edgelords, pedophiles, and alt-righters should always be defederated from
Should instances defederate with other instances anymore if we can filter instances out on our end?
Submitted 10 months ago by qooqie@lemmy.world to fediverse@lemmy.world
Comments
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
defedding pedos make sense but defedding the others you mentioned are just making an echo chamber
Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
something something paradox of tolerance
Carighan@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Sorry, you keep saying “echo chamber” when you wanted to type “usable instance”. Something seems broken with your autocorrect.
rikudou@lemmings.world 10 months ago
Yes. As an admin of an instance who really doesn’t want child porn on my server, I’m gonna defederate the shit out of any instance that doesn’t take care of such content in a reasonable time. And in my opinion, loli is child porn, so defederating there as well.
Other than that, anything that’s illegal in my jurisdiction.
And the last category, spam and bigotry. Basically anything that puts too much work on my plate - if I get dozens of reports a day for users of a single instance (and I agree with the reports), I’ll defederate, because no one’s paying for my time.
So these are some valid reasons for me to defederate. There are probably more.
ultra@feddit.ro 10 months ago
Yes.
notannpc@lemmy.world 10 months ago
To combat spam and blatant fuckery, absolutely. Openly hateful places have no business on the general internet.
But anything else is better left to user discretion IMO.
sj_zero 10 months ago
By that standard it seems to me like most of the internet should be shut down, particularly establishment outlets that are more than happy to tell you who to hate.
kbal@fedia.io 10 months ago
Instance admins should defederate as often as they feel is necessary, and users should learn to avoid relying on instances that do it too much.
ttmrichter@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Wow! Someone who gets “choice” and “freedom of association”!
HKayn@dormi.zone 10 months ago
Instance owners are responsible for the content that is mirrored on their instance through federation, so they definitely should.
BlastboomStrice@mander.xyz 10 months ago
Ayy, hello there Kayn (Im just a random guy from filen discord).
HKayn@dormi.zone 10 months ago
Oh hi! Small world, eh?
intensely_human@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Responsible in what way?
Hazzard@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Legally responsible.
I.E. If a federated instance hosted pedophilia, that content would be copied to, and served by, your instance’s infrastructure, which is obviously legally problematic.
Carighan@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Hey if you’re allowed to block instances you want to block, so are instance owners. After all, it’s their instance.
someguy3@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Yes, most users shouldn’t have to jump through a million hoops to get a normal feed.
MargotRobbie@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Every instance should be able to federate and defederate from any other instance for any, all, or no reason.
ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
Yes.
What you’re describing is basically the way Twitter works, and there’s a reason vulnerable folk have migrated away from it in large numbers
xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org 10 months ago
Twitter is not federated…
ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
Yes, and thus you have one giant mega community in which every bigot can access anyone and everyone else. Which is what a Fediverse without instance blocks would be like
ttmrichter@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Adanisi@lemmy.zip 10 months ago
Yes.
canis_majoris@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
The way federation works is that everything is replicated across all federated servers. If an admin team does not want to have to moderate specific kinds of content or users who are deemed detrimental (but not necessarily illegal) they have the ability and right to defederate.
Also, I’ve blocked servers but it doesn’t block users. Defederation does though.
reddwarf@feddit.nl 10 months ago
Just give me the tools, as a user, to block instances. Not just the way it is done recently but truly block an instance and all it’s posts and users. I want to be able to black hole an entire instance and all things related to it.
awwwyissss@lemm.ee 10 months ago
I want to block Threads in this way. Nuclear option, I want nothing to do with it.
Texas_Hangover@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Connect does that, it’s glorious.
qooqie@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Other than the obvious criminal instances (CSAM)
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
The feature only lets you filter posts, not users from that instance.
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 10 months ago
I’ll probably get downvoted for saying this, but in general I think defederation is against the free software ethos.
Free software is supposed to be about giving control back to the user, not the BOFH that happens to run the server they are using.
There’s obviously going to be exceptions for illegal content, or actively trying to disrupt the lemmy network (by DDOS, flooding, etc) but I feel that’s where the line should be drawn.
ttmrichter@lemmy.world 10 months ago
By “BOFH that happens to run the server” you mean “the volunteer whose money, time, and effort are being expended on your behalf”, right?
This is the single most entitled opinion I’ve ever heard in this. “I, the person who bears none of the pecuniary, temporal, or psychological costs of running the server insist that ‘the free software ethos’ means I get what I want on someone else’s computer.”
Fuck that noise.
If you want a server run your way that federates with the people you want to federate with, put your own skin in the game. Run your own server with your own rules. THAT is the actual free software ethos: DIY if you don’t like the way someone else does it.
The free software ethos is the punk ethos, not the hippy dippy shits ethos.
skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 10 months ago
[deleted]melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
There’s a difference between defederation policy and ban policy. You could have a server that is very lax on defederation, only defederating for abuse and illegal content that can’t be stopped through moderation, while implementing a standard or even fairly aggressive enforcement policy for individuals, both local users as well as remote users. The idea is that you ban offending users, while only defederating in extreme cases.
