2y ago

Instance blocking should replace defederation

Think about it; instead of those in charge or the instances deciding who they don't want to be federated with and thus restricting content for the users, it would be better if users were able to block entire instances instead.

We'd be able to curate our own browsing experience so much better without admin/mod drama influencing the rest of us.

Edit: Alright so maybe not exactly replace defederation, but it should still be an option available to us, and in general should become the default action before defederation IMHO.

62 comments

I have zero interest in spending that much time wading through crap just so I can have the personal decision to block it.
- I have zero interest in spending that much time wading through crap
  I have zero interest in keeping track of several accounts across several instances because someone upstairs doesn't like something posted on one of them.
  
  Make your own instance then. As long as you're using a service someone else provides for you (free of charge at that), you have to play by their rules.
- I mean, federating with an instance doesn't necessarily mean you NEED to have it added to the default feeds.
  It could theoretically be done in such a way that it only shows content from the communities you are subscribed to, and never show content from that instance in general feeds, for example.
  Or it could even be done in such a way that instance blocking is enabled by default for every user, and each user has to opt in to see content from other instances outside of maybe a selected curated few that might be allowed by default.
Flip side: imagine being a new Lemmy user, maybe coming from the algorithmically curated experience of Reddit, and having to learn what instance blocking is, how to do it and who to block. It would be quite overwhelming.
I'm all for user freedom but some users don't want freedom. They want something that works without having to spend 15 minutes configuring it.
- How about a compromise? Each instance can define a blocklist of other instances they don't want, which is copied to the user's blocklist when they register to the instance. Then you give an option to the user to edit the blocklist.
  This way you have the curated experience, but users have freedom to change it for themselves if they want to.
  
  Totally agreed on that, it's actually a feature I'm working on adding to the UI fork I'm going to use for my instance.
  It uses the admin-defined Fediseers preferences of an instance and hides content from users according to them.
- I’m all for user freedom but some users don’t want freedom
  also that's what facebook is for.
- I'd rather have that than massive instances with communities for things like fantasy sports and every possible country on earth and not have a way of curating that properly while also being subject to the whims of a few powerhungry admins.
  It's why a lot of people praised the fediverse instead of reddit yet we're facing the exact same problems.
  
  It is the virtue of the federation system that defederating does not deplatform or silence people. If you want to read content from a server that a server you use defederated from - it's still there. Just go make an account somewhere more open or directly on whatever instance you feel you're missing.
I chose my instance partly because of their anti-spam and defederation policy, so I don't have to do it myself. Imo instance blocking would be a nice feature on top, but not as a replacement. You can always switch instances or create your own if you don't like what your current instance is doing. I think we should rather improve that part of the system, so being able to easily move accounts and communities between instances.
Also, your instance hosts the content of federated instances for you (excl. images), and there is some stuff they just can't or don't want to have on their servers. That's just something you have to respect when using a service they provide to you imo.
Then you fundamentally don't agree with the principles behind federation, and the fediverse might not be for you. It's funny that you are mad and "want to curate your own browsing experience", but aren't willing to put in the effort to run a simple script (https://github.com/wescode/lemmy_migrate), pick an instance or a few that match your stance (they're out there and much more common than the niche Beehaw serves), or start your own instance.
Do you know how much effort being federated with spam factories / outrage machines generates for the mods and admins? When you depend on individual blocking, you get to click and forget about every bad actor or community. You don't see the ongoing hours that mods and admins have to pour in to dealing with that actor or community as they keep spitting out garbage.
Also, good thing you're on a very unlocked instance then. If you're mad about your instance doing whatever, then take it up with your admins, not Beehaw. Beehaw is a uniquely curated instance primarily intended to serve as a space where queer people don't have to get bombarded with non-queer people being ignorant. We deal with that enough in real life.
- It's honestly more about the reddit-like drama it seems to create.
  Funnily enough, this post kind of does the same and I am well aware of the irony in that.
  
  Is that the fault of the admins, trying to stem a tide of reports and problems, or is that the fault of some users, not being willing to open a second tab in their browser? It sucks to have to maintain different accounts, but it's a lot less deleterious than the alternative.
  I think if there were strong mod tools, your argument would make more sense (though I'd probably still disagree), but especially with the utter lack of mod tools, it just isn't feasible.
I don't see why those two features should be exclusive; both should exist and have their own purposes.
Defederation is for nasty instances whose users violate basic etiquette such as exploding-heads or hexbear. No tolerance for the intolerant.
Instance blocking should IMO be reserved for potentially disagreeable instances that aren't degenerated shitholes. Places that can behave themselves but are about topics a large portion of users might personally not like or aren't interested in such as feddit.de/nl/uk/it/..., programming.dev, startrek.website or lemmygrad.
Edit: Grammar.
- hexbear
  See that's where I think we're getting into admin drama territory
  I don't mind seeing certain instances, but if the almighty mods decree it, we have to cut off all contact.
  
  we’re getting into admin drama territory
  Nah. That's getting into arsehole filter territory. The only drama about this you will see will be incited by its users.
  I don’t mind seeing certain instances, but if the almighty mods decree it, we have to cut off all contact.
  A current issue is that defederation is the only tool for both purposes. The only possible way for a user to not see content from a certain instance is for their admin to defederate from it.
  With the features separated, much fewer instances would need to go through instance admins but that doesn't mean none of them should. There are instances that are just generally disagreeable/unethical. Fortunately only a few but they do exist.
  
