Thank you for telling me what I want, I guess? There’s a lot between “open” and “closed” internet. Defederation is certainly more towards closed than open, no? And I would prefer it to go the other way, that’s all.

I completely agree. Believe me, I get why the admins are making the choices they are. In the current situation of how the fediverse works, it’d be stupid not to act. I just hope that it’s able to be addressed- no more proliferation of CSAM through duplication on every instance, better moderation, more control- so that defederation doesn’t have to be used in these situations.

It is a gung-ho way, but I understand why I’m being downvoted. People hear “I want to have the ability to view anything” or “I don’t like being told what I can or cannot view on the internet” as “I want to view CSAM” or “I am actually a Nazi”, which should result in an emotional reaction. It’s just not what I’m saying.

Please read the rest of this thread to see how I deal with non-idiots.

How on EARTH do you read that anecdote and come away with “Yeah he’s a Nazi” and not “Man that person was an idiot and Nazi labels are used way too liberally”? Like actually how? Do you wear a helmet to bed?

I’d say that’s fair. I understand that what I want is unlikely to come about, it’s a somewhat extreme view, and due to Lemmy’s current configuration, admins are on the hook legally for everything posted on their server. Something needs to change for defederation to change, and it’s very likely that defederation won’t change. I’ve only ever been expressing a concern of mine. Lemmy doesn’t cater to my will- I’m not even a programmer, I couldn’t do any of this stuff even if I had the power to do so. I just hope that it does change.

feddit.nl invites illegal content? Someone should let them know that, they’re doing an outstandingly bad job at it if that’s the case.

Absolutely agreed. I hope that becomes a feature soon, I know it is or was being worked on.

That helped me to understand what you meant, thank you, but I guess I don’t see this analogy as very accurate. A Nazi showing up at a bar and being asked to leave is not what I’m against- that’s what moderation IS. What is more accurate here is that a Nazi shows up at a bar, and a completely separate group arrives at the same time. Since they arrived together, they are ALL made to leave, despite none of them controlling the Nazi’s behavior. That’s what defederation is like on that side, and the other is that I am told that I am not allowed to visit the Nazi bar. To be clear, I have no interest in visiting the Nazi bar, but my issue is- how do I trust that it IS a Nazi bar if I’m not allowed to visit? I’ve seen so many people called “Nazi” in the past ten years it blows my mind, and of them, only a tenth or fewer are what I would consider Nazis/neo-Nazis. I’ve been called Nazi in real life because I expressed my opinion to a friend that I was disappointed Ariel was cast the way she was. Do I hate black people? No, I just think redheads are hot and I was disappointed. Juvenile, absolutely, but worth being called “Nazi” by a passersby who overheard? This is obviously an exaggerated example, but I believe the point stands.

I didn’t say they SHOULD work outside the law. What are you talking about? When I say “pedo instances”, I don’t mean ones that post real life CASM.

I’m unfortunately unable to host an instance. I wish I could, honestly.

I know a lot of people agree with you. I’m just not one of them. I prefer a more open internet is all, where individuals are responsible for their own personal “defederations”, and don’t lose access to vast portions of the fediverse due to someone else’s actions and decisions unless they go out of their way to keep instance hopping.

I mentioned elsewhere, I don’t have the ability to run my own instance. Mastodon also has user migration tools, making it much easier to start up a new account on a different instance. Lemmy does not. I’m also not even talking just about myself. There’s been drama about large instances defederating from each other since I joined- which, to be fair, was only a few months ago, but it’s also when the population exploded and defederation became a real concern. My main problem is the simple idea that, due to actions entirely outside of my control, large sections of the fediverse can just disappear for my account, forcing me to either accept the newer, smaller fediverse, or make a new account somewhere else that happens to federate with both my previous instance AND the defederated instance if I want a single account to view the same content I used to.

I don’t host a community. At a basic level, I would like the ability to view (and I mean VIEW, not even necessarily interact with- I cannot force my interaction on anyone) the entire fediverse for myself. If other people want others to tell them which areas align with their views, they can join instances that block other instances from being able to participate. I just wish that didn’t mean the defederated instance could no longer even view the blocking instance.

I’m legitimately unfamiliar with the term. I’m being very genuine. I’m not sure what you mean about the Nazi bar, either. I’m encouraging users to curate their own experiences. Any time they see a Nazi, they can figuratively erase that Nazi from their personal existence. If they see a Nazi bar, they can erase that too. I object to being TOLD, rather than deciding for myself, what bars are Nazi bars.

Two problems can exist simultaneously. I’m suggesting that something should be done about defederation, and the things that lead to it (like automatic image proliferation), because if defederation continues as it is, it will hurt user retention.

Ah yes, the two things- acceptable things and CASM. EVERYTHING IS ONE OF THOSE THINGS.

Yes, but I outlined my reasons for wanting no defederation. VLemmy was perfect- refused to defederate, actively moderated- until the issue with image federation spooked him. Also, saying “illegal content” is a bit meaningless on a globally distributed platform. On both instances- feddit.nl and VLemmy- many users outlined very similar rationale to me when the issue of defederation came up, and you and I both know that defederation is not used only for unmoderated instances. Lemmygrad is aggressively moderated and defederated from most instances because the owners find the political views expressed there distasteful, and that’s not the only one.

It just introduces so much personal bias into the fediverse, where individuals who don’t like Thing A defederates from instances that allow Thing A, cutting their entire instance off from it. Again, yes, you can join other instances, but that quickly gets annoying trying to find another instance that aligns with your Thing A-positive or neutral views. This is what I’m referring to when I say that it will kill the momentum- users getting frustrated and having to make multiple accounts to essentially dodge a completely unjustified ban (assuming they weren’t the ones doing the Bad Thing that caused the defederation) will lead to burnout and lost user retention.

As I also said, there will certainly be an impulse to say “good riddance, we don’t need them anyway”, but I think it’ll lead to more problems. The fediverse has existed as a small pocket of internet for a while. However, things don’t shrink as easily as they grow. If lemmy continues to get time and money and resources poured into its development for an ever-shrinking userbase, it won’t just go back to how it was. Growth is hard to undo.

I never said I didn’t understand. I’m pointing out a problem that can, and I believe, will, lead to issues with user retention. If one is punished for the bad actions of someone on their instance that they have no control over, it will lead to frustration. I know this because it has happened to me twice now- once with vlemmy disappearing due to someone posting something bad that spooked the admin, and now feddit.nl because someone posted something bad that spooked these admins. I’m not saying it’s not understandable, I’m merely saying that a problem exists.

I do understand. I’m expressing a worry that things like this will lead to trouble for the fediverse’s user retention. Nowhere did I say that I didn’t understand the reasoning. It’s not a requirement to have a solution at hand when pointing out a problem. An instance as large as lemmy.world defederating from an instance as large as feddit.nl is a problem. Is the solution giving moderators better tools? Stopping the automatic proliferation of images? Removing the image hosting entirely to rely on external hosts? Or is this an insurmountable problem with no solution? The specific answer, or even existence of an answer, does not determine whether the problem itself exists.