Defederation from instances suspected of becoming bots haven

We've defederated from :

lemmy.k6qw.com,lemmy.podycust.co.uk,waveform.social,bbs.darkwitch.net,cubing.social,lemmy.roombob.cat,lemmy.jtmn.dev,lemmy.juggler.jp,bolha.social,sffa.community,dot.surf,granitestate.social,veenk.help,lemmyunchained.net,wumbo.buzz,lemmy.sbs,lemmy.shwizard.chat,clatter.eu,mtgzone.com,oceanbreeze.earth,mindshare.space,lemmy.tedomum.net,voltage.vn,lemmy.fyi,demotheque.com,thediscussion.site,latte.isnot.coffee,news.deghg.org,lemmy.primboard.de,baomi.tv,marginalcuriosity.net,lemmy.cloudsecurityofficehours.com,lemmy.game-files.net,lemmy.fedi.bub.org,lemmy.blue,lemmy.easfrq.live,narod.city,lemmy.ninja,lemmy.reckless.dev,nlemmy.nl,lemmy.mb-server.com,rammy.site,fedit.io,diggit.xyz,slatepacks.com,theotter.social,lemmy.nexus,kleptonix.com,rabbitea.rs,zapad.nstr.no,feddi.no

based on the list of instances made by @sunaurus here - Thank you again for that work, it's highly appreciated.

This is a preventive measure against massive amounts of accounts being created for botting purposes. Most instances banned appear to be 1 user instances so we don't think this will have a great effect on anyone's usage of Beehaw. If you are an admin of one of those instances, feel free to contact us at support@beehaw.org

retronautickz,

Thank you

A question: Is it possible on Lemmy intances to put the reason for defederation beside the server domain on the defederated intances list?

Gaywallet, (edited )
@Gaywallet@beehaw.org avatar

nope but that's a great idea for developers 😄

TKilFree,

I've actually got some PRs out right now to add this: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/pull/3168 https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/pull/1367 They both need a bit of back & forth to get into a mergeable state though, so will probably be a little while!

Nicktar,

Currently it isn't and I don't think, that this would be the best idea ever since it could be misused as some kind of index to find bad instances. The defederated-list is available to the public and thus the defederating instance could in fact be "advertizing" the instances they defederated from ("Look, we don't want this stuff here, but these instances are for [right-wing|transphobes|bots|spammers|porn]")...

Depending on where the instance is hosted or where the admin lives, it might even be illegal to in fact point people to places where they can find certain things.

retronautickz,

In my experience, it helps people new to the fediverse (specially if they want to start their own server) to know who to block/limit. People who actually want to be in those kind of massively defederated instance know how to join them and even have their own list of instances to join, without looking at the list from a small queer instance or even sites like JoinFediverse and the like.

Nicktar,

There are a few different things I'd like to mention:

  • I don't think, that there is such a thing as a massively defederated instance exists right now. The most blocked instance is blocked by about 11% of the instances, followed by two instances at 6%
  • Even if the die hard scene users would know their instances, not every random troll or spammer would.
  • This doesn't address the possible legal issues of publicly announcing where someone could find illegal content
  • If "small queer instance" refers to beehaw... That's the second largest instance there is as of today according to https://github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances

And lastly: If you're new to the fediverse you maybe shouldn't run your own instance in first place. Helping reckless people pull reckless stunts is a bad reason to promote a feature.

retronautickz,
  • Are you looking at all the instances on the fediverse, or only lemmy?
  • Trolls and Spammers would have nothing to do in those kinds of servers.
  • I mean, all other platforms have the option of mentioning the reason for defederation and there hasn't been any legal problem with it nor with fediblock. As I already say, there are few the instances of these type that use the same software/fork than the rest. They have their own forks and this forks have federation cut from other ActivityPub/Zot/Diaspora*/OStatus based software.
  • No, I'm talking about the fediverse in general, not only Lemmy, not only Beehaw. Most of the servers I'm in in other federated platforms are small to mid queer servers that have the list of defederated instances with reason for defederation.
  • This list are also public and downloadable, so anyone can import them to their server.
Nicktar,

