this post was submitted on 21 May 2025
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MeanwhileOnGrad

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"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"

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Meanwhile On Grad

Documenting hate speech, conspiracy theories, apologia/revisionism, and general tankie behaviour across the fediverse. Memes are welcome!

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Got banned as a "fascist sympathizer" from games@hexbear.net for discussing the Ukrainian perspective of the STALKER developers who made changes to the game trilogy (web.archive.org)
submitted 1 day ago by Rose@lemmy.zip to c/meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works
26 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/39086280

My first months on Lemmy were spent on Lemmy.world, which was the biggest instance at the time. I had no experience with Hexbear because .world had defederated that instance. I sometimes saw it being described as a "tankie" instance, but it was nothing specific.

After I moved to .zip, I came across !games@hexbear.net, which seemed to be free from anything overtly political and reminded me of r/Gamingcirclejerk, so I subscribed to it and occasionally made comments related to gaming.

Today I made multiple comments to a post about an article on the STALKER game developers having removed the Soviet symbols and the Russian audio in the remastered edition of the game. I would argue that in the thread, there were no comments from me that could be construed by a reasonable person as defensive of Nazism, fascism, or even hinting at it. For example, in one of the comments, I linked a Ukrainian law that prohibits the use of Nazi symbols, though I highly advise looking through all my ten comments as to avoid any misunderstanding or false impressions.

Conversely, one comment posted by another user dismissed Holodomor as Nazi propaganda, which I reported, but a moderator of that community just ended up calling me out for that and taking no action, followed by them banning me.

The thread containing all of my untouched posts is still available via lemmy.zip. My comments are also available for viewing via my user page. They are not available on hexbear due to the ban.

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[–] BarmyDeer@lemmy.zip 3 points 10 hours ago

I mean, their name and description say it all. They appear to fuse two rather telling themes:

1- “Hex” : as in the fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme launched by Richard Heart (real name: Richard James Schueler), a notorious spammer and lawbreaker who ultimately faced the consequences of his actions.

2- A shameful endorsement of communist-style authoritarianism : essentially, a system that violates basic human rights while promoting a fully centralised, stagnant, and corrupt regime devoid of meaningful technological progress.

Frankly, if I got banned from a place like that, I’d wear it as a badge of honour, LoL ❗😂

[–] Rose@lemmy.zip 13 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Apparently Hexbear's Code of Conduct is as performative as its leftism.

We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, or other similar characteristic.

And then in practice (just from scrolling through their crosspost):

Further in the rules:

We will ban you if you insult, demean or harass anyone.

No matter who you are, if you feel you have been or are being harassed or made uncomfortable by a community member, please contact one of the comm mod's or any of the sitemod team immediately. Whether you're a regular user or a newcomer, we care about making this community a safe place for you and we've got your back.

Yet I got tagged in that thread twice without having participated in it: once to be insulted (see above) and the other time by a mod of multiple Hexbear communities expressing their intent to ban me for this incident in the reddit sub I mentioned in the OP, which I would argue is one of the most straightforward cases of harassment.

[–] sudneo@lemm.ee 6 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Open that post:

Ukraine is literally using israel as an example and btw the donbass uprising happens because azov started killing russophone ukrainians.

36 upvotes. Tons of Azov members were russophones, and the original battalion (to be cleat, fuck them, they were in most cases actual Nazis) spoke russian as their communication language. Also timelines don't add up, and geographically doesn't make any sense.

Absolutely their rules are bullshit performative stuff.

[–] Rose@lemmy.zip 5 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Also worth noting that there was/is a significant number of Russians in Azov, which too works against the ethnic repressions argument made in the STALKER thread on Hexbear. The number of soldiers speaking Russian on the front lines has been a bit of a hot topic in Ukraine, with some of the very patriotic Ukrainians like Yanina Sokolova having famously defended the practice against Iryna Farion. The latter would end up shot dead by someone with Russian ties (as proven by a Russian neo-Nazi group publishing the video of the killing captured by the shooter).

Edit: Slightly reworded a few parts written too hastily.

[–] Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 17 hours ago

I'm still new to all this, but I was on a hexbear just now reading an article I had searched. The first comment I saw was just talking trash about elmo musty. Nothing bad, pretty tame.

The comment under it from an actual hexbear user said "we don't use ablelist language here". I re read the comment. Was it the word dumbass? It was the only "namecalling" word in the comment.

Reminded me of a time I got banned from a subreddit for saying "the housing market is insane right now" in one of these so called inclusive places, as insane is apparently ableist, and you know, not just an adjective describing something incomprehensible to a wild degree, which can have both negative and positive connotations.