The problem with defederation is that it splits the network apart. Trying to make defederation a last resort doesn’t necessarily mean one is a freeze peach instance. Defederation policy is an entirely different beast from moderation.
That said, my understanding is that Lemmy’s moderation tools are pretty lackluster at the moment, and so a big part of the reason that some instances are quick to defederate is that it’s difficult to moderate between poor mod tools and small volunteer mod teams. It’s easier to just defederate.
sour@kbin.social 10 months ago
does bigotry count
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
the user of the free software in this case would be the server owner.
Carighan@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Free software is supposed to be about giving control back to the user, not the BOFH that happens to run the server they are using.
But the user of the free software has all the controls? How is Lemmy (as an example) not maximum free software?
The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website 10 months ago
I think still yes, when a problem is abundantly clear, but borderline cases can more easily be left to individual preference.
sentient_loom@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Defederation should always be an extreme measure. Usually it’s just the self-righteousness instinct trying to performatively obstruct other people. I usually find these discussions repulsive because of how people speak about each other (bitching about “tankies” or whatever and demanding that they be ideologically cleansed).
If we have more power to curate our own feeds, then there should be less defederation.
ttmrichter@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Usually it’s just the self-righteousness instinct…
I love¹ telepathic people who can read other people’s minds and post on their behalf.
¹ This is sarcasm. I hate the delusional who think they’re telepaths.
sentient_loom@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Enjoy your feelings of hatred then, I guess. Don’t worry though, defederation will win and you’ll be safe inside your silo bitching about how there were once people who said things you disagreed with whom you hated and continue to hate, and that hate is all you ever communicate.
qooqie@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Yeah this is kind of where I was coming from with my question
crsu@lemmy.world 10 months ago
In general I think people are too eager to block and defederate for little to no reason other than disagreement. There are exceptions but as far as a normal conversation it’s an overreaction and the antithesis of federating anyway. We already have plenty of siloed walled gardens that are echo chambers.
Asudox@lemmy.world 10 months ago
When you block the instance, it’s only visible on your client. The fact that they still are federated and content from them is mirrored on your local instance stays unchanged. So they still should defederate with such instances.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 10 months ago
So defederating is only useful as a way to save storage space?
Asudox@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Yeah, pretty much.
joeyv120@ttrpg.network 10 months ago
Yes. I think it’s especially important for attracting (or perhaps more accurately, maintaining) new users to the fediverse.
UndercoverUlrikHD@programming.dev 10 months ago
It’s one of the main differentiators between instances. If you want no filters, you can make your own instance or see if you can find one with a “zero defederation” policy.
E.g. if you don’t want to see a bunch of political propaganda or CSAM, and are into programming, programming.dev comes “pre configured” for that. Likewise lemmy.world, blahaj, etc… comes with their own flavour and configuration.
Dehydrated@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Yes, but users should be able to manually whitelist defederated instances so they can interact with such an instance, if they want to.
ttmrichter@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Replace “communist tankie shit” with “CSAM” or “torture porn” or such and see if that makes any sense to you (keeping in mind that all content from your “whitelisted” stuff is stored on the server owner’s hardware).
Dehydrated@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Ok, you’re right, I didn’t think about that. Let’s just say that federation/defederation is a tricky question.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 10 months ago
That’s called setting up your own instance and running it how you want to
Dehydrated@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Kinda agree, but chances are high that instances like Beehaw will be unwilling to federate with you
PlasterAnalyst@kbin.social 10 months ago
The way activity pub works is that a user subscribes to something and then the content gets copied to your server. If you allow a user to subscribe to whatever they want, then you're just going to get illegal content stored on your server.
Mikina@programming.dev 10 months ago
Yes, because you don’t want to provide them your content for free, so they can continue building engagement on your behalf.
MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 10 months ago
Btw, was feddit.ch somehow defederated?
gregorum@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Yes, because end-user blocking only blocks posts, not toxic users or their comments.
GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 10 months ago
Yes, this is still necessary.
It wouldn’t make sense to put the onus to block every bad instance onto every single user.
Consider the extreme use case, which is obviously CSAM. I rely on my instance admins to handle that for me. If I had to painstakingly block every instance that has poor moderation (or worse), I’d simply stop using Lemmy. The “all” feed would be utterly unusable.
Also, admins need control over what’s in their own database, potentially for legal reasons.
humorlessrepost@lemmy.world 10 months ago
This is where I’m currently at with “not technically nsfw but I don’t want people thinking I’m like that” trying to block anime communities centered around not-technically-nude pictures.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 10 months ago
Yeah as an instance admin sorry not sorry I defederated most anime things like that. You want that? You host it. I don’t need the feds knocking down my door.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 10 months ago
An onus is a responsibility. A responsibility is power. It’s a simple fact that someone who chooses their own content source blocklists has more personal power than a person for whom someone else makes the selection.
And, it takes time and mental energy which we certainly don’t have to spare. It’s a very heavy onus that way