Excuse me while I go donate even more money to PieFed
PieFed dev here.
The screenshotted post is very misleading. As you’d expect from a hexbearian. It is not a baked-in ban.
Hexbear is mentioned in the PieFed source code, as an initial default value for the defederation list. That list is quite long and includes various instances that have been a source of trolls, CSAM and spam in the past (mostly Mastodon instances). As part of the normal setup process it is assumed that instance admins will review that list and alter it as they see fit. They can change it any time by going to instance.tld/admin/federation.
Do not take anything a hexbearian says at face value.
That’s exactly what this is, an initial defed list. Even the way they present this is disingenous as fuck, calling it a “one way federation, silencing our voices” or some other weird phrasing, making it sound like some underhanded/hidden hardcoded piece just for them, when it’s just a boring-ass defederation with one instance among many others. How difficult is it to say “piefed software defederates hexbear by default”? Everyone knows what that fucking means!
I honestly don’t understand why everything has to be taken so goddamn uncharitably by the regulars on that instance. It blows my mind how they manage to always act in bad faith. Always.
Thank you for jumping in.
Literally an instance for people who are ideologically in favor of a porn ban, and you’re telling me that they have a CSAM problem???
When you read worse than ChatGPT 3.5
That’s not at all what the above comment says.
It’s crazy how that happened. Just…fully read something different.
Sometimes I think even with telepathy people would find a way to miscommunicate.
Nono, I’m thinking haunting, not horny! What are you in t-OH GOD!
Based.
The only thing better than this was Nutomic whining that he needs more donations to feed his family (he literally said this) but absolutely refusing to just ask Dessalines to chill the fuck out with the tankie censorship shit.
It’s just a default block on grad and hex when creating a new instance which can be toggled off. Keep coming crying with your ALTs Tankies no one wants to deal with your incessant propaganda.
we need a fediverse-wide boycott of hexbear
And lemmyml
less so but yeah they’re pretty toxic
Idk, just got done reading yet another monologue from Cowbee about how the PRC really is better than the U.S. in every single way — I’d personally weigh .ml as being much more toxic.
Nah lemmyml is quite valuable. Mayhaps you thinkest of grad.
I wouldn’t go that far. If everyone moved off of lemmyml people would be forced to find different communities or create new ones.
Go big or go home
Not sure I dig baking it into the code, that starts walking into the broken by design space. Feasibly the tankies developing Lemmy could do the same to any instance not painted the right shade of red.
I might propose instead a step in setup, or on demand, to select major instances to allow/deny federation from with a description of them. Impossible to keep a list of every new instance up to date, but catching the major hubs shouldn’t be impossible.
Sane defaults make self-hosting approachable.
I might propose instead a step in setup, or on demand, to select major instances to allow/deny federation from
This is exactly how it works. I started a PieFed instance and made the decision (during setup) to trim the defederation list down to none. Users can block on the account level.
It’s just a default ban that can be turned off if desired.
I don’t know if this is the answer, but it sure sounds like a step in the right direction.
I think it would be amazing if lemmyml blocked everyone
Agreed on the risk of having baked-in bans, though alternatively, maybe using the already available tool, per-instance defederation would be better. Or also as Lemmy allows, users defederating from instances they’d rather avoid.
Or also as Lemmy allows, users defederating from instances they’d rather avoid.
Lemmy does not do this, the devs implemented an incredibly broken block system that is nothing more than mute. Suspected to be done this way intentionally.
On an instance level, it does not block an instances’ users at all
On a per-user level, blocked users can still fully interact with your comments and posts, you just can’t see it. What’s more damning is that ActivityPubs spec’d block does do a proper block, but dessalines chose to roll their own broken system.
In both cases, it’s akin to this “one-way” federation they bring up.
The only true way to block an instance, is for an instance admin to fully defederate.
On a per-user level, blocked users can still fully interact with your comments and posts, you just can’t see it.
What’s wrong with that? The alternative is how Reddit lets spam bots and misinformation block the replies calling them out.
While there are certainly some cons, block should mean block. If user A blocks user B, they should not be able to see each other, period
The cons are pretty bad imo. It’s common on Reddit now for people to get into an argument, reply and then immediately block to prevent a response and make it look like that person didn’t care to respond. If someone is a poweruser and responsible for a meaningful portion of posts and spawned comment threads in a community, they can use the block function to strategically limit the ability of certain other users to participate, since a blocked person can not only not reply to them but also can’t reply to anyone else further down a thread. This effect is worse in smaller subs, it’s basically soft moderation powers granted just by blocking and writing things that generate engagement. And when this is happening, by its nature it is hard to even tell it’s happening.
That makes sense on a closed forum like Facebook or Instagram where its your own page and you can block people from seeing it, but I don’t know if you should be allowed to post misinformation or spam or snake oil on a public forum and then prevent that public from seeing anything in the comments that might contradict you. The room for abuse outweighs the potential benefits in my view.
post misinformation or spam or snake oil on a public forum and then prevent that public from seeing anything in the comments that might contradict you
That’s what instance admins and comm mods are for
Anything less than full blocking leaves a much bigger room for harassment.
If a bad faith user has blocked people who might be critical of their misinformation or poor behaviour, there’d be no-one to alert the moderators.
Someone tested the consequences of this type of blocking on Reddit.
I dunno if you were talking about instance block, but a much more functional one has been merged and will ship with Lemmy 1.0.
Separating the communities from the users makes sense in some contexts, like blocking all of the communities of a NSFW type instance without blocking all their users. But there should be