Since this was a question about a lemmy feature, I'm talking lemmy here, arguing about fediverse, TCP/IP or electricity numbers/servers/plants doesn't seem usefull in this context. Providing a link to a server that to your knowledge (you provided the reason) hosts illegal content can be seen as participating in this crime or at least advertizing. (Disclaimer: I'm no lawyer, I just remember whole BBS being seized for providing lists of (international) phone numbers to BBS that hosted warez and there's stuff that's worse than warez).

retronautickz,

My question was precisely about Lemmy because Lemmy is one of the few platforms that doesn't have that option. It's common almost everywhere else and hasn't caused any problem.

alyaza,
@alyaza@beehaw.org avatar

here is a list, btw, of tools we'd like if possible:

  • Role for approval of applications (to delegate)
  • Site mods (to delegate from admins)
  • Auto-report posts with certain keywords or domains (for easier time curating without reports)
  • Statistics on growth (user, comments, posts, reports)
    • User total
    • MUA
    • User retention
    • Number of comments
    • Number of posts
    • Number of reports open
    • Number of reports resolved
  • Sort reports
    • by resolved/open
    • by local/remote
  • Different ways to resolved a report
    • Suspend account for a limited amount of time rather than just banning
    • Send warning
  • Account mod info
    • Number of 'strikes' (global and local) and reports
    • Moderation notes
    • Change email
    • Change password
    • Change role
  • Ability to pin messages in a post
  • Admins should be able to purge
  • Filter modlog to local
  • Better federation tools (applications to communities, limiting)
    • Applications to communities to allow safe spaces to exist (people should not be able to just "walk in" on a safe space - similarly to follow requests in Mastodon in a way)
    • Limiting (Lock our communities down from certain instances but still allow people using our instance to talk to people from those instances)

federation tools are our highest priority, but any of these would be welcome additions

mario,

hey, my fedit.io instance is clear now. I deleted the entire db.

Helix,

Maybe we should not federate by default but rather have admins send us an email to request federation, just like users have to send an email with a request to register?

Or not federate by default if the registration is open without requiring an email?

Hirom,

This would add friction since it would give lots of work for new instances. They'd need to manually ask federation with every other instance. Besides how would admins vet other instances?

An idea would be to allow any new instance to federate in one-direction mode (eg other instances' user can see public beehaw post). Then after a waiting period automatically move them to read-only bidirectional mode (users see other the other instance's posts, but can't post), then after another period move them to full read-write federation mode.

It would give time for admins to vet the instance during an observation/waiting period, and the level of trust would incrementally increase over time if no block/action is taken by admins.

MaskedMan,

Begun, the bot wars have.

Dandylion,

Side note, life has been so much better in my feed since defederating from the instances that were becoming furry/gonewild heavy. Thank you for your diligence.

Nullroad,

Some risk will be necessary. At some level we do have to let small instances with minuscule communities exist and participate in the wider fediverse, otherwise this whole thing will just fiat centralize.

The cautionary tale is email. In a way, Email is the most successful decentralized protocol. Anyone can technically throw up a client and start communicating with any other email server. The problem of course, is that if you do this in practice, your email will almost never get through to the majority of people. Why? Most of the large providers of email have formed what amounts to a whitelist of trust, and either outright reject participants they don't recognize, or subject those outside participants to incredibly high standards that they themselves to not have to abide by.

So, email has practically become a centralized affair controlled by a few big stakeholders. A lot of small email providers have gotten out of the game in the last decade because they're tired of dealing with it. It's a mess.

I'm not against greater tools, but I'd inject that health is not solely measured by the lack of spam. A spam-free fediverse that's just one instance and its three closest friends is not healthy. Whatever solutions are developed should leave open the door for small instances to still participate and have a honest chance at survival.

WellThisIsNew,
@WellThisIsNew@fjdk.uk avatar

Thank you for eloquently putting something that I have been struggling to put into words. I really hope that the big instances don’t all end up moving to a whitelist federation model, the ability to have my own instance, with the ability to interact with any community in the fediverse, is what brought me here.

