interacting with hexbear users, and after I had made an announcement letting people know it was coming. I apologise for the screw up leading to a mini refederation before I gave people a heads up and before the tools were in place to let people choose whether they engage with hexbear users.
I will warn you right now: regardless of their claims to be LGBTQ+ inclusive, they mercilessly harass users and fracture communities. I have left a couple other instances over their federation with them because of the constant harassment for any kind of perceived slight (I was accosted because they thought I had implied something about autistic folks? When in fact I was trying to make myself understood as an autistic person!).
You are making a huge mistake with this decision. But, obviously, as a user, I can only wish you well if this is the direction you choose. You will be making so much more work for yourself by doing this and putting a lot of stress on users who did not sign up for what is to come.
Best of luck.
constant harassment for any kind of perceived slight (I was accosted because they thought I had implied something about autistic folks?
I have very similar experiences. My impression is that the goal is stirring shit and making trouble and “owning libs”. They use traditional leftist topics to do it, but that’s the means, not the end.
It should be noted that Lemmy's blocking function is more for "things you don't want to see" and is next to useless for users that are actually harmful because it does not restrict access to the person it is used on, it only hides their content from you (great for people who you "disagree with" but insufficient for legitimately/objectively harmful users).
Instances like Hexbear post large amounts of spam and spread objectively harmful ideology and misinformation. They aren't merely "things you don't want to see". Their defederation should be done to maintain the health and safety of the instance due to the severity of some of their offenses.
I didn’t realize either until I wandered into one of their posts. I am newer to lemme and I thought the general vibe was "leftist=good, atrocities=bad" but these dudes were all about Russia being good dudes and Ukraine being bad. I asked what was up with that and everyone shit on me. I even got some NK style propaganda thrown at me. Apparently NK is a lovely place to live and they are just being sanctioned to death bc they resist American imperialism.
It really threw me for a loop. I spent some time trying to figure out wtf a hexbear is. The general consensus is that they’re tankies and that’s bad.
They're tankies. That is, they're auth facists with a leftist mask slightly obscuring their face.
[I got a bot to automatically delete all my comments over 1 month old so you can’t see this comment anymore]
If I remember correctly, we didn't defederate from them. They came, they threw shit around, and they defederated soon after for a bonus superiority boner. So hexbear is defederated from us, but we are not from them.
@Ada can we please defederate from Hexbear fully?
Or perhaps can you comment on why we're federated again?
Semi related daily reminder that blahaj defederated from lemmynsfw because they asked for the closure of /c/adorableporn claiming it was CSAM, and they refused 😐
I moved to iusearchlinux.fyi to be re-federated with everyone and honestly even the tankies, 99% of what reaches the front page is pretty bearable and you guys miss out on mostly good posts. I saw some guardian articles about palestine civilian deaths today for example and realized it was in the lemmygrad worldnews only when I scrolled past it a second time
For point #1 - good riddance. That kind of porn is super creepy regardless of whether or not it is true CSAM.
For point #2 - I might just be getting old, but I don't have time to wade through a "bearable" feed when I can get all the best posts through someone else's hard work. I am glad to have mods that reflect my approximate values and defederate where reasonable.
I will appreciate when people like you repost/link the rare piece of good content that I miss out on though. I welcome views counter to my own, if well thought out or sanely provocative, but sometimes you gotta filter out trolls and creeps.
I can say that I feel comfortable recommending my instance to people I meet IRL, and that counts for a lot with me.
It does make the site harder to navigate for new users and I wish the defederation had alternatives like an instance default blocklist.
User level instance blocks when
I keep blocking hexbear shit but there's always more
The problem with instance block on a user basis is that points still get federated over
So even if you block the instance then the community can still be influenced by the other community without you ever seeing their accounts
Maybe that's a problem but personally I disable vote scores and read all the comments anyway so I don't care that much what people vote. I don't think my instance is going to defederate hexbear so I'm looking forward to it.
A lot of people do view content with votes, which if people see how the community reacts to certain kinds of posts and comments via votes then discussions would still be steered at large in a community