Hexbearians are pissed at Fedia and PieFed for the audacity of not wanting to deal with them LMAO
Excuse me while I go donate even more money to PieFed
PieFed dev here.
The screenshotted post is very misleading. As you'd expect from a hexbearian. It is not a baked-in ban.
Hexbear is mentioned in the PieFed source code, as an initial default value for the defederation list. That list is quite long and includes various instances that have been a source of trolls, CSAM and spam in the past (mostly Mastodon instances). As part of the normal setup process it is assumed that instance admins will review that list and alter it as they see fit. They can change it any time by going to instance.tld/admin/federation.
Do not take anything a hexbearian says at face value.
That's exactly what this is, an initial defed list. Even the way they present this is disingenous as fuck, calling it a "one way federation, silencing our voices" or some other weird phrasing, making it sound like some underhanded/hidden hardcoded piece just for them, when it's just a boring-ass defederation with one instance among many others. How difficult is it to say "piefed software defederates hexbear by default"? Everyone knows what that fucking means!
I honestly don't understand why everything has to be taken so goddamn uncharitably by the regulars on that instance. It blows my mind how they manage to always act in bad faith. Always.
I honestly don't understand why everything has to be taken so goddamn uncharitably by the regulars on that instance. It blows my mind how they manage to always act in bad faith. Always.
It's pretty straightforward, imo, they built a feedback loop into their instance culture that encouraged social dopamine junkies to participate in toxic behaviors, valuing things like "dunking", othering, and dehumanizing the out group (non-hexies) over things like factuality, good faith, and not being dicks.
Thank you for jumping in.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this also wouldn't mean "one way federation" right? There would just be no synching at all.
I assume if you are on instance A and post something on instance B, your instance doesn't federate with hexbear but instance B does, then you will not see the comments from the hexbear user through your instance? Not certain if that is how it works or not though.
Maybe you should bake it in then. Maybe you are not going far enough...
Not sure I dig baking it into the code, that starts walking into the broken by design space. Feasibly the tankies developing Lemmy could do the same to any instance not painted the right shade of red.
I might propose instead a step in setup, or on demand, to select major instances to allow/deny federation from with a description of them. Impossible to keep a list of every new instance up to date, but catching the major hubs shouldn't be impossible.
Edit: For all those who replied along the lines of it being optional not a hard coded block, point noted. I should expect no less misleading a post from a pool of people prone to leaving out vital facts.
My understanding as it being an opt-out default defederation is still a bit grating since I tend to think of software as a neutral tool rather than promoting specific ideals, but it's far better than a fixed in state and does serve some purpose to shield new users from some of the most egregiously bad actors.
I don’t know if this is the answer, but it sure sounds like a step in the right direction.
Sane defaults make self-hosting approachable.
It's just a default ban that can be turned off if desired.
I might propose instead a step in setup, or on demand, to select major instances to allow/deny federation from
This is exactly how it works. I started a PieFed instance and made the decision (during setup) to trim the defederation list down to none. Users can block on the account level.
Hello,
Just to confirm, what did you exactly have to do to trim the defederation list during setup? Did you just use instance.tld/instances or did you do it differently?
One of the main reasons I dont self host anything from the fediverse is because I dont want to monitor for abusive material.
Seems like the defed list is mostly known sources of abusive imagery.
Agreed on the risk of having baked-in bans, though alternatively, maybe using the already available tool, per-instance defederation would be better. Or also as Lemmy allows, users defederating from instances they'd rather avoid.
Or also as Lemmy allows, users defederating from instances they'd rather avoid.
Lemmy does not do this, the devs implemented an incredibly broken block system that is nothing more than mute. Suspected to be done this way intentionally.
On an instance level, it does not block an instances' users at all
On a per-user level, blocked users can still fully interact with your comments and posts, you just can't see it. What's more damning is that ActivityPubs spec'd block does do a proper block, but dessalines chose to roll their own broken system.
In both cases, it's akin to this "one-way" federation they bring up.
The only true way to block an instance, is for an instance admin to fully defederate.
You might want to take a look at this comment from a dev
I think it would be amazing if lemmyml blocked everyone
I think it would be amazing if lemmy.ml didn’t exist.
Fediverse wide
Do they think they have influence beyond the ML instances?
think
There is the error in the logic.
