[EFFORTPOST] On @DroneRights, and Ableism on Hexbear

During the brief time DroneRights was active on the site, DroneRights was treated, by default, in bad faith and as a wrecker, even by moderators. Very first post made by DroneRights, (where it references its experiences as someone with NPD) First comment responding tells it to “fuck off” and that narcissist is not a slur. DroneRights defended how it feels narcissist is a slur, and then the next comment was “I have literally never heard or seen it used that way. Edit: new account, good troll” A statement that Thus begins the saga of DroneRights, and the half of the userbase that treats it like a troll that couldn’t possibly be real because what it talks about is nothing the users here have ever heard about. And just to be clear, ableist slurs are commonplace on this site. Incredibly common everyday words, phrases, and most intelligence or sanity-based insults come from medical words for disabilities. I would imagine a lot of users would be upset if ND users started insisting, we never used words like “stupid”, because they are so commonplace. But if someone with NPD tells you that using Narcissism as an insult is hurtful and dehumanizes those who have NPD, then don’t speak over them.

Now, DroneRights is an interesting user. I, like most of you, did not know much about anything DroneRights talked about in its posts. From how I see it, DroneRights has been ridiculed for its beliefs, its disabilities, and its gender since it started being open about its gender online. It tried talking about its experiences with neurodiversity and its gender on several instances before posting on hexbear at all, making a new account after being doxxed on its old one. Every instance treated DroneRights in bad faith, invalidated and belittled it, and it comes to hexbear where “we love our trans neurodivergent comrades!!” and it instantly gets treated like someone so unfamiliar and so unbelievable that DroneRights couldn’t possibly be real or valid.

This is the shit we have a thousand dunk tank threads about. Libs saying hexbear users are bots, or not really trans, or paid shills, anything they can say instead of doing some self-crit or considering the experiences of other people. Except now we are doing it, while claiming to be a welcoming, shining beacon of inclusivity. Now, even if you wrongly think DroneRights could not possibly be genuine in the posts it made, I would briefly like if the readers of this post looked at DroneRights post history for a moment, and interpret its posts giving the benefit of the doubt that should be given to someone with NPD, autism, a lack of communication skills, who does not fully understand left wing politics like you might. Take how it interprets its gender seriously, without assuming it is a troll. And look at how users on this site respond to what it says.

https://hexbear.net/u/DroneRights?page=1&sort=Old&view=Overview

Okay, assuming you looked for a little over 5 minutes, you have probably seen some hurtful exclusionary shit said to DroneRights out of bad faith assumptions. The mod log is similarly bad, if you believe that ND users shouldn’t be seen instantly as trolls or worthy of being banned for a couple bad takes, or for communication problems. These takes are entirely understandable for DroneRights to have, given how it views itself as a non-person. Especially noteworthy, is how DroneRights post got removed and bad faith comments were made towards it (initially, got restored later) in the dedicated comm for neurodiversity, with rules dedicated to not making bad faith assumptions about other peoples experiences. In The rest of the site without those rules, it faced constant ridicule and mistreatment. Saying DroneRights had “bad, wrecker vibes” without attempting to understand DroneRights is ableist, and so is labeling DroneRights as a wrecker when its actions could easily be interpreted as a good faith ND user who isn’t quite as aware of Marxist theory unlike other users. Even if for some reason some bad faith troll decided to learn and lie about the experiences DroneRights has had with its gender and how its NPD has changed how it views itself, the normal standards of engagement on this site should not be one where ND users, and users in general should be invalidated like that. Now, the problem of ableism and bad faith assumptions about posts is a very complicated one. Let me first address our site culture of struggle sessions, hostility, and bad faith assumptions. Threads frequently devolve into arguments and dogpiling, often on established users who make comments or posts with no intention of rudeness. The solution to this problem of hostility by hexbear? Don’t talk about it. If drama is brought up, even if its very important or relevant to the site, it is removed. There used to be containment comms in UserUnion and c/Strugglesession. They got removed about three months ago. I never heard about any new place to talk about the site, the code of conduct still tells users to post at userunion, so unless a user looks a little harder and tries to find whatever comm “meta” posts are allowed in, criticism looks purposefully ignored. A cool soviet propaganda poster once said, “Kill it at the Root.” Most struggle sessions either wouldn’t have happened, or been a lot less toxic, if there were sitewide rules saying that “if a user posts something that seems unintentionally harmful or reactionary, ask them what they meant by that comment. Don’t immediately go on the attack. Behave in good faith, and don’t assume the worst from posters by default “

