How the beehaw defederation affects us

ou might have seen that we've been defederated from beehaw.org. I think there's some necessary context to understand what this means to the users on this instance.

How federation works

The way federation works is that the community on beehaw.org is an organization of posts, and you're subscribed to it despite your account being on lemmy.world. Now someone posts on that community (created on beehaw.org), on which server is that post hosted?

It's hosted on both! It's hosted on any instance that has a subscriber. It's also hosted on lemmy.ml, lemmygrad.ml, etc. Every instance that has a subscriber is going to have a copy of this post. That's why if you host your own instance, you'll often get a ton of text data just in your own server.

And the copies all stay in sync with each other using ActivityPub. So you're reading the post that's host on lemmy.world, and someone with an account on beehaw.org is reading the same post on beehaw.org, and the posts are kept in sync via ActivityPub. Whenever someone posts to that community or comments on a post, that data is shared to all the versions across the fediverse, and these versions are kept in sync. So up until 5 hours ago, they were the same post!

"True"-ness

A key concept that will matter in the next section is the idea of a "true" version. Effectively, one version of these posts is the "true" version, that every other community reflects. The "true" version is the one hosted on the instance that hosts the community. So the "true" version of a beehaw.org community post is the one actually hosted on beehaw.org. We have a copy, but ours is only a copy. If you post to our copy, it updates the "true" version on beehaw.org, and then all the other instances look to the "true" version on beehaw to update themselves.

The same goes for communities hosted on lemmy.world or lemmy.ml. Defederation affects how information is shared between instances. If you keep track of where the "true" version is hosted, it becomes a lot easier to understand what is going on.

How defederation works

Now take that example post from earlier, the one on beehaw.org. The "true" version of the post is on beehaw.org but the post is still hosted on both instances (again, it has a copy hosted on all instances). Let's say someone with an account on beehaw.org comments on that post. That comment is going to be sent to every version of that post via ActivityPub, as the "true" version has been updated. That is, every version EXCEPT lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works. So users on lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works won't get that comment, because we've been defederated from beehaw.org. If we write a comment, it will only be visible from accounts on lemmy.world, because we posted to a copy, but our copy is now out of sync with the "true" version. So we can appear to interact with the post, but those interactions are ONLY visible by other lemmy.world accounts, since our comments aren't send to other versions. As the "true" version is hosted on beehaw, and we no longer get beehaw updates due to defederation, we will not see comments from ANY other community on those posts (including from other defederated instances like sh.itjust.works).

The same goes for posting to beehaw communities. We can still do that. However, the "true" version of those communities are the ones on beehaw, so our posts will not be shared to other instances via ActivityPub. And all of this is true for Beehaw users with our communities. Beehaw users can continue to see and interact with Lemmy.world communities, but those interactions are only visible to other Beehaw users, since the "true" versions of the Lemmy.world communities (the ones sent to/synced with every other instance) is the Lemmy.world one.

Communities on other instances, for example lemmy.ml, are unaffected by this. Lemmy.world and beehaw.org users will still be able to interact with those communities, but posts/comments from lemmy.world users won't be visible to beehaw.org users, as defederation prevents our posts/comments from being sent to the version of these posts hosted on beehaw.org. However, as the "true" version is the one on the third instance, we can still see everything from beehaw.org users. So we see a more filled in version than the beehaw users.

Why can I still see posts/comments from beehaw users?

Until they defederated us, posts/comments were being sent to lemmy.world, so we can see everything from before defederation. After defederation, we are no longer receiving or sending updates. So there are now multiple versions of those posts.

Why can I still interact with beehaw communities?

This won't ever stop. You'll notice that all posts after defederation are only from lemmy.world users. You won't see posts/comments from ANY other instance (including instances that ) on beehaw.org communities.

Those communities will quickly suck for us, as we're only talking to other lemmy.world users. Your posts/comments are not being sent to any other lemmy. I highly recommend just unsubscribing from those communities, since they're pretty pointless for us to be in right now.

Why do I still see comments from beehaw users on lemmy.world communities?

Again, comments from before defederation were still sent to us. After defederation, it will no longer be possible for beehaw users to interact with the "true" version of lemmy.world communities. Their posts/comments are not being sent to any other lemmy. They also aren't getting updates from any other lemmy, as the "true" version of those communities is on our instance.

