Hello comrades. In the interest of upholding our code of conduct - specifically, rule 1 (providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all) - we felt it appropriate to make a statement regarding the lionization of Luigi Mangione, the alleged United Healthcare CEO shooter, also known as “The Adjuster.”
In the day or so since the alleged shooter’s identity became known to the public, the whole world has had the chance to dig though his personal social media accounts and attempt to decipher his political ideology and motives. What we have learned may shock you. He is not one of us. He is a “typical” American with largely incoherent, and in many cases reactionary politics. For the most part, what is remarkable about the man himself is that he chose to take out his anger on a genuine enemy of the proletariat, instead of an elementary school.
This is a situation where the art must be separated from the artist. We do not condemn the attack, but as a role model, Luigi Mangione falls short. We do not expect perfection from revolutionary figures either, but we expect a modicum of revolutionary discipline. We expect them not simply to identify an unpopular element of society 
, but to clearly illuminate the causes of oppression and the means by which they are overcome. When we canonize revolutionary figures, we are holding them up as an example to be followed.
This is where things come back to rule 1. Mangione has a long social media history bearing a spectrum of reactionary viewpoints, and interacting positively with many powerful reactionary figures. While some commenters have referred to this as “nothing malicious,” by lionizing this man we effectively deem this behavior acceptable, or at the very least, safe to ignore. This is the type of tailism which opens the door to making a space unsafe for marginalized people.
We’re going to be more strict on moderating posts which do little more than lionize the shooter. There is plenty to be said about the unfolding events, the remarkably positive public reaction, how public reactions to “propaganda of the deed” may have changed since the historical epoch of its conception (and how the strategic hazards might not have), and many other aspects of the news without canonizing this man specifically. We can still dance on the graves of our enemies and celebrate their rediscovered fear and vulnerability without the vulgar revisionism needed to pretend this man is some sort of example of Marxist or Anarchist practice.
Removed by mod
This is the correct take and seeing all the removals of good posts and comments that are entirely consistent with this is really disappointing.
And now it has been removed. The most cogent, materialist, consistently communist position gets removed and the user banned. Will my comment get removed for expressing how ridiculous I think that is?
Ok I’m honestly furious that this comment was removed for being “inappropriately dismissive of valid concerns.” This was the best comment in the entire thread and clearly the community agreed with that. What kind of paternalistic bullshit is the mod team on?
It’s the fact that once again a small portion of the mod/admin team has unilaterally decided what the whole community’s “line” is, in this case on the CEO-killer. Anyone who says something just a little too contrary to that line gets their comment or post removed (and possibly banned) even if most users agree with it, and even if it was a perfectly reasonable, well-thought-out, analytical, and intelligent argument that was devoid of any negativity towards other users. It was just a little too positive about the person who did a thing we all in our heart of hearts wish we could do en masse. But that person has been deemed “of the enemy” by the people with the ban hammer, so any positivity towards him is now off limits. “You wouldn’t want to be caught siding with the enemy, would you?! That’s a bannin’!” Even in the thread where we are discussing this unilateral decision based on a non-majority-view and the consequences of going against it, where presumably we could at least present arguments against it, the comment with the highest number of upvotes gets wiped from the discussion.
I want to say also that I’m furious about it too, like you. And I think anyone who cares about this community, regardless of which side of this issue they’re on, should be angry about that comment removal as well.
Since you’re relatively new, I’ll note that this is an ongoing problem, it’s not unique to this recent disagreement over the merits of adventurism and the subsequent Luigi-posting. A few people who have a lot of power here have a vision for what they think hexbear should be and are steering it and curating it through user bans, comment removal, and I strongly suspect sockpuppetry. But this vision is in direct contradiction with what the majority of the users on this site want. We keep running into this contradiction and it has never been resolved.
be real lol it was vulgar un-marxist shlock. “he’s our guy” is just plain LARP. the left actually isn’t in a position where it’s politically viable to wage class war by killing people! glad she caught a 7 day and i won’t have to see her awful takes for a bit.
Look I’m new to this site and you are clearly a very popular poster here so I will choose my words carefully but let’s just say you and I are not in agreement on this issue. I thought this reply was thoughtful and nuanced and apparently so did 80 other users before the mods removed it.
