Context
As you probably now, Hexbear is a fairly large leftist instance, whose users are notorious for being very loud in the communities of every instance they federate with. For a long time they blocked all instances, preferring to remain isolated. Recently, however, they have started allowing some large instances into their allow list.
Yesterday they expanded said list by including the popular sh.itjust.works (SJW) instance.
Some Hexbear users immediately jumped on the train by creating posts in !main@sh.itjust.works making sure everyone was aware of their presence and calling out what they thought was bigotry on SJW’s side:
- Example 1
- Example 2, the post included in the meme, now removed
Currently, there’s people on both sides calling for mutual defederation, as one Hexbear sees the other party as “bigoted” and “politically illiterate infants” while many people on SJW are just tired of the political spam.
Where do we stand in this mess? Comfortably on the sidelines, enjoying the popcorn while it lasts.
They aren’t anti-fascist at all. They are very much pro-authoritarianism. And their behaviour is working as they intend.
Eh, fine…I’d consider myself experienced in online community dynamics and a bit of non-american politics, so I try to interpret things in the light of what I’ve seen in the wild and the people I’ve met in real life, but this shit is out of my reach. Besides, politics always is a mess when it isn’t face-to-face (trolling, astroturfing, gatekeeping, posing, muddying the waters, sealioning, dogwhistling…) or in a controlled environment , I just wish every thread didn’t turn political.