Comment on Artifical Intelligence
OpenStars@startrek.website 2 months agoA summary of what happened between Blahaj.Zone and Hexbear.Net
Ada, an instance admin of Blahaj.Zone is extremely welcoming and inclusive - I have always actively looked forward to reading anything they say wherever/whenever I encounter such across the Fediverse, and have never been disappointed so far. They, like the instance overall, are the real deal(s).
Unfortunately, hexbear.net merely pretends to be thus, but like everything else they do it is a farce while their real goal is to be argumentative. They are actually quite open about this if you read past the initial prepared statements (or even read the official sidebar of the_dunk_tank) - on the instance they call it “dunking on” people, or “struggle sessions”, and no matter how many users, mods, and even admins/devs they turn away as a result (as that vote post mentions), they cannot seem to help themselves, even outside of their echo chambers where that is allowed & actively encouraged. Even/especially when their own admins beg & plead - and yes, also explicitly command - their userbase to FUCKING STOP… they will not. And so far I haven’t even mentioned the brigading… no matter how deeply I delve into this, there is always more.
Defederation is - and should be - always a last resort. That said, it is necessary sometimes, b/c as it has been said the only thing that can never be tolerated is intolerance - e.g. if cancer cells refuse to inhibit their own growth, then it must be cut out for the sake of the rest of the body to live. Also, as you see, it was actually hexbear.net that initiated the defederation from most of those places not the other way around - Lemmy.World did not wait to be offered the chance to be on the receiving end, but for programming.dev, Blahaj.Zone, and Lemm.ee (which was kicked off but later refederated, read also from hexbear) it was hexbear.net’s choice, and the reverse defederation was only in friendliness to avoid dangling one-sided conversations where users on their platforms could talk to those on hexbear but the latter would not even know that there was a message awaiting their receipt, and subsequent response - as you are asking about here but in reverse.
Startrek.website and mander.xyz tend to have their own focus and not attract all of this drama, hence why someone from hexbear.net can see the post and also comment on it, but users on e.g. lemmy.world, programming.dev, or lemmy.blahaj.zone would not see that comment. The hexbear user is thus shouting into the void, with respect to those instances, though not to ours who can see both.
The sad fact (imho) is that new visitors to the Fediverse will never have any of this explained to them - instead, they have to do something like personally make the mistake of replying to a post in ChapoTrapHouse, found by sorting your feed by All rather than Subscribed, and then after WEEKS and WEEKS and WEEKS of batshit insane responses that do not end despite zero response back from said user, they finally will know what to expect from hexbear.net: overall (as a pattern) they enjoy argumentation, do not constrain themselves to that process being logical or the statements to be factual, but they sure do enjoy the “dunking on” process, so long as it is delivered from them to others, though obviously not in return. And from the other side, users of hexbear.net will notice how very few people “react” to their posts made in communities that can see outside of their instance - essentially for them the Fediverse contains fewer users, from their perspective. And then from our side, we see the drama between their sides, more so than even they do themselves.
abfarid@startrek.website 2 months ago
When I first joined the Fediverse, back when Reddit 3rd party apps got nuked, I joined lemmy.world. While I didn’t see Hexbear post, comments, etc., but I did see plenty of comments of people mentioning them and warning about them. So by the time I switched to startrek.website (don’t remember why I decided to leave l.w, must have been due to some defederations) and finally encountered the mythical beast, I was already thoroughly prepared for it. So I would say, in general, newbies shouldn’t be entirely shocked to encounter a tankie, as they are mentioned a lot.
And tbh, I prefer to stay federated with Hexbear, because among all the mindless circlejerk propaganda they will sometimes point out a fair criticism about the western culture/politics that I haven’t considered. In addition, as a half Ukrainian who was living in Kyiv at the time of invasion, I prefer to know what kind of ideas and misinformation is being circulated on the other side.
Hexbear wouldn’t even be that bad if they just stopped pretending that only western empires are evil, and stopped bootlicking the leaders of the pseudo-communist countries. A LOT more people would agree with them if they were only anti-western, instead of also being pro-dictators. But then they wouldn’t be tankies, I suppose.
