If/when instance admins on the fediverse decide to ban entire instances from connecting with theirs, they need to do so very responsibly and be 100% open and visible about it. And, I would argue, only in extreme extreme situations this should be done. This practice of banning instances is a very slippery slope and destroys all that the fediverse is.
When users have the power to ban other users and in some cases entire instances, then why on Earth are the admins taking such decisions that affect everyone?
I am sure that if this fediverse will become more popular it will get ruined by such practices. That's why I think the best is to have decentralized networks such as https://scuttlebutt.nz/ - that's a proper way of decentralizing. Not creating multiple twitters, but giving up on that idea of "a thing", but rather have people directly connect with other people.
When users have the power to ban other users and in some cases entire instances, then why on Earth are the admins taking such decisions that affect everyone?
I am sure that if this fediverse will become more popular it will get ruined by such practices. That's why I think the best is to have decentralized networks such as https://scuttlebutt.nz/ - that's a proper way of decentralizing. Not creating multiple twitters, but giving up on that idea of "a thing", but rather have people directly connect with other people.
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hosh
in reply to Tio • • •Scuttlebutt is tempting, and there used to be (still is?) a service called Twister, which is completely decentralized, without any central server. But it would be much better if everyone one would simply get off those big fediverse servers and host their own instances - either at home or using a service like Mastohost.
Hubzilla, with its nomadic identity and channel cloning takes away some of the risk of depending upon a small server that could go down at some point.
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Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •More concrete example: say someone on my instance starts spamming and be a jackass. And some instance admins decide to ban my entire instance for this 1 account. Now you isolate us (from my own instance, hundreds of people), from hundreds or thousands more (from those instances that blocked us). You, the admins, a handful of people, are taking a decision for thousands of others. Without them even knowing about it.
That's for sure... show more
More concrete example: say someone on my instance starts spamming and be a jackass. And some instance admins decide to ban my entire instance for this 1 account. Now you isolate us (from my own instance, hundreds of people), from hundreds or thousands more (from those instances that blocked us). You, the admins, a handful of people, are taking a decision for thousands of others. Without them even knowing about it.
That's for sure a slippery slope. A way to hammer down any instance and sink with it hundreds/thousands of users.
Maybe my hopes about the fediverse were too high, too "idealistic", but as of right now the fediverse is clustered around a handful of big instances that have the power to nuke down smaller ones, without much transparency.
Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •But let’s go back to the slippery slope. What if an instance wrongly blocks yours? Like you said, neither your users nor theirs will know about it. How can it slips down further from there? What is the fundamental difference about the network being an archipelago rather than a single island from any individual user standpoint?
And, more importantly, how is it different from regular social circles too far to interact with each other?
One of the great features of decentralized social networks is that you can create multiple accounts on multiple servers and they would all be you, with a varying potential available network for each.
Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •Abuse of power. Admins can shut down entire instances in seconds. I've already seen others posting about this recently, them being unable to connect with past contacts because their instance got disconnected from others @Ombra 🔵🌻 I think that was the case with you, correct?
I think there are better ways of doing this, such as removing the global timelines and/or not displaying any public posts on your instance, except those of your own users. This way your instance stays "clean" while at the same time you don't interfere with people's ability to connect with others.
Ombra 🔵🌻
in reply to Tio • • •Tio
in reply to Ombra 🔵🌻 • •Ombra 🔵🌻 likes this.
Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •Once you start thinking about decentralized social network as an archipelago of floating islands instead of yet another big island like centralized social networks, but somehow “better”, both the advantages and the inherent drawbacks start to become apparent. Decentralized social network is a trade-off, and possibly losing connection with some of your contacts you don’t have any other ways to reach is something you have to accept.
It is worth noting that both Friendica and Mastodon provide RSS feeds for any account’s public... show more
Once you start thinking about decentralized social network as an archipelago of floating islands instead of yet another big island like centralized social networks, but somehow “better”, both the advantages and the inherent drawbacks start to become apparent. Decentralized social network is a trade-off, and possibly losing connection with some of your contacts you don’t have any other ways to reach is something you have to accept.
