2y ago

Some of the most active instances will eventually silo themselves

We should do our absolute best to not become a siloed instance. I predict we will start seeing certain instances be almost inaccessible which will lead to their users migrating to more open instances. It's already becoming clear to me that certain instances will lose users over time if they continue actively segregating their instance from others.

Individual bad actors on other instances is not a good enough reason to defederate. If a troll is bothing someone they can be blocked/banned on sh.itjust.works. I don't expect instance creators to ban all trolls, it's not possible.

Defederation should be reserved for severe cases when another instance shows no interest in moderating. The two instances defederated right now are justified: one condones the denial historical events and actively censors opposition, and the other was condoning heinous illegal activies regarding underage individuals. These are two clear examples of where defederation makes sense.

Defederation should only be used as a last resort.

My previous post continues this sentiment from a couple days ago here: https://sh.itjust.works/post/281126

57 comments

Ive seen a lot of opinions like this, and for me its missing the entire point of the fediverse: instances are free to make their own decisions.
If you think defederating for anything other than the most extreme reasons is bad, thats fine. There are instances like that
And if people are happy with more defederation for any reason, those instances exist
Any meta-discussion about how widely defederation should be used across ALL instances is inherently kinda dumb
And as an aside: people are really overreacting to beehaw temporarily defederating from two big instances to deal with an unprecedented rise in users and activity. Its not a big deal.
- There are instances like that
  Likewise, there are instance that already have the likes of exploding-heads defederated. This is a discussion on how defederation should be used. And I for one agree with OP, only use defederation when absolutely necessary.
  
  There's a difference between instances with some bad users, or too many users to moderate properly with existing tools, and there are instances based on premises that just need to be isolated and die. If an instance is run and moderated by genocide deniers, that's drastically different than one with some trolls swimming in a sea of normal people. I'm not quite sure how out there exploding heads is, but burggit and lemmygrad are pretty obvious cases of illegal/reprehensible servers.
- Any meta-discussion about how widely defederation should be used across ALL instances is inherently kinda dumb
  Unfortunately, this is true. We'll never convince everyone in the Fediverse to see things our way, nor vice versa. And we shouldn't. So, some instances will pick and choose, while others will stay wide open to federation.
  The other side of this coin, though, is when an instance gets large enough to be able to host differing views. At that point, federation or defederation can't simply be what I want, or what the loudest voice wants, but what everyone can live with.
  What I see eventually happening, is there will be several large instances with large user bases. These will federate with almost everyone. Then you'll have smaller niche instances, for those looking to fine-tune their experience.

I see the Fediverse as a network that can subsume all existing social media networks. In order for that to work we have to fight to make sure the network is as cohesive as possible. This includes places that contain content or opinions that we won't agree with.
I think de-federation should be very limited and mostly a low level administrative function.
Fighting spam is a good example or what I mean. Since anybody can make an instance and have it spew spam users/comments into the greater community. The ability to unlink from these instances is a vital tool for making the network run smoothly.
Illegal things like CSAM or sites that engage in the orchestration of violence, doxing or online harassment are, to me, a red line for content that cannot exist on the network. Too many locations, where instances are hosted, have laws against these things and allowing federation of instances with this type of content can leave the instance owners open to legal issues. Because of that, they cannot be federated with.
The sticky part, and where people argue the most, is when it comes to viewpoints that they consider extreme. To take a US viewpoint (as I'm a US user) the current culture war issues in the US create a flashpoint where essentially every side is convinced that they're correct and that the other side is literally evil and that should justify not federating with them.
I don't think it takes much investigative work to see that I'm more on the left end of the spectrum. On top of that, I live in a rural area and so I'm constantly having to interact with people on the right who have opinions that I find... extreme. The thing that I've found is that if you can engage with them as a person, have some empathy and understand their viewpoints it usually isn't hard to dissuade them of their more extremist notions. Most people are simply a product of the media that they consume, they're not evil they're just repeating things they heard and things that made them feel outraged or afraid.
Being able to provide that opposing viewpoint and to engage with people who seem otherwise unreachable is incredibly important to moderating the worst viewpoints. The idea of de-federating instances is the antithesis of this idea. All that is doing is walling them into a bubble where they only ever hear opinions that agree with them and nothing builds extremism like never being told that you're wrong and never having to defend your ideas. I think it is better for the health of all of society to keep the lines of communication open to instances that maintain the bare minimum of standards for their content.
I know that not everyone agrees with this idea and I certainly understand the draw and comfort of being able to just put them out of your mind but I also think that the right things to do isn't always the most comfortable thing to do.
- I understand where you're coming from, I really do.
  But deplatform Nazis and fascists. Always and everywhere. They don't operate on the same good faith that you give them, they take every opportunity to spread hate under the cover of "free speech", and if they know they can keep getting away with it, they will.
  There can be spaces to deradicalize of course, but that's not the same as giving someone free reign to spout hate.
  See also: the paradox of tolerance
  
  The Paradox of Tolerance actually favours Bit's argument.
  
