They are like wasps. If you agitate one, you'll get mobbed by countless others. I tried to reason with one yesterday and I'm still getting notifications from random hexbear users coming at me.
I had the displeasure of interacting with someone before I knew what that instance was. Someone posted that anyone who supported any democratic candidate in the US should be hit by a truck, and that they wanted to do physical harm to them. I reported it, and the mod who got the report posted my name publically in the thread and proceeded to paste some manifesto on how cops brutalized homeless people and trans people, so therefore if someone votes for a democratic senator it is justifiable to physically harm or kill that person.
I have blocked every community on the instance. It was helpful being brought up by the mod, cause I clicked on their profile and they modded 15 or so communities on their instance, so I was able to click directly on those communties and block, then click on the next one etc.