Btw, Hexbear reminds me a lot of r/GamingCircleJerk. They also have a semi-noble cause, but express it in such a way that rubs EVERYONE the wrong way, not just the “Capital-G Gamers” who they are rightfully mocking. Because of that, r/GCJ has caused several site-wide dramas and inconvenienced people. They both also operate in this constant state of maximum sarcasm, so you can never tell if they are saying is a hyperbole or they are being serious but insane.
Regarding Blahaj.zone, I haven’t interacted much with them, but I one day discovered that I’m banned from their c/196 because “Transphobe”. It wasn’t even due to an interaction with that community directly. In a completely different instance, I think it was lemmy.world, I commented with a question about why a user’s comment was called being transphobic. I then got mocked and eventually banned. So Idk if it was mod of that specific community or whole instance. I seem to be able to interact with Blahaj post from other communities though.
And thank you for these massive posts. You seem to be a proper Lemmy historian, might need to remember your username for future potential inquiries.
OpenStars@startrek.website 2 months ago
I think that - like porn, receiving catcalls as you walk down the street, and
spammarketing solicitations - being able to interact with people who ignore consent should be opt-IN, rather than have to be opt-OUT. I see that you have a valid reason for wanting to hear what they have to say… but for myself I almost left the Fediverse upon stumbling into ChapoTrapHouse, and again another similar incident in lemmygrad.ml. Whereas now, I have blocked both of those plus also Lemmy.ml, and I kid you not, >99% of the toxicity is instantly gone from my feed. The latter also blocks some innocent people too, who may try to discourse with me and not realize that I will not receive a “notification” about it, but I have made my peace with that, since on the whole I do not want to make time for that shit in my life.On Reddit I used to pride myself that I had never blocked anyone - and as a mod it wouldn’t have helped anyway - but now I value my time and sanity more I guess:-). Seriously, it takes a mental toll: it makes you more defensive, more cagey, less likely to speak for fear of being misunderstood and pounced upon, and when you do speak your own answers become more snarky, in closer alignment with even if nowhere near the extreme that theirs does. I felt it was affecting my communication at my irl job, and was ready to leave social media altogether even before Rexodus happened, and I found here. Fortunately Kbin.social showed me a friendlier side of the Fediverse, before it went defunct and I saw the rest. Now, literally every single person that I tell about Lemmy irl gives me dirty looks the next time we talk, citing the high volume of extremist content here, calling for literal and bloody violence. Forcing new users to be exposed to this content as being opt-out rather than opt-in is going to SEVERELY hinder the survivability of Lemmy, much less growth.
Plus, as you’ve seen, it leads to things like those communities being banned outright, even from instances such as this one that haven’t gone the full defederation route. It would be SO MUCH friendlier to simply “label” the content… but that would take extra work effort from the developers, plus who would write up those labels (I think it should be the very communities themselves - but they haven’t taken such an initiative so far, e.g. in their sidebar areas, or even to follow the rules that their very own admins commanded them to do) and anyway here we are, so we work with the tools we have. Which are at least better than they used to be, and improving all the time:-). One down-side is that every instance that gets defederated leads to another one receiving a bunch of new alts so it merely shifts the line. Right now that is lemmy.ml, but with so many people blocking them these days it will soon shift to midwest.social, and then from there… As I guess you know, these are people who refuse to follow the rules - even their own - yet demand to be HEARD, the consent of those who do not want to listen be damned.
Blaze knows like 1000x more than me - e.g. they introduced me to that !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca community, and afterwards we both keep telling anyone who will listen about it:-). Speaking of, they will tell you the same: check out lemm.ee as a server that basically does not defederate from anyone. I checked their modlog and don’t see any communities removed from hexbear.net, and both lemm.ee/c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net and lemm.ee/c/the_dunk_tank@hexbear.net work. If you want something that sits solidly on neutral ground to survey all around you, that one is the hot pick right now. Though it is far from the only one - e.g. another is reddthat.com, still another is lemmy.zip, and there’s others too. All of those have even remained federated with lemmygrad.ml, as well as hexbear.net. Ofc you can always go visit hexbear.net itself too - either with an alt or if you don’t want to vote or talk, without an account. There are many paths available to you:-). Ironically lemmy.ml itself would not be ideal, b/c it has defederated from lemmygrad.ml (I don’t know why:-).