It's exhausting wasting effort on those that put none in.
There's a lot of .ml users who make accounts on sjw and fail at radicalizing those users.
I believe it
It's just a default block on grad and hex when creating a new instance which can be toggled off. Keep coming crying with your ALTs Tankies no one wants to deal with your incessant propaganda.
Why bother with the 1 way federation, though?
So your users can go on their instance, I guess? That's not a great reason. Cut them off or don't.
I mean I think that is a bad and unhealthy idea. If piefed.social, world or a particular instance wants to set it up that way then go ahead, sure, but I do think it should be up to the admin using the software to decide which servers this should or shouldn't apply to rather than what sounds like an opt-out scheme. I mean sure go ahead, code how you like, who am I to judge, but I'm only saying it in consideration of best practices.
If HB runs into the silly issue again that almost lost them their domain (and temporarily switched to chapo.chat), this code will be a maintenance burden just because of the developer's specific grudge.
I'm saying this as a user happy about the fact that my instance defederated hexbear and lemmygrad, there are cool communities there, but they are an insufferable bunch.
Good luck with that they/them in Russia.
it's fine, once in russia they will be in the communist utopia of their dreams, at which point all will join into one gestalt consciousness.
due to morality laws, that consciousness will be identify as a cis man.
Has no one told them the communism thing was over in the eighties?
I'd say don't block anything at the top and let users filter their own feed as they see fit, except blocking communities is not very effective, in my experience.
More robust filtering and sorting for the user would be welcome. For instance, Reddit Enhancement Suite lets me hover over a name that has an "ignore" button for users, and a "filter" button for subs. That's very user-friendly and effective there. The same here would be a good addition.
I understand that the structure of Fediverse makes this more challenging.
You can see which instances are blocked by your instance here (go to the Blocked Instances tab).
Looking at some on mine, I'm glad there's a default block list. I'm not even going to visit them with names like that. I'm not going on a nonce watchlist.
There is no real top, though. If you really want to see hexbear, you can move off world to some other place they're not blocked (most other servers than lemmy.world) . I was on .world from the api rexit and hexbear trolling was hitting world pretty damned hard when they banned them. I feel the general consensus back then was for the love of god yes, block them.
I'm on zip now and have honestly had more bad experiences locally with .world trolls than hexbear people. But based on how bad they were being, I can't say they didn't bring it on themselves back then.
Am I missing something? Aside from the "baked in" claim, how is this different from defeds on Lemmy? It's always one way, ie the instance that defeds can't see content from the other instance, but the target instance can still see them.
It is indeed the same, some comments in that thread make it look like some people discovered defederation today
Ok, that's what I thought. Which is funny because I learned how it works after learning that hex admins (generally) defed mutually to avoid a one way issue, exactly like they're freaking out about here.
Blocking an instance in lemmy, just stops direct communication between the two instances. However it does not stop you from seeing their comments or posts on third instances.
So for example you would be able to read this comment, even if lemmy.ca would have blocked slrpnk.net, because we are on sh.itjust.works. In Piefed you would not.
I'm pretty sure that's not how it works. Even on communities from another instance, I don't see anything from defederated users.
*A quick rough search and I found this post (https://lemmy.ca/post/49536847) (apologies for the content, it's just an example). It's absolutely flooded with hex users "contributions", but I see none of that.
doesn't mastodon also bake in blocks of some nazi/csam instances? at least that's what I've heard.
It just works.
I don’t follow this meme terribly well as I don’t know the context.
I hate to learn that there is trouble in the social media that has saved me from corporatocracy and technocracy bullying.
I don’t know a hexbear from a hex
I don't like that, even as a person who chose my instance because it defederated from them.
From my understanding, it's just a switch that defaults to "On" an instance admin can toggle off during setup or later
Yes, that's right.
The screenshot characterizes it as a hardcoded thing, implying that it cannot be altered through the UI. This is not the case.
If Lemmy wants to start a war between the Fediverse and Lemmy then let's make it happen, I've already got a piefed.world account set up so I'd love to watch the Lemmy platform die in fire and smoke.
isnt piefed just a lemmy instance? im confused with all this -verse stuff
They're both different applications with different ui and behavior that talk the same protocol (ActivityPub)
I can get onboard with that. Fuck the evil tankie idiots.
