Update:
The comments from this post will not be removed as to preserve the discussion around the announcement. Any continued discussions outside of this thread that violate server rules will be removed. We feel that everyone that has an opinion, and wanted to vent, has been heard.

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Original post:
Yesterday, we received information about the planned federation by Hexbear. The announcement thread can be found here: https://www.hexbear.net/post/280770. After reviewing the thread and the comments, it became evident that allowing Hexbear to federate would violate our rules.

Our code of conduct and server rules can be found here.

The announcement included several concerning statements, as highlighted below:

  • “Please try to keep the dirtbag lib-dunking to hexbear itself. Do not follow the Chapo Rules of Posting, instead try to engage utilizing informed rhetoric with sources to dismantle western propaganda. Posting the western atrocity propaganda and pig poop balls is hilarious but will pretty quickly get you banned and if enough of us do it defederated.”
  • “The West’s role in the world, through organizations such as NATO, the IMF, and the World Bank - among many others - are deeply harmful to the billions of people living both inside and outside of their imperial core.”
  • “These organizations constitute the modern imperial order, with the United States at its heart - we are not fooled by the term “rules-based international order.” It is in the Left’s interest for these organizations to be demolished. When and how this will occur, and what precisely comes after, is the cause of great debate and discussion on this site, but it is necessary for a better world.”

The rhetoric and goal of Hexbar are clear based on their announcement: to “dismantle western propaganda” and "demolish organizations such as NATO” shows that Hexbar has no intention of "respecting the rules of the community instance in which they are posting/commenting.” It’s to push their beliefs and ideology.

In addition, several comments from a Hexbear admin, demonstrate that instance rules will not be respected.

Here are some examples:

“I can assure you there will be no lemmygrad brigades, that energy would be better funneled into the current war against liberalism on the wider fediverse.”

“All loyal, honest, active and upright Communists must unite to oppose the liberal tendencies shown by certain people among us, and set them on the right path. This is one of the tasks on our ideological front.”

Overall community comments:

To clarify, for those who have inquired about why Hexbear versus Lemmygrad, it should be noted that we are currently exploring the possibility of defederating from Lemmygrad as well based on similar comments Hexbear has made.

Defederation should only be considered as a last resort. However, based on their comments and behavior, no positive outcomes can be expected.

We made the decision to preemptively defederate from Hexbear for these reasons. While we understand that not everyone may agree with our decision, we believe it is important to prioritize the best interests of our community.

    • tool@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8515·
      1 year ago

      Exactly. Freedom of speech != Freedom from social consequences

      • RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1176·
        1 year ago

        Well, in a truly “free” society, yes freedom of speech would constitute freedom from “social consequences.” However, the United States, and in fact, no Earth government, is a truly free society. There are rules and laws that exist, thus restricting freedoms. However, specifically regarding freedom of speech as it is mentioned in US law, it specifically is a protection for citizens from retaliation by the US government, and does not cover interactions between citizens.

        So I wouldn’t say “freedom of speech doesnt mean freedom from social consequences,” but rather “freedom of speech does not include a requirement that others listen.” There are laws with regards to how other citizens can respond, including laws against assault and libel and such. But there is no law that says anyone must to listen to what you have to say simply because you have the freedom to say it. Thats quite a preposterous idea.

        At least in the US, each citizen has the right to say what they choose within the constraints established by law, and to choose who they will listen to.

        • Pandantic@lemmy.worldEnglish
          594·
          1 year ago

          Well, in a truly “free” society, yes freedom of speech would constitute freedom from “social consequences.”

          Just as people can refuse to listen, they also can refuse to interact with persons that say things that upset them. This is a social consequence, and one that would be still be present in a “truly free society”.

          • RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.worldEnglish
            649·
            1 year ago

            A truly free society would have no consequences, laws, or restraints on behaviour.

            You can see a very obvious reason why that would be very bad. Thus there is no society on Earth that is truly free. Restrictions exist to protect people, that is the nature of things.

            • FlickOfTheBean@lemmy.world
              402·
              1 year ago

              I think you’ve managed to define an oxymoron of a society.

