Lately we have been dealing with a few abusive members from Feddit.nl and we were unable to get in touch with the instance administrator.
Part of the problem is the instance’s open registrations which do not require you to enter an e-mail address during signup. This in combination with an inactive admin is a recipe for abuse.
We hope this is only temporary but we have to do this to protect our users.
Edit: we use fediseer, have a look https://gui.fediseer.com/instances/detail/lemmy.world
Edit 2: We got in touch with the Feddit.nl admin. Email requirements were added to the sign-up process and we’re setting up a communication channel. So that means we are federating with Feddit.nl again!
Stuff like this is going to kill the momentum of the fediverse. I’m a reddit refugee, my main account started on vlemmy.net (because it had a policy to not defederate from anything), and when that went poof, I moved to feddit.nl (because it has a policy to not defederate from anything). I believe it is MY prerogative, and no one else’s, to decide what I am or am not allowed to see. I curate my own feed by blocking or subscribing to instances I don’t or do want to see, respectively.
Regardless of any of this, however, I am now unable to view any content on .world without this account, due to actions entirely outside of my control. Since hosting my own instance is out of the question for me, my options are: find a third instance with a no-defederation policy that hasn’t been defederated itself from major instances, have multiple accounts and browse each instance individually, stop browsing altogether, or go back to reddit. As distasteful as the last option is, it’s tempting. I know the impulse will be to tell me “good riddance”, but I am posting this because I know there are others like me that are tired of instance hopping and trying to find somewhere that doesn’t try to police our browsing and also isn’t defederated from major instances.
For the record, I don’t want a no-defederation instance because I want to browse Nazi or pedo instances. I want a no-defederation instance because I have a principled objection to others telling me what I can or cannot view.
A user on there posted CSAM. Given that images federate too and that moderation over there seems to be lacking, do you not think it’s unrealistic not to expect defederation?
I never said I didn’t understand. I’m pointing out a problem that can, and I believe, will, lead to issues with user retention. If one is punished for the bad actions of someone on their instance that they have no control over, it will lead to frustration. I know this because it has happened to me twice now- once with vlemmy disappearing due to someone posting something bad that spooked the admin, and now feddit.nl because someone posted something bad that spooked these admins. I’m not saying it’s not understandable, I’m merely saying that a problem exists.
I expect the Admin’s priority was to worry about potentially inadvertently hosting CSAM rather than user retention.
Two problems can exist simultaneously. I’m suggesting that something should be done about defederation, and the things that lead to it (like automatic image proliferation), because if defederation continues as it is, it will hurt user retention.
It really won’t. Mastodon has whole block lists and has done for years and guess what - user retention is no problem at all.
From what you’ve commented here, you’re annoyed that you keep picking instances to join that allow shitty things to happen and then don’t. The issue there is not defederation, it’s that:
In the real world, instance Admin’s are legally responsible for what’s on their servers. If you want to defed from absolutely no one then you need to rent a VPS and spin up a Lemmy instance of your own. That way, the legal risk is all your own.
I mentioned elsewhere, I don’t have the ability to run my own instance. Mastodon also has user migration tools, making it much easier to start up a new account on a different instance. Lemmy does not. I’m also not even talking just about myself. There’s been drama about large instances defederating from each other since I joined- which, to be fair, was only a few months ago, but it’s also when the population exploded and defederation became a real concern. My main problem is the simple idea that, due to actions entirely outside of my control, large sections of the fediverse can just disappear for my account, forcing me to either accept the newer, smaller fediverse, or make a new account somewhere else that happens to federate with both my previous instance AND the defederated instance if I want a single account to view the same content I used to.
This is part of the growing pains, once moderation tools mature, this type of federation will be less of an issue.
I think so too, especially if and when users get the ability to block entire instances. That will prevent some of the defederation-for-wrongthink (in either direction, it doesn’t matter), and as it matures, I think the “accidentally hosting CSAM” will be less of an issue as well.
