Lately we have been dealing with a few abusive members from Feddit.nl and we were unable to get in touch with the instance administrator.
Part of the problem is the instance’s open registrations which do not require you to enter an e-mail address during signup. This in combination with an inactive admin is a recipe for abuse.
We hope this is only temporary but we have to do this to protect our users.
Edit: we use fediseer, have a look https://gui.fediseer.com/instances/detail/lemmy.world
Edit 2: We got in touch with the Feddit.nl admin. Email requirements were added to the sign-up process and we’re setting up a communication channel. So that means we are federating with Feddit.nl again!
Stuff like this is going to kill the momentum of the fediverse. I’m a reddit refugee, my main account started on vlemmy.net (because it had a policy to not defederate from anything), and when that went poof, I moved to feddit.nl (because it has a policy to not defederate from anything). I believe it is MY prerogative, and no one else’s, to decide what I am or am not allowed to see. I curate my own feed by blocking or subscribing to instances I don’t or do want to see, respectively.
Regardless of any of this, however, I am now unable to view any content on .world without this account, due to actions entirely outside of my control. Since hosting my own instance is out of the question for me, my options are: find a third instance with a no-defederation policy that hasn’t been defederated itself from major instances, have multiple accounts and browse each instance individually, stop browsing altogether, or go back to reddit. As distasteful as the last option is, it’s tempting. I know the impulse will be to tell me “good riddance”, but I am posting this because I know there are others like me that are tired of instance hopping and trying to find somewhere that doesn’t try to police our browsing and also isn’t defederated from major instances.
For the record, I don’t want a no-defederation instance because I want to browse Nazi or pedo instances. I want a no-defederation instance because I have a principled objection to others telling me what I can or cannot view.
I actually prefer that instances can do this, the whole point is to find one you more closely align with like old school forums. The ones they’ve done this to are either mass brigading, full of Nazis or sharing CSAM. They have every right to protect their users from that kind of stuff or make those decisions when they’re individuals paying to run an instance.
Until there’s a tool I can use to fully block instances myself (which I don’t see available) this is the way it’s run. Maybe the fediverse just isn’t for you? As someone who grew up using old school forums this is completely fine and expected. If I am running a website (or store) I have every right to manage it the way I see fit.
If defederation worked more like a shadowban, I would agree with you. .world defederating with feddit.nl could result in no one from .world seeing any content posted by anyone from .nl, but .nl can still see the content from .world. It’s unfortunate that .nl couldn’t participate anymore, but it’s better than that community ceasing to exist.
Defederations as they exist now are like being in a restaurant. There are two employees, one makes the food, the other makes the drinks. It starts out with being able to order either, or both, right from the comfort of your table. However, the owner of the restaurant decides that he just doesn’t care much for drinks, and kicks out the drink-maker. The drink-maker opens a new store across the street, but he does not serve food, only drinks, and the restaurant you started at doesn’t serve drinks, only food. Yes, technically, you are still free to go across the street to get some drinks, or stay here for some food, but boy, wouldn’t it be nicer if that owner never decided he didn’t like drinks? Sure, not EVERYONE in the restaurant cares, but a pretty significant amount of them probably would. They might just go down the street to McReddits. Sure, the food there is pretty bad, but at least they can get both food and drinks without having to go across the street.
What about abusive users that post in communities outside of their home instance? I think that’s what we’re talking about here. I can block instances, but there are communities in Lemmy.world that I enjoy and I appreciate the admins effort to keep abusive users out.
Each user can block other users. Moderators can block users. It can be handled the same way that other sites (yes, like reddit) do it. I’m also not opposed to defederation when it is essentially a single-user ban- for example, if there is an instance with no communities, no signup requirement, and has nothing but malicious bots- that’s banning a bot farm, not “defederation” as it’s commonly understood. But with something like this- where feddit.nl is actually a rather large instance- so many people are essentially being punished for absolutely no fault of their own.
Do you understand that when CSAM images are uploaded to an instance, they are federated to other instances as well?
Even if users have the option to block whole instances themselves, there are STILL going to be instances Lemmy World will not be federating with because we don’t want to risk having any of that on our server.
And feddit.nl had a user that posted csam on our instance, which then federates to other instances. So basically everyone gets a copy.
I do understand. I’m expressing a worry that things like this will lead to trouble for the fediverse’s user retention. Nowhere did I say that I didn’t understand the reasoning. It’s not a requirement to have a solution at hand when pointing out a problem. An instance as large as lemmy.world defederating from an instance as large as feddit.nl is a problem. Is the solution giving moderators better tools? Stopping the automatic proliferation of images? Removing the image hosting entirely to rely on external hosts? Or is this an insurmountable problem with no solution? The specific answer, or even existence of an answer, does not determine whether the problem itself exists.
