Default instance blocks should largely replace defederation
Since what content users might want to see is quite unlikely to match which servers the admins tolerate, choosing instance on the Fediverse can be quite complicated, which is inconvenient and off-putting for new users.
For this reason, and simply that the Fediverse is stronger united, I believe defederation should ideally be reserved for illegal content and extreme cases. If Fediverse platforms would allow instances to simply block the rest for users by default, the user experience would be the same, unless they decide otherwise.
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This would likely lead to a lot of content only cached for the 1% of users which change that default which would be quite inefficient for the instance. Not to mention that most admins and mods would likely not see that content so they can not judge the legality of that content (or other reasons to defederate instead).
Not to mention the big reason to defederate isn’t just the subs on an instance.
It’s users of that but instance getting free reign on posts from other instances to troll or spread hateful bullshit.
OPs “solution” doesn’t do anything about that, which why they’re wrong and is defederation is better.
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That makes even less sense…
Like, if that’s really what it does, then it’s exactly what defederation is…
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So…
You want every user of the fediverse to manually opt out of the far right hate instances?
Alright, fine.
Make your own instance with that. And if that’s what people want, then they’ll join your instance.
Problem solved. Super easy.
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Sorry, the more you clarify the worse it gets.
You want instances to use up their server space for shit the vast majority will never even see?
And admins would have to have it unblocked, otherwise they’re hosting a bunch of shit from problematic instances without knowing what it is. Which, worst case scenario, could have legal ramifications.
No need to keep clarifying, I was convinced already this is a terrible idea.
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Speaking of blocking…
Content isn’t cached unless someone follows it anyways.
And I’m not sure what you mean with that latter part; what difference would this make in what content admins can see before they cast their judgement on a server?
What op said still stands: if only one of your users follow a high-traffic, heavy-content /c/, then the server is caching all of that content for one person.
E.g., there’s this great bot on Mastodon that posts random fractals, and the highest-voted ones “breed” to create a new generation of child fractals. The bot posts a static image and an animated movie of each new child every 4 hours. The images are ca 5mb each; the movies are between 20 & 40mb ea. That is, on average, 210mb/d, or 1.4gb per week. That’s a lot of data. You might, as an admin offering a free service, not want to have to pay for that much storage just because one or two users are suscribed to /c/flamereactor (“FlameReactor” is the name, so you can find this mind-blowingly awesome bot). There’s also bandwidth considerations, both on the pull and when users request the content.
I like the idea, though, and will suggest a tweak, tried and true from Usenet days: provide the ability to unblock to only paying users. It’d give admins control, plus money to offset storage costs. Maybe provide three options to admins: full defederation; auto-block with any user able to unblock, for odeous but low impact sices; and auto-block with unblock for only users in some group - close friends, paying users, whatever.
Lemmy could also transcribe content into links back to the source, but that’s just punting the bandwidth costs onto someone else, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is frowned upon within The Federation (although it’s common practice with Reddit and X(twitter) content).
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A lot of legal issues get worse though if they occur as part of a paid service.
There are a lot of ways it could go wrong, for sure. IANAL, but lots of small and large companies have and do navigate these issues. But I wasn’t talking about legally contentious content; this would be a work-aruund for stuff that’s expensive to cache, or stuff you just don’t agree with and so don’t want to absorb the cost out of the goodness of yous heart. Just continue to defederate if you have any doubt.
Anyway, it was just a potential work-around to address OP’s issue. I’m not a Lemmy dev and won’t be implementing it.
Admins need to make sure they do not host illegal content. They can not do that if they do not see the content so they would likely still have to look at all of it just for the benefit of the few users on their instance who change the default. Instead they could just defederate and not have to worry about that.
There are great sites like fediseer.com to keep track of suspicious instances. And if those users see illegal content they can report it to the admins.
Ask people who face open abuse because of their identity how they feel, and you’ll see that not everyone wants what you want.
If there are people who want me dead, then a response of “tough, you and every other queer person has to block them all yourselves, one by one” isn’t the all in one solution you think it is.
I hear you, and that’s why I’m suggesting the implementation of default instance blocks before more open federation.
Who builds those default lists? Because most social media platforms are tolerant of transphobia for example, as long as it’s “civil”.
No, I mean that admins select instances that are blocked by default for users. Kinda like a soft defederation.
