Instances defederated from hexbear and lemmygrad because a few dozen users from those instances were terminally online trolls. They'd relentlessly harass users they didn't like (i.e. most people), spam threads with gross images, and were generally obnoxious shitheads.

Also, "Tankie" is an insult against the hardcore authoritarian left: people that cheer on repressive dictators and violent supression of dissent. The term was invented by communists out of disgust for some of their "fellows".

Of course, if you ask a tankie they'll try to argue the word is an insult to all communists/socialists/leftists ... it's not.

[–] Cricket@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Going by your figure, a few dozen users out of nearly 2,500 combined monthly active users behaved badly. It seems to me that defederating was/is an overreaction when user-level blocks and community-level bans exist.

[–] oatscoop@midwest.social 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

You weren't around for it, but it was bad -- you couldn't avoid them. A few dozen trolls doesn't sound like much, but they were coordinated and relentless. Blocking users didn't work because they were constantly making alts, including on other instances.

Calls were made for instances hosting them to ban those users: most did, some refused to or couldn't. Blocking instances in user settings wasn't a thing yet, so those instances were mass defederated from. Lemmygrad and hexbear were the big two and home of the dirtbags that were upset their "fun" was over.

[–] Cricket@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks for the context. Still, it seems that whatever happened back then is no longer the case now that we can block users, communities, and instances ourselves. I don't see a good reason to keep those instances defederated now.