Why do I see posts/comments from beehaw users on communities outside lemmy.world and beehaw.org?

That's because the "true" version of those posts is outside beehaw. So we get updates from those posts. And lemmy.world didn't defederate beehaw, so posts/comments from beehaw users can still come to versions hosted on lemmy.world.

The reverse is not true. Because beehaw defederate lemmy.world, any post/comment from a lemmy.world users will NOT be sent to the beehaw version of the post.

This seems like it's worse for beehaw users than for us?

Yes. In my opinion, this is an extraordinarily dumb act by the beehaw instance owners. It's worse for beehaw users than for us, and will likely result in many beehaw users leaving that instance. They said in their post that this is a nuke, but I don't think they fully assessed the blast area. Based on their post, I don't think they fully understand what defederation does.

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648 comments

This is a really good explanation for how defederation works.
I understand your point that Beehaw defederating from two subs for moderation and user management seems like an extreme reaction. But it's one I kind of expected from them given Beehaw's philosophies as as an instance.
Their detailed posts about what Beehaw is always made it very clear to me they think carefully about how they run their space and the users they want to grant access to. They really prioritise making their instance a safe space for well-meaning discussion through their vetted registrations.
I'm not an admin. I'm not an experienced Lemmy user. I'm not someone who has had experience moderating and being an admin on several communities before. They have and I've also seen activity on the Lemmy repo from them showing they have dev experience too.
As you pointed out, the entire site of 12k users is currently managed by 4 people who seem to have quite a lot of experience managing communities. That's a big workload. I've been using both Beehaw and Kbin since Reddit's awful API changes to see how both places grow and so far I've found Beehaw to be a very enjoyable experience with a pretty high engagement rate. I usually get hella upvotes and replies to anything I say. It does feel like a pretty active, close-knit place of well-meaning people even at this early stage. I think they're running Beehaw pretty well so far. Kbin is very solid too, but Beehaw I've found tends to have a deeper level of engagement and longer, more in-depth post styles that I prefer.
I know any instances with open registration could hop in and contribute to Beehaw, so this issue they have of not being able to vet and control users isn't unique to those two instances. But given so far the place to me as a user still feels the same as when I joined a few days ago more or less, I'm going to take them at their word that they're getting an influx of activity that isn't a particularly good fit for Beehaw for now. There's a lot of instances that could defederate from. 2 is not a huge number so far. Plus they did explicitly say at the end this is not a permanent decision, they may very well change their minds later on.
So personally, I respect and understand Beehaw's decision at this moment. Lets give things time and see how things develop. It's definitely a temporary, broad axe to cutting an apple type solution to their troll problem - which may very well continue as Lemmy gets more popularity as a platform overall - but I think they want to be specific about who they pull into their moderation team to ensure the vibe of Beehaw is maintained. Lets give it some time to see what happens.
- There’s a lot of instances that could defederate from. 2 is not a huge number so far.
  They defederated from 300 some instances. And it's kinda ridiculous to use the number of instances instead of the number of users. They defederated from 2 of the top 4 instances in terms of number of users.
  It’s definitely a temporary, broad axe to cutting an apple type solution to their troll problem
  Two things:
  It doesn't actually address their troll problem, since anyone can create a new instance and post to their communities.
  It has the knock on affect of their users not being able to interact with a huge chunk of the wider fediverse
  That second point is the main criticism I have for them. I don't think they fully understood the consequences of their actions. They're using an extreme admin-level action for community moderation. That's now how this was intended to be used.
  Why would anyone stay on an instance that can't interact with a huge chunk of the fediverse? Only the most passionate beehaw-ers will stay there. Most will likely leave to more accessible pastures.
  
  Majority of these 300 instances actually are Mastodon and other microblogging instances.
  They likely have imported a Mastodon-tailored blocklist at some point.
  
  Why would anyone stay on an instance that can’t interact with a huge chunk of the fediverse? Only the most passionate beehaw-ers will stay there. Most will likely leave to more accessible pastures.
  Maybe this is the point. They’ve taken this extreme action to drive their non core users into other instances. This leaves only the users that want to be part of their more isolated instance, which seems to be their goal. Low volume, high quality discussions within their own community.
  