              Society does not exist without consequences. That’s what laws/rules/agreements are necessitated on. As in, a society with no consequences is not a society. I’d go so far to say that society is a system of consequences.

              Even in a “lawless societies” hierarchies form, and then agreements turn to rules turn to defacto law.

              This is like saying “I can never truly be free because gravity binds me to the ground”. Like, ok, sure, but you had to define freedom in a non-standard way to get to that conclusion (I’m trying make this make sense, is it landing well?)

        • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
          163·
          1 year ago

          Well, in a truly “free” society, yes freedom of speech would constitute freedom from “social consequences.”

          No? That would imply it’s not free, as the receivers aren’t free to act upon the given information freely?

          If the society is truly “free”, as in, absolutist free, then if someone said something you didn’t like, you could just punch them in the face without consequence. But that means the original speech had a consequence based on the social interaction with you!

    • Karu 🐲@lemmy.world
      410·
      1 year ago

      I usually support that sentiment, but it only applies when it is in your hands whether we listen or not. In this case, the admins singlehandedly decided that none of us can. This is pretty much a form of censorship IMO

      • Jordan Lund@lemmy.oneEnglish
        92·
        1 year ago

        As I said in another reply:

        The people who own a lemmy instance have the right to associate (federate) with whatever other instances meet their guidelines.

        If you don’t agree, then you are free to join a different lemmy instance that is federated with objectionable material.

        You don’t have the right to demand that lemmy.one meets your standards. You don’t own it.

        If you find that no other instance federates with what you want, you’re free to make your own, with blackjack, and hookers.

        https://youtu.be/e35AQK014tI

      • RaoulDook@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        1 year ago

        The admins don’t control you. You can have an account anywhere else you want to. So unless you’re paying for the servers here, you can deal with the Terms of Service or not use it.

    • eroc1990@lemmy.parastor.netEnglish
      1121·
      1 year ago

      Try telling that to the lemmyers (lemmings?) In this Technology thread that were clowning mastodon.art for blocking social.bbc for BBC’s history of transphobic rhetoric, considering there are a decent amount of transgender people (and other LGBTQIA+ identifying people) are members of their instance. Same situation, definitely not the same reaction.

      EDIT: It was in Technology on lemdro.id, not Fediverse. EDIT 2: Spelling

      • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
        107·
        1 year ago

        Yeah but there’s a big difference.

        As people right fully call out in that thread, defederation from the BBC without them having had a fediverse presence to do anything worth defederating with is wild. It’s the same broken argument as pre-emptively defederating from threads was, barring worries about sync-load or something.

        But in the case of Hexobear, they do have lots of content based upon which you can judge whether federation with the instance is worth the extra moderation effort for you as an admin or not. In this case the lemmy.world admins decided that it is not worth it, an defederated.

        However, importantly they had something to judge what working with the communities from the instance would be like. With BBC or Threads, no one had that. And while every instance admin is of course free to do whatever they want, they’re also making a really good point against the fediverse as a technological solution if they act that way.

        Consider that if it were a central site, defederating from tankybear is the equivalent of banning a community. The BBC/Threads thing is preemptively blocking a community from ever being created. There are very rare cases where the latter might be warranted, but it’s tough to imagine scenarios where it would have a meaningful reason.

        • eroc1990@lemmy.parastor.netEnglish
          32·
          1 year ago

          I don’t agree that there’s a big difference, though. Yes, one has much more of a base for their claims than the other, but both defeds are based largely on the personal opinions of the administrators of the instances, whether they’re politically motivated or rooted in the desire to not have to moderate and micromanage the content posted from that instance. In that way, both of these are the same decision made on the same grounds.

          • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
            1·
            1 year ago

            but both defeds are based largely on the personal opinions of the administrators of the instances, whether they’re politically motivated or rooted in the desire to not have to moderate and micromanage the content posted from that instance

            Hrm, an understandable POV (even though I personally disagree). But then I would also say, what is the alternative? Since a large part of the Fediverse is about everyone running their own custom instance if they want, naturally they’re also the one to decide if that place goes down or behaves differently. I wouldn’t really know how to truly improve upon this.