Local admin can literally do whatever the fuck they want. It's up to them what code the instance runs, and it doesn't have to be pure or official lemmy.
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2025
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- We are not YPTB. If you have a problem with the way an instance or community is run, then take it up over at !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com.
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What is this called - some kind of reverse defederation?
Some anti-birgading measure I guess.
I wonder why they would bother?
Unless OP is merely referring to the feature that hides certain specified remote communities from their users, a measure that is similar to defederation but does not block the entire instance, only one community at a time. I've seen instances do that for e.g. Chapotraphouse, seemingly in order to salvage the rest of the communities on that instance by merely blocking the most controversial one(s).
But to actually show the content while not allowing users to interact with it... seems so strange.
Good to know.
I'm not sure if this is pushing that, but I personally don't get the "fediverse mods/admins bad, centralised power has no benefit" argument. Like, duh. Of course they have control. That's how we're keeping the CSAM out.
Lemmy/Federated social media is FOSS. Instance admins have direct physical access to their instances. In theory, they can alter them to function however they like.
The deal is this, they keep being BDFLs, or we users replace them by setting up our own instance/community.
The difference between corporate social media, and here, is that none of us can just decide to become a facebook admin. And if we could, no-one could escape our decisions by switching instances.
If you think there's a problem, and aren't prepared to set out and become a fediverse admin yourself in order to solve it, or fork the codebase if you think mod and admin features shouldn't exist, then you're just waiting for someone else to solve these problems.
If you are prepared to run an instance, or create a fork, then you are the solution to the problem you are complaining about.
I don't like fediverse architecture, I'd rather have moderation to be subscription-based (like you sub to a hide/banlist), to separate the concerns. Ofc platform admins should still have rights to ban those who try to destroy the communication itself, like posting 10k messages a thread etc.
I don't care much about it in lemmy cause idgaf about my account here, I could create a new one and no value is lost. However, if account itself and people subscribing to you is valuable, this tech sucks.
I completely disagree.
The same person who creates a niche instance/community, is often ideal for moderating it. The fostering of a community around a given subject (not people) is what motivates volunteer maintenance of said community.
What's the incentive for your subscription banlist maintainers? How would communities form in such a system?
You say community as if it's not just an access point to the federation.
incentices
Show the amount of subs on the moderation stream - topN can be proud of themselves. Can ask for donations too I guess.
how would communities form
I imagine some space for moderation of specific subjects would emerge, like you don't want to see nazies = you run nazi-block list & check out others lists. Moderation could be thematic and specific.
You seem to be confusing my use of the word community with lemmy terminology. I am using it both as that, and as its dictionary definition.
Bragging rights and money are not healthy motivators. You'd be replacing personal interest, in the subject at hand. That puts every other potential motivator to shame.
Moderation could be thematic and specific.
It isn't already?
You're suggesting communities will form in the negative space created by people removing the same things. I don't think that'd work.
And it's definitely not how you foster niche communities. That's how you drown them. Currently they survive in positive space, where even a small numbers of users, browsing using their subbed feed, leads to regular activity even with a tiny usercount. Even as the posts are essentially invisible in all.
I am asking how would such communities in your system survive, let alone form? Tags completely disconnected from a host instance?
That's what bluesky does for their decentralized network.
Fun fact: Piefed developers have baked into the code that their users cannot see any comments, replies or posts from hexbear (probably lemmygrad too) thus undermining the entire point of federation and forcing us to see their slop while being unable to reply or refute their wild claims.
You can still federate after the instance setup, like piefed.zip does
Yeah I saw the dozen other times you spammed this.
I posted it 3 times, not sure why you are saying "dozen"
Because bad faith is the default for this person
Wait does it really?
Yes. It's in their database init code:
https://codeberg.org/rimu/pyfedi/src/commit/f3e863d277932b55a15b1fe5043d750994fb8c14/app/cli.py
banned_instances = ['anonib.al', 'lemmygrad.ml', 'gab.com', 'rqd2.net', 'exploding-heads.com',
'hexbear.net',
'threads.net', 'noauthority.social', 'pieville.net', 'links.hackliberty.org',
'poa.st', 'freespeechextremist.com', 'bae.st', 'nicecrew.digital',
'detroitriotcity.com',
'pawoo.net', 'shitposter.club', 'spinster.xyz', 'catgirl.life', 'gameliberty.club',
'yggdrasil.social', 'beefyboys.win', 'brighteon.social', 'cum.salon', 'wizard.casa']
That feels like overreach, no?
It's bullshit cowardice.
You can still federate after the instance setup, like piefed.zip does
That's a relief. I'm guessing the admins have to remove the instance from the block list first?
Yes, probably. What I guess is that the code above just sets up the block list at setup, but then of course the admins can revise it as they see fit.
Doesn't Hexber use an allowlist for federation? Why keep these Piefed instances in your allowlist if you know this is the case?
You can still federate after the instance setup, like piefed.zip does
Huh, weird they don't geoblock the UK like they do on their Lemmy instance.
I remember something about this, like Piefed being able to prevent users from logging from some countries without having to block the site as a whole
Yes there is potentially the option to block country codes in Piefed. We haven't fully utilised that yet but its on the todo list :)
Thanks for confirming!
What hexbear does is good, and what someone who disagrees with them is evil and bad. That's why they call it out.
This seems like it’s intended as a criticism of Piefed but boy does it not land that way.
So... is this a thing you're thinking shouldn't be the case?
If we were to agree this was a bad power for admins to have, then how, from a technical point of view, would we prevent admins from doing so? There's no real way to prevent an instance admin from, for instance, running a fork of Lemmy that has as a feature, for instance, the ability to prevent a local user from posting on remote instances' communities or a specific remote instance's community (even if the official upstream Lemmy repo developers/maintainers decided to remove that feature).
Theoretically, given that Lemmy is licensed under the AGPL, one could legally demand the source code of any specific Lemmy instance and from that source code obtain proof that it was a fork and what differences might be on that instance relative to the upstream official Lemmy repo.
I guess if I had to come up with another way to prevent a fork from preventing users from posting on remote instances' communities, I might suppose maybe one option would be for Lemmy officially to support logging into your instance 1 account from instance 2's domain. (Might require some OAuth fanciness to allow that without potentially opening up the user to their account being accessed by instance 2 if instance 2 happened to be maliciuos.) And if you did that, you'd be subject to instance 2's rules for being able or not able to post to a given community on instance 2 or instance 3 or whatever. That would undermine instance 1's ability to prevent you from posting on instance 2 or instance 3 or whatever.
Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you and you're not advocating for anything in particular. Just sharing information.