this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
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I thought it'd be nice for the rest of the world to have a de-america'd instance where there's no discussion of america, certainly no american politics, and no americans are allowed via IP block.

But I think to do that effectively, you'd probably have to defederate from most of the rest of lemmy, and then you've lost most of the federation benefits of being a lemmy instance. However I'm only vaguely familiar with how all of the connections work so maybe someone can correct me.

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[–] s@piefed.world 48 points 2 days ago (3 children)

When was the last time that people who banned others based on country of origin were the good guys?

[–] northernscrub@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Unfortunately, the US is taking advantage of this axiom. Their unfettered drive of "influential" content amounts to, essentially, an undeclared cultural invasion.

Sadly, just one lemmy instance doing this won't change much. The US has been invested in destroying my country since the 1970's.

I can't say that Russia or China are any better, before anyone asks.

[–] z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 days ago

I can't say that Russia or China are any better, before anyone asks.

As a native born citizen of the US, I just wanted to say I feel bad that you feel the need to iterate this. I know a lot of asshats always make people who criticize the US clarify this, and I can only imagine it gets super annoying even having to do that the first time.

Your criticism of the US doesn't preclude you to defend or criticize other nation-states, those are separate criticisms unless the topic is international relations, which it's not in this case.

[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago

Fuck, I can't think of any.

[–] nandeEbisu@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago

That sounds like something you should do with content moderation rather than technologically.

There are also world politics communities, that explicitly ban US and other global north news. There are also country specific news communities as well. That's kind of what having multiple communities is for.

If people aren't willing to subscribe to those communities, they're likely less willing to use a whole different lemmy instance.

[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

You could try but I feel its needlessly complex and antagonistic. Like get the politics are horrible but we dont actually hate american people right? IMO you can get close enough to your goal by filtering American politics out, blocking news/politics communities and then setting up a non america news and non american politics community and boom you've pretty much got an "america free instance"

Once shared blocklists get added I feel this will be easier to setup and distribute.

[–] orbital@infosec.pub 7 points 2 days ago

Thank you for this. I'm American, and I can't stand our politics either. I still try my best to take care of my fellow humans, wherever they call home.

[–] mrmaplebar@fedia.io 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I mean, you can make whatever you want. And I get it, to quote The Clash, I'm pretty bored of the USA too.

Of course, an IP block isn't going to work because an American like myself can just use a VPN in another country to get around it. And yes, the moment you start federating with other instances you're going to come across American stuff again, so unless you isolate your instance (which you could do... but then people are unlikely to join it) you're gonna have to deal with Americans.

With that said, I actually think it's a great idea for people to make regional fediverse servers, not necessarily to block out Americans in an attempt at digital nationalism/isolationalism... But to make sure that the infrastructure of the internet is not so America-centric, and to make it so that there is always a place to talk about local issues and events that matter to you, in your native language.

Even as an American, I feel that right now the internet is far too reliant on American infrastructure, services and communities.

I'd love to see, for example, Japanese lemmy server, an Italian mastodon server, a German peertube server, a Brazilian pixelfed server, a Canadian misskey server, and so on.

I just think that banning Americans and American topics is probably not an effective way to do it, particularly because there are lessons to be learned for us all about what is going on here right now.

[–] HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth 2 points 2 days ago

You might be happy to learn about Misskey, which has a Japanese instance (it's flagship) in misskey.io and an Italian instance in misskey.social. :)

[–] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Should the EU instances also ban everyone from the UK because of Brexit?

[–] skozzii@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

If the UK was threating to annex others and started randomly kidnapping sovereign nation presidents, while attacking their own people, then yeah, in that case they should.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 days ago

Filters exist in Piefed so I hear, and you can already block instances and communities and users you feel are too American focused.

[–] Reznik@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

no americans allowed? that seems to be a very, very bad idea to me. let's not go there.

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[–] Hello_there@fedia.io 8 points 2 days ago

I'm all for it. Just make sure the ip block is only for posting not reading. Some of us here want out.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

you need people to shitpost. unfortunately that means the USaians and their fucking constant barrage of political failure news.

Nothing wrong with the yanks, but their constant news that overtake any other things happening around the world is fucking annoying.

[–] PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Nothing wrong with the yanks

I appreciate you trying to be nice but there's so so so so so much wrong with us amerikkka

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

I mean by default. the point is your country is fucked up, but there's nothing inherently wrong with one just because they're from the states

[–] rimu@piefed.social 6 points 2 days ago

During federation the IP address and country of the accounts involved is not shared with other instances so although you could lock down your instance as soon as you federate you'd have people from all over sending you content.

[–] atro_city@fedia.io 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Do it, dude. I'd join an instance where USAian talk isn't allowed. Fuck, I'm tired of their constant drama and exaggerations and everything. Orange man this, raspy-voiced poop-brain that, "we baaambed this" and "literally destroyed" that. And it's football FFS, not soccer.