Okay there bud... It's good to learn the places to avoid.

[–] sudneo@lemm.ee 13 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Not to worry, the mainline of hexbear and .ml regarding Ukraine is completely messed up. They have a completely west-centric view and lack any serious context whatsoever.

Unfortunately stalinists can't accept that the Soviet Union had plenty of flaws and oppressed people, including workers, in many ways. Instead of learning the lesson to avoid repeating past mistakes they just double-down.

I had a conversation once when someone called all the baltics "Nazi hotbeds" and to support this claim they linked a law that is gradually removing Russian schools in favour of having Russian as a foreign language. Someone was telling me that "people have a right to have education in Russian" and failing to provide that is a human rights violation. I asked to show me a country in which education in foreign language is a right, but sadly didn't get any answer. I have also then linked soviet laws that forbid teaching in Ukrainian, and surprisingly I didn't get any answer either.

I have also provided some interesting sources from Ukrainian leftists, one specifically was from a historian. But obviously the American fella on Lemmy - who doesn't speak a word of any language which is not English, never read anything from a non-western source, lacks cultural context etc. - knows better.

I think life is too short to deal with silly things, and even shorter to deal with idiots. I - a communist from Western Europe - ended up blocking both instances because I have no interests in being associated with zealots of a Stalinist cult.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 2 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

I asked to show me a country in which education in foreign language is a right, but sadly didn’t get any answer.

Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark: Both minorities on both sides of the border are guaranteed their own schools. Not a settler-colonial situation, though.

Lessons are generally in the minority language, the majority language is taught to a native level, graduating gets you both a German and Danish diploma. Technically they're private schools but receive plenty of state funds and help from both education ministries.

Frisian schools generally teach in German, at least mostly, but have native-level Frisian lessons, our Sinti don't want their language in schools. Of course neither have their own states so "foreign language" doesn't really apply, it's not like our Frisians would be a Dutch fifth column. Recently, we even managed to start teaching our own minority language at the majority schools it's kind of embarrassing that you hear more Low Saxon spoken in North Frisia than in the rest of the state. Prussians really did a number to us.

[–] sudneo@lemm.ee 3 points 15 hours ago

Good data, there are some similar cases with remote communities in Northern Italy, but very different situations indeed.

[–] SolOrion@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Dismissing a source as "ai slop" when it's a wayback snapshot from 2016 is hilarious. Also, the mod joining in to make fun of you is peak Hexbear.

[–] Rose@lemmy.zip 9 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I'm a long-time moderator myself in communities with thousands of users, and I think one of the roles of a moderator is to deescalate, not pile on. It's literally something I recently documented in my moderation guidelines draft prepared for one of the platforms I help run.

[–] SolOrion@sh.itjust.works 8 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

I agree. Bullying people is a big portion of what mods are meant to stop. So seeing one join in is... unusual.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 4 points 21 hours ago

or one that tries to look "impartial" but then does thing like agreeing with the said "abusive users"

[–] throwawayacc0430@sh.itjust.works 26 points 1 day ago (1 children)

"you fascist sympathizer"

also the same person: "heil mein fuhrer Vladimir Putin"

🤨

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 3 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

or being called a nazi for simply replying the instigator of the conflicts are actors in a specific demographic(the j word in a certain instance).

[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 2 points 17 hours ago

You can't mention jew where?

[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago

Really sorry that happened to you when you're just looking for some discussion about stalker.

I love stalker and roadside picnic

[–] Geetnerd@lemmy.world 3 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (2 children)

Moderators, here, on Reddit, on any forum, are just other human beings (until AI takes over everything,) and some of them are cunts. It's just the way it is.

[–] hopeleft@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

There are some communities that enable these cunts to get the roles of mods and don't do anything about it when these mods are exposed.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 1 points 21 hours ago

politics being so obvious, that its an almost mirror image of r/politics, but without most of the propaganda bots.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 6 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

reddit moderation is basically overran by AI now, hence the immense of amount of bans of shadowbans and perma-bans. shadowbans are significantly worst since you wont be able to create new accounts without them noticing instantly.

[–] Geetnerd@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago

Yep.

They've set up honey pots to permaban anyone critical of Musk, Trump, or the GOP in general.

Ask me how I know...

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 2 points 21 hours ago

you would also get the hammer on politics instance too, if they misconstrue/confuse your comment between anti-israel as anti-semetic. your not even allowed to say name of demographic group.