Just read that #calckey.social defederated at least one major server (the biggest UK #Mastodon instance) preventing their users interacting and exchanging with each other. Not sure how this walled bubble approach fits in with the enthusiastic attempts to place calckey.social as some kind of mainstream alternative to #Mastodon, but the Calckey grandees may know... I am off for good, I like to make my own decisions on a server with mature and non-arbitrary admin policies. @fediversenews
This defederation and blocking mania (have a look at the blocking list of mastodon.art as a remarkable example) is a risk for the #fediverse and I also believe it is conceptionally questionable, at least if you run some kind of flagship topical or geographical instance. Do what you want on a small community server but if you serve a huge community on a leading instance you need to deploy appropriate, proportionate, non-arbitrary moderation principles. @fediversenews
@choyer@fediversenews There's definitely a lot of room for improvement in regards to communication about instance blocks, as well as perhaps better controls are needed so that complete defederation isn't necessary (i.e. don't federate with not-before-seen users from X server).
From what I've seen there tend to be very good reasons for defederating from servers (i.e. hate speech, mods are asleep and that instance is being spammed with nazi shit, etc). Calckey doesn't have the public block list Mastodon has, so it doesn't show block reasons unfortunately.
@choyer@fediversenews It's not a "risk" for the fediverse. It's the killer feature of the fediverse.
The ability to federate or defederate with other instances means that people can choose their own preferred risk profiles and join a community that matches it.
My community is a queer and gender diverse focused community. So we try to make and sustain an environment where our community members can exist with their barriers down a little bit, where they don't have to live on edge all the time, worried about a hateful transphobe dropping in to their mentions.
And so, to that end, we pre-emptively block a lot of spaces where transphobes hang out.
Now that's not for everyone. Some people prefer to choose for themselves, and that's great, but it means that often, you are blocking etc after receiving abuse. That's ok for some folk, and not for others.
The strength of the fediverse is that communities that favour both approaches exist, and you can find the one that fits your preference.
@ada@choyer@fediversenews The major drawback to that approach is when you find out the moderation doesn't fit AFTER they start blocking your friends. And since being blocked breaks migration, it's not like you can just jump ship.
@BlakeL yeah i do think that is a current shortcoming of migration... that and you can't bring post history so even if you move to a third party "neutral" server that federates with your old server and the blocked server you have friends on, they won't ever be able to see your old posts. really annoying. @ada@choyer@fediversenews
@tarajdactyl@ada@choyer@fediversenews I think Calckey has post migration support, but it only works between the very latest (maybe only beta?) Calckey servers.
@BlakeL oh nice. i probably missed some context of the conversation because i didn't see whatever ada was replying too (ironically because of federation issues 😅 - i think we might still have mastodon.social limited from the spam campaign the other day) @ada@choyer@fediversenews
@BlakeL@tarajdactyl@ada@choyer@fediversenews the post migration is disabled for the time being. I broke it when I tested it a few days ago. See the pinned post on my profile for details.
@ada@choyer@fediversenews what seems to be missing, to me, is some capacity for individual users to block or mute every participant of any given hashtag.
@ada@choyer Is there's a difference between instance "rejection" and "timeline removal"? I thought if an instance was listed under "federated_timeline_removal", only things explicitly followed from that instance would show up on an individual's timeline. And if under "reject", communication is cut completely.
IMO the Fediverse is made for many small instances of approx. 1k to 10k users.
E.g. regional instances on a certain field(s) of interest. Those regional instances federated to bigger 'cities', 'counties',...
So the last step of mastodon suggesting mastodon.social as instance without mentioning others is contraproductive.
It would be a better choice to favour regions or interest groups over one 'monster instance'.
@ada@choyer@fediversenews I disagree. We are supposed to be adults. If we don’t like what someone is tooting we unfollow them or block them.
The sort of gatekeeping that sees whole instances being blocked or defederated is highly problematic and lacks self awareness.
Mastodon already has enough problems with UX and for users to find their instance blocked or their friends blocked would be the final straw. At the very best you’ll end up with tiny enclaves.
That's the wonderful thing, you don't need to agree. The instances you want and the instances I want both exist on the fediverse. And as adults, we can choose the ones that suit us best.
I'm not telling you that you need to let someone make your moderation decisions for you, and similarly, you don't get to tell me that I should subject myself to abusive people because it's more ideologically pure in your mind
@ada@choyer@fediversenews In summary, these are all things you’ll only discover after they’ve happened and when it’s too late to do anything about.
It’s not like shutting a door to keep people out. It’s like boarding up the door of someone else’s house so they can’t get in or out. You’re trapped in side and they’re coming through the windows.
I have lived abuse first hand. I am comfortable taking steps to make sure that my community doesn't have to deal with it. You won't find the right words to suddenly make me think that it's ok.
@ada@choyer@fediversenews I think our disagreement is that you think any other system would lead to abuse, when in fact (as I think you recognise with your comment about fixing) if done properly a more grown up system would provide better protection.
@PhilipKing@choyer@fediversenews Centralised systems are never done properly though, because they're always driven by profit, which in turn rewards the engagement that comes from negativity
When POC and/or members of the LGBTQIA+ community complain about hate speech or even harassment that comes in from certain under-moderated instances in droves, and they say that the only way to stop this is by blocking the whole instance, then there are always white cishet men telling them to grow a pair, deal with it and block the individual users themselves, one by one.
