Comment on Should instances defederate with other instances anymore if we can filter instances out on our end?
ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months agoI used instance block as a synonym for defederating. Now you know what I meant, can we get on with the discussion instead of arguing about things I didn’t mean
xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org 10 months ago
Alright. To quote your original comment:
How would removing defederation result in a situation where “every bigot can access anyone and everyone else” if user-level instance blocking was still a thing?
ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
Because user level blocking isn’t really blocking. It’s just filtering. The bigots can still see the content of people that have blocked their instance, and they can even reply to it. The only person that can’t see it is the user who configured the “block”
xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org 10 months ago
What exactly is the problem with a bigot replying to you if you don’t see the reply?
Also, they can see the content even if you defederate, because it’s public.
ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
I’ve gone in to this in depth elsewhere, but the difference is in the number of drive by bigots encountered, and how easy it is for those drive by bigots to interact.
So, in an open fediverse, with no defederation, and only user level filtering, drive by bigots will come along and hate on someone. That person will block the bigots instance (after being exposed to their hate), but even after that, the bigots will still be able to interact, and other vulnerable folk will still encounter the bigot dog pile. This is exactly how things work on twitter currently.
But when you can lock down posts to limit who can see them and defederate from instances that attract bigots, then less bigots will randomly see the content from vulnerable folk in their feeds in the first place, meaning less drive bys and less dogpiling.