There would not be a problem if the instance was managed. Everyone can start an instance but it takes a lot more to keep it running and moderated. Check the problems beehaw.org are currently going through.
And as you point out, feddit.nl is quite a big instance but it only has ONE admin. That is a problem. And that is also something to remember when you decide on which instance you want to host your community.
I don’t host a community. At a basic level, I would like the ability to view (and I mean VIEW, not even necessarily interact with- I cannot force my interaction on anyone) the entire fediverse for myself. If other people want others to tell them which areas align with their views, they can join instances that block other instances from being able to participate. I just wish that didn’t mean the defederated instance could no longer even view the blocking instance.
It sounds like you should host an instance. This will give you the abilities you want, unless you provoke defederation from someone.
I’m unfortunately unable to host an instance. I wish I could, honestly.
There are laws you know, claiming a fediverse server should work outside the law is idiotic and not at all principled.
I didn’t say they SHOULD work outside the law. What are you talking about? When I say “pedo instances”, I don’t mean ones that post real life CASM.
having a ‘principled objection’ to others telling you that you can’t see child sexual abuse tapes is very admirable and sounds much better
i doubt its going to change anything though, since ‘principled objection’ to laws doesnt actually stop said laws from applying to you, or the site youre using
Ah yes, the two things- acceptable things and CASM. EVERYTHING IS ONE OF THOSE THINGS.
this case of defederation is specifically literally about users posting CASM
You don’t get to decide what others allow on their instances. It’s regular people hosting these servers and these same people having to moderate and manage those instances. They are the ones who face backlash and the repercussions for what’s posted on their servers so if they choose to make the decision to defederate to protect the instance community as a whole then that’s their choice. Long story short, tough shit. Don’t like things being defederated, create an account on a different server. Or better yet, create your own server than you can choose who you do or don’t federated with and what happens on that server can be your own responsibility.
I think this issue could be addressed on the front end.
The reason you would want a server that is federated with everything is so you can access all content at once instead of switching between accounts on different instances. If you could log into multiple instances at once with a single username and see content from both in the same feed it wouldn’t matter if they are defederated. I think this federation thing ought to be, as far as possible, transparent to the end user.
The way this currently works feels odd to me - it doesn’t really behave like a decentralised Reddit, because your account is tied to a specific instance and the content you see depends on which instance you pick. It feels like an awkward middle ground between a centralized service like Reddit and just having a completely separate forum site for each community.
Whaa whaa whaa…
Bullshit, you chose a server that invites illegal content on purpose. It was entirely within your control to NOT choose such a server.
Feddit.nl rules explicitly state no illegal content, so it seems to be not so much inviting illegal content as a failure to moderate account creation and post content, like OP alluded to.
feddit.nl invites illegal content? Someone should let them know that, they’re doing an outstandingly bad job at it if that’s the case.
Just to play devil’s advocate; it seems like maybe an instance with a very active mod team would be another criterion to add to your list.
If we could control instance level blocking on a user level it would be much more feasible.
That won’t change how we would handle instances with bad actors?
Sure. This isn’t a solution to the problem lemmy.world is having. I just think this feature should exist.
Well I heard that is coming in the next Lemmy update
Absolutely agreed. I hope that becomes a feature soon, I know it is or was being worked on.
Sounds like you want a Distributed/Decentralized service like Nostr instead of a Federated service like Lemmy, you should join there instead, I’m sure you’d be right at home there.
I feel like the fact that you still consider Reddit an option invalidates your entire point.
Dunno why you’re being downvoted. Defederation feels like a gung-ho way of handling content moderation issues that centralized platforms would be able to directly solve.
It is a gung-ho way, but I understand why I’m being downvoted. People hear “I want to have the ability to view anything” or “I don’t like being told what I can or cannot view on the internet” as “I want to view CSAM” or “I am actually a Nazi”, which should result in an emotional reaction. It’s just not what I’m saying.
The problem is that the fediverse is an unmoderated mess, especially with how Lemmy and Mastodon are currently set up.
What’s stopping griefers from setting up a brand new instance to spam existing communities with CP?
Of course you speaking bad about the fediverse = downvotes because you’re mainly talking with fanboys.
Nothing! But how are you agreeing with PrinceHabib who’s saying that should that happen it would be up to him to decide whether or not he wants to see that. Skipping over the fact that the illegal content would be hosted on several instances.
Show me one Lemmy admin that would disagree with your statement about Lemmy being an unmoderated mess? Every instance admin has been asking for better tools from the Lemmy devs for months.
I completely agree. Believe me, I get why the admins are making the choices they are. In the current situation of how the fediverse works, it’d be stupid not to act. I just hope that it’s able to be addressed- no more proliferation of CSAM through duplication on every instance, better moderation, more control- so that defederation doesn’t have to be used in these situations.