Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
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Hexbear, lemmygrad.ml and lemmy.ml are the "Tankie Triad".
Hexbear is the worst most extreme of them and lemmy.ml is the least which is why they've managed to avoid getting defederated from world (either that or because they're like the third largest instance behind only .world and SJW)
Hexbear is pretty widely defederated
A lot of .ml users and communities are there just because it was the only big instance much earlier on. I'm in no way a tankie but still use .ml a lot (a community I run is on there) because it was the first one I made and i'm too lazy to look into new instances or switch.
I would block hexbear. I've done it server-wide. They are mostly very loud trolls pretending to be communists. Some could be actual communists, but I don't buy anyone actually wanting to be in such a toxic environment and believe what they claim to believe.
They're "communist" if you believe that supporting the CCP is "communist" and that the usa is "capitalist". It's all just political tribalism to them, that's why they are also anti-Liberal and at times very anti-Democracy. The actual definitions of any of these political identities is completely lost on them, all of these words only mean west or east to them.
Hexbear, lemmygrad and (in great part) lemmy.ml are tankie instances.
They basically deny any crimes of Stalin, Mao etc…
block hexbear, lemmygrad, and lemmy.ml. And any user named "UniversalMonk" on any instance. You'll thank me later.
It's a tankie instance. You're not missing anything important or reality-based by blocking it. You should also block lemmy.ml.
You should block hexbear
I'm sorry if I sound tone deaf I am new to Lemmy .~.
Welcome to lemmy! For the most part lemmy is nice place to be. You will still see the occasional crazy though. Defiantly not something you see all the time. If you find a user, community or instance popping off a bunch of crazy the best thing to do is block them. You won't be missing anything without them.
Welcome and there is zero need to apologize. Some people (and group of them) can be a real pain. Once you have learned how to filter them out, it's a nice place with nice people. There is no shame in blocking them, a bit like I would not let someone enter my home so they shout their nonsense into my ears, or make their mess on the carpet.
Once again, welcome ;)
I nearly left lemmy because of Hexbear. Learning they could be blocked salvaged the platform for me. It's not just you - they are pretty widely reviled.
Howdy! Can confirm that most people and places I've seen on the Fediverse are lovely... Except Hexbear. They're one wall of cognitive dissonance away from being right wingers and constantly complaining that liberals are all lying to themselves about their liberalism. That THEY are the TRUE left wingers.
Oh another one of these
Short answer:
"What if 4chan was communist instead of neonazi"
Similar level of assholety and low post quality. Better politics. Overall don't bother, not worth it.
Wow, I was wondering why I hadn't blocked a single hexbear or lemmy.ml user here: my instance did it for me! I've had multiple accounts on multiple servers and consistently had to block hexbear users until finally blocking hexbear outright. It's been a much better experience then.
I'll do you one better, why is Hexbear??
Note: being on Lemmy for about a year, I didn't live through the early days of this place. Here's what I can recollect, as neutrally given as possible.
TL;DR The recent conflicts between two politically different groups on Lemmy have radicalized many people, and many Hexbear residents in particular. Unless you are to discuss the far-left ideas and are very radical about disadvantaged groups, you are safe to block it.
Hexbear is a far-left (as in actually communist) anti-discrimination community, initially more of a safe haven to promote equality and foster a healthy and welcoming place for leftists to come together.
With core developers of Lemmy also being far-left, Hexbear naturally fitted the landscape along with the official Lemmy.ml, heavy far-left Lemmygrad.ml and others.
As time went on, however, all sorts of left-leaning and apolitical folks, not just far-left, came to the platform, filling other instances like Lemmy.world (now the most populated of them all), sh.itjust.works and many others.
As a result, Lemmy has two groups of people with radically different political views: one is a group of more or less organized far-left, and the other is everyone else, most commonly liberals. This distinction has caused a lot of conflicts and heated discussions based on political adherence.
Most notable case is latest US elections. The far left side generally called not to vote Democrat as Biden has failed to deliver on many of his promises and empowered Israel to commit war crimes in Palestine, while the liberal audience called to vote Democrat to not let Republicans take the lead, which may arguably lead to an even worse outcome than unaccountable Dems can make.
This divide has raised a lot of mutual hostility, brigading, and uncivil behavior, which has radicalized many on both sides of the conflict, the consequences of which you have got to experience.
What to do with that is up to you to decide. Hexbear is very politically uniform and very political overall, so if you're not here to discuss communism, you won't lose much and will gain additional peace of mind.
This is by far the best and most informative answer. The only thing it's missing as another couple commenters pointed out is hexbear is all about their oversized memes and emojis, making anytime you happen upon one of their posts extremely conspicuous (even if politics aren't being discussed).
Tankies, mostly. They're on my blocklist,but managed to avoid it for a disgustingly long time; they do have some good content from time to time, but in the end seeing the repeated vitriol and genocide denialism simply wasn't worth it.
"Anyone right of me is Hitler" sounds pretty on point for them. Instance block and move on with your day.
Hexbear users will bully you to hell the very second you say something they disagree with. In my case, I said South Park is a funny show. They also think Putin is a good guy and at the same time they pretend 90% of their users are trans. Basically it's a bunch of douche kids playing revolutionaries and intimating anyone they disagree with. My 2 cents.
I'm sorry u had to experience these extremists. Block the instance and forget about them.
Yes, you should definitely block Hexbear. They're a toxic, angry group of people, who have no intention of ever engaging in good faith.
It's an instance that became known for brigading other instances to "dunk" on anyone who has remotely different ideas than they do, as well as spamming oversized emojis and pictures of pigs shitting on their own testicles. They have been defederated by most instances for good reason, as they always showed up enmasse to completely derail discussion and their own stated purpose of federating with other instances was to "dunk on liberals and dismantle Western propaganda". Their users would harass people in DMs for weeks on end if that person said something they didn't like. I was there to see this happen in several instances before they all defederated from Hexbear and it almost made me quit Lemmy entirely.
Below are some examples of various instances considering federating with Hexbear, only for Hexbesr's users to cause enough problems to get defederated. The threads themselves are best viewed from an instance that federates with Hexbear in order to see the awful behaviour for yourself, and the lemmy.ca thread has several more examples of this.
https://lemmy.ca/post/3326347 https://lemm.ee/post/4543536 https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/2017079 https://lemmy.world/post/249833
Do note that a lot of Hexbear users have alternate accounts on lemmy.ml and midwest.social (because nobody wants to federate with Hexbear), and a lot of these people will be in this very thread trying to defend Hexbear. Don't be fooled by them. Hexbear is a toxic cesspit.
Tankies
It's an instance meant to seem attractive to western youths while explicitly only serving the needs of the Chinese Dictatorship.
Most of their users are bots, human decency is their kryptonite. If ever you are convinced that any of them are your friends, you're just another mark they intend to make full use of and throw away: you are not a human being in the eyes of Hexbear.
https://sh.itjust.works/c/meanwhileongrad
One word, Tankies.
The community I shared rounds up posts that really portray their ~~Phalusophy~~ Philosophy really well. Now you would need to scroll down a bit to see some posts from hexbear specifically.
but I cannot recommend you enough to stay well away from hexbear, lemmygrad and if possible .ml
They seem like grad users in the fact that no one outside their instance wants to federate with their toxic instance. Who would've guessed that a highly charged instances calls people "Hitlerites" as an insult. (Obv I lack context here regarding the comment.)
It's something every sane person should block as soon as they join Lemmy.
It's a bear with six legs
Yes block hexbear. It’s one of the first things I did on lemmy. Save yourself the toxicity of dealing with them.