If the reply simply said “He’s our guy,” I would agree. But it was actually a whole, complete thought. Apparently it was a thought you didn’t agree with, but IMO a post that doesn’t perfectly align with your (or the mods’) Marxist ideals does not warrant removal.
I cannot speak to that poster’s history on this site or 7 day ban as I am a relatively new user and generally just pop in and out.
i don’t really wanna get into this if it’s alright with you, we can just say we disagree and leave it there. this is all ultimately quite meaningless and i don’t really want to spend much more energy on it. for what it’s worth though, her 7 day ban was for DM harassment of another user who had previously asked her to disengage on this topic because Awoo was being hostile (which is what netted her the 3-day ban). she DM’d this user immediately after getting her 3-day ban overturned by leveraging her power user status. regardless of the disagreement, the way she talked to that user was extremely gross and to then move onto DM harassment is very over the line to me and deserving of the ban she got.
That is fair, I mod a large-ish leftist subreddit and I would also ban a user for DMing another user after being asked to disengage. IMO a 7 day ban is justified, removal of the comment was not.
It is clear to me now that nothing was truly resolved during the last struggle sesh
Correct, there was never any real resolution to the last several site-related struggle sessions. With that big one, there was some appeasement to make it seem like all was good again, but truthfully the big problem was just quietly set on the back burner, and surprise surprise, here we are again.
They made a matrix channel, which is hard to gain access to and has like 50 people in it. Anything agreed in the channel is non-binding and again, it’s on a separate platform. Ugh.
for real, this is getting ridiculous lately
They fucking banned awoo? Oh my god fuck you people
Just let people fucking talk, you posted a bait thread for people to disagree with you let them do it
It was a very good comment too, hers usually are. Find it in the modlog if you haven’t already.
How do i do that?
This link should take you there. For future reference though, just go to https://hexbear.net/modlog and where it says “filter by user” just start typing in the name you want to see the modlog entries for and click the right one when it appears.
I see, thank you
EDIT: Omg they did her so dirty, this reads like someone who has a lot of power and no accountability abusing it because they disagree
It was a reasonable comment and well articulated, and now theyre demanding she bends the knee after the ban expires?!
it was vulgar tailist nonsense and i’m glad she’s banned. british people shouldn’t be allowed post on here
Is this supposed to be a joke? Its hilariously funny for the majority American user base here to say this shit with a straight face. I guess you can say whatever nonsense when you think you got the mod team on your side lol.
i am not amerikkkan, there are actually more than two nationalities! hope this helps:)
The point is that the people on this site are overwhelmingly living in the West, so if Westerners can’t post here then the site would be like 3 people and no owls
Your celebrity crush doesn’t have class consciousness, he has a personal vendetta because UHC fucked up his back. That doesn’t change that he did a good thing, it doesn’t change how happy i am over the public reaction to it, but the problem we need to tackle is precisely that material conditions in the US at best lead to people doing sigma lone wolf adventurism instead of building a mass movement, and that things are that way is precisely because they are infected with the reactionary ideology you so casually brush aside and ignore.
good post!
Not really. It’s much more difficult to judge how good a post is when it’s a reply to another post that no one can see. But more than that, right off the bat, demeaning the previous (now banned) commenter by referring to her principled and theory-based position as a “celebrity crush” is childish and needlessly adversarial. No, the Actually good post was removed and is now relegated to the modlog. Those who have to sift through the modlog to even see what she did say, they’ll see that Awoo did not “casually brush aside and ignore” the reactionary views, she clearly addressed them.
we obviously just fundamentally disagree here on whether awoo was doing vulgar marxism or actually offering insight. there’s no point in me and you arguing about it. for what it’s worth, awoo was carrying on being spiteful and insulting about this topic to users disagreeing with her before the “celebrity crush” comment. she caught a ban for it (which she then used her power user status to get overturned, then immediately started DM harassing another user who had asked her to disengage, resulting in a well deserved 7 day ban). so i find it hard to sympathise there and think a bit of derision is frankly deserved. zeroing in on the one very minor insult kinda brushes aside how acidsmiley’s comment also contained valid criticism. and for my part i’m glad i don’t have to see awoo’s takes for the next week.
It isn’t even something I was arguing about with you, so if there is no point in doing that, why did you start?
