Some of the hexbear users have since then made troll accounts on other instances, but it's still a lot better than before defederation. It also helps that they tend to get their accounts banned pretty quickly because they are insufferable.

[–] Tosti@feddit.nl 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Usually lemmy ml accounts but they might be hexbear. They have names like stalin_blablabla and xXxMaoxXx etc. But look at the modlog for worldnews on ML, they actively supress anything critical of gaza and Russia as "red scare", trivializing genocide, etc. its pretty blatant.

[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 7 points 10 months ago

/c/USA on lemmy ml is filled with them as well. That community is just about news-bashing the US a much as possible.

As far as groups go, there is a tankie "circle" with usernames ɬɧąɬ ųʂɛ ą ʄơŋɬ ʂıɱıƖąཞ ɬơ ɬɧıʂ. From what I can tell, they are mostly based in India for some reason. They have multiple user accounts they use to troll comments as well.

Honestly, I don't give a fuck if they stay over on lemmy ml. Whatever. When they start leaking into other instances is when I'll usually shut them down. (It's happened a few times on lemmy.ca, btw.)

They have a fairly solid M.O.:

Post something pro-tankie or blatant misinformation on a target instance.
Try to convince people with chains of links from super-random sites; repeat common misinformation narratives
They will attempt to prove you wrong about anything. It doesn't matter what.
Quickly devolve the conversation to insults when their "facts" are questioned.