• Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
    0·
    11 months ago

    They’ll probably stay in chapo.chat, and instance owners will update their blocked lists. A few users lost because they can’t be arsed to re-register, instead using .ml. But, past that, not much is going to change, I think.

    I’m mildly curious on what’s going to happen with their older domain - or, what the winning bidder will make out of it. (Document bad online behaviour? Make it about NATO to rub salt on their wounds? What else?)

    • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      Except they already said that the same issue will occur with the backup name as well. Unless the additional time allows the original owner to finally reregister it this time, as they (reportedly) claimed to be ready to do for the main one as well. I think they don’t trust them anymore:-).

      So everyone might move, then have to move again a second time. Not joking btw!:-)

      Is it weird that I feel bad for them? Whoever is to blame, a lot of the users are innocent of this. And are also trolls, true, but even so… It would be nice if some people would learn from this that online trolling is one thing, but eventually it’s even better to wake up and live in the real world. I want that for them.

      • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
        0·
        11 months ago

        I think that the additional time will be enough to let them contact the original owner. But dunno, there might be some drama involved, IIRC not even the original devs want much to do with HB.

        And even if they move twice, the userbase seems close-knit enough to follow without too many losses.

        Is it weird that I feel bad for them?

        I don’t think it is. The main problem there seems to be users going rogue outside their home instance; I remember HB had some rule like “respect rules of the other instances you interact with”, but it was toilet paper. However plenty of the other users are completely OK.

        Another issue is that there is some red scare against them. And even if they use it to shield themselves from actual criticism in a really dumb way, the red scare is still there.

        • GBU_28@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          11 months ago

          They openly idolize Stalin. That’s not from a couple rogue users

          • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
            0·
            11 months ago

            The guy who spent his youth robbing banks to fund a revolution, succeeded, went on to beat the nazis, and helped lay the foundation for the greatest increase in standards of living in the modern age outside of China?

            Even if you accept legitimate criticisms about the guy, such as interning/relocating populations in the wake of WWII, various loses the CPC took due to following his mandates, his failure to support Korea, etc, and understand him as a part of a greater machine accomplishing these things rather than the idealist “great man theory” nonsense that encourages hero worship in the first place, it’s hard not to idealize revolutionary heros like him and Fidel.

        • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
          0·
          11 months ago

          They did contact the original owner - who promised (reputedly) to take care of it. Then disappeared (yet again, after repeatedly having done so in the past so many times before). It’s even possible that they did this out of some kind of spite? But perhaps not, maybe it’s merely irresponsibility, and even that due to ADHD or some such, who knows (I did not read through every comment, just enough to know this much).

          It is not merely users going rouge (edit: no you know what, fuck it, I’m leaving this spelling exactly as it is, bc it’s 2025 baby! and this apparently is how we roll now) there are posts (not merely moderator reports, which don’t federate particularly with their older software) where they are made aware, and the admins chose to ignore the situation each time rather than ban the person involved. They actively shielded them from consequences, rather than merely allowing them to do whatever. Thus necessitating others to take steps of their own to deal with matters.

          Seeing how “responsible” they are, nobody believes the red scare issue - especially people who are ACTUALLY leftist as opposed to whatever fucked up thing tankies are to begin with, and then like that squared (three times over) and possibly reversed and shifted further into the imaginary dimension, to describe whatever the heck Hexbear has going on specifically. Regardless of political views. imho at least, ofc:-).

          • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
            0·
            11 months ago

            They did contact the original owner - who promised (reputedly) to take care of it.

            That’s important info.

            Perhaps the original owner is so disengaged already that they aren’t giving too much of a fuck about the fate of the instance. I can’t exactly blame them.

            It is not merely users going rouge (edit: no you know what, fuck it, I’m leaving this spelling exactly as it is, bc it’s 2025 baby! and this apparently is how we roll now)

            Stop making me remember a certain movie! Okay, the movie is great, so keep reminding me of it. (Moulin Rouge. Their version of Roxanne is way better than The Police’s original. Kind of like Concrete Blonde’s Everybody Knows vs. Cohen’s)

            But I digress. Yes, the users were going rouge :-P under the implicit approval of the instance admins; that’s why I say that the rule there against misbehaving in other instances was “toilet paper”, it’s just there to get shit.

            Seeing how “responsible” they are, nobody believes the red scare issue

            Yup. It’s like the boy who cried wolf, isn’t it?

            Anyway, I hope that the good ones still stick around. And even the bad ones should get a place… just away from my sight. (Perhaps in truth social, showing their “critical support” to Trump. Hehe.)

    • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      re-register

      Why do you think their old accounts won’t work? It’s just a different domain name. They didn’t lose data.

    • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      11 months ago

      Has chapo chat been federated with us this entire time? I’m just trying to understand what it actually is.

      • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        11 months ago

        It was the original website people from /r/chapotraphouse migrated to when it was banned on reddit but then everyone decided they didn’t even really like the podcast and made a new thing

        • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          11 months ago

          I get that but do we need to defederate from them or not? It seems like they don’t have federation enabled or something.

            • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works
              0·
              11 months ago

              sigh

              That’s a funny way of saying you have no clue what chapo.chat actually is. Hexbear is the epitome of the blind leading the blind.

              I could never have imagined that certain leftists were equally as stupid and ignorantly abrasive as MAGA trumpers, but you clowns have proven it beyond all doubt. It’s so profoundly concerning and disappointing 😑

              Why can’t you just act like a mature adult and answer a simple question? Why must you incessantly seek to spread divisiveness and misery?

              • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.mlEnglish
                0·
                11 months ago

                No it’s a funny way of saying your instance sucks

                Who is spreading divisiveness? You are explicitly asking if you need to take additional steps to divide yourself from elsewhere.

                Not to distract attention from your frankly obsessive and weird hate rant

                • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works
                  0·
                  11 months ago

                  I’m asking if chapo.chat is part of Lemmy or not. Do they federate with other servers, or is it isolated? Just answer the damn question.

                  I explicitly federated sh.itjust.works with hexbear, at the request of your fearless leader u/CARCOSA, and I took a whole bunch of shit from all sides for that decision. Then you defederated us within 24 hours, because you couldn’t handle losing arguments with our users. I have always tried to be reasonable with you people but it counts for nothing, because you just attack and abuse everyone you come into contact with, and you actively refuse to confront reality.

          • Deinonych[they/them]@lemmy.ml
            0·
            11 months ago

            Don’t worry, hexbear/whatever is going to be called will almost certainly block sh.itjust.works along with other right-wing instances when it enables federation again

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
    0·
    11 months ago

    I’ve had that happen to some URLs I own before. Basically, they forgot to renew. Normally you get a grace period but some sketchy domain admins take the lapse as an opportunity to auction off what was originally a worthless address now that it has value.

      • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
        0·
        11 months ago

        I am willing to bet that the contact person is either gone or not checking email. It wouldn’t surprise me if they lost access to the portal.

        Ironic that it’s capitalism that’s going to take down Hexbear.

        • Carl@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          11 months ago

          Yeah but on the other hand it’ll hardly be the first time this community has moved. Looking at the frontpage of chapo.chat the userbase doesn’t seem particularly bothered by the possibility.

        • Aqarius@lemmy.world
          0·
          11 months ago

          That isn’t ironic. That’s entirely on brand. Ironic would be if they got taken down due to leftist infigh-actually, no, that’s also on brand. I guess if Trump - no, that would also…

          …Is this what they mean by “irony-poisoned”?

      • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
        0·
        11 months ago

        I found some people alleging the sav.com is sketchy about other aspects of their service. It wouldn’t surprise me if they tactically overreacted to a single missed email, or a single expired credit card, or something like that, to squeeze their client for more money.

    • psud@aussie.zoneEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      How’s your bid going? Top is $676 now. I wonder if it’ll go to ,$1000. I wonder how many of the bidders are from hexbear, trying to save it

      • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
        0·
        11 months ago

        I wonder how many of the bidders are from hexbear, trying to save it

        Anyone who did that would be endlessly mocked for giving a thousand dollars to a domain registrar instead of literally anything else.

    • Fidel_Cashflow@lemmy.ml
      0·
      11 months ago

      spending hundreds of dollars on a domain to own the commies, that’s so epic chungus, take my updoot good sir

    • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      Rent free.

      If you go to their megathread on the topic you’ll see that not only are they not bidding, they’re telling people not to bid on their behalf and go to their https://chapo.chat/c/mutual_aid comm and give the money to someone who needs it. So if you have 300+ bucks to set on fire please consider helping someone with their rent or groceries. Or on the kid from Gaza trying to raise money for a prosthetic leg. You’ll feel better than spending it on spite.

      • Ambii [She/her]@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        11 months ago

        Please someone cover my monthly expenses (equal to the current bid) . As a commie tankie trans girl this would own me epically

    • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      0·
      11 months ago

      It’s funny, even on the reddit post about it everyone shamed OP saying “are you serious? Spend your money on something worthwhile instead of acting like a toddler.” Hexbears aren’t even trying to bid on it.

      • Universal Monk@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        11 months ago

        Fair point! I have just spent all day arguing against people trying to get me banned from the fediverse. So I guess I left the blinders on.

        In this very sub, there was a post yesterday: “TrumpsTruth, Conservatism, TheNewDonald, what’s happening on this instance? Is this a thing?”