LASIM can help you move all your account details. Lemmy is nowhere hear as mature a product as Mastodon so it’s no surprise a lot of what Mastodon has, Lemmy doesn’t - yet.
I’m really not sure you’re ever going to be able to have what you seem to want because it doesn’t exist. There’s a limited set of tools available and if an instance Admin isn’t being vigilant, there’ll always be fuckwits ready to do shitty things. If the only way that other Admins can tackle that is defederation then that’s what’ll happen. It’s not going to affect user retention because I think the majority of people are quite prepared to accept that unmoderated instances are a liability of a much greater scale than defederation.
I’d say that’s fair. I understand that what I want is unlikely to come about, it’s a somewhat extreme view, and due to Lemmy’s current configuration, admins are on the hook legally for everything posted on their server. Something needs to change for defederation to change, and it’s very likely that defederation won’t change. I’ve only ever been expressing a concern of mine. Lemmy doesn’t cater to my will- I’m not even a programmer, I couldn’t do any of this stuff even if I had the power to do so. I just hope that it does change.
Which you want someone else to be legally responsible for providing you with.
What about abusive users that post in communities outside of their home instance? I think that’s what we’re talking about here. I can block instances, but there are communities in Lemmy.world that I enjoy and I appreciate the admins effort to keep abusive users out.
Each user can block other users. Moderators can block users. It can be handled the same way that other sites (yes, like reddit) do it. I’m also not opposed to defederation when it is essentially a single-user ban- for example, if there is an instance with no communities, no signup requirement, and has nothing but malicious bots- that’s banning a bot farm, not “defederation” as it’s commonly understood. But with something like this- where feddit.nl is actually a rather large instance- so many people are essentially being punished for absolutely no fault of their own.
There is a common thread in your complaints. This isn’t a problem that’s going to kill the fediverse it’s a problem with instances without moderation. Turns out shitty instances that don’t care about moderation are the same ones that “have a policy to not defederate from anything”. Stop joining shitty instances that allow literally illegal content and you won’t have that problem.
Yes, but I outlined my reasons for wanting no defederation. VLemmy was perfect- refused to defederate, actively moderated- until the issue with image federation spooked him. Also, saying “illegal content” is a bit meaningless on a globally distributed platform. On both instances- feddit.nl and VLemmy- many users outlined very similar rationale to me when the issue of defederation came up, and you and I both know that defederation is not used only for unmoderated instances. Lemmygrad is aggressively moderated and defederated from most instances because the owners find the political views expressed there distasteful, and that’s not the only one.
It just introduces so much personal bias into the fediverse, where individuals who don’t like Thing A defederates from instances that allow Thing A, cutting their entire instance off from it. Again, yes, you can join other instances, but that quickly gets annoying trying to find another instance that aligns with your Thing A-positive or neutral views. This is what I’m referring to when I say that it will kill the momentum- users getting frustrated and having to make multiple accounts to essentially dodge a completely unjustified ban (assuming they weren’t the ones doing the Bad Thing that caused the defederation) will lead to burnout and lost user retention.
As I also said, there will certainly be an impulse to say “good riddance, we don’t need them anyway”, but I think it’ll lead to more problems. The fediverse has existed as a small pocket of internet for a while. However, things don’t shrink as easily as they grow. If lemmy continues to get time and money and resources poured into its development for an ever-shrinking userbase, it won’t just go back to how it was. Growth is hard to undo.
Frankly, good riddance we don’t need people who won’t stick around because bad instances are defederated. That’s not a problem that needs to be solved, it’s a feature.
I know a lot of people agree with you. I’m just not one of them. I prefer a more open internet is all, where individuals are responsible for their own personal “defederations”, and don’t lose access to vast portions of the fediverse due to someone else’s actions and decisions unless they go out of their way to keep instance hopping.
BS, what you’re saying has nothing to do with an “open internet”. Stop co-opting terms, a fediverse instance defederating isn’t a closed internet. The other instance still exists and you can still access it if you want to.
