Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Threads is blocking servers on the Fediverse. Here's how we unblocked ourselves.

soapbox.pub

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 67 posts

Re: Threads is blocking servers on the Fediverse. Here's how we unblocked ourselves.

#21

Post by phoe-krk »

whatshisface wrote: post #19
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #13

> Threads must moderate users, not servers 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…

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…

> Moderate my way or you'll all be defederated.

And it's a feature, too. The users trust their administration team with their presence on a given instance and actually defer their moderation choices to them - something that's impossible on other, centralized platforms. If a moderator of an instance serves the moderation wishes of the users of that instance, and everyone on that instance is happy, then what's the problem?

Re: Threads is blocking servers on the Fediverse. Here's how we unblocked ourselves.

#22

Post by orblivion »

phoe-krk wrote: post #12

> 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…

This system solves the "safe space problem" and the "free speech problem" at the same time if only both sides could recognize it.

Re: Threads is blocking servers on the Fediverse. Here's how we unblocked ourselves.

#24

Post by whatshisface »

phoe-krk wrote: post #21
whatshisface wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Moderate my way or you'll all be defederated. And it's a feature, too. The users trust their administration team with their presence on a given instance and actually defer their moderation choices to them - something that's impossible on other, centralized platforms. If a moderator of an instance serves the moderation wishes of the users of that instance, and everyone on that instance is happy, then what's the prob…

You might be imagining a server full of spam and Nazis, totally unmoderated except for compliance with basic laws, when you think of a server block. I am talking about a case such as where an admin had an argument with one user on another server and then blocked the entire server as a negotiation tactic to force the user's admin to ban them. The users on the Machiavellian admin's server didn't know this was happening because server blocks show up in the form of mysterious disappeances of some of your friends.

The free market argument for the belief that everything an admin does is necessarily good if they still have any users left after they do it is flawed, because users do not know all that much about what their admins are doing, and don't have a way of knowing whether a server they're thinking about switching to is better or worse.

Re: Threads is blocking servers on the Fediverse. Here's how we unblocked ourselves.

#25

Post by biggestfan »

Spivak wrote: post #17

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 ou…

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.

Re: Threads is blocking servers on the Fediverse. Here's how we unblocked ourselves.

#27

Post by Spivak »

biggestfan wrote: post #25
Spivak wrote: post #17

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 ou…

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.

Welp that answers that I guess.

I do feel bad for these women who for whatever reason hate trans people so much they align themselves with groups that will throw them under the bus the instant they stop being useful.

Re: Threads is blocking servers on the Fediverse. Here's how we unblocked ourselves.

#28

Post by phoe-krk »

orblivion wrote: post #22
phoe-krk wrote: post #12

> 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…

This system solves the "safe space problem" and the "free speech problem" at the same time if only both sides could recognize it.

It's on the users to recognize and define the distinction between safe space and free speech - unlike on other platforms, where it's the global moderators' job.

Re: Threads is blocking servers on the Fediverse. Here's how we unblocked ourselves.

#29

Post by camgunz »

whatshisface wrote: post #24
phoe-krk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Moderate my way or you'll all be defederated. And it's a feature, too. The users trust their administration team with their presence on a given instance and actually defer their moderation choices to them - something that's impossible on other, centralized platforms. If a moderator of an instance serves the moderation wishes of the users of that instance, and everyone on that instance is happy, then what's the prob…

You might be imagining a server full of spam and Nazis, totally unmoderated except for compliance with basic laws, when you think of a server block. I am talking about a case such as where an admin had an argument with one user on another server and then blocked the entire server as a negotiation tactic to force the user's admin to ban them. The users on the Machiavellian admin's server didn't know this was happening…

You can imagine all kinds of scenarios, but it comes down to "are users of server X forced to handle content from server Y". It can be both good and bad, but either way the Fediverse chose "no".

Re: Threads is blocking servers on the Fediverse. Here's how we unblocked ourselves.

#30

Post by sp332 »

Spivak wrote: post #17

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 ou…

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.
Post reply on HN