  NOT MY OPINION:
  Deplatform LGBTQ always and everywhere. They don’t operate on the same good faith that you give them, they take every opportunity to spread hate under the cover of “free speech”, and if they know they can keep getting away with it, they will.
  There can be spaces to rehabilitate them of course, but that’s not the same as giving someone free reign to spout hate against traditional family values.
  END
  The above is something that would be totally uncontroversial in my country if anyone said it on national TV. In fact, they might be seen as being quite soft on LGBT people since they weren't calling for total eradication of LGBT folk. Interesting you mention paradox of tolerance, the same is used to justify why people should outright hate LGBT folk and never tolerate them (in my country at least).
  
  So you want to create echo-chambers and live in your filter bubble? Fine but don't force that onto others.
- This is what I always try to preach. The internet if today has bred some crazy right wingers. And it's because of the bad algorithms in the likes of Facebook that end up causing echo chambers that further radicalise the impressionable. We should strive to fight for their right to not be defederated so they don't end up in an echo chamber
  We may never see them again, but people in their real life will, and being in an echo chamber will make them worse. We need them to be able to see the other side and they need to be challenged. Challenged in a meaningful manner though and not just getting angry at them and calling them names. Discussions need to happen, of all kinds. Even if implicitly via different posts popping up and not just with direct comments and messages if you know what I mean.
  
  I've had experiences interacting with homophobes in my own life (I'm gay), and by and large they don't change their position and only make me feel horrible after the interaction. Those who are on the fence I could see the avenue for nuance, but there shouldn't be spaces to encourage fence sitters to be more homophobic

True. Although, I've seen even the most aggressively defederated instances of mastodon be very active long-term and even grow. (poa.st may be one of the most defederated instances for example, and 1. there's still a lot of instances federated to them and 2. they still have a very active userbase.)
Quick note about this:
the other was condoning heinous illegal activies regarding underage individuals
As far as I know, they don't actually condone anything regarding "individuals" per se. Afaik Burggit's underage content is limited to hentai (japanese-style drawings) specifically. Which is not to say it is not illegal, because in Canada, it is illegal and categorized as child pornography.
- underage content is limited to hentai
  In my opinion I don't see that as a limit, hentai can be even more fine tuned to give satisfaction to those who desire it. I don't want to see it on any platform that I take part in even including www.lemmynsfw.com which has made it explicitly clear that they will not accept anything that even resembles such a thing. ANYTHING related to underage content within that context should be forbidden, it benefits no one and is demonstrably harmful.
  
  In my opinion I don’t see that as a limit,
  Do you mean that you have seen that they do not limit themselves to hentai, and do in fact condone activities beyond that?
  www.lemmynsfw.com which has made it explicitly clear that they will not accept anything that even resembles such a thing
  True, I read that the general consensus from people in the instance poll is to not allow it.
  
  To claim something is "demonstrably harmful" you actually have to demonstrate harm, not just cry about people liking fiction you don't.

I'd argue that Lemmygrad shouldn't be defederated, because, while Lemmygrad itself does not allow for proper discussion, other instances do and Lemmygrad users could be confronted on those instances. 'Could', because due to the defederation, Lemmygrad user comments won't show for users of this instance.
- Lemmygrad is something else, on a level with exploding heads. I even try to avoid lemmy.ml, because the devs are tankies, too... but at least there are normal users there, too. The lemmygrad ban is absolutely fine.
  
  I've been working on a nonbiased worldnews. lemmy.ml having the most popular worldnews with their clear bias is worrying.
  
  What the hell? I thought this was better than reddit. The fact that all shit from reddit transfered to some instances just makes me sad.
- and Lemmygrad users could be confronted on those instances
  Ah yes the good old "debate me" approach, but reversed.

Damn right. Defederation could destroy the Fediverse.

I agree. We shouldn't be allergic to bad takes or even grifters (though individually I want the power to block them).
If some instances are just private, that's fine. But I genuinely fear joining an instance only to have it defederate later.
I want everybody in my feed!

I actually don't think that defederation is always bad, particularly with types of content that serve very different purposes, e.g. I could see one network of federated porn instances and one separate network of more general content work quite well, at least until tagging and filtering of content becomes a lot more sophisticated than it is now.

Defederating shouldnt be used at all. If you don't like what you see, don't fucking browse it, block people who post it, etc. Don't fucking make it harder for everyone else to interact just because you're upset not everyone agrees with you.
- Then why use a platform with federation / defederation as a core feature? Why not Nostr or SSB? Why activitypub?
  
  I would hardly describe defederation as a core feature so much as a reasonable necessity to keep people able to host instances.

57 comments