That said, a lot work needs to go into making this platform more resilient against spam bots. The biggest problem I see is that the default instance settings aren’t resistant at all. It seems to me that it shouldn’t even be possible to deploy a lemmy instance with no email verification, no captcha, and open sign-ups, but here we are.

Perhaps some sort of sanity check in lemmy that disables federation in that case might be a good idea. If someone is competent enough to implement their own spam protection beyond those, they’re probably competent enough to fork lemmy and disable said sanity check

gifflen,

The email comparison is pretty apt. I think one of the things they eventually had to deal with was reputation of different entities. Right now it's essentially a boolean situation for the various server admins to identify things that could cause trouble and take preventative steps of blocking or not blocking them.

We would need to answer so e questions around how to quantify what good behavior looks like in lemmy that aren't trivial to game/bypass.

freeman,

I added these to my list as well. I am still seriously back and forth on whether to open my instance up in a week or so.

You all are one of the larger instances. Is there anyt outreach or communications that can be made to ensure I dont end up on said list?

Lionir,

You can always send us an email if that ever happens.

That said - if you open, enable captcha and honestly, I'd recommend you do an application process and think about the community you wanna build.

freeman,

That said - if you open, enable captcha and honestly, I’d recommend you do an application process and think about the community you wanna build.

Yeah that's a definite thing on mine now as is, if for no other reason than to maintain clean relations with my hosting provider. TBH my instance will be user/federated only. Dont really have the time or willpower to moderate communities. Just want a place for folks to sign up and be able to access other communities like yours.

But that will also require some coordination in some cases. Dont really have any care to host trolls or folks that argue in bad faith though either. Will easily just ban em.

Lionir,

Dont really have the time or willpower to moderate communities. Just want a place for folks to sign up and be able to access other communities like yours.

Oh, what I meant is - what demographic are you trying to get? Are you trying to get everyone? Nice people? People from a certain region? Not necessarily making a community group on your server

Though, for trollings, since you get all the reports about your users, that should be easy enough

HappyMeatbag,
@HappyMeatbag@beehaw.org avatar

I’d almost begin to think about the possibility of maybe respecting someone’s honesty if they named their instance something straightforward like lemmy.bothaven.fu

patchymoose,

I have an account with Rammy that I had created specifically because I wanted to be able to interact with both Beehaw and Lemmy.World. It is so hard to find an instance that lets me interact with both, because Beehaw keeps defederating things. Does anyone have any advice on an instance I can join which federates with both Beehaw and Lemmy.world, and isn't going to get on Beehaw's defederating list in a week?

BobQuasit,
@BobQuasit@beehaw.org avatar

Kbin?

RichByy,
@RichByy@beehaw.org avatar

iusearchlinux.fyi seems to be a good idea! Also the name is great. :D

crisisingot,

probably the main lemmy.ml would be safe. I feel you though, I had the same problem when I lost access to communities on lemmy.world too

crisisingot,

Also, your admin might be able to reach out to beehaw.org if they are not hosting spam.

Zetaphor,

Just sent you a DM, haven't actually tried that feature yet.

patchymoose,

Got it, thank you sir!

can,

What feature?

retronautickz, (edited )

Here you have a list of Lemmy instances, check the defederation list of both Beehaw and Lemmy World to see which is better from you.

Have you thought on joining a Kbin server instead? They're all open to new registrations and you can see and interact with Beehaw and Lemmy World content from there as none of them are defederated.

Lionir,

Rammy.site has 1.53K users even though it has 34 posts. It is currently being botted. Sorry.

patchymoose,

I guess I'm just frustrated because people have constantly told me to join a small instance and not overload the big ones. But then when you join a small instance, it gets botted exactly because it's small and the admins don't have the resources. So now I am back to square one! I don't have loyalty to any particular instance, I just want to see everything from everybody, and it feels like it shouldn't be this difficult. Sorry for venting.

lixus98,
lixus98 avatar

Have you tried kbin?

alanine96,

In this case the best idea is probably to make an account on beehaw and a separate account on other servers, and just keep the two separate. Beehaw by policy doesn't plan on federating with all servers at all times, particularly very large ones, so you may have to shift to thinking of it as another site you're on that happens to interface with your other Lemmy instances, vs. part of your main Lemmy experience. It's explicitly trying to be separate, so seeing everything at once is inherently difficult.

