What's the deal with Hexbear?

https://midwest.social/post/2021316

What's the deal with Hexbear? - midwest.social

Has anyone else noticed how prevalent Hexbear posters have suddenly become? Maybe sometime last week I noticed nearly every political post had at least one long thread of Hexbear users that do nothing but repeat CCP talking points while waving anyway anything even remotely reliable as Western propaganda. That or getting all excited about trolled libs. The way they tell it, you’d think everything from DW, to Fox, to Propublica, to straight up AP News articles, are all written by the same people. Not to mention, their info on the Fediverse observer [https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/list] is either straight up wrong or there’s some serious botting going on. According to that, the instance is less than a month old, yet somehow they already have one of the largest, most active userbases, along with far and away the most comments of any instance. Seems to me like Lemmygrad on steroids. Considering we defederated from them, seems like a no-brainer to block Hexbear as well. So glad this thread could become such a perfect microcosm of why we need to defederate.

Hexbear is actually one of the oldest Lemmy instances, been around for over three years. Due to technical issues around our high number of active users and having to rely on volunteer labour, we have only been able to federate within the last few weeks.

looks at my own account age

Nah bro I think we’re all one month old bot accounts personally ran by the standing committee of the Politburo of the People’s Republic of China and the standing committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the People’s Republic of Korea

Seems like you’re missing a ton of nuance in manufacturing consent, and have turned from the frying pan into the fire in that sense.

Yes, Western media is biased towards corporations. This is most clearly seen in anything labeled “finance” or “money”, but is pervasive.

But the only time I can ever think of Western media doing anything on the scale of censoring the 1989 Tiananmin Square Massacre is the Iraq MWD debacle. And they’ve never done anything like the Great Firewall.

As a rule the US government does not mislead its own citizens the way Russia and China do.

And even if you’re 100% on board with every word Marx has written, I don’t understand how that leads one to defend modern day Russia and China.

The West absolutely has problems. And it’s good at right to point those out and try to fix them. But to try to paint the East as the answer to stand against the West is dangerous and dumb.

As a rule the US government does not mislead its own citizens the way Russia and China do.

I think most of users on hexbear and lemmygrad are not from US, so internal US politics is not so important to them, foreign policy is and that’s where US made a lot of haters.

It is not even that surprising, every country that was in war with US involved is not liking it, no one likes other nation’s army on their teritory, whatever the reason.

lol what? hexbear is largely amerikan. we just have a lot of international users bc we arent racist. US internal politics are horrific as well. Biden wrote the bill responsible for the massive increase in policing and the war on drugs in 1994
Makes sense, since podcast is from US too. Thank you for correcting me, I have never spent much time there since I don’t get the humor.
no problem. ik theres a lot of inside jokes so it can be confusing at first, but we are very welcoming as long as ur receptive to left-wing politics
A ton of hexbear users are from the US, and still live there.
Yep, sorry my mistake. Thanks for correcting me.
we are trapped in the belly of this beast, and, , it is bleeding to death

It’s not a matter of liking the US but how it affects my country, that’s how I know about American politics.

Their Internal politics influence foreign policy and economic exchange tied to the dollar.

On the contrary, Americans tend to be myopic about foreign policy because it doesn’t affect them.

That’s why I don’t care about the Democratic-Republican political theater, they have the same foreign policy anyway (neoliberal imperialism).

Biden claims to be pro-LGBT for example, yet upholds the same US military that brutally abuses and kills transpeople, women and children abroad. Do you still think that it’s as simple as

It is not even that surprising, every country that was in war with US involved is not liking it, no one likes other nation’s army on their teritory, whatever the reason.

whatever the reason.

liking or disliking on a whim, like a high school crush? PSY faced so much backlash when it was revealed that he made an Anti-American song a decade before Gangnam Style, but the American press conviniently all forgot about the events that influenced it.

An American tank crushed two Korean teens walking on public road to go to a party.

no one likes other nation’s army on their teritory, whatever the reason.

The servicemen got away scot-free.

Hexbear doesn’t “defend modern day Russia”. I’m sure there are some users who do purely from a position of believing a multipolar world is preferable to one dominated unilaterally by the US, but even in those users think Putin is a piece of shit.