Now, this potential solution obviously increases moderator workload and would make genuine ill-intentioned trolls harder to get rid of, but compared to previous moderation policies, if implemented properly, it would give many users the safe, welcoming space they desire from the site. Now, Hexbear itself has had a rocky start, with issues of inclusivity and toxicity since the beginning. The solution for the past few years? Ban anyone you can label as a liberal! I don’t really have an issue with the initial ban of those labeled transphobic. Were some well-intentioned ND users banned in the process? Probably. But the site is much better without blatant transphobia. The issue is that the policy of banning on the pretenses of “seems like a liberal” or “has a take I don’t agree with” is really only fitting on clear, black and white issues like trans rights. Now, admittedly, a lot of left wing issues are black and white, but not all of them are, and having a bad take on an issue or believing in common misconceptions doesn’t mean a user is malicious or harmful, and the policy of banning “sus” accounts over not having all the facts or not communicating properly is actively communicating that the policy is: that it is ok to ban ND users regularly and make it so those who don’t get banned are constantly worried about it, as long as it gets rid of liberals. When you say “Embrace TC69 thought” what you are advocating for is sacrificing good faith users and the ND community so that liberals are banned quicker. Of course, I’m not the first person to criticize the site on this. Two or so years ago, the site had a lively and welcoming Neurodiverse mod team dedicated to making their comm a great place for ND users to talk, but with the site’s constant hostility, struggle sessions, ND users often got unjustly banned outside of the comm, and those who did not felt like they could be banned at any moment without understanding what they did wrong. When ND users and the mod team representing them asked for users to be unbanned or for site policy to change to be more inclusive to ND users, they were frequently not being listened to. After around a year of moderating and advocating for ND users, (often with no results), an incident where a well-known user made an “I’m leaving post” targeted at an ND user who criticized them. The user was immediately banned, the ND mod team had to fight hard to convince the mod team that they didn’t deserve to be immediately banned for a tiny incident that was not intended to be hurtful, and after convincing the mods to unban the user, they were promptly re-banned by another site mod with no explanation given, and the consequences of that event and the feelings of mistreatment by the mod team prior in combination with that, led to most of the ND team leaving the site completely. The comm has seemingly had little to no leadership since in the past 2 years, and this important history of the site is largely forgotten about.

ND users need a voice, and ableism needs to be discussed and acknowledged to be a problem in this community. Discussion on ableism or ND inclusivity on the Neurodiverse comm should not be removed, especially if the conversation is civil.

[@Egon@hexbear.net](https://hexbear.net/u/Egon

Has expressed a desire for tone indicators like /s to be normalized and encouraged on the site, which I would agree with. Having /s and other tone indicators would help users with interpreting comments in they way they are intended, and /s being from reddit is not a good enough reason to not use it.

As for what I want to see from the site to be more inclusive to ND users, rules such as ““if a user posts something that seems unintentionally harmful or reactionary, ask them what they meant by that comment. Don’t immediately go on the attack. Behave in good faith, and don’t assume the worst from posters by default “and “do not talk over ND comrades about things you have not experienced” are rules I would want to be enforced site wide.

The most important thing is to acknowledge these issues in our community and address them. Inclusivity of ND comrades should be just as important as other issues the site makes a priority. If one of the main concerns with our site is losing the safe space that hexbear has.