Has anyone else noticed how prevalent Hexbear posters have suddenly become? Maybe sometime last week I noticed nearly every political post had at least one long thread of Hexbear users that do nothing but repeat CCP talking points while waving anyway anything even remotely reliable as Western propaganda. That or getting all excited about trolled libs. The way they tell it, you'd think everything from DW, to Fox, to Propublica, to straight up AP News articles, are all written by the same people.
Not to mention, their info on the Fediverse observer is either straight up wrong or there's some serious botting going on. According to that, the instance is less than a month old, yet somehow they already have one of the largest, most active userbases, along with far and away the most comments of any instance.
Seems to me like Lemmygrad on steroids. Considering we defederated from them, seems like a no-brainer to block Hexbear as well.
So glad this thread could become such a perfect microcosm of why we need to defederate.
Meh... I don't think defederation is necessary. Personally, my biggest issue with Hexbear is, as with most other socialist-oriented online spaces, is that it's hard to find discussion that isn't focused on it, and especially international socialism since my main focus is my community (hence why I chose this instance). It's not really my thing, I hate terms like "shitlib" and "tankie" and my big interests are outside of my worldview- that's not to say I don't care about it, far from it, but it's not something I talk/think about all the time.
That being said, it can be refreshing once in a while to have an explicitly anti-capitalist instance whose discussions don't puppet ones pushed by massive, capitalist news organizations. Not only is it another perspective but there's sometimes totally new stuff that I end up learning.
Idk. I think the biggest reason we shouldn't defederate as opposed to, say, lemmygrad, is because Hexbear explicitly supports left unity as far as I can tell, so I think it's fine to keep federating.
There are plenty of "less explicitly political" comms on hexbear if you are interested: https://hexbear.net/communities
And yes, left unity is important
Yeah honestly daily posting on HB itself is startlingly non-political
Probably one of the best parts too. It would be nice to draw in other users so those comms got some more activity.
No one is interested in what the ebil tankies have to say about cooking or movies though
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That is true and you are right to say it.
Its not fair that you're cuter then me
Left unity
Interesting take. No bullshit - thanks for sharing.
Hexbear tends to appear to other instances as overtly political because the bears will come out of the woodwork to dunk on libs. It's a culture that goes back to /r/chapotraphouse, when posters would share screenshots of some moronic reactionary take and drag the offender into the thread to bully them for being racists or transphobic.
Internally, hexbear mostly consists of trans positivity and pictures of owls
I keep thinking the mismatch between perception and reality will stop being funny, but not so far!
Also trains! Don't forget trains!
I hope you'll come visit some of our less political comms and stick around. Honestly it's the friendliest spot on the internet I've found.
Yeah, for example I really like the cars community. I was raised in a family who liked em a lot, and I always did too so I felt a little weird being a car guy in a community who doesn't like cars much (and fair, car dependency is hell) but the one there is cool about cars and also likes alternative transportation too. Cool stuff
Nice! I hope you'll feel at home.
Anyone who actually likes cars should want cars to be less of a primary mode or transportation. Less traffic makes for a much more enjoyable driving experience.
And a safer one!
Hooh, then come on over, and let's talk about rally, hillclimbing, dragracing, touring cars, and all that good shit!
I appreciate the activity, personally, though everything being political gets very tiring for me. The fediverse should be diverse and I believe things will get better with time. It would be premature to defederate. It's ok to have world views challenged, especially when the discourse is constructive and coming from a desire to reach and foster understanding. I'm hopeful we'll see that come true over time.