Look into the origin of the term "soccer." I was curious, so I did. Long story short, it comes from "association football." I call American football "gridiron football" because, quite ironically, it IS a form of football.

It's like saying we can't call refried beans beans because they're not like black beans (I was just thinking about Mexican food, sorry!). Gridiron football may not be your cup of tea, but it IS football. Association football just deserves the term more. Also, in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, if you just say football, people assume gridiron (and specifically NFL).

I kinda hate that it's like that, I wish things were more accurately described, but at least we can control how our words are received by knowing what people expect from certain words.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 days ago

Realistic to set up? Sure, easy. Realistic to use? Unlikely.

[–] YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I get it, the US fucking sucks. But I didn't choose to be from here and I'm doing my best with what I've got. The fediverse has been one of the only somewhat sane spaces I can get away from the nonstop propaganda machine.

Block the American communities all you want, but many of us are here to escape the bullshit, not spread it. Sorry our discussion of our politics in communities dedicated to our politics bothers you I guess? You don't really seem to me to understand the point of the fediverse

[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It's not just that in my experience, it's everyone assume you're american by default because they're american themselves, so they always talk in the context of being american in basically every topic. The politic and the topic doesn't bother me much, it's the american. I'm sorry this sounds so discriminatory but it's the one thing that really bother me since reddit.

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago

Join your countries instance? I'm fairly sure the people in Aussie.zone aren't American. You could also put your flag in your display name.

[–] YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth 2 points 2 days ago

I mean you're not wrong, but assuming everyone is like you is a critical thinking problem, not an American problem. I just think it's particularly noticeable in Americans because there are a lot of them on the platform and the dumb ones are loud. Doesn't really seem like a problem worth geofencing an entire nation; just block the idiots.

Am American, my advice? Just use communities/instances that don't use English as their primary language. If you want to be extra safe avoid Spanish too.

I'm sorry that we're like this. I've been working my entire adult life to unlearn the lies and bullshit that the AmeriKKKan settler-colonial entity has hammered into our heads. I completely understand if you don't want to hear from AmeriKKKans, but I really want to listen to non-AmeriKKKan perspectives and signal-boost these perspectives into AmeriKKKan-dominated spaces.

Stupid idea.

I say this as someone who lives in a country where multiple random US sites (from work-related to gaming) do a country-wide IP block.

[–] CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

You can block amerigocentric instances and users (like me!) if you want, but people will still use vpns to say “soccer” on your America-free instances and I don’t think there’s anything to be done to prevent that.

[–] PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah I'm from the US and while I would respect the community's wishes not to hear from me, I would 1000% listen through a VPN so I can learn and signal-boost your non-AmeriKKKan perspectives 😆

[–] CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

I dunno. I think there’s a prevailing attitude that you should only use moderation tools as punishment for bad behavior, but it’s also fine to use them as a curation tool. But you have to understand that it cuts both ways — if you block someone, you can’t influence their opinions anymore because they will never hear from you either.

[–] Lfrith@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, fediverse with it having less uptake among mainstream users likely means those here are going to have more tech literacy, so VPN use is going to be higher than usual.

It'll be a trivial bypass with how much this space already leans towards Linux and is more privacy aware and more likely to try to cut down on big tech than usual users.

To achieve being free of US content methods needed would be incredibly strict moderation (shadowbans and mod approval for posts), news censorship due to possibility of international incidents involving US, defederating from popular instances, and most effective would be no english allowed.

[–] CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Ну ка друг мой, ты никогда не знаешь говорят ли американцы по-инновациям языкам

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

And we were told cancel culture had peaked.

[–] deliriousdreams@fedia.io 4 points 2 days ago

Sounds like you should just set up your own instance and IP block as you see fit.

[–] grandel@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 days ago

Perhaps a country specific instance would make more sense. If you block all Americans, you might start noticing and getting bothered from another nation.

[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Well, I think there are a few... Indeed I know at least two italian instances, plus my private instance....

But most of activity is currently on USA instances like world, so...

[–] maltasoron@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 days ago (3 children)
[–] northernscrub@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

GEKOLONISEERD

[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Really? Wow... I assumes was USA LoL

[–] Lfrith@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

Thought so too after they banned the piracy sub.

[–] DonAntonioMagino@feddit.nl 1 points 2 days ago

So do Americans. Hence why ‘politics’ and ‘news’ on .world by default are American politics and news.

Even the community intended for non-American world news is in practice flooded with American news anyway.

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[–] markz@suppo.fi 3 points 2 days ago

One could ban every us-related community. Banning all american users won't work.

In theory it's a fine idea; in practice it just sounds messy.

Better to just follow region-specific communities like Europe (not sure if it's on .world or .ml). I think you can post there if you're American, but you shouldn't expect that most people there are, or that they will care about American stuff, and I wouldn't make a thread about American stuff, and a moderator would be well within rights to delete it. But the Internet is global and for everyone.

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