        And it’s around 60 comments of people telling me how much they hate me, and calling out admins to ban me! So my joke was mostly to them. And a few months before that a thread, “TrumpsTruth, Conservatism, TheNewDonald, what’s happening on this instance? Is this a thing?”

        I spend so much time being yelled at that I forget that I’m actually not that well-known. It come because from comments of, “Everyone hates you!” and “Your name is everywhere.”

        Good to know that it’s not everywhere. Maybe then they can shut up about how I have ruined the Fediverse and should be banned…

        Thanks for calling me out. Edited.

  • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
    0·
    11 months ago

    Serious question: if this happened to a popular federated instance (say Lemmy.world) and it got bought by someone malicious, what’s the worst they could do to my Lemmy feed and the Lemmy community in general?

  • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    11 months ago

    Wow, that’s a fuck up of monumental proportions. Still 9 days left on the auction, I wonder how much it’ll ultimately sell for.

    This could be really annoying when they all make accounts on lemmy.ml. Funnily enough, having them all sequestered over there and defederated from the rest of us has been working pretty well lately. Moderators and admins better start dusting off the banhammers.

          • bishbosh@lemm.eeEnglish
            0·
            11 months ago

            Right after the r/chapotraphouse sub got banned, they moved to chapo.chat, but the community wasn’t really that tied with the chapo trap house podcast anymore, so they moved to hexbear.net.

          • vger@lemmy.mlEnglish
            0·
            11 months ago

            It’s the same instance. That’s just a synonymous hostname that points to the same IP address.

      • jqubed@lemmy.world
        0·
        11 months ago

        Reading through the admin’s post it looks like they have the exact same issue with chapo.chat being registered by an admin who is no longer active and not responding to the rest of the admin team. They explicitly say to view the move to chapo.chat as temporary unless they can get control of that domain.

        Sounds like a good lesson for them and many other fediverse instances to form some sort of non-profit/club/organization legal entity and better ensure that these critical items are open to multiple individuals to reduce the bus factor. I would assume having a legal entity would make it easier to get donations to cover costs too.

          • psud@aussie.zoneEnglish
            0·
            11 months ago

            I’m taking it as “grew up and realised he had been an idiot, so stopped talking to them or supporting the cause”

            • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
              0·
              11 months ago

              Y’all are really overthinking this. Have you ever just gotten tired of using some platform or just become less chronically online in any capacity? It doesn’t mean they died or had a change of heart. People’s interests change over time. Not everyone wants to do the same thing forever.

              • Ambii [She/her]@lemmy.mlEnglish
                0·
                11 months ago

                These people are holding onto some weird ass one sided internet beef with a lemmy instance of communist trans people, do you really think they’ve ever touched enough grass to grow past the age they first joined reddit?

                • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
                  0·
                  11 months ago

                  Don’t play the victim. Those who were around when Hexbear first federated with the main instances remember how awful their behaviour was. Being a trans communist doesn’t shield you from criticism, nor does it excuse that behaviour. None of grudges people hold are unfounded.

  • melroy@kbin.melroy.org
    0·
    11 months ago

    Just add the following line to your host file and add an override to your DNS:

    37.187.73.130 hexbear.net

    Problem solved, this is how we did it in 1985.

  • Zink@programming.dev
    0·
    11 months ago

    I am not writing this to shit on them, but I have to appreciate the irony in the situation. Something about a communist community getting messed up by lapses in individual responsibility, or an authoritarian leaning community getting messed up by fuckups in leadership.

  • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    11 months ago

    The rest of the Fediverse should put together a GoFundMe to buy the domain, and stick up a page with links to donate drones to Ukrainian soldiers, and care packages to families of Uyghur muslims detained in concentration camps in China.

      • Martineski@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        11 months ago

        I wonder if the high bids will actually go through or if it’s just trolling. Definitely weird to give such big amounts of money away for a joke outside the space where it’s needed.

    • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
      0·
      11 months ago

      care packages to families of Uyghur muslims detained in concentration camps in China.

      So right to the pockets of Adrian Zenz?

    • Etterra@discuss.onlineEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      Couldn’t somebody buy it and change it to force all the assholes out and then change things to make it a proper instance?

      • Evotech@lemmy.world
        0·
        11 months ago

        Idk how federation works, but I imagine the domain name isn’t the only thing that ties the instanses together together?

        I could be wrong

        • r.EndTimes@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          11 months ago

          nah they could, theyd just change it to their ip address, like the domain vendor deleted their ip address from the records when they didn’t pay

          • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            0·
            11 months ago

            That’s not how the Fediverse works. Instances are per domain, not per IP address. You can change IPs however often you want, as long as your domain points to the right server.

              • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                0·
                11 months ago

                That doesn’t matter to fediverse software. Any new instance on hexbear.net would have errors when trying to federate with other instances, and it probably wouldn’t be able to do so at all. But even if it did manage it, what are you expecting to do to mitigate the errors that arise from other instances referencing users/threads/posts/comments/communities/modlogs that existed on the old instance, but do not exist on the new one?

                • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                  0·
                  11 months ago

                  referencing users/threads/posts/comments/communities/modlogs that existed on the old instance, but do not exist on the new one

                  Yeah, that’s what I was talking about. It would be a different instance that doesn’t have the same database as the original one.

  • Carl@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    11 months ago

    New update for those of you following this story

    We have established contact with the previously-AWOL owner, and after much discussion, we have determined that while there was an error in the auto-payment initially, the renewal funds were transferred manually to Sav and the auction continues despite that. We are currently appealing to Sav support with our domain credentials. We are also looking into whether an ICANN-compliant grace period was implemented prior to the rescinding and auctioning of the domain.

    • Shadow@lemmy.ca
      0·
      11 months ago

      DNS caching at play. The registrar has pointed it to their own nameservers, and that gets cached in lots of places.

      • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
        0·
        11 months ago

        Ooooh. That explains it. Yeah, it just switched over to the redirect to sav.com for me.

        I think they’re fucked. Because of how Lemmy does federation, there’s no way that I know of to switch the domain for an existing instance without changing the name and making everyone resubscribe to everything. Although, they probably talk mostly to one another so they could probably change the name to hexbear.social or something with just a little temporary disruption if they don’t feel like coming up with $300. Personally, I definitely wouldn’t want to cooperate with the domain extortion, I’d rather change domains.

        • Shadow@lemmy.ca
          0·
          11 months ago

          They should be able to still recover the domain. From the top of the page “To renew this domain, please sign in to your Sav.com Account”.

          • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
            0·
            11 months ago

            I think they now have to win the auction, though. It’s $300 to renew for the year currently, and still rising, instead of the $12 it was going to be.

            I do not think anyone should bid the price up. Hexbear may be a bunch of cunts, but all you’re doing with that is giving money to some criminals who are much worse than the Hexbear people.

            • r.EndTimes@lemm.eeEnglish
              0·
              11 months ago

              How are they criminals? Its the domain selling site lol, they didn’t pay a cheapass 12$ renewal with a years notice, its their own fault?

    • superkret@feddit.org
      0·
      11 months ago

      For me, both redirect to chapo.
      With different messages on top that aren’t friendly to hexbear.
      WTF is going on here?

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
        0·
        11 months ago

        Hexbear has taglines that contain some of the funniest things said about Hexbear, or just funny in general. This is standard for Hexbear, if you refresh the page the taglines change.

      • Hubi@feddit.org
        0·
        11 months ago

        Paid registration renewal is inherently capitalist, you deranged westoid.

        spoiler

        How’d I do?

      • Sandwich Artist@lemmy.ca
        0·
        11 months ago

        Im assuming the war in ukraine and sanctions slowed down their flow of capital. Moneys probably been diverted to their top tier podcasters and youtubers who actually have an audience. Daddy expects results.

        • tree_frog@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          11 months ago

          Y’all have such a hate hardon for hexbear you can’t hear the irony.

          And if they did change it to something like tanki.cn, it would be an ironic jab at y’all who already think that anyway.

          • GrundlButter@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            0·
            11 months ago

            I have a hard time taking authoritarians seriously, whether they are left wing or right wing.

            Don’t get me wrong, sinophobia or russophobia for the sake of it is just dumb, but like the other guy said, if we get banned for having a different opinion on those country’s dictators than they do… Maybe they should just stay in their safe space by themselves, isolated. Just like Russia and China should be sanctioned and isolated for their imperialist bullshit, and just like America should be for its imperialist bullshit.

            Also, if they adopt a .cn tld, they’ll lose their domain name again. Not even China wants anything to do with them, hexbear was blocked in China haha.

              • FundMECFS@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                0·
                11 months ago

                Alt Account — Blahaj is not federated with Hexbear.

                Though sorry to say I can’t give you the username of that alt since I use it to post personal info I don’t want linked with my main (this account).

            • tree_frog@lemm.eeEnglish
              0·
              11 months ago

              So you got banned for making a bad faith argument rooted in your western brainworms?

              Yeah that sounds like hexbear.

              Are you expecting sympathy?

      • Ben Hur Horse Race@lemm.ee
        0·
        11 months ago

        or just look for their obnoxious emojis, which are full color photos of some gross asshole.

        Im honestly annoyed by this as I have over 30 communities on hexbear blocked. id really not like to have to do it again