By becoming paternalistic, the engine starts becoming what it criticizes. It's better if users themselves can choose what they want / don't want to see.
If a user wants to see that, they are free to make an account on the triad themselves, admins should not have to platform their toxicity and misinformation.
And it's also toxic to user uptake in general, a Threadiverse veteran will know what to block, a brand new user on the cusp of breaking from Big Tech social media won't. They'll see that crap and bail, then go on to talk about how they "tried that threadiverse stuff and found a whole bunch of pro-Russia/DPRK simps"
At the end of the day though. It isn't the instances themselves which are actually the problem. Rather the people on them. We can rightfully rail against them all day long as much as we want. And they do give us plenty daily to point out all their flaws.
It also won't change the fact that many of them can and already have set up shop on other servers as well. Even if you blocked every domain ending in ML. That type isn't going away. If anything those instances do quite a bit to contain/expose them.
The problem with defaulting a software to cut them off. Is akin to those trying to legislate morality. When morality is legislated, no one is moral. Because there is no choice or consent. Likewise a "boycott" entered into without knowledge and consent, isn't really a "boycott". Can we beat them by becoming like them? I'm not so sure.
Still, baked into the engine, it doesn't have a healthy prospect. If someone ill intended is involved, he/she can use such an instance as a distraction to set a precedent and narrow further and further what people can and can't see. And when those that would previously applause it notice the problem, it has the risk of being too late.
Example of two Piefed instances that currently federate hexbear:
List of Piefed instances that currently defederate hexbear:
https://piefed.fediverse.observer/list
As you can see, instances defederating hexbear are instances managed by teams which were going to do so anyway, as they already did on Lemmy.
Instances who want to federate know how to do so, there are three examples.
I think that is only partially true
Social media tends toward extremes and it takes man hours to do moderation. Instead of continuously banning hexbear users it would be better to just ban the instance.
the one-way federation isn't a block, it's encouragement for users of piefed to go and harass hexbear out of revenge. this is nothing more than @rimu@piefed.social weaponizing the platform, and honestly I wish we had known this was going to happen. I wouldn't of tried so hard to convince people to create the instance I'm on with piefed.
maybe a fork is possible. blocking hexbear is one thing, but it should be our choice, not the choice of an admin from another instance. someone else getting to dictate who you speak with is no different than facebook or twitter. it's gross and out of line.
I can't see any content from Hexbear looking from Piefed.social. So how would I go about harassing hexbear users?
the one-way federation isn't a block, it's encouragement for users of piefed to go and harass hexbear out of revenge.
You dont seem to understand how defederation works. Those users you're worried about harassinf Hexbear are the ones who can't even see Hexbear posts or users to harass them in the first place.
And to me that's fucking hilarious. Those slimy little trolls will finally get a taste of their own medicine.
Fuck Hexbear, and fuck tankies. They've tortured and harassed me for pointing out their hypocrisy. I wish them the absolute worst.
the one-way federation isn't a block, it's encouragement for users of piefed to go and harass hexbear out of revenge
This is exactly how defederation works on Lemmy itself, until the other instance also defederates to complete the circuit
this is nothing more than @rimu@piefed.social weaponizing the platform,
You mean like Lemmy devs weaponize Lemmy? Don't you find it the slightest bit odd that all the features that could be used against them - blocking, robust voting systems, robust modlog, good mod tools - are conveniently implemented poorly, not implemented at all or outright "downgraded"?
but it should be our choice, not the choice of an admin from another instance.
How does an admin of another instance make that choice for you? If instance A starts going crazy on the blocklist, then Instance B can choose to no longer subscribe to As blocklist
Nah.
How do they harass users or communities they can't see?
maybe a fork is possible. blocking hexbear is one thing, but it should be our choice, not the choice of an admin from another instance
Piefed.zip managed to federate just fine
I have this weird feeling that piefed and world are corporate try to go back to centralised social media. Just paranoid.
I told everyone back in the early 2000's that the internet was a wide open propaganda hole.
They were like "What's wrong with the internet? It's just Homestarrunner and Newgrounds".
I tried telling them that this was the future of news, of information, this is where everyone was going to get their worldview from, but unlike newspapers and TV stations, nobody has control over it.
China was right about one thing - the great firewall. Gotta build big walls when you have bad neighbours.