As you probably know, lemmy.world’s admin recently put out a post addressing their decision to defederate from Hexbear before Hexbear had even federated to another instance. Their reasoning can be found here, and I wanted to break down and critique their reasoning.

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

None of lemmy.world’s rules would be broken by Hexbear’s federation, no rule states against ideological instances federating. If lemmy.world was a strictly non-political instance, this would make sense, but lemmy.world promises to “Provide a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for all members; regardless of gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, political affiliation, or other similar characteristic. Human comes first.”

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 first paragraph, in shitposty-leftist terms says: Keep the shitposting to Hexbear itself, when interacting with lemmy.world users, be polite and informed. The second paragraph is explaining that Hexbear is anti-NATO (not against lemmy.world’s rules), anti-IMF (not against the rules), and anti-World Bank (not against the rules). It is a core part of leftist ideology to oppose these things, and calling it “concerning” is ridiculous. The final paragraph is again, explaining Hexbear’s stance on the three imperialist organizations and calling for the dismantling of the organizations. This could be interpreted as concerning, but nowhere does it say “the violent takeover of the world” or “genocide” or whatever the people in the comments are saying about us (“Hexbear is a cesspool for genocidal lunatics”).

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.” https://lemmy.world/comment/121850 https://lemmy.world/comment/1487168 https://lemmy.world/comment/1476084 https://lemmy.world/comment/171595 https://hexbear.net/comment/3648500 Overall community comments: https://hexbear.net/comment/3526128 https://hexbear.net/comment/3526086 https://hexbear.net/comment/3652828 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. https://lemmygrad.ml/post/158656 https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/882559 https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/540170 https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/446529

These are comments from people arguing on the internet. Nothing special. Go look at the comments.

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.

Defederation should only be considered as a last resort. We made the decision to preemptively defederate. Defederation should only be considered as a last resort. We made the decision to preemptively defederate. Defederation should only be considered as a last resort. We made the decision to preemptively defederate.

Defederation should only be considered as a LAST RESORT. We made the decision to PREEMPTIVELY DEFEDERATE.

Defederation should only be considered as a LAST RESORT. We made the decision to PREEMPTIVELY DEFEDERATE.

Defederation should only be considered as a last resort. We made the decision to PREEMPTIVELY DEFEDERATE.

WHAT IS IT THEN, LWADMIN? IS IT A LAST RESORT, OR A PREEMPTIVE STRIKE?

Ok, thats just my little rant, if I’m wrong, be sure to dox me and send me death threats and all’at.

Edit: Formatting issues