I originally summarized my observations replying to Blaze in a different thread
I figured I’d include them here because in case anyone wants to correct my interpretation.
I had asked how he feels about posting in a com alongside people who are calling other users ‘removed roaches’
He brought up that Hexbear users using the word roaches to refer to people too, my response:
From that link pretty much all of the usage is talking about the literal insect, or talking about reactionaries/fascists using it to refer to muslims, immigrants and other ‘undesirables’.
Out of the handful of remaining uses, it’s stuff like in the hexbear thread on this meanwhileongrad thread:
This is the most questionable usage I found, and it’s referring to fash/reactionaries.
That’s not the main point though, the bigger issue was getting called a ‘removed’ that’s pretty much a red flag that someone’s a cryptofash.
citing db0 on this one:
compare the use of the term on shit vs on hexbear:
While looking I found this one on hexbear from 5 years ago, almost 90 upvotes shitting on stalin for criminalizing homosexuality, and quoting him calling someone removed. I read this as extremely critical of Stalin:
All the usage on hexbear I see is either self-deprecating or discussing (negatively) about people using the term.
meanwhile on meanwhile on grad:
hmmm, calling people removed and complaining about commies, progressives and furries. 
Goat seems fine with replies calling people he doesn’t like removed:
more examples:
site admin calls it out, entirely downvoted lol
Like you might think I’m being melodramatic, but I really don’t see how meanwhileongrad isn’t a nazi bar.
As I said, I don’t have a dog in this fight, it seems indeed bad to have such comments on both sides.
I really hope you re-assess both sides, because they are not equivalent.
I understand, there’s plenty of problematic posters to go around, the issue I have is that it’s normalized calling an instance which is overwhelmingly trans and queer ‘removed’, that’s a major red flag, and it’s behavior like that which was why hexbear defederated shit in the first place.
sh.it doesn’t seem to have improved in that time
As a bonus here’s some fun clips from this latest two minutes hate thread:
Goat has been really worked up lately, I arrived after the defederation happened, but I read the hexbear threads related to this not long after I started lemmy and his interpretation of events is comically conspiratorial.
The chronology was that hexbear had been off doing its own thing for like 3 years, and only re-merged with lemmy due to the technical issues maintaining a separate fork. That happened to coincide with the major reddit wave, correct me if I’m wrong but nobody here is taking orders from dessalines, right?
It looks like Hexbear tried to broadly fedarate, some users were looking forward to it, but others apprehensive and preferring to keep everyone else out. Once it became more clear how toxic and unmoderated most of the fediverse was, they made the decision to defederate.
Also is there a discord? The only matrix groups I’m aware of are for mods and the trans space. People should probably be aware that there’s potentially nazi trolls hanging out there.
One last one for the road, goat upvote policing and accusing db0 of being pro-uygher genocide.
so what’s the official hexbear line on calling people removed or cockroaches?
Using animals as an insult is speciesist and should be modded afaic.
Calling cops “pig” is offensive to pigs? Good bit.
a fair number of vegans, including a number of our users, believe that unironically and put that into practice in real life.
Applying this phrase to “thinks calling cops ‘pigs’ is offensive” is a good expression of what the problem here is. “Put it into practice in real life”? Puts what into practice? Finding a metaphor offensive? There is no “practice” here beyond possibly lecturing someone else for using this metaphor which incidentally was popularized in the US by Bobby Seale, someone more concerned with actual praxis. It just comes off as a bunch of lifestylists with too much time on their hands endlessly preening and calling it building a revolution.
I just mean that they use alternatives to animal metaphors, and make explicit avoidance of things like ‘pig’. It’s strictly speaking dictionary definition practice, even if it has nothing to do whatsoever with changing material conditions or building a revolution.
unironically yes
Unironically pigs are noble animals and deserve better than to be compared to cops.
This forum is cooked
The majority of the times when I notice your username, it’s because you’re being a dick to someone
The “bullying works” crowd when you’re rude to them for making absolutely horseshit claims:
Okay, so now I’m being rude to you for needlessly being a pedantic asshole about someone else’s sincerely held preferences that don’t affect you. Here we are, what do you want to do?
I didn’t accused you of being rude, I accused you of being a hypocrite. What is pedantic about what I said? What is pedantic about saying that discrimination against literal fucking cockroaches isn’t a real issue because they don’t have minds?
We’re talking about facts of the world, what is and isn’t politically progressive, and also site policy about what terms should be banned, and you’re turning this person into a smol bean who just has “preferences” that “don’t affect me”. It’s deeply disingenuous deflection of criticism. I’m not forcing this person to call other people roaches, I don’t even call people that myself! I find it distasteful for basically the reason expressed in the OP, but I’m actually not interested in policing something that doesn’t fucking matter.
You’re just saying things based on convenience. None of it means anything except that you don’t like me.
Speak in a framework where assertions are made on the basis of justification rather than based on being convenient to us in attacking people that we apparently hold a grudge against.
I’m not accusing you of accusing me of anything: I’m declaring my intention to be rude to you, because you’re acting like a 14 year old. Someone shared a belief of theirs that in no way affects you, but which you somehow took personally and decided to go on a shapiro-ass diatribe about and declare the forum you joined 2 months ago “cooked”, instead of just jgnoring it like a normal person. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you act like a hostile asshole in situations that don’t warrant it, so I’m calling you a hostile asshole and encouraging you to change. Be less cringe, please.
You’re calling me cringe beneath the comment of someone talking about bigotry against literal cockroaches. And again, “doesn’t affect me” is a cop-out and a deflection and also just a fucking lie because the person was expressing support for the term being banned.
And again: The “bullying works” crowd when you’re rude to them apparently can only respond with wagging their finger at the same time as also being assholes. You have no ground to stand on, your entire site culture is based on being an asshole to people you disagree with, and you lecture me about being an asshole while being one yourself. “Do as I say and not as I do” I guess. Nothing you say means anything, it’s just convenience.
This is the same unprovable assertion carnists make about every non-human animal.
Let’s ask a cockroach if it feels discriminated against, or feels literally anything at all. After that, we can go to a pond and find some scum to interview about the speciesist discrimination it faces because its name is shorthand for a bad person. I’m sure that it really struggles to find employment with all the bigoted associations against it, and it would definitely be kept up at night reflecting on the pain of this marginalization except for the fact that it does not have a consciousness.
☝️🤓
Your position is indefensible, so of course you resort to gross personal insults. Of course, since I’m such a dweeb, I should have learned from you to talk in a more well-adjusted way by getting offended on behalf of creatures that don’t have a consciousness.
☝️😤
I changed my response since I didn’t anticipate you responding in three seconds. Reprinted for your convenience:
Saying something completely absurd and then basically replying “ratio” to people making the mistake of dignifying this shit with a response is certainly a way of approaching interactions. Of course, you have no problems using caricatures of humans while you complain about bigotry against literal insects.
Oh come off it, you didn’t dignify shit, you were snide and condescending and I responded in kind.
Of course I was snide, but I nonetheless presented actual reasons, while you presented me with nothing but a caricature*. Oh, but you did that instead of calling me a louse, so it’s okay because it doesn’t offend creatures that literally don’t have minds.
*irony of ironies, have you ever considered the actual social implications of your bespectacled “um ackshually” nerd caricature? Did the thought ever cross your mind that there might be something to unpack there?
Then dont say you were “dignifying” my sincerely held belief with your rank sideswipes or really basic argument, which you think hadn’t occurred to me before?? Did you think I just randomly decided to think the way I do?
I would think a purple worm would want people to be more compassionate to bugs
Hahahahaha
And whats your problem?
Removed by mod