It is worth noting that both Friendica and Mastodon provide RSS feeds for any account’s public posts, so you still could hear from someone whose instance admin has decided to block your own domain.
Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •The communication between peers should be open. If some instance admins do not want "garbage" on their websites, then there should be smarter ways to deal with that. For one you can clean your instance's users, the ones that register with your website. Second it is better to simply not display any posts as public if they come from other instances. These are some ideas I have.
But to cut the connection with an entire instance and all of its users, seems extreme to me. And a slippery slope indeed since more and more admins will go for this primitive approach and we end up with a disconnected fediverse.
To say this is better than facebook, should not be a good argument.
Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •And this domain block feature isn’t exactly secret, the “fediblock” hashtag has ben doing the round and yet not all admins block any instance on sight, most are very responsible and do not block domains lightly.
Is there abuse? Probably. Is it significant? Not really because users aren’t tied to a single server. Is it threatening to spill over uncontrollably? I can’t see how, each admin has to manually block each domain so far.
I would take issue with automated domain block lists like there are automated Twitter account block lis... show more
And this domain block feature isn’t exactly secret, the “fediblock” hashtag has ben doing the round and yet not all admins block any instance on sight, most are very responsible and do not block domains lightly.
Is there abuse? Probably. Is it significant? Not really because users aren’t tied to a single server. Is it threatening to spill over uncontrollably? I can’t see how, each admin has to manually block each domain so far.
I would take issue with automated domain block lists like there are automated Twitter account block lists because of the loss of ownership, but the base manual admin feature isn’t a concern for me.
Actual social spaces are fragmented, mostly for good reasons, and hoping that decentralized social media is a big happy family isn’t going to make it a reality. Social media network fragmentation is necessary and good.
Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •How are them letting the users know? Will the get notifications and such?
The practice is very rudimentary and has large implications the more the fediverse will grow.
Let the users decide what to block. Why wouldn't that be enough?
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Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •/friendica
path, including the reason why it was blocked. Not sure about Mastodon but I’m pretty sure they have a public page for it as well.As for who should have the domain blocking feature, I’d say both. In social networking moderation is key, so more moderation tools is better than fewer. Admins have to deal with moderation reports out of their free time, so domain blocking is a valuable time-saving feature. Will it cause some disappointment among users? Of course, but again, once you stop thinking about an account on one server being the only account you’ll ever want or need like it is enforced on centralized social media, it really isn’t that big of a deal.
As an aside, user-level domain block is slightly trickier to implement, so that’s one of the reasons it isn’t available in Friendica yet.
Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •Yes both should have access to such tools, but admins should use it very responsibly and with a lot of transparency. And try not to use it at all. I still wonder why an admin may want to block an instance?
I don't see how having multiple accounts is a good and comfortable approach. You have friends and such, interactions, etc., you can't switch that easily. Maybe what Hubzilla has that nomad identity can be an idea, but still you are left in the dark about what your instance is doing behind your back in terms of connectivity. You may not even have a clue that starting today you are un... show more
Yes both should have access to such tools, but admins should use it very responsibly and with a lot of transparency. And try not to use it at all. I still wonder why an admin may want to block an instance?
I don't see how having multiple accounts is a good and comfortable approach. You have friends and such, interactions, etc., you can't switch that easily. Maybe what Hubzilla has that nomad identity can be an idea, but still you are left in the dark about what your instance is doing behind your back in terms of connectivity. You may not even have a clue that starting today you are unable to contact 30% of your friends because they are being on an instance that yours just blocked.
Yeah I'd love to see that :D
Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •It isn’t about confort. If you want confort, Twitter and Facebook are for you. Decentralized social media needs some legwork by design and I believe this friction makes it less attractive for attention-seekers and a more friendly place as a result, even if it is less straightforward to use than the big silos.