  If that's the point, then there's nothing wrong with what they did.
  But like someone else commented, why are they hosting a lemmy instance? What they want is a curated forum...
  
  Why wouldn't they want to federate with other instances that are actually moderated? The issue with the defederated instance is that there was a huge influx of unmoderated users that were being abusive on beehaw. It shouldn't be beehaw's job to moderate another instance that just lets everyone in.
  Imagine if reddit and 4chan were instances in a fediverse and reddit moderators had to constantly ban 4chan users from their instance. At some point it's completely natural that they'd just defederate them instead. Just to clarify, I'm not saying the currently defederated instances are anything like 4chan, just trying to illustrate through an extreme example.
  
  That's not at all what's happening though.
  Anyone can create an instance. So using your example, it's kind of like reddit banning anyone posting from 4chan, but literally anyone could create their own "chan" to post to reddit. If they only whitelisted instances then that would at least make some sense.
  It shouldn’t be beehaw’s job to moderate another instance that just lets everyone in.
  But that's exactly what they're trying to do.
  I think the admins of Beehaw think they've effectively banned lemmy.world users from their instance, which is largely what they did. And if they chose to do that, then that's their decision. But they didn't choose to do that, they did something far more drastic.
  Defederation prevents beehaw users from interacting with lemmy.world users ANYWHERE on lemmy. Effectively, beehaw admins are deciding what their users can see elsewhere on lemmy, which in my view is wrong. Effectively, in order to access most of lemmy, beehaw users will need a second account on another instance. And if you're going to have a second account, why have the first?
  The problem is that defederation is not an act of moderators. This is an admin level action being used in service of a moderator level problem. This is not how defederation is meant to be used, and given how the admins of that instance describe their reasoning, I don't think they fully understand the implications of their decision.
  
  You are being awfully dramatic for something that they said is a temporary action, caused by a lack of moderation tools and lack of granular federation options that mastodon has for example. Yes, they cannot moderate everyone from lemmy.world so they temporarily defederated them, for the lack of better tools.
  But, so what even if it's permanent, hypothetically speaking? If lemmy.world wants to be federated to beehaw they should respect the rules of the community they are visiting. If they don't then they get to continue their existence elsewhere while other communities can interact with beehaw. Seems exactly like the type of freedom that fediverse enables and promises for cases like these, it was never designed to be "all or nothing". Your definition and understanding of defederation is flawed. If some actors want to bypass this restriction and harass beehaw by joining through alternate instances, then those instances need to handle it too since this will negatively reflect on them as a whole.
  
  If lemmy.world wants to be federated to beehaw they should respect the rules of the community they are visiting.
  I think your understanding of federation is flawed. Like I wrote in my post, this action does more harm to beehaw than it does to lemmy.world. I don't care about beehaw. For that matter, I don't care about lemmy.world.
  I wrote this post to help explain why people could still see posts/comments from beehaw users, in an attempt to explain what was going on. A lot of people were confused as to what defederation means. And given the resulting effects, I think the beehaw admins are similarly confused.
  I do care about lemmy, and I don't like that large instance owners are using actions they don't understand. A division like this between 3 of the 4 largest instances can be damaging to the adoption of lemmy as a whole. It would be one thing if this was justified or even made sense, but it didn't.
  They're throwing a tantrum because some instances have open registration and they don't like that. They're trying to govern how other instances are run. Like I said, they are using admin tools for moderation purposes, which is not how this is supposed to work. And doing so is could be damaging to lemmy as a whole. Luckily, the beehaw users that like their prison are sticking to it, those that don't are leaving, and the lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works users are just not interacting with the beehaw communities.
  Lemmy is working as intended. Once again, I don't care what beehaw does. I personally think this is a bad move as it doesn't do what the admins over there want to do. But I'm not personally offended. This whole post was an explanation for the users here who were confused.
  
  Just wanted to say that "high quality" discussion is not well defined and it sort of clashes with "safe space" idea the theg also strongly stand for. For me for instance a part of a high quality discussion is being able to interact with people with very different point of views. However, "safe space"removes some point of views out of principle not letting the arguments be heard.

648 comments