this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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Defederation is not the answer. Honestly, it's such a powerful and destructive tool that I question whether it should exist period.
Users should be treated like adults who are capable of determining by themselves what content they are comfortable with seeing.
If I don't want to see an extremist political community on my feed, I block that community myself. If an instance is full of such communities, I block that instance myself.
I don't want or need some other random on the internet to make judgement calls on what content I can or cannot interact with.
Defederation is a tactical nuke, that if used incorrectly will destroy the freedom, decentralization and openness of Lemmy, and replace it with a far more centralized series of walled gardens.
I fear that people are trying to recreate the reddit model on Lemmy. Lemmy is not reddit, Lemmy is better than reddit. Reddit is top down, Lemmy is bottom up. We don't need more mod control, we need more user control.
I would love to see more features built for user moderation of content. Perhaps I could subscribe to another users blocklist, or follow their 'recommended communities'. Instances themselves could maintain suggested block lists, and users could chose to enable or disable them at their own discretion.
I'm really not sure that defederation has any place at all. Even things like spam and bot instances I think would be better handled by a blocklist (enabled by default even), that users can turn on or off as they see fit.
I joined the fediverse for the fediverse experience. That is it's touted interconnections and interoperability with other services and platforms so that I could discover and dialogue with people of similar interests who weren't directly subscribed to the same service/instance/platform I was currently using.
I originally subscribed to beehaw.org which soon afterwards began defederating from other instances. I soon deleted my account with them as that was antithetical to the reason I signed up with them in the first place. I wanted exposure and access to all that the fediverse offered.
I have no problem with people and communities creating spaces for themselves while excluding those who don't hold similar interests, but in light of all the current squabbling, I just want to join a fediverse instance that isn't going to defederate.
Defederation should be just “read-only” and users should be blocked from posting or commenting. In its current state it just creates a fragmented broken network with silos that users don’t really know about because it silently fails.
Here is the answer.
Autoblock spam and illegal content Make a "not cool" communities list and allow users to check a button upon signing up to block instantly.
Problem solved.
I am massively against defederation when at all possible- However, I will draw the line at illegal content.
The reason being- when content is federated, a copy of it is stored on all subscribed instances.
I REALLY don't want the feds knocking on my door. So- I will take a strict stance there, for protecting my own well-being. My server isn't hosted in a country where anything goes.
If- it is content which is against the rules of the instance where it was posted- by all means, I will give the admins a chance to handle the issue. Otherwise- nuclear option.
You are right to be concerned here. Since it touts self hosting, storage should’ve been decentralized and encryption designed in a way to legally protect hosters. Alas, we have what we have, which will require a lot of moderation until it matures more. Fingers crossed. Being responsible is the best we can do right now.
There shouldn't be one "not cool" list on signup, that's just /r/popular then. Every user should be able to make their own list. And every other user should be able to subscribe to any other user's list if they don't want to manage it themselves. But it shouldn't bet set up and defaulted by the admins. If you aren't able to at least do the bare minimum to curate your experience then just go back to facebook or reddit with their recommendation engines.
I will elaborate. Every user can and should make a list of instances they personally don't like, but admins/mods are also users. They're just telling you that we don't like these instances, but it's your choice on whether you want to block them or not. Maybe they shouldn't show it to you upon signup, I sort of agree there but a new user showing up and needing to start by cleaning up the place to their liking is a bit of friction for them. Will make a stronger selling point for another server that just defederates by default.
How to radicalize a normie.
Some people are so fragile that the MERE EXISTENCE of ideas they don't agree with are an existential threat, whereas I am proud to have friends and neighbors that we do NOT always agree. Ironically, having people around with different thoughts and ideas is actual diversity, which is the opposite of these 'curated safe spaces' that these overly ban-friendly instances seem to crave.
It's not a difference of opinion, it's spewing of hate and misinformation. By the time you address one thing, they've spewed another ten. So you stop and then it goes unchecked. I suggest you watch the "innuendo studios" channel on YouTube.
But de-federating ENSURES it goes unchecked....
Only in that little sub, and doesn't spread to the rest of the fed. Or shut it down like it was in this case.
But you're missing 2 points:
It's not merely a difference of opinion, which many people welcome. It's the spewing of hatred and misinformation.
There's no countering it because of the asymmetry of bullshit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law It goes on and on and on, just flooding everything.
I don't know if you mean that as sarcasm. But we're talking about The Donald. That's one bag, or even one aspect of it. Not everything on the spectrum.
So block them and move on. Or if you disagree with them that badly, push to have that instance/community added to a public blocklist/filter. Defederation, besides being an overly authoritarian solution, damages the network in a way that can and will make Lemmy into a worse place for its users.
As instances start to defederate, it will matter more and more which instance a user signs up to. This will push users towards larger instances. As instances get larger, they will become less and less reliant on 3rd party instances for content, those instance admins will be incentivized to defederate from them, as they will a) not have as much control over those instances, and b) start to view them as competitors rather than collaborators.
The beauty of Lemmy and federation generally, is that information appears centralized to it's users, despite being decentralized in reality.
The more defederation is used, the more centralized Lemmy becomes, whilest giving a more fractured, confusing, and disorganized experience to its users.
Defederation will kill Lemmy. It needs to removed from the protocol before it becomes too widely abused.
I see Lemmy going down in one of two ways:
In fighting and fragmentation with overzealous use of defederation leading to walled gardens, and a terrible user experience.
Or
A major player like google or microsoft sees the potential in Lemmy. Starts their own highly funded instance that is full of useful features and a wonderful smooth UX. (That is all proprietary and only usable on their instance, naturally) Then when the majority of users are on their instance, defederate from everywhere else. (If you don't think this can happen, just look at what google did to xmpp).
My own personal blocking does not solve the problem.
I think you're on a slippery slope argument, taking it from 1 to 100 awfully quick.