196 sounds like a simple misunderstanding, though exactly what we are talking about here: they had a golden opportunity to listen patiently, assess where you were coming from with your question, and if you were “wrong” then to educate you about the situation - to all of which you (as I would in your place) extremely likely would have said THANK YOU, whether they managed to cause you to change your mind or not, for e.g. spending the time and engaging in that proper, civil conversation. Fwiw, I’ve never heard Ada (the admin) fly off the handle like that, and conversely have talked about being the way I described above instead. So I’m sure it was just a power-tripping mod of that single community - yes we have those here too, that was not merely a thing of our shared Reddit past:-P. I too get weird vibes from it and it is the only - and first - community that I always banned whenever I made a new account somewhere on the Fediverse. I hope that did not sour your experience with the rest of that instance… but if so, it is their loss. Though like my own bad experiences with ChapoTrapHouse and lemmygrad.ml, it is good that both of us did not simply abandon the entire concept of the Fediverse, b/c there really are good people here, even though there’s also a lot of noise and children’s chatter about as well.
Anyway I am glad that you managed to solve this mystery - of hexbear.net not being defederated, but those certain communities residing on it having been removed - that was indeed seemed quite strange to me!:-)
abfarid@startrek.website 2 months ago
I suppose you have a point. If Hexbear wasn’t defederated from other big instances, then they would be more prominent in smaller instances that federate with them too. And when there’s a lot of them, everywhere becomes a circlejerk. I mean, both Reddit and Lemmy are circlejerk-y by nature, but at least the circlejerks are usually less harmful than what HB does. I personally haven’t had the pleasure to deal with lemmygrad, I think, but lemmy.ml seems just slightly harder lefty Lemmy, I haven’t so far seen anything extreme, so Idk if they are toxic.
And again, I think the entire nature of this up/downvote-based media is somewhat toxic. People routinely interpret comments in the worst possible way and pile on it.
The c/196 was unfortunate. It is my only ever ban (so far), as I’m an extremely reasonable person. I have to say that my initial reaction was that, indeed, that instance doesn’t want to have a conversation, but have everyone automatically accept whatever they think is right. But if you’re saying that the community is an outlier, I believe you.
Your listing of alternative instances was helpful as I’m too lazy to look around, and would likely not found that info on my own. So far our instance is good enough, I think, but I’ll consider the alternatives. Thank you for that, too.
Btw, if you’re blocking all Hexbear stuff, how did you find my comment? It’s a response to a Hexbear user. So you see their comment as well?
OpenStars@startrek.website 2 months ago
Lemmy.ml is a complicated story. The admins include some of the chief developers of the Lemmy software, and so e.g. !Fediverse!fediverse@lemmy.ml is there, as is c/firefox with ~4.2k monthly users, whereas in comparison firefox at lemmy.world has about a tenth of that.
The admins are known to kick people from the entire instance, for e.g. claiming that the Tiananmen Square massacre did happen (you read that right - did, not “did not”, but did). So it is extremely totalitarian behavior, with a set of “alternate facts” that they echo around amongst one another, with little to no quarter offered to those who believe in “facts” that the leaders have not approved. Some people avoid the instance altogether purely for this reason, which seems similar to me to the reason(s) that many of us left Reddit in the first place - e.g. in solidarity against Huffman and what he did & said to app developers, and the whole “landed gentry” and such.
