[Discussion] Defederation does not do what you think it does
[Discussion] Defederation does not do what you think it does
In the spirit of being encouraged to speak my mind here's a slight effort post:
Defederation does not do what you think it does.
The instance creator and admins are those with the ultimate power within their instance. The active users delegate them that power by interacting with their instance.
Defining "defederation" within the context of Lemmy as I understand it:
"the act of denying the ability for accounts within specific instances to interact with each other"
Anyone at this current time can create an account on most instances. One site on sh.itjust.works is defederated right now, but anyone here may also have an account there, who knows? The value comes from our activity and interaction within each instance.
Defederation is a narrow and a slippery slope because it doesn't actually solve any problems. There are many instances which are doing things I think should be banned. I don't interact with them. I don't provide them with any value.
We uphold an inclusive enjoyable community here by being active. Individuals with malicious intent are ostracized naturally by an active community. Defederating entire instances does not stop bad actors, but an active strongwilled community does.
It's not our responsibility to moderate other instances.
Staying in federation with an instance that actively embraces bad actors increases the visibility of users here to those bad actors, and gives them access to our community. Defederating such an instance is a basic best practice in the Fediverse.
More importantly for those who wring their hands about not limiting the whole community -- failure to defederate from bad actor instances will be factored in when good productive instances with content folks here want to see decide whether to defederate us. (Remember that this place is already defederated by one prominent instance, which is a material detriment to users here.)
It is reasonable and normal to disagree about where the line is drawn in terms of what instances deserve defederation. It's often ambiguous what's a normal instance with sloppy moderation and a few bad apples[^1] versus what's a place that is run by and for bad actors.
There's a wide range of standards that can be applied. It seems like the general vibe can be broken down into three groups:
- Only defederate spammers and child porn
- Only defederate spammers child porn and tankies
- Defederate spammers child porn, tankies, and rampantly fascist troll farms
I don't think anyone has really advocated for anything aggressive than that on here (could be wrong)
[^1]: Although also important to remember that the point of the bad apples thing is that they spoil the whole batch if you don't take them out.
1Staying in federation with an instance that actively embraces bad actors increases the visibility of users here to those bad actors, and gives them access to our community.
It's not our job of shielding others from bad thoughts because they may be swayed by them. And you are denying those who aren't swayed to interct with those thoughts if they so choose.
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I don't understand the point you are trying to make. On the one hand, you say:
Defederating entire instances does not stop bad actors, but an active strongwilled community does.
This makes me think you are saying not to defederate because it would be better to call out bad behavior - interact with the bad actors and point out their falsehoods, hate, etc. But on the other hand, you say:
I don’t interact with them. I don’t provide them with any value.
and
It’s not our responsibility to moderate other instances.
These make me think you are saying just ignore them. And if we're going to just ignore them, how is that different from the perspective of the bad actors, from defederating? How does not moderating and not interacting stop bad actors?
This is all new to me, I don't know the best use of defederating, but I didn't follow the argument you were making.
1Defederating entire instances does not stop bad actors, but an active strongwilled community does.
Defederating doesn't stop bad actors from making an account here, an active strongwilled community here can self-moderate regardless.
I don’t interact with them. I don’t provide them with any value.
I don't go to instances I don't like which I think are shitty and filled with assholes. By doing so I would be giving the instance creators/admins value. If they come here then they can easily be banned by community moderators and admins here.
It’s not our responsibility to moderate other instances.
We cannot moderate other instances from sh.itjust.works, and defederating is a bad attempt to do so. The best we can do is not interact with them (post/comment on their instances), and instead moderate well here.
0Thank you, I see your point now. You are worried bad actors could simply join this instance.
They could, but then they would fall under the guidelines and moderation of this instance. I'm not sure in practice how big of a worry this is.
And bad actors can join without needing to come from a banned instance.
This doesn't change my view of defederation. (I won't claim to know the correct use/threshold for defederation, this is all new to me! I'm mostly here to enjoy the discussions, not worry about what might go wrong.)
1Defederating is made exactly for removing bad actors.
1
I think if we drill down to the real issue here, it's really this: How much control should an instance have over what it's users see and interact with?
Some folks want to be the ones to decide for themselves what they see and interact with, with minimal to no interference by the admin.
Other folks don't want to see or deal with objectionable material, and want the admin to ensure they don't have to.
I think the answer is somewhere between, myself. As others have pointed out, botnet instances and instances with illegal material should be defederated without mercy. Instances with little to no moderation and users that are causing problems on other instances should be considered for defederation too.
Whether to consider other cases of defederation is where it gets greyer to me. An instance that has communities that post questionable stuff, but doesn't break that instances rules, is one such grey area. And to be clear, I'm making the case that those communities and questionable stuff live on that instance.
To other folks, that wouldn't be grey, and I guess that's what we're really discussing.
0Is it possible to ban an instance from my user level? That is, can I prevent myself from seeing their posts and comments on this and other instances? If so, then Blocklists might be the way to go. Sign up for a "no Nazis" list or whatever.
0