I've done this as well, and am enjoying separating these parts of my experience and breaking away from the idea of seeing everything at all at once. It gives some intentionality to my internet experience that I felt I was lacking on Reddit and Twitter.

patchymoose,

That's good advice, thank you! That's what I guess I'll do for now until the kinks get worked out of the Fediverse.

alongwaysgone,

That's what I've come to the conclusion of. I assume I'll have an account here on beehaw, and another on Lemmy.world, at the very least that stay active.

Manticore,
@Manticore@beehaw.org avatar

Beehaw's intention and policy is why I like beehaw. Its mission is to be a community with high rates of constructive contribution, and that's exactly what I'm looking for - not merely a high-traffic relay station.

I do have an account on another instance with looser federations for tracking migrated or niche communities, but it is beehaw that I load when I want to read what people have to say.

Manticore,
@Manticore@beehaw.org avatar

I'd suggest making several accounts. The beehaw communities are large enough that I don't need to leave beehaw to still see a lot of interesting things, and I have another lemmy account on a different instance for seeing most everything else.

It really doesn't cost anything to have multiple Lemmy accounts, any more than it does to manage multiple email addresses. To a degree, it's even helpful for diversifying the content you see even further - beehaw is curated for quality and contribution; most instances are not.

My beehaw account is where I have my most interesting discussions. My 'out in the wilds' account will mostly be for browsing the wealth of content that is not curated, for better or for worse.

halvdan,

I'm not sure sopuli.xyz accepts new applications at the moment, but I can see and interact with most instances when logged in there, including beehaw and Lemmy.world. No affiliation, so do your own research first. They have a similar application process as beehaw so it should be relatively safe from bots and defederation. No NSFW/extremist content I've seen at least. It is quite small, though.

qjkxbmwvz,

I signed up with SDF Chatter, which was recommended by Awesome Lemmy Instances, which in turn was recommended by Join Lemmy. No complaints so far.

AfterAll,

Glad to hear it, beehaw owns.

trashhalo,

Is there a canonical list of which instances are defederated

Lionir,

Yes, https://beehaw.org/instances

AndrasKrigare,

Do you believe this will be a workable model going forward, or are you considering changing to an Allowlist for federation and have instances specifically request to federate?

Lionir,

An allowlist would be nice if non-Allowlisted instances could still be discoverable by people using Beehaw IMO.

TheCalzoneMan,

And then users from inside Beehaw could request federation maybe?

Lionir,

I mean, anyone could send us an email and we'd do a quick review. Adding then removing someone from the allowlist is easier if they cause trouble.

alyaza,
@alyaza@beehaw.org avatar

we don't think we need to switch to an allowlist--we actually haven't been hit by this spam problem much if at all to this point--but we'd also really like it if we had better mod tools so we can just flat rule out needing to switch to one ever

blazix,
blazix avatar

I can also see there being blocklists similar to uBlock Origin or other browser extensions. Except, it will be done at the instance level by admins.

storksforlegs,
@storksforlegs@beehaw.org avatar

This is an enormous undertaking (all the moderating) and we all appreciate it.

What's the best way for beehaw users to support you and the other mods?

Lionir,

If you're capable, probably working on Lemmy's codebase to improve the mod and federation tools.

If not, donations would be appreciated

HappyMeatbag,
@HappyMeatbag@beehaw.org avatar

I know nothing about coding, so I went the donation route. It’s like when friends of mine had potluck dinners, but I couldn’t cook, so I just brought the beer lol

JackbyDev,

What sort of tools are lacking? Like, if there was a change you could make what would it be?

Lionir,

We have a list here https://discuss.online/post/12787 and in this thread by alyaza.

ffmike,
@ffmike@beehaw.org avatar

Thanks as always to the apparently-tireless admins.

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