Ok, I can see that. Hard and soft options. The admin can choose whether it can be over ridden by users or not.
I think people should be free to run instances how they want.
Me too. I’m simply trying to spark ideas for devs to give admins more options for how they can run their instances (and also trying to convince admins about what’s best for the Fediverse).
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If you don’t like who an instance federated with, find a new instance that aligns with what you want.
Or if there aren’t any, host your own.
However the majority of users don’t want that hateful shit in their feed, or comments from the people who join those instances
Stop trying to force people to see that shit if they don’t want to.
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You keep saying “block” so I’m going to try blocking a couple accounts I never want to hear from again
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Clarification, because people keep misunderstanding my point: What I’m advocating for is replacing most defederation with some sort of “soft defederation” in which instance admins can select domains which are blocked by default for the users, but which they can unblock afterwards if they want to.
That wouldn’t work. I find it strange that some users keep thinking moderation or defederation is somehow about them or to keep them from accessing things. Talk about self-centered to an extreme degree 😅
Defederation is primarily used to keep bad stuff away from an instance and its (volunteer) moderators. Either because it is illegal or because it causes loads of moderation workload in the communities hosted by an instance. Neither of which would your proposal of soft-defederation solve even a single bit.
Well I said that illegal content should still be defederated. And I don’t think soft defederated content has to be moderated, since it’s only a number of users who choose to see it.
Just because few people can see it in the home instance doesn’t mean it isn’t there. And when a community is viewed from remote instances that have a different soft-defederation list all the bad stuff will be publicly visible (and indexed via search engines).
So for example a feminist community would be full of incel posts that are publicly visible almost everywhere.
Okay, that’s entirely fair. I was mostly thinking about the microblogging side of the Fediverse and didn’t quite consider the complexity that it would add to community moderation. I guess better moderation mechanisms could probably account for that, but Lemmy is as of now far away from that.
Edit: One might also solve that by not allowing soft defederated users to post in local communities.
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You got that completely backwards.
You as a user are a guest of something akin to a private house party and are expected to behave as such. In turn the instance tries to be a welcoming party host by providing an enjoyable place for you to talk with other guests.
Moderation in that case is about removing guest that don’t know how to behave and choose to shit on the carpet. Defederation is about turning away known to be bad guests at the entrance so that the volunteers inside don’t have to clean shit off the carpets all the time.
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Its a private party, not a service to anyone. The host does it because they enjoy having a party with their friends and other people that know how to behave.
And no, federated users are no different from local users. What matters is the server location of the community.
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If you host your own instance you are free to invite who ever you choose to your own parties 🤷♂️
Yes. That needs to be implemented. It’s a bit annoying that Lemmy is still missing that much moderation and usability features.
no thank you
If you have a criticism, I’m all ears.
I believe this would be a great feature.
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It already is, you just have to convince the server owner whats ‘extreme’ or not. Some servers hate liberals, others hate the right, some are followers of the windmill party and others would get you on a watchlist.
And the more mundane stuff like having porn and gore posts not tagged as NSFW will get your instance defederated.
What we actually need is better mod tools
I would love to see more middle of the road, non-extremist content. It seems that every instance is all the way left, falling off the chart, and then like 3 instances are falling off the other side of the chart, and defederated everywhere.
Let’s say I’m an instance admin. I don’t tolerate some content. Why would I want this content on my server? Why would I allow users to participate in communities I don’t tolerate, produce content I don’t tolerate? As an admin, I can’t just pretend that this isn’t happening. I’ll be getting reports, I would have to act on them. Otherwise, I won’t be able to moderate. It sounds like creating parallel worlds within the same instance to me.
I generally don’t mind, I just think this could bring more problems that it might solve.
Personally I believe that the health of the Fediverse should come before the preferences of individual admins.
And in such cases in which users manually opt into seeing content, reporting makes little sense and they can just block on their own.
The health of the Fediverse depends on individual admins. Would you say that the Fediverse is unhealthy right now, because, for instance, beehaw.org is defederated from some communities, but you’d like to see them? I wouldn’t agree with that. You can always join them and see the content that you like. That’s the whole point of having different instances.
I just thought the entire point of the Fediverse was kind of the ability to access any content, regardless where you choose to be. This is not only directly complicated by defederation, it also adds a whole new layer of complexity for new users, for whom this idea of decentalisation is already quite off-putting.
