> It's very common on Mastodon to block servers with a heavy hand, with huge blocklists such as "Fediblock" naming nearly every server on the network. This is a big problem, because it creates a fragmented network where people cannot communicate with each other.
This "problem" is actually a feature. The requirement that everyone must be able to communicate with one another is a fallacy.
An admin of an instance has a right to block any server they wish to block, just as a user of that instance has a right to move to another one if their instance's administration policy doesn't suit them. This includes Threads, since it decides to become one of the many other instances on the Fediverse.
> goes against the open nature of the Fediverse
The nature of the Fediverse is that it is decentralized and that you, as an instance administrator, own your instance, with all the ups and downs of that fact. Who are you to impose your own limitations upon owners of other instances and tell them what they should or shouldn't do with their own hardware and their own software?
This seems fair, unless these blocklists are used to bully neutral servers into adopting your blocklist?
Let's say there's a federation of bully admins who dislike Server Wrongthink. There's a moderate server Moderate which they're federated with, but Moderate does not block Wrongthink.
In this scenario, will Moderate get blocked too? Or only Wrongthink?
Why does threads have to do that? Server blocks are incredibly common in the fediverse and last time this came up as a complaint people defended this religiously as being just how stuff works. The server I'm on has an incredibly large blocklist and it's not even entirely clear what it blocks given that half the blocks themselves are censored: https://hachyderm.io/about
This is exactly what one would expect to find if the fediverse can't agree on shared rules.
I think the issues with server blocks are mainly related to the way administrators use them to settle personal beefs or play a nuclear negotiation game with other admins who they want to impose their moderation policies on. "Moderate my way or you'll all be defederated."
Mastodon administrators aren't "faceless corporations," they are people with as many personality flaws and weaknesses as your coworkers or any other group of techies you didn't get to choose to work with. Some of them are Machiavellian narcissists, who want to decide how the entire network functions - and they're not afraid to use their ability to sever social connections with unaware users as a negotiating tool.
The complaint by the author that Meta should moderate individual users rather than simply block "loosely moderated" servers feels like an unreasonable expectation.
Exactly; one of the most valuable things federation brings to the table is the ability to choose which servers to federate with and which not to. I don't want Meta moderating individual users on sites they don't own.
I suppose it fits with the rest of this article being rather disingenuous. Alex Gleason, Spinster and Neenster are part of a controversial group that detractors call "trans-exclusionary radical feminism." For better or for worse (the details of this controversy are not necessarily relevant), instances of that nature (and pretty much anything that runs on Soapbox) are defederated by a lot of Fediverse servers, and it seems that Meta for one reason or another has joined those servers. Gleason is well aware of this controversy.
My best guess is that Meta hopes to make itself appear more palatable to mainstream Mastodon servers by also defederating.
>Meta seems to be betting on the fact that people have played nicely in the past, but I for one am not going to let them have their way. I am going to ensure the data they publish remains free and open to all.
is there a name for this behavior? 'in-your-face-ism?' Choosing who to federate with is an explicit feature of federation. It's precisely what a lot of servers wanted to do with traffic from Threads, and they should have the ability to.
There's an increasing number of people in social communities who seemingly want to have a right to not just have their own space, but insert themselves into spaces of people who have kicked them out, or don't want anything to do with them.
The principle of free association isn't just anyone should be able to associate with those that feel the same way, it's also that people shouldn't have to with those they don't.
It's an odd omission that the "feminist server" mentioned is actually a gathering place for TERFs, after they were banned from places like Reddit. If your community is problematic enough to be kicked off of Reddit, I can imagine your users/content may not be desirable to Meta/Threads' brand, either.
The banned subreddits are archived here, they weren't particularly problematic, but the 'TERF' viewpoints they expressed angered the people-of-gender in the Reddit admin team so much that they decided to ban the whole lot: https://www.itsafetish.org/archives/gendercritical
It's unfortunate because there was often a lot of interesting and thought-provoking discussion there that hasn't quite been replicated on its successor, Ovarit.
Meh tbh reddit bans everyone now, it's not the place it once was where if you're banned on reddit you have to be particularly bad. People have been banned for liking a president, it's not like that's some fringe ideology. Banning feminists for thinking feminism is for females is pretty heavy handed.
I think it's probably a pretty bad idea to publish someone's stuff (content on threads) somewhere they don't want it published (a shitposting server). Feels like a TOS or copyright violation, if not just rude.
In case the author doesn't know or willfully didn't post the reason Spinster is banned both on Threads and Mastadon; the server is a safe haven for TERFs who co-opt feminism as the cover for open seething transphobia disguised as criticism when communicating to a wider audience. Credit where it's due they're much smarter than your typical bigots and know how to hide it better to avoid bans.
The fact that the OP is out here defending them as just feminists is the a sign it's working. There is nothing in feminist thought that would earn them a ban on any major social network that isn't that "gender critical" nonsense.
Whether or not you agree with the position or not Threads calls what they do hate speech and so defederating makes total sense from their perspective.
The author of this was the head of engineering at Truth Social: https://www.reuters.com/technology/head-engineering-trumps-t.... He also runs/ran several "GC" focused instances, and worked at Gab (the "alt-right" social media that rebased itself on Mastodon). This is an intentionally vague post by someone with a bad history, trying to play cover for instances that Meta obviously doesn't want to associate with.
