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.
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.
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.
Lol wtf? The feds are going to knock down your door because of anime pics of people that aren’t even nude?
The feds will knock down your door because a kid you headshotted in CoD called them. Anime is one of the more understandable reasons if we’re being honest.
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Honestly if the feds are going to even take the effort to move personnel to your house and knock your door, when it’s quite unlikely the server is hosted physically at your house in the first place, you could take the opportunity to offer them cheap consulting on technology, international cultures (anime and stuff) and federation.
Heck, you can aim at their ego. “I tricked you, right guys? That means I’m pretty good.”
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
edge lords, tankies, paedophiles, and alt-righters should always be defederated from
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.
Yes.
Hell yes
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.
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.
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.
Wow! Someone who gets “choice” and “freedom of association”!
This is the best part about Lemmy: if you disagree with the way an instance is run, you can setup your own and do what you want to do.
Personally I leave it up to people to block instances. The only instances I’ve had to block are the ones that post illegal content like CSAM.
And users don’t even necessarily need to set up their own instance. There will be defed-heavy and defed-light instances users can just choose from based on personal preference. The instance mostly just matters for who federates and internal moderation policy (which is aligned), so it’s not like anyone will be forced one way or another.
Just run your own server! It’s so easy! And if you’re too poor to afford your own server, just get money!
I’m sorry. Does actually having to put a bit of skin in the game offend you? You’d rather the people spending the actual money and doing the actual work just bow to your whims?
Compassionate fucking BUDDHA are the anti-defederation crowd a bunch of entitled, whiny asses!
I think that was sarcasm.
People often don’t care to understand how much work it is to run a Lemmy instance. And the cost. I have my own website and the knowledge/money to start an instance, but I’m certainly not going to actually do that and monopolize the rest of my free time.
Its actually not that much work or money. I’m pretty bad when it comes to servers but i run my instance with about 50 users and pay $15 a month because i went with a more expensive host. A single user instance could spend less than $8 a month and setup isn’t hard
I thought the entire point of federated networks is that they give power to users, not to random rich people. If you want someone with a lot of money to decide what content you can see, you can go back to Twitter and Reddit.
The users of Lemmy (the software) are the instance administrators.
Ah, so it’s exactly like commercial networks then, where the true users are not those who create content, but those who want to police what other people can talk about.
Which part of “set up and run your own instance” is unclear you whiny buffoon!?
The part where you need to be rich enough to run a server.
No not at all.
The big difference is that with federated stuff like Lemmy you can own the actual content you create. By running your own instance, of course. Become a user. Own the data.
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Yes, users shouldn’t have to jump through a million hoops to get a decent feed.
Instance owners are responsible for the content that is mirrored on their instance through federation, so they definitely should.
Ayy, hello there Kayn (Im just a random guy from filen discord).
Oh hi! Small world, eh?
Responsible in what way?
Legally responsible, for one.
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.
Hey if you’re allowed to block instances you want to block, so are instance owners. After all, it’s their instance.
Yes. Instance and user defederation are best when used together.
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
Twitter is not federated…
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
The OP is not against instance blocks.
Their question was literally “do we still need instance blocks”
What? The question was literally “Should instances defederate with other instances anymore if we can filter instances out on our end?”.
Defederating = instance block
Defederation is done by the instance administrator and affects all users. Instance blocking is done by the user and affects only them.
… the point. Not even going to bother repeating the image.
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.
Every instance should be able to federate and defederate from any other instance for any, all, or no reason.
The feature only lets you filter posts, not users from that instance.
