this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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Rant
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I don't consider Hexbear to be an "echo chamber." A true echo chamber, isolating oneself from views that go against someone's current viewpoints, is only possible if your viewpoint aligns with the dominant views of the society you live in. Communism in the english-speaking internet and world is fringe. Nobody on Hexbear can truly avoid engaging with liberalism as a daily requirement for their existence, everyone has to exist in the outside world and touch grass at some point, be it for work, errands, engaging with friends, family, etc.
What is possible to create an echo chamber around, is blocking off leftist viewpoints. Blocking Hexbear just reduces the chances of yourself running into views that challenge your existing viewpoints. The reason why Hexbear bans liberalism and anti-communist viewpoints is because you can find them anywhere on the English-speaking internet, it gets pushed heavily by mainstream media and permeates discussions even about social reforms like healthcare. Hexbear making a space safe to engage with other communists who just want to hang out doesn't actually close off viewpoints.
Looking into your comments you linked, you threw around words like "authoritarianism" and "technofeudalism," without really describing or understanding each. It comes across as you trying to figure out a way to describe a Socialist system that restricts the rights of capital owners in a negative way, without trying to understand why the overwhelming majority of Chinese citizens support their system and believe it to be generally on the right track. I recommend glancing through this Socialism with Chinese Characteristics Study Guide to see how and why the Chinese system works, and why one would support it.
All in all, I think blocking Hexbear if you don't like echo chambers is actually counter-productive, as you cut yourself off of a large portion of the Leftist userbase on Lemmy, thus restricting what you see to a more narrow subset of generally "progressive liberalism."
Hexbear blocked carnivore@lemm.ee for going against their viewpoints.
It is a true echo chamber. But if your general point is it's okay to be an echo chamber, because it's impossible to live your life without being exposed to other ideas... Fine, but that doesn't change the fact they are an echo chamber as a platform
They also ban fascists, liberals, etc. Hexbear is pro-animal liberation, they don't want to see glorification of mass consumption of meat all the time. This is a silly point, you can't actually go your life without seeing meat being eaten, but that doesn't mean you have to see it everywhere you go. Same with porn, porn is censored, does that make it an echo chamber?
I think you ignored my points, why does Hexbear count as a "true echo chamber?" What does that even entail?
As you conceded it's a echo chamber but it doesn't isolate people from the realities of their daily lives.
I wouldn't really call that an echo chamber, then. An echo-chamber is where you are only exposed to one side of viewpoints, that's largely impossible for Hexbear users but is entirely possible for, say, Lemmy.world users. The alternative is to let liberals, fascists, etc roam freely, harassing users and creating an unsafe space for marginalized comrades that use Hexbear precisely to avoid such situations for a tiny portion of their lives.