And if you don’t have any other way of reaching out to your 30% friends you can lose contact with because of a domain block, they were just nice acquaintances and it’s okay to lose contact with them.
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Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •But we should not take that as something it will always be as such. Friendica chooses to have a very friendly interface and buttons for say formatting the text, instead of letting people use markdown for example. So you do try to make it more comfortable. This should be a good thing. It is not for the attention seekers, but for everyone.
Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •And before the domain block, both instances are in the same network. Domain blocking separates them.
Thanks for the nod but this is just a simple post editing convenience feature. I’m talking about the first principles of decentralized media that, should they be changed to be more convenient for users, wouldn’t be decentralized social media anymore. You have to have free local policies per server (including domain blocks), and this requires getting acquainted with the server you joined, and possibly the other servers you’re interacting with through replies.
Also, policies can change, depending on your admin needs, which may not be well-aligned, or simply not anymore, people change. So there’s no way of guarantee a consistent expe... show more
And before the domain block, both instances are in the same network. Domain blocking separates them.
Thanks for the nod but this is just a simple post editing convenience feature. I’m talking about the first principles of decentralized media that, should they be changed to be more convenient for users, wouldn’t be decentralized social media anymore. You have to have free local policies per server (including domain blocks), and this requires getting acquainted with the server you joined, and possibly the other servers you’re interacting with through replies.
Also, policies can change, depending on your admin needs, which may not be well-aligned, or simply not anymore, people change. So there’s no way of guarantee a consistent experience on a decentralized social network because it is made out of thousands of individual nodes with their own policies and no central authority to appeal to should one get in trouble with heir local admin.
Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •In any case, I am still of the opinion that such practices are destroying the core of what the fediverse tries to be. A way to connect with anyone from any instance. The fediverse gave a lot of power to small islands to manage their own resources and inhabitants. That should have been enough. Destroying the communication between bridges is not helpful for the fediverse itself.
Tio
Unknown parent • •Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •So your server can end up harboring pretty unsavory stuff either because one of your users got mad at it and unknowingly imported it locally, or because it was pushed to your servers by a remote contact. Domain blocking is a way to stop both these behaviors and ensure no content from blocked domains will end up being saved locally on your server.
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Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •Recently our matrix server was banned from e Linux Matrix chatroom because of 1 spambot account that I was not aware of. Now is our matrix server a spam server? No. And so all of us from our server are unable to join that community. That's a direct example of such an approach.
This is not good at all.
Hypolite Petovan
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Hypolite Petovan
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Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •Not worth playing around with this blind game of disconnecting the fediverse. Let me repeat: I have a few instances (Peertube, Friendica) and I have 0 clues if I am disconnected from other instances and if so why. No clue. No one notified me. There is no notification for the current users when such decisions are taken either. So we are all in the unknown.
That's the truth. You have a very optimistic view of this situation, but my experience doesn't make me optimistic. I know a girl @Cleo of Topless Topics who got banned from so many platforms because she decides to be nude.... show more
Not worth playing around with this blind game of disconnecting the fediverse. Let me repeat: I have a few instances (Peertube, Friendica) and I have 0 clues if I am disconnected from other instances and if so why. No clue. No one notified me. There is no notification for the current users when such decisions are taken either. So we are all in the unknown.
That's the truth. You have a very optimistic view of this situation, but my experience doesn't make me optimistic. I know a girl @Cleo of Topless Topics who got banned from so many platforms because she decides to be nude. We let her post her videos on our Peertube and create a Friendica account with us. If people see her nipples on the fediverse and they know that they can report to the admins, and the admins take the decision to cut the connection with us altogether, then that's messed up.
One time I posted by mistake a Friendica event and it was sent to a dozen of people, to then almost being banned (instance wise) from some instances for my mistake. Maybe some banned us for that.
In any case, it is a sad truth about the fediverse and the fact that the people who work on such platforms or are admins, do not see this as a problem, makes me even more concerned.
Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •At this point I believe it's a fundamental misunderstanding of decentralized social media on your part. You can't empower users and admins (which IS one of the goals of decentralized social media) without these arbitrary boundaries appearing. And for the overwhelming part, they are good and healthy, favoring smaller social circles where speech can truly flourish, away from the social pressure that comes from performing in public like in centralized networks.
This does close some connection opportunities and it's sad in the abstract, but the quality of the exchanges people are able to experience on the Fediverse compared to mostly performative platforms life Facebook and Twitter makes it clear that a fragmented network is a better way forward than a single big tent that ends up favoring the people... show more
At this point I believe it's a fundamental misunderstanding of decentralized social media on your part. You can't empower users and admins (which IS one of the goals of decentralized social media) without these arbitrary boundaries appearing. And for the overwhelming part, they are good and healthy, favoring smaller social circles where speech can truly flourish, away from the social pressure that comes from performing in public like in centralized networks.
This does close some connection opportunities and it's sad in the abstract, but the quality of the exchanges people are able to experience on the Fediverse compared to mostly performative platforms life Facebook and Twitter makes it clear that a fragmented network is a better way forward than a single big tent that ends up favoring the people looking for attention or, worse, targets.
And yeah, in the process some people like you will be disappointed, I'm sorry about that but I don't believe there's any way around it without sacrificing what makes decentralized social media what it is.
Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •Cleo of Topless Topics likes this.
Tio
Unknown parent • •Hypolite Petovan
Unknown parent • • •More generally, if you believe your 100 users would want to block the 100 accounts on a specific server, it is way cheaper to block the domain (1 operation) than to let your users deal with the remote users with 10,000 potential operations to be done, while being exposed to potentially upsetting content in the process.
More specifically, knowing that a certain kind of people can't freely interject in your conversation encourages interactions, and domain blocks are a way to achieve that. The decision to block mastodon.social from marginalized community-centric instances fits into this motivation. Since m.s is very popular, it is likely to harbor a large number of people that are clueless or vaguely hostile to queer people, and the size of the instance make moderation through forwarded reports challenging. As a result some niche queer instances decided to cut themselves fro... show more
More generally, if you believe your 100 users would want to block the 100 accounts on a specific server, it is way cheaper to block the domain (1 operation) than to let your users deal with the remote users with 10,000 potential operations to be done, while being exposed to potentially upsetting content in the process.
More specifically, knowing that a certain kind of people can't freely interject in your conversation encourages interactions, and domain blocks are a way to achieve that. The decision to block mastodon.social from marginalized community-centric instances fits into this motivation. Since m.s is very popular, it is likely to harbor a large number of people that are clueless or vaguely hostile to queer people, and the size of the instance make moderation through forwarded reports challenging. As a result some niche queer instances decided to cut themselves from m.s which allows them to cultivate a welcoming corner of the Fediverse without having to fear mastodon.social users unwarrantedly jumping in their conversations.
Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •... show more If that's the case then I'd like to see Montag saying that, but what I see is a completely different attitude. And that's what concerns me. His/her attitude was that of not liking certain groups of people/content and that's why the decisions that are taken. And speaking of such laws, it is unbelievable that these folks don't realize this is not helping anyone. Only big corporations may take advantage of this because they have the means to hire a special dep to deal with these, while smaller ones do not. So yeah....another way of shutting down smaller organizations.
For one, it is an exaggeration that users have to deal with so much content. You won't see any posts if you do not follow certain people. Using the global feed is yet another thing. It is named "global" for a reason. It is so easy to curate your feeds. Second, I sure do not agree that it is better to have the admin decide to ban entire instances, same way I do not think it is better for Apple to delete child porn from people's devices, since these are a slippery slope event and will never stop at that.
Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •Beyond that, by default remote contacts can and will frequently enter your island unless you chose to have a truly private server with no federation enabled. And domain blocking is just part of the control you have as an admin.