My point was that it is now impossible for people to tell whether Acidsmiley’s comment did in fact contain valid criticism since we can’t see what the comment is criticizing. It looks to me like there is some valid arguments and counters to what Awoo said, but it’s mixed in with invalid criticism, but no one can tell which is which unless they go check the modlog. I don’t know what Awoo did or said elsewhere, but having read and enjoyed her posts for years, it must have been extremely uncharacteristic of her if it was in fact deserving of a ban. But that is completely beside the point that her comment here that was removed contained nothing of the sort, and its removal supposedly was only because a mod thought it was “inappropriately dismissive of concerns” which is clearly a minority view, considering the upvotes and responses (including from some who disagree with her position).
That’s great for you that you’re glad you won’t “have” to see Awoo’s takes for the next week, but you didn’t have to wait for her to be banned to accomplish that, there is a block feature you know. I personally will miss Awoo’s takes but look forward to seeing them again, as one of a number of the major staples of the hexbear community.
disengaging!
Removed by mod
Hmmm depends on the adventurism in my opinion? I could see a whole bunch of scenarios where adventurism is actually a net negative for us. This however? This is so clear.
Yeah that is fair, I guess my own optimism that as things get worse it will be harder and harder for liberals to try and push the normal common sense civility narrative and that seems to be their weakest point even though yes it is definitely dangerous.
It’s part of being the western left. We must always only criticize, lest we actually do something and thereby open ourselves up to criticism.
It’s pretty clear now that there is a portion of this site, including quite a few mods and admins, whose priority is having an ideologically pure reading group. There is a massive difference between tailism and accepting that real change requires alliances of convenience with people you greatly disagree with, because you’re never going to find a critical mass of perfect comrades in the greater masses without recruiting and converting people who started with shitty opinions.
You’d think a site that agreed to stop fighting over whether veganism is a hard requirement of leftism would understand that by now.
I don’t fully agree with this and I support what AcidSmiley replied, but why are genuine opinions being banned as well as the user just because it might have been a bad take? This isn’t one of these cases where a comment shouldn’t exist at all on the site, like fascist or liberal opinions. It’s an opinion that has some truth to it and opens up a productive conversation on what a revolutionary movement should be and what it should condone and support.
Cuz mods don’t care, don’t have time to ideologically sort people, and don’t have time to sort people by sincerity, simple as.
I’ve seen someone get banned on hexbear for doing Astartes posting (Warhammer 40k Space Marines start every other sentance with “Brother,”) and get banned for misgendering for doing it to a femme mod.
At the end of the day it’s a shit posting site so who care?
But that’s exactly what they did in this case and why the comment was removed.
Yes they do. They do it all the time (and that is a good thing). If given mods don’t have time to do the job they volunteered to do, then they shouldn’t be mods. I don’t think lack of time is the problem here.
If the person you saw misgendered someone and refused to correct themselves or apologize, that is a very good and legitimate reason to ban them.
It is that, a shitposting site, but it is also more than that. There are many of us here who, for better or worse, spend a lot of time and energy on this site. We care about the community that makes it up and we care about the direction it’s headed. The mods do too obviously, and problems arise when there is disagreement over what that direction should be.
This is your actual argument. This all boils down to a “No Exit” argument. You are mad that the mods are “the look” in the Camus sense. You want the mods to recognize the subjectivity in your person, rather than seeing you as an objective collection of posts. That is an unrealistic demand for an online site. Given the history of philosophy and general human history it’s a bit of an unrealistic demand on real-life people too.
Time is a limited resource, at the end of the day your only real option in any community is to care about the community in an egoless way otherwise you’ll only feel burned and be jaded.
So your pseudo-philosophical position is that no one should ever expect to be recognized or treated as the individual sentient human being that they in fact are, but only as an “objective collection of posts.” Strange, because I have no problem recognizing that people are, well, people. And even though I may disagree with them, I am certain that most of the mods are just as capable of that as I am.
In this case you should write a retort to Being and Nothingness. There’s no further point to this discussion, you’ve thoroughly defeated all the practical concerns of online moderation and all the “pseudo-philosophical” ones as well with a well rounded argument of “nuh uhhhh cuz I can ;)”.
Unfortunately, I have to concede defeat to you, for you have clearly won through sheer nonsensical blathering and the sophomoric name-dropping of philosophical works in the place of any kind of reasoning (and to show off how you’re ever so smart!) In other words, waaow you’ve red Sartre! I give up!
Philosophize these balls with shit on them