1y ago

A Lemmy instance with no defederation

I just recently set up unilem.org aimed at federating with everyone. Yes this will include meta. Some will like it and others will not but thats the beauty of the fediverse. You can choose your home or even make your own.

The server is still in very early stages but im looking for everyones input on potential issues I could face so I can start getting ahead of the curve of some of them. Im obviously aware of issues such as bot server and illegal content being fetched etc.

Any other tips on hosting or just is general is will be much appreciated. Mabye you know some tools that could help? Im aware this is very ambitious but i think its possible if done right.

Much thanks in advance for the help.

62 comments

I don’t believe you realize the full scope of your “everything is federated” approach. There’s some really toxic instances out there that will happily reach beyond their instance into yours and abuse your users, relentlessly.
Your head will explode in dealing with it.
- Hmmm, I wonder which instance that last sentence is about...
- So many pornography, so many disgusting stuff that people actually get ptsd from constant exposure.
  And the potential legal troubles. I don't exactly know how Lemmy's federation works but if a rogue instance hosted CP/CSAM for the lulz and OP's instance copied the contents for the freedom...

I don't know why you want fascists crawling all over your server but good luck with Gab2, I guess.
- That’s kind of the fun of it, though. I used to love reading insane fascists and incel subreddits before they all were b7. It was just so fascinating to me that people like that exist.
  
  Platforming assholes is a bad idea tho.
  
  You can just join Gab?
  The problem with providing them a platform on your server is that no one else will want to be there. And no one else needs to be there because there's a thousand other instances with decent moderation policies.

this is not going to work like you want it; check out the "nazi bar" example
- Yeah, I went into free speech absolutism with my IRC server and it's unbelievable how quickly people will end up testing your limits. Took less than a year before I completely backtracked and went the opposite directly and don't tolerate slurs anymore. I just welcomes loud and obnoxious people and enforcing rules afterwards becomes pretty hard and causes tons of drama.
  I mean just look at where Twitter is going now that Elon welcomed right-wing extremists. All it does is end up driving away the good people and turn into a toxic cesspool.
  
  yeah, like OP isn't realizing that they're going to just make another Twitter
  if you have it that there are no rules against shittiness and bigotry, then the worst kinds of people will decide to hang around and will drive off everyone else; you'll have a nazi bar

Problems you might face: nazis and QAnon. Solution: don’t federate with everything.

@syntax Just based on this I'm blocking your instance. That's my tip for you.

Keep in mind your instance will cache thumbnails of remote content... including possibly illegal content for your area.
For example there's (far too) many instances that host or are themed around "lolicon" - which is cartoon child pornography. That's illegal in some jurisdictions.
Also remember federation is a two way street. The people you're going to attract with this concept are largely the same groups many instances are trying to keep out. If you get even a little popularity I would expect many mainstream instances to defederate you. Then you're basically back where you started - what's the point?
- Im aware that my server may cache illegal content. However this is usually easily delt with. It can simply be removed/user banned and can be purged from the server. This can all be done from the admin settings.
  I also dont see the main instances defederating us. Our server will be moderated just as any other main lemmy server would. Just setting it up so that the users from our server can intract with any other server they wish. Any content or anyone who breaks our rules will be removed/banned. Just because we have an open federation policy does not mean there will be a lack of moderation.

Good luck trying to stay federated with everyone. Including tankies, nazis, trolls, pedos, ...

Have you seen exploding heads yet? Yikes.

We need the Lemmy equivalent of fediblock so we can post this for everyone to defederate
- Fediseer.com

Oh good, exploding heads and lemmygrad everywhere. Got a sign up link? That sounds like a disaster

Nice try Meta

There’s plenty instances already doing the same, but the more the merrier for sure. Hope you launch it and keep it up.

ITT: people confused about the difference between defederation and moderation
- I don't see anything like that, there's no moderating other instances beyond defederating the instance. You can't moderate the Nazis from other instances
  
  I have my own instance and that doesn't seem to be true. On a post on a community hosted on lemmy.ml, someone posted a picture as a comment of someone taking a shit on someone else, and I was able to remove that comment and ban them from my instance. Obviously other instances would still see that comment, but anyone on my instance shouldn't. Or at least that how I think it works.
  
  Not quite. I can ban remote users, remove posts on remote communities, etc
  But it only affects my instance of course

Be there in a few. This place already reeks of mods forced out trying to take control of this place.
As far as the legal, you are opening a hole wide open for disaster. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/12/user-generated-content-and-fediverse-legal-primer
- Then move to another instance without mods so you can have your Nazis and pedos to talk to, moron.
  
  👌👍 k tankie
- Thanks for the legal article has very useful info

62 comments