That part actually confused me, because TERFs don't usually bother Meta. Here is a sample post that they showed the admin of neuromatch.social (on his Instagram, as an ad for Threads): https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/111633121548703898 An unsympathetic test case, but it made me wonder if I missed something else going on.
"TERF" is just the newest slur anti-feminists came up with to further the evil feminist trope. Anyone who looks into the conflict between feminism and the transgender movement can see that the so-called "TERFs" are the ones on the side of common sense, fairness, and universal anti-discrimination principles.
They don't "co-opt feminism", they are feminists - the radical kind. Which is essentially about about recognising and removing male dominance over women, in all contexts.
Isn't the entire point of the fediverse that users and admins can block entire servers to create a curated experience? Why does this author hate the open internet?
By default a curated view which probably group-minimizes the posts, unless the user decides to go uncurated.
One could think of categories of curation, levels, etc (AI could understand sarcasm).
No need to shadow ban or ban full servers, just group curated-out content and always let the user decides, unless the account was adult gated with adult temporal wallet code (there will be a black market ofc, but if control is done properly, that should stay anecdotal).
phoe-krk|2 years ago
This "problem" is actually a feature. The requirement that everyone must be able to communicate with one another is a fallacy.
An admin of an instance has a right to block any server they wish to block, just as a user of that instance has a right to move to another one if their instance's administration policy doesn't suit them. This includes Threads, since it decides to become one of the many other instances on the Fediverse.
> goes against the open nature of the Fediverse
The nature of the Fediverse is that it is decentralized and that you, as an instance administrator, own your instance, with all the ups and downs of that fact. Who are you to impose your own limitations upon owners of other instances and tell them what they should or shouldn't do with their own hardware and their own software?
orblivion|2 years ago
gettodachoppa|2 years ago
Let's say there's a federation of bully admins who dislike Server Wrongthink. There's a moderate server Moderate which they're federated with, but Moderate does not block Wrongthink.
In this scenario, will Moderate get blocked too? Or only Wrongthink?
the_mitsuhiko|2 years ago
Why does threads have to do that? Server blocks are incredibly common in the fediverse and last time this came up as a complaint people defended this religiously as being just how stuff works. The server I'm on has an incredibly large blocklist and it's not even entirely clear what it blocks given that half the blocks themselves are censored: https://hachyderm.io/about
This is exactly what one would expect to find if the fediverse can't agree on shared rules.
whatshisface|2 years ago
Mastodon administrators aren't "faceless corporations," they are people with as many personality flaws and weaknesses as your coworkers or any other group of techies you didn't get to choose to work with. Some of them are Machiavellian narcissists, who want to decide how the entire network functions - and they're not afraid to use their ability to sever social connections with unaware users as a negotiating tool.
TOMDM|2 years ago
lynndotpy|2 years ago
LTom|2 years ago
My best guess is that Meta hopes to make itself appear more palatable to mainstream Mastodon servers by also defederating.
Barrin92|2 years ago
is there a name for this behavior? 'in-your-face-ism?' Choosing who to federate with is an explicit feature of federation. It's precisely what a lot of servers wanted to do with traffic from Threads, and they should have the ability to.
There's an increasing number of people in social communities who seemingly want to have a right to not just have their own space, but insert themselves into spaces of people who have kicked them out, or don't want anything to do with them.
TOMDM|2 years ago
The principle of free association isn't just anyone should be able to associate with those that feel the same way, it's also that people shouldn't have to with those they don't.
__float|2 years ago
guckle|2 years ago
It's unfortunate because there was often a lot of interesting and thought-provoking discussion there that hasn't quite been replicated on its successor, Ovarit.
drannex|2 years ago
He was also previously the head of engineering of the Trump-related social network Truth Social.
He also [worked on Poast](https://www.dailydot.com/debug/truth-social-poast-donald-tru...), which is a social network for neo-nazis and a direct successor to Kiwi Farms.
Steer clear of it.
friend_and_foe|2 years ago
taylanub|2 years ago
[deleted]
redserk|2 years ago
Given this is how the instance admin handles defederation, preemptive defederation of this network makes sense.
yunohn|2 years ago
camgunz|2 years ago
orblivion|2 years ago
Spivak|2 years ago
The fact that the OP is out here defending them as just feminists is the a sign it's working. There is nothing in feminist thought that would earn them a ban on any major social network that isn't that "gender critical" nonsense.
Whether or not you agree with the position or not Threads calls what they do hate speech and so defederating makes total sense from their perspective.
biggestfan|2 years ago
sp332|2 years ago
taylanub|2 years ago
wjhill|2 years ago
fretbroad|2 years ago
vero24|2 years ago
fbdrgvv|2 years ago
taimurkazmi|2 years ago
drannex|2 years ago
He also [worked on Poast](https://www.dailydot.com/debug/truth-social-poast-donald-tru...), which was a social network for neo-nazis and a direct successor to Kiwi Farms.
Steer clear of it.
Ylmaz|2 years ago
PlutoIsAPlanet|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
sylware|2 years ago
By default a curated view which probably group-minimizes the posts, unless the user decides to go uncurated.
One could think of categories of curation, levels, etc (AI could understand sarcasm).
No need to shadow ban or ban full servers, just group curated-out content and always let the user decides, unless the account was adult gated with adult temporal wallet code (there will be a black market ofc, but if control is done properly, that should stay anecdotal).
decremental|2 years ago
[deleted]
Observer3082|2 years ago
[deleted]
tamimio|2 years ago
[deleted]
taylanub|2 years ago