But more important is their complement of users. Some of them are great people to talk to - others not so much. On the whole, for someone on an instance that has already blocked lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net, blocking lemmy.ml can remove >90% of all the spammy comments that one tends to receive on the Fediverse. I am saying that well over 90% of the time when someone gives me the most batshit INSANE reply that left my mouth dropping open for just how stupid it was… I looked and found that it was someone from the lemmy.ml instance. I think being used to batting those “alternative facts” around back-and-forth, they are very much aware that use of power, which for a normal user (not a mod or admin) mostly means taking a stance of hostility, often “wins” arguments - from their POV anyway, e.g. when the recipient stops responding - more so than actual logical argumentation. And they are correct, in the sense that the only way for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing to stop them, so by cowing people into submission they seem to want to manage to assert their will upon everyone around them (which I am calling “stupidity” b/c it presumes that I am somehow not aware of a third choice - not to merely agree or disagree with them, either of which I am expected to express via a reply to their comment, but to bow out from the conversation entirely).
Again, not everyone from those instances is that way, just… that it is a trend (a fairly major one). I should mention that some of that is likely due to the fact that it is a large server, like lemmy.world. In fact, I argued with people against blocking it for many months, but finally relented, and now I truly enjoy the peace that has come from it. Now, the language that I would use is that if someone were to do such, it would cost them something - some potentially good interactions, and some communities are located there - but on the whole it may be worth the cost, depending on what the user is looking for. It is like walking through an open sewer - maybe you want to do it occasionally, to keep tabs on what is there? But it sure is nice to walk away from that sometimes too:-).
I don’t know so much about the other “communities” on blahaj. I’m just saying that Ada seems very reasonable, and I’ve never felt unwelcomed there anytime I’ve spoken in a thread. Perhaps it was merely an overzealous mod of that specific community, power-tripping or just flat tired of their responsibility and not living up to whatever “should” have been done in that case - which since your participation in any of the other communities on that instance were not affected, seems certain to be the case. Tbf, moderation across the entire Fediverse is extremely spotty - and due to the lower volume of posts, mods often do so for multiple communities, which can then strain their resources to keep up. Just block that community, when / if ever your ban expires, and move on and enjoy the rest of what the Fediverse has to offer!:-)
That is an excellent question - and you said you wanted to learn how this all works, so here goes. When one instance “defederates” another instance, it removes the entirety of all communication with them - e.g. no communities, no users, no posts, no comments/replies/notifications, no up/down-votes, nothing. And I think when a user blocks someone… here I am not fully certain, but I think it’s a lot like that - e.g. I think the blocked person cannot downvote you anymore. And their comment replies are collapsed, or simply not present (you can always view them as read-only by visiting another instance where you are logged out, usually opening the multi-colored fediverse icon in a new tab will do so). However, when a user “blocks” an instance, it is the weakest of any of these. Yes I can still see their comment, I can upvote it (I rarely ever downvote anything at all - certainly less than once per day and most often less than once per week), and I can reply. Also, it prevents any communities from that instance from showing up in my “All” feed. They can still up/downvote me though, and vice versa. The main difference is that if a user from that instance replies back to me, I will not receive a “notification” about that event (UNLESS they specifically tag me by name). This is a form of protection against the sort of “brigading” that they are known to enjoy - especially in a community such as ChapoTrapHouse where that is literally the goal of it existing (it literally says so, right in the sidebar, though for a new user who merely sees a post pop up in their feed, they would not know that - and that btw is my major beef with it, not that I wish that it did not exist, but that it would be labelled properly, especially relevant to new users who the stories abound where they/we stumbled into them unawares, and if we managed to not leave the entire Fediverse afterwards, we at least do not recall the hazing experience fondly).
I can, however, come back to this thread later and peruse it, see their reply, and reply back to them. I have done such many times. It is an impediment but not a full blocker to a conversation, for people from instances that I have user-blocked, but that our instance has not fully defederated from. I often engage in conversations with users of hexbear.net and/or lemmy.ml - they are not all toxic assholes (nor am I never one myself I would wager:-) - it is just that on balance, I find that the benefits of user-blocking that instance strongly outweigh the detractions. Which ofc would be a different equation for you, as you have a different purpose in mind, especially for this as an alt account from your lemmy.world one, but anyway I hope this insight into how defederation and user blocking works helps further your understanding of the Fediverse:-).