  Then you shift to an instance that mods the way you prefer.
I think one big reason for defederating is that a specific instance is creating a lot of work for the mods/admins because its users keep breaking rules. Instance blocking doesn't really help there.
- Sounds like this whole Federation thing is going well huh
  
  I don't like your idea because it defeats the purpose of picking an instance (and you could just run your own if you want to be in control) but yeah that was uncalled for. If this is the attitude of the instance maybe they should just defed. (If restricting posting isn't possible.)
The people hosting the instance are still responsible for the content being on their server, hiding it doesn't make that go away.
The all feed would then be crap. I think you would have to filter or drop it.
Like the more control. You could never get rid of blacklisting or white listing as some stuff simply cannot be allowed on the node. On the other hand it could allow for more options in the gray area.
You may not want to under estimate the magnitude of the moderation issue too or the number of improvements needed or the lack of developers to address them. Lack of moderator actions federating is a good example and is just nuts. Frankly some sort of collaborative moderation would be great too.
Pretty sure kbin has this feature.
- It does but it's broken currently. If you block an instance yourself you'll find entire threads where none of the comments are visible to you, regardless of where those users are from. Not every thread, but enough.
This is like, my fourth account on Lemmy. Had to switch instances several times because they were defederating too much and I couldn’t get an unbiased all feed.
- Blahaj.zone defederated from all tankies and they defederated from lemmynsfw over child porn for hosting... "adorableporn"
  
  Yeah the whole instance is essentially one trans person's safe space. Nothing wrong with that, there certainly should be such communities, but for the reasons you mentioned it is not a good instance to choose unless you are specifically looking for a heavily moderated trans community.
- I couldn’t get an unbiased all feed.
  Lemmy would crash if you fed it everything, that's why Lemmy.ml and lemmy.world were crashing so often since May, the SQL did not scale. Some of those problems have been fixed, but it was performing really badly at the time of the Reddit API cutoff.
  The admin headaches of a full feed from over a thousand unknown sources means you are opening yourself up to a lot of legal, copyright, porn, vote manipulation, unpredictable load surges, etc. I think it would have to be something people fund a lemmy site that promises to carry everything.
There are some instances which are better to block.
The only thing we cannot tolerate is intolerance.
- See that's why it would be nice to be able to block them and not have to rely on those above to decide that for us.
When it comes to instances that are unmoderated and full of spam or oriented towards questionable porn, it's a better idea to defederate. Lemmy admins could face legal jeopardy for CSAM, spam bullshit can be a security risk. No reason at all to help host or spread that. As far as trolls/politics, I think it's reasonable for instance admins to decide whether they want to amplify and serve people say, some hateful content about hating minorities or accusing people of being "groomers" or whatever bullshit. If I ran an instance I'd have those people off my site pretty quickly. As far as instances that are just sort of provocative or have questionable political views, sure. Instance blocking (which is in the works, I believe) would take some pressure off the admins to defederate entirely.
I don't think it should replace it but it should be an option.
I'm sympathetic to the idea that an individual user should be able to override their instance admins' preferences on access for content-related reasons, but I don't think it would be workable from an administrative viewpoint to allow users to allowlist instances that were blocklisted for administrative reasons.
Lemmy.world dealt with (and is probably still dealing with) a series of malicious actions designed to actually bring down the service or otherwise tie up its resources (including moderator/admin attention and effort, and exposure to literal criminal charges), using maliciously crafted requests to bring down servers, literally illegal content posted to their servers, etc. Defederation in response to these types of attacks would be defeated if a user could let the content come through anyway.
I imagine most instances are dealing with similar issues.
So ideally we'd need to be able to create 4 categories of relationships with other instances:
Blocked no matter what
Blocked by default for users, can be user overridden
Allowed by default for users, can be user overridden
Allowed no matter what (not sure what the use case for this status would be, but seems to be trivial to implement since it already exists as default).
But I think you'd find that the typical scenario that justifies blocking would actually put the typical block into category 1, not category 2.
I love beehaw. It would be a shame for it to leave the fediverse and I believe it will fall apart if that happens.
- What will fall apart? Federation or Beehaw?
Agreed, curious to see when it will be implemented.
On connect it let's you ban instances. It will overwrite comments from that instance with 'this is blocked due to use being from instance x. Gives an option to show the comment anyway (if the context is different Fi)
I love that feature
Defederation is your instance doing the instance blocking. Regular instance blocking is you doing it from a user level and doesn't affect other users. There's many reasons why things should fall under one or the other. If an instance does not defederate, another server's (potentially illegal) content can get cached on their servers for example, or enable a lot more spam. This also is during the recent CSAM attacks so admins are a lot more wary.

62 comments