Tio
Unknown parent • •Apples decided to scan and delete child porn images from people's devices. A decision that invades people's privacy. They argue it is for a good cause. But we are naive to think such an attitude won't bleed into other areas/interests/topics. Maybe piracy is next. Encryption is great, despite terrorists using it for bad purposes. Same with the fediverse, if we want to keep it great and a way for anyone to connect with anyone, we have to be careful about what compromises we make. Because if we start to ban entire instances, a decision we take for others not only for us, that will affect a lot of people, then this will also bleed out. That's my concern.
Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •Third, remote users cannot enter your instance, they can only interact with the people on your instance, correct? And so, is up to people how they interact with these remote users.
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Tio
Unknown parent • •Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •You have to be absolutely clear that you will protect your users against internal and external threats because the moment they chose your instance to sign on, they trusted you with that power, including banning whole instances if the need arises. And you dismissing this power as damaging sends a worrying signal that you may just not use the moderation tools at your disposal to favor your own conception of decentralized social media.
I do respect your opinion but I'm afraid it doesn't put you in a favorable... show more
You have to be absolutely clear that you will protect your users against internal and external threats because the moment they chose your instance to sign on, they trusted you with that power, including banning whole instances if the need arises. And you dismissing this power as damaging sends a worrying signal that you may just not use the moderation tools at your disposal to favor your own conception of decentralized social media.
I do respect your opinion but I'm afraid it doesn't put you in a favorable position as an instance admin yourself, or one geared towards a specific kind of audience you may not even want yourself.
Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •It is not like my instance is a wild wild west, but I think is a lot more wise and smart to deal with it like I just described. There is no slippery slope for me, since there is no slope to begin with. I clearly say my instance is trade-free for anyone and it is the users' own responsibility what they post. A slope is created when you empower yourself as the judge and jury, and the more you do that, the more slippery it becomes because you have to deal with decisions (who to ban, what to ban).
Tio
Unknown parent • •And thanks for engaging I don't want to stress anyone with these, but I think it is important to discuss such topics.
Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •You don't want to be judge and jury and deal with moderation decisions, it's up to you, but this already is a decision you made that has actual consequences. So you've already been judge and you've decided you don't want to be moderation judge, which makes your server unwelcome for people who would expect you to be the judge so they don't have to, because they don't want to be judge either.
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Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •In any case, I do not tell people how to use our Matrix chat, our Friendica instance, or any of our tools. They are tools. A service. This make them better in my view because for one it does not restrict people, and second I do not put myself in a sketchy position to manage the online life of others. Imagine if I were to remove websites from our Searx search results....or not allow people to join some Matrix chatrooms...to me this is insane to even think of managing things this way.
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Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •Like I said, by positioning yourself away from moderation decisions, you end up attracting users who do not need these moderation decisions while repelling users who do need you to take moderation decisions. You don't need to change your mind, but you need to be aware that your decision influences what audience your server is favoring.
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Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •In my case it is not a situation of injustice. So me not wanting to moderate does not mean I encourage the trolls. I like EFF's stance on privacy and how they understand that if Apple scans people's devices for child porn images, then that's a slippery slope and we have to avoid such decisions. They understand the evolution of such approaches. And I find it similar to the situation the fediverse. The same way Apple wants (in theory) to do something good (prevent child porn), the fediverse admins want to protect their users from nazis and trolls. But their approaches are gonna bleed and expand and mutate over time, bec... show more
In my case it is not a situation of injustice. So me not wanting to moderate does not mean I encourage the trolls. I like EFF's stance on privacy and how they understand that if Apple scans people's devices for child porn images, then that's a slippery slope and we have to avoid such decisions. They understand the evolution of such approaches. And I find it similar to the situation the fediverse. The same way Apple wants (in theory) to do something good (prevent child porn), the fediverse admins want to protect their users from nazis and trolls. But their approaches are gonna bleed and expand and mutate over time, because their approaches have repercussions. It is the approach that is to blame.
Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •Look....why Friendica has all sorts of tools to allow users to protect themselves? Because you too think that users should have these tools. Are you saying these tools are not enough?
Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •