Fedi Garden to Instance Admins: “Block Threads to Remain Listed”
wedistribute.org
Server indexes of places for newcomers to join can be instrumental for Fediverse adoption. However, sudden rule changes can leave some admins feeling pressure to change policies in order to remain listed.
any other instance allowing all the racist, homophobic and transphobic shit that gets posted on Threads would be unanimously defederated by the biggest players on the Fediverse, and blasted all over the network under the fediblock hashtag, but Meta somehow gets the pass because... more number mean gooder?
Exactly. Fedipact for the win!
all i see on mine (i just tried it this week) is cute videos, artist videos, life hack videos, and amazing videos. seriously. it’s a lot like discuit. i guess it’s all in what you follow.
https://lemm.ee/comment/10711318
I get this argument... but I keep seeing folks talk about Threads as if it's somehow an existential threat to Mastodon rather than "big crappy instance with asshats on it," and I don't quite understand how it's more than that... at least at a level that users and instance admins have any influence over. Can someone ELI5?
It's because Facebook has been pushing their PR saying "We're not an alt-right cesspit, we don't tolerate alt-right trolling" people including right wingers believe them and repeat these lies, then they proceed to turn a blind eye towards right wing trolling and bigotry because they know that most of their audience are right wingers themselves (I mean that should be obvious since Facebook is known as the boomer platform because all the young people left elsewhere).
how can threads be transphobic when my following feed is filled with trans people? id say it's more trans friendly than mastodon.
gee, I guess this report should be scrapped then https://glaad.org/smsi/report-meta-fails-to-moderate-extreme-anti-trans-hate-across-facebook-instagram-and-threads/
Well then I guess the pro-trans thing to do is tell Katy she shouldn't be allowed to follow all those trans people.
I'm not sure that anyone said anything like that?
What do you think the effect of "defederation" is?
If an instance defederates from another instance there's nothing stopping a user who liked that instance that was defederated with from moving to, making an account on or just using (in the broadest sense) another instance which hasn't defederated with the instance they like or that instance itself. I do this sometimes, I go on to another instance I don't have an account on to see the content a defederated instance treats as acceptable and thus the culture it has.
That's one reason I moved to the fediverse: so I could get rid of all of the content I didn't want to see before I saw it. More typical social media like Meta, Twitter and Reddit all have a long history of failing to moderate against anti-trans hate, as with other types of hate, so I moved to the fediverse. One thing that stuck out as a major selling point to me at the time was a lack of an algorithm, meaning that everything I saw I saw because I searched for it, I subscribed to it, because it's local or has been crossposted. Those latter two cases are the only real examples I can think of where a user is served content they didn't actively search for, and even then they're likely to be interested in it because an instance with a specific purpose, like lemmy.blahaj.zone or slrpnk.net, would only host communities that fit with the userbase's interests and communities only share things of interest to that community.
One of the reasons I use lemmy.blahaj.zone as my instance, which Katy also uses, is because the admins do their best to weed out transphobia and that includes Threads because Meta has poor moderation. It's already fairly well established practice to block or defederate from instances with poor moderation (sometimes including open registration) because they pose risks to an instance's userbase. If my instance federated with Threads I would feel at risk from Threads users attacking my posts or my private messaging inbox, so I would leave. We have already seen "aggressive" or "troll-ish" behaviour like this from instances which are far smaller than Threads is.
This functional consequence of defederation is telling their users they shouldn't be allowed to interact with an instance. That they can just leave if they don't like it doesn't make the choice not coercive. Moving servers is certainly a viable option, but it's a pain and doesn't transfer content, so that's still locked under the former server's federation choice.
On Mastodon, which is the place Threads is trying to federate with and which Katy was comparing it to, you can block instances. You no longer need your instance to make those decisions for you. Your desire to have Threads blocked at the instance level is at odds with Katy's desire to follow trans people on it. You can do a simple thing to implement your desires without forcing anything on the other person.
Again, if lemmy.blahaj.zone's admin team have stated Threads has a transphobia problem (and they have) then I'm not going to tell them they're wrong (ignoring the fact that I agree with them) because, as admins, they've seen more than I have and if I'm on their instance I'm implicitly putting my trust in them. My trust has been well-placed, so far. If you do not trust your instance's admins to make decisions you find reasonable, find a new instance.
On one level I agree but that's the case with moving any social media without linking it and saying "This used to be mine, I don't maintain it anymore". I see no reason why federations (or "bubbles") in the fediverse should be held to a higher standard. I suppose I just can't relate because I don't particularly care much about the things I post and I'm only really in one place: here. In any case I can empathise with the fact moving instance is a pain but if your instance admins make decisions you don't like you should consider leaving it before you fall in to the Sunk Cost Fallacy and have even more posts you can't port over!
A user blocking instances isn't the same as instances defederating. The difference between user-level blocking and instance-level defederation is that (1.) users need to see the offending content to be able to know to block it and (2.) I do not want bad-actors to see my content and want to put as many walls as possible up to stop them from seeing my content and interacting with me.
In either case this thread is about instances defederating from Threads. If moderators and admins notice their modlog or pending actions have a disproportionate amount of users misbehaving from a certain instance they might consider defederating until the instance can instill a more acceptable culture as it'll clear the queue up in future. Some communities and instances have already done this pre-emptively.
Again, if an instance does not align with your values you can and probably should move instance. Maintaining an account on both two instances is as simple as having two different tabs. I would also advocate for improved tooling to transfer your content. The right to choose extends as far as your instance admins allow you the right to choose.
That is the stupidest arguement I've seen in a while. " my grandad smoked 3 packs a day and never got cancer so cancer is just a hoax by big pharma!" Anecdotes aren't accepted as evidence for good reason.
they didn't say threads is transphobic. tehy said threads allows transphobic content
i’ve not seen a single hateful thing of any kind. it pays to curate your feed.
Fedi garden is just someone's website, they can put whatever they want on it. No big deal.
Yeah, I've never even heard of them before now and would have no particular reason to trust that what they mean by "good" servers aligns with what I'd consider "good" servers. This isn't like joinmastodon.org trying to strongarm instances to adopt their personal federation policy.
Even though I hate Meta, I can totally understand why admins are pissed at this change.
Yes, fuck meta
Are any major Lemmy or Mastodon instances in Fedi Garden?
I was looking through the site and didn't see any instances I recognized but they also nest everything so it takes like 3 clicks to see 2 severs.
Edit: By type looks like the easier way to see the entire list, which is not huge and I don't recognize any of the servers but I will admit I am not a big Mastodon person.
The person who runs it doesn't recommend Lemmy because of the political opinions of its main developers.
Kinda funny now given that Eugene of Mastodon has signed an NDA with Facebook.
It's funny how they can attack a software and all instances on it but turn a blind eye to the wrongdoings of the developers of the software they're using. It shows a lot of very personal and emotional bias, and also quite a bit of hypocrisy because they are basically saying to all the instances that use Lemmy that one can't use server software without agreeing with the developers, and yet they use Mastodon while fundamentally disagreeing with its developers.
Is this true? Where can I read more about it?
It's hard to give a direct source because he's deleted quite a bit but this thread has a screenshot.
Sounds like a purity spiral may be revving up.
No way! Little dictators exercising the power they have. But it is their platform, they can do what they want right?
This is probably the biggest threat to the fediverse.
They are not threatening the fediverst though are they? Just refusing to promote certain instances for newcomers. When I signed up, i wasn't really sure what I was signing up to but i did assume that not all instances were listed on that page that talked about them
Little dictators that have too much prominence and visibility are the threats. If a specific start point gets too prominent a lot of users could be redirected from good instances because of the little tyrants that run such a jump on point. Granted it can be easily routes around by offering alternative entry points, but a certain amount of prominence will impact not so Tech savvy users.
And in your assumption you have shown you already understand the fediverse more than a lot of people ever will. They will just join an instance and browse /ALL.
Create your own instance and become your own little benevolent dictator.
The above is the core strength of the fediverse. Tinpot despots may have an advantage in the network due to previous efforts, but they can be routed around any time they go nuts.
This is a huge, huge win over the top down shitbergs that is current corporate social media.
I think this is true, but the fediverse (as an entity) needs to prevent too much power accumulating at one point.
It ebbs and flows. Full decentralization would be ideal, but unrealistic. Power always consolidates, until it suddenly doesnt. Making it easy to leave when it "suddenly doesnt" is key.
I am not in favor of transitive property defederation either but Meta will make similar demands if they are allowed to be an influencer in the fedi as well. I’d rather that everyone just decides to defederate threads independently
So admins are pissed because one of the more powerful (because rare) indexes has a spine.
Meta promoting hate doesnt fit the fediverse, plain and simple. Maybe people just get over themselves?
Now it is "has a spine", next time they arbitrairly decide to make up rules it won't be cool because they won't align with your worldview
I think this is consistent with their content policy aims, so that's fine. Meta will not easily ban Nazis, so I get where they're coming from. I don't think I personally would want to participate in this project if I was an admin though.
seems a big against the sprit of “let each instance choose.” al ost like having a corporation control the choices available.
While I would love for everyone to defederate from threads, strong-arming people is not the way.
How exactly is anyone being strong armed?
A single, privately run index site (which, to be clear, I have never even visited, let alone have any affiliation with) doesn't want to publicise certain instances.
If anything, forcing them to index instances they don't want to would be the strong-arming.
Yeah saying they have to list and recommend things they disagree with reeks highly of "freeze peach" principles as understood by right-wing-philosopher-clowns.
Yup, but only when it's something those clowns disagree with, like excluding Nazis or corporations.
Now, excluding people from protected groups, who need to be protected in the first place because of the groups the clowns endorse and defend, they're more than happy to fight for that..
And conveniently enough anyone who disagrees with them is a traitor they don't have to listen to, and voilà - built in shield against any criticism or the pointing out of just how massive their hypocrisy is..
blocking threads is so stupid and antithesis to the nature of the fediverse.
No, you're misunderstanding the nature of the Fediverse. The fediverse concept centers around independent servers interconnecting and communicating with each other over activitypub, not all servers everywhere, just simply independent servers (AKA there is room for defederation and bans in that model). There will be servers which choose not to or won't be allowed to interconnect and that isn't antithetical to the goal because the goal is having servers be able to do it. If you were told that fediverse means all activitypub servers interconnect they were either misunderstanding or lying.
The nature of the fediverse is that it's federative/defederative. If an instance chooses to defederate because it thinks federation is a risk then they can do that. If that causes a problem for a user, the user can move to another instance which does federate.
I joined the fediverse after years of bad experiences on more typical social media sites, and specifically lemmy.blahaj.zone instance because the admins are very good at weeding out transphobia. If they federated with Threads I would be very surprised and want them to convince me of why that was a good idea.
People have wildly different ideas about the nature of the fediverse. That's the nub.
In the end, on paper, it results to more active users because they will use their main account that they created innitially and simply have a new account to access the blocked content on other insurances
The solution to this is to create a new index (sorry web page). Job done.
Groups who abuse their position should be ignored. Without traffic their influence disappears.