Thank you for telling me what I want, I guess? There’s a lot between “open” and “closed” internet. Defederation is certainly more towards closed than open, no? And I would prefer it to go the other way, that’s all.
There are laws you know, claiming a fediverse server should work outside the law is idiotic and not at all principled.
I didn’t say they SHOULD work outside the law. What are you talking about? When I say “pedo instances”, I don’t mean ones that post real life CASM.
I feel like the fact that you still consider Reddit an option invalidates your entire point.
You don’t get to decide what others allow on their instances. It’s regular people hosting these servers and these same people having to moderate and manage those instances. They are the ones who face backlash and the repercussions for what’s posted on their servers so if they choose to make the decision to defederate to protect the instance community as a whole then that’s their choice. Long story short, tough shit. Don’t like things being defederated, create an account on a different server. Or better yet, create your own server than you can choose who you do or don’t federated with and what happens on that server can be your own responsibility.
I think this issue could be addressed on the front end.
The reason you would want a server that is federated with everything is so you can access all content at once instead of switching between accounts on different instances. If you could log into multiple instances at once with a single username and see content from both in the same feed it wouldn’t matter if they are defederated. I think this federation thing ought to be, as far as possible, transparent to the end user.
The way this currently works feels odd to me - it doesn’t really behave like a decentralised Reddit, because your account is tied to a specific instance and the content you see depends on which instance you pick. It feels like an awkward middle ground between a centralized service like Reddit and just having a completely separate forum site for each community.
If we could control instance level blocking on a user level it would be much more feasible.
In general sure, but not for problems like this. That wouldn’t address the issue in the OP at all.
It won’t protect a server from getting illegal content on their drives. Best to defederate if that is happening and can’t be dealt with otherwise. If you have some other method of dealing with illegal content on your server and wanted to host a Lemmy instance that is federated with everything it would only be appealing to me if I could block instances myself.
Absolutely agreed. I hope that becomes a feature soon, I know it is or was being worked on.
Just to play devil’s advocate; it seems like maybe an instance with a very active mod team would be another criterion to add to your list.
Whaa whaa whaa…
Bullshit, you chose a server that invites illegal content on purpose. It was entirely within your control to NOT choose such a server.
Feddit.nl rules explicitly state no illegal content, so it seems to be not so much inviting illegal content as a failure to moderate account creation and post content, like OP alluded to.
feddit.nl invites illegal content? Someone should let them know that, they’re doing an outstandingly bad job at it if that’s the case.
I like it here on monero.town because we have a good admin and the requirements to get an account here are high enough to make someone jump through a few hoops. None of the super big instances like world, ml, or beehaw have reson to defederate us. Some smaller ones defederate us do to ideology but its not a big loss.
Sounds like you want a Distributed/Decentralized service like Nostr instead of a Federated service like Lemmy, you should join there instead, I’m sure you’d be right at home there.
Dunno why you’re being downvoted. Defederation feels like a gung-ho way of handling content moderation issues that centralized platforms would be able to directly solve.
It is a gung-ho way, but I understand why I’m being downvoted. People hear “I want to have the ability to view anything” or “I don’t like being told what I can or cannot view on the internet” as “I want to view CSAM” or “I am actually a Nazi”, which should result in an emotional reaction. It’s just not what I’m saying.
The problem is that the fediverse is an unmoderated mess, especially with how Lemmy and Mastodon are currently set up.
What’s stopping griefers from setting up a brand new instance to spam existing communities with CP?
Of course you speaking bad about the fediverse = downvotes because you’re mainly talking with fanboys.
I completely agree. Believe me, I get why the admins are making the choices they are. In the current situation of how the fediverse works, it’d be stupid not to act. I just hope that it’s able to be addressed- no more proliferation of CSAM through duplication on every instance, better moderation, more control- so that defederation doesn’t have to be used in these situations.