There’s a difference between understanding NATO’s role in provoking the war in Ukraine, not calling Russians orcs or comparing Putin to Hitler and defending modern-day Russia.

And they’ve never done anything like the Great Firewall.

The great firewall is for your own protection, just look at how you guys react to a small group of users with different opinions!

Are people stupid enough to believe this?
Be more direct. Who are you even replying to?
I’m not replying to anyone, I’m posting this for other people who come along and might be susceptible to Hexbear propaganda.
Well thank god they have you to tell them… what exactly? What counter-movement do you stand for?

It might shock you but you aren’t required to stand for an anti-establishment whatever and shove your opinions down other people’s throats.

Capitalism in it’s current form may be responsible for incredible suffering and truly horrific global environmental damage. That doesn’t mean the concept itself is 100% wrong, that Communism is compatible with human nature, or that it’s in humanities best interest to split of into a bunch of counter-movements.

You are ideologically incoherent.
And you’re ignorant. Another great debate thanks Hexbear
Ngl I’m skeptical of hexbear primarily for the “Dunkin on libs” shit, but of this thread they did seem to be the only ones having a good faith debate.
So what i’m getting is, you’ll never do anything to make it better and just roll with the material conditions like a boxing dummy on a swivel. You lash out at our approach to the system bc you have none of your own.
They won’t just roll with it, awwwyissss thinks there’s an immutable “human nature” and that communism is not “compatible” with it. They think communism is anti-human, while do not judge the current system as anti-human, it’s easy to see they little they would do of any political impact will only serve to keep the current barbarity going.
Time to check the ”human nature tho” box on my bingo card.
Why do you speak so confidently about subjects you clearly have spent almost exactly zero time investigating?

“…human nature…”

Someone on the internet that’s never even heard the phrase “historical materialism” is talking about human nature and you’re laughing?

Lmao, you did the meme.

You did the “muh human nature” meme.

Hilarious!

The real answer is it is, before all, an economic tool

The alternative was having the Big US techs invade china economically, along with the mass propaganda from Western entities that would have followed

You don’t speak to actual Chinese citizens often, do you ? basically all young people there have VPNs, and nobody cares. Like, at all

No, the truth is the CCP is a violently authoritarian government that needs to control what it’s citizens think in order to stay in power.
No I’m pretty sure they do that by increasing their citizens quality of life. I know, it’s a bizarre concept.
No not really. Visit any third world country where there’s no such thing as a “great firewall” and you’ll find western services and corporations embedded in everything to do with technology. WhatsApp has basically replaced text messaging to the point where even banks use it, twitter is basically a PSA and tech support tool, and Facebook is everywhere. This is terrible for sovereignty. Meanwhile China has developed their own stuff such as WeChat and Weibo. So they’re not subject to relying on Zuckerberg for everything from texting to banking.
The US Is the most violent police state in the world
lol, the great firewall is protecting you right now from getting bodied by millions of CPC members
Lol, you’re complaining about other people being propagandized while you say shit like this.
Do you think people don’t have VPNs?

CCP is a violently authoritarian government

The US state has spent the last three-quarter century sending their intelligence and military forces all over the world to violently snuff out any movement that went against it percieved interests.

China did not do that.

So why are you focusing on China?

That was clearly a joke

The Great Firewall was to protect their own citizens from being data mined from companies and propagandized by hostile state actors that want to put the Chinese in mines to extract resources for dirt cheap like they’ve done to many other nations in Africa, South America, and Asia

Notably also to make room in the domestic market for the domestic bourgeoisie to fill the roles Facebook, YT, etc. fill elsewhere, since those companies collaborate with the US.

As a rule the US government does not mislead its own citizens the way Russia and China do.

USians are literally the most propagandized pop on the planet.

USians are the only dipshits who think their state will just do the right thing with zero pressure.

But the only time I can ever think of Western media doing anything on the scale of censoring the 1989 Tiananmin Square Massacre is the Iraq MWD debacle.