It's easy to tell people how to deal with bullying if you've never been bullied yourself. And it's just as likely for this advice to be bad.
@jupiter_rowland what, a random rich cis-het white man, potentially on the side of a situation where his privilege and power can't get him out of the hole he's dug himself into?
The horror!
We must prevent this travesty from happening, lest it may happen to other cis-het white men!
@ada@choyer@fediversenews defederation is a killer feature if you run your own instance. If you're on somebody else's instance, it is a potentially big problem.
@ada @choyer@fediversenews@oliphant
I'm lucky - as a middle-aged cis-het white man, I'm not subjected to the constant stream of abuse and threats many others get, and have the money, spoons, and technical know-how (just!) to run my own little personal server.
I like being able to choose with whom I federate, with whom I share my thoughts, and the bigots, the haters, the abusers, the MAGAts and Brexiters, are not those people.
<cont>
@ada @choyer@fediversenews@oliphant
Most others don't have those privileges, especially the latter 3, so rely on instance admins proactively protecting their users from those who wish them harm.
I'm also lucky enough to have hooked into the networks of some awesome admins who both introduce me to some awesome people, and provide one less vector for bad-faith actors to view or interact with my posts.
TL;DR - I support the right of any instance to defederate from any other, including my own.
@ada@choyer@fediversenews completely agree Ada. Feeling safer is my favourite thing about hanging out here. I feel I can be myself, instead wearing a whole suit of armour all the time
@choyer@fediversenews
Yeah these over moderated police state Instances are annoying...if anyone want to know some good or bad instances are let me know I got a list going haha...
@choyer@fediversenews Fediverse culture is very sensitive to a range of topics and righteous blocking on the individual or server level is a common response.
It makes joining a server ever more fraught. Who is going to know ahead of time what to beware of? The barriers to entry grow. Migration works poorly, so mistakes have a cost.
I think many discussions will move to Bluesky. I hope the Fediverse will continue as well.
It's a vital tool in keeping communities safe and healthy; especially the most vulnerable in the communities.
If you think this feature is not really useful or harmful even, you aren't part of the groups this feature intends to protect.
There are enough instances that don't block anyone and leave it up to the user to block the people they disagree with.
Instances with this laissez-faire approach to moderation just don't have a lot of visibility because joinmastodon.org, for example, has a server covenant that these servers aren't particularly compatible with, let's put it that way.
"Just read that a flagship non-Mastodon instance blocked at least one major server (the biggest UK #Mastodon instance)"
The background here is that this OP did not read (or chose to ignore) the defederating admin's post where he clearly said they had engaged in an extended convo with "the biggest UK #Mastodon instance" and had received no satisfactory answer or action
But why let accuracy stand in the way of going off endlessly from your own soapbox, eh?
Agree. I got caught by the wave of #Calkey enthusiasm and wanted to give them a chance. Lots to like (both the interface and the actual discussion). But those rash instance blocks prevent me from making it my home.
Mastodonapp.uk is not on any of the Oliphant lists, not even on the very broad Tier-3 that requires only 2 instances requesting a block.
I won't let my access to mainstream Mastodon depend on a single admin who is at odds with all other instances.
@choyer@fediversenews
I just read all the comments and they range from one user being blocked to an entire server being blocked. We may not have the right information.
@choyer@fediversenews Where did you read that? No doubting you, but usually defederating an entire instance doesn't happen without good cause, like spam bots and excessive trolls, etc. Could be that the instance admin over there on the UK server went MIA and overrun with spam. Given what just happened with Mastodon.social having a huge spam attack, I'd give Calckey some benefit of the doubt. The guy that started Calckey seems like he communicates pretty well when he makes changes to things.
@thegardendude@fediversenews I read it on calckey.social. Funnily enough, a user wanted to move to this server from mastodonapp.uk and couldn't, as the whole instance is blocked. The admins seemed to confirm that was the case, but happy to be corrected.
@choyer@fediversenews The other possibility is that perhaps the U.K. police started combing through social networks looking for anti-Monarchist views and given that they were arresting peaceful protestors for no good cause, I wouldn't blame Calckey for not wanting that to reach this site. There's a number of potential reasons, which we don't know with any certainty, so I feel like calling him out is a little premature until we know more.
@thegardendude@fediversenews I really didn't mean to call anyone out, will amend. For me, it is a question of moderation principles, and I have noticed this also on a few other servers. I remember a lively discussion on another instance if they should block or mute mastodon.social. People really need to get a grip.
@choyer@fediversenews Twitter became a shit show in part because of the LACK of policing. Who wants Nazi scum and crypto spam bots bothering you? I sure don't. Most of the time, defederating is a measure of last resort. Most instance admins notify the admin of the instance where attacks and spam are originating from, to give them a chance to get a handle on things. If they're too slow or don't respond at all, THEN that's when defederating and blocking happens. And I think that's reasonable
@thegardendude@fediversenews Totally agree, no one wants Nazis, spammers, radical bigots. But there must be some proportionate non-arbitrary process around this when it comes to a huge country or topical instance. If not, it may be creating a barrier, for example for people who wish to interact with other people from that country instance.
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