First of all, multiple western sources agree with us on Tiananmin Square

Second Iraq is fefinity not the only time. Vietnam is another huge example. Literally every post-WWII military conflict has involved the press lying about it to manufacture consent. Some of the things are things you probably haven’t realized you’re being lied to about it yet though, so if I use them as examples it won’t help. But still.

Manufacturing Consent wasn’t just about the media being on the side of the corporations, its also about them being on the side of Western imperlialist motivations. And they will lie to you about “enemy countries” over, and over, and over again.

As a rule the US government does not mislead its own citizens the way Russia and China do.

You think this because you don’t see the misleading happening and believing the things the western sources tell you about the “bad countries”.

Also Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq the first time and through the sanctions… You know, Ukraine… North Korea, the US government definitely tries to pull the wool over our eyes on that one. Venezuela, Cuba, on and on

1989 Tiananmin Square Massacre

Reality is calling

Cable: 89BEIJING18828_a

They can’t even spell it right, of course they never took the initiative to question the massacre narrative
I’m always so paranoid about saying something wrong let alone spelling something wrong. It blows my mind when people just spout off without double checking themselves.

You know back in school years ago (the small amount I actually remember) I had a history teacher show us the tankman video and it just cut off with him standing there and my teacher said “the Chinese cut the film before it could leave the country” or something like that. Only more recently did I learn that was bullshit.

Good thing I had already figured most of the history classes were bullshit before that. Oh and having a school designed by someone who designs prisons really didn’t help my motivation.

As a rule the US government does not mislead its own citizens the way Russia and China do.

How do you know that? Did the US government tell you?

But the only time I can ever think of Western media doing anything on the scale of censoring the 1989 Tiananmin Square Massacre is the Iraq MWD debacle.

then you should try to do some more thinking. maybe even some reading

But the only time I can ever think of Western media doing anything on the scale of censoring the 1989 Tiananmin Square Massacre is the Iraq MWD debacle.

As a rule the US government does not mislead its own citizens the way Russia and China do.

Hundreds of thousands of people were murdered for no reason to accomplish nothing but to line the pockets of Raytheon shareholders. And you write it off as if it doesn’t even matter.

No one, neither the politicians nor the journalists who knowingly lied to you faced any repercussions. Not only that, but in many cases, it’s the same people in the same positions with no reason not to do it again.

Even if you ignore all the other times that the media has lied, how many people do you believe died at Tiananmen Square to think that the two are remotely comparable?

The US government doesn’t have to (but still does anyway) mislead its own citizens because it works hand in glove with the class it represents (not you) which does all the misleading via the private “free press” that it owns and operates for it’s own benefit.

For the life of me I will never understand why liberals think something bad is less bad when it is a private actor doing it instead of the government, but the private actors actually control more of your daily life than the government does because you live in a neoliberal hellscape.

You have no control over anything the government OR the corporate overlords do. Does it really matter which one is screwing you when they’re basically all the same people anyway?

With regard to China, please just try to ask yourself why the standard of living has been improving there for decades while it continues to decline in the US. It’s not fucking rocket science, but you can’t rely on western corporate media to explain it to you.

They tried to cover up or explain away how the US killed possibly up to 500 civilians in the my lai massacre

CW: description of the events of it from Wikipedia, mention of: media suppression of a massacre, mass killing of civilians, r*pe, infanticide, pedophilia and mutilation, picture of the dead mutilated women and children under a sub spoiler warning

Between 347 and 504 civilians were killed by US soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment and Company B, 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd (Americal) Infantry Division. Victims included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated, and some soldiers mutilated and raped children who were as young as 12. ::: spoiler photo of some of the victims

media suppression of the massacre and the (lack of) consequences for those responsible

Only Lieutenant William Calley Jr., a platoon leader in C Company, was convicted. Found guilty of murdering 22 villagers, he was originally given a life sentence but served three-and-a-half years under house arrest after US President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence. … On 4 April 1968, the information office of the 11th Brigade issued a press-release, Recent Operations in Pinkville, without reporting mass casualties among civilians. Subsequent criminal investigation found that, “Both individuals failed to report what they had seen, the reporter wrote a false and misleading account of the operation, and the photographer withheld and suppressed from proper authorities the photographic evidence of atrocities he had obtained.” … The first reporting of the Mỹ Lai massacre appeared in the American media after Fort Benning issued a press release related to the charges pressed against Lieutenant William Calley. This was issued on 5 September 1969.[163] Consequently, NBC aired on 10 September 1969 a segment in the Huntley-Brinkley Report which reported the killings of numerous civilians in South Vietnam. Following that, Ronald Ridenhour decided to disobey the Army’s order to withhold the information from the media. He approached reporter Ben Cole of the Phoenix Republic, who chose not to handle the scoop. Charles Black from the Columbus Enquirer uncovered the story on his own but also decided to put it on hold. Two major national news press outlets—The New York Times and The Washington Post—received some tips with partial information but did not act on them.[164] Ridenhour called Seymour Hersh on 22 October 1969. The freelance investigative journalist conducted an independent inquiry, and published to break the wall of silence that was surrounding the Mỹ Lai massacre. Hersh initially tried to sell the story to Life and Look magazines; both turned it down. Hersh went to the small, Washington-based Dispatch News Service, which sent it to fifty major American newspapers; thirty accepted it for publication.[165] New York Times reporter Henry Kamm investigated further and found several survivors of the Mỹ Lai massacre in South Vietnam. He estimated the number of civilians killed as 567.[166] Next, Ben Cole published an article about Ronald Ridenhour, a helicopter gunner and an Army whistleblower, who was among the first who started to uncover the truth about the Mỹ Lai massacre. And Haeberle contacted Joseph Eszterhas of The Plain Dealer, which then published Haeberle’s grisly images of the dead bodies of old men, women, and children on 20 November 1969.[44] Time Magazine’s article on 28 November 1969 and in Life magazine on 5 December 1969, both of which included Haeberle’s photos,[167] finally brought Mỹ Lai to the fore of the public debate about Vietnam War.[168] Richard L. Strout, the Christian Science Monitor political commentator, wrote: “American press self-censorship thwarted Mr. Ridenhour’s disclosures for a year. ‘No one wanted to go into it’, his agent said of telegrams sent to Life, Look, and Newsweek magazines outlining allegations…”[169] Afterward, interviews and stories connected to the Mỹ Lai massacre started to appear regularly in the American and international press.[170][49] Concluding an ABC television news broadcast, anchor man Frank Reynolds said to his audience that, as a consequence of the allegations, ‘‘our spirit as a people is scarred.’’ The massacre, he believed, offered ‘‘the most compelling argument yet advanced for America to end its involvement in Vietnam, not alone because of what the war is doing to the Vietnamese or to our reputation abroad, but because of what it is doing to us.’

NBC aired

New York Times reporter Henry Kamm investigated further

Concluding an ABC television news broadcast

Three American media outlets that weren’t censored by the government. How do you think this is handled in Russia? In China?

Lib: The American media doesn’t lie.

Leftist: Here’s evidence that it does, from Western sources

Lib: Ah, but at least those Western sources reported it!

Leftist: Alright, here’s evidence that it lies, from non-western sources

Lib: You don’t really believe that propaganda, do you?

Unfalsifiable orthodoxy.

Thank you for putting that into words I had trouble picking my jaw up off the floor after reading their reply.
How do you think it’s handled? And why do you think that?
If we used non-western (or even independent western) outlets to talk about something that major western outlets don’t, you’d dismiss it as propaganda and conspiracy theory
You should read Kill Anything That Moves by Nick Turse

Americans have utterly memory holed the fact that their soldiers brutally murdered, mutilated and gang raped hundreds of unarmed women and children and that the only consequences were that the commander who personally murdered 22 people received just 3 and half years house arrest. Some of the people who did this are still alive and walk free despite having committed some of the most unthinkable evils against civilians with impunity and have been explicitly pardoned by the US government.

This crime is far worse than Tiananmen (which has estimates of a death toll between 200 to ~500 with the CPC putting the estimate at 300 including dead Chinese soldiers and police) on its own but it’s not taught in schools, even in the history of the Vietnam war (despite the role Hersh’s exposé played in helping to sway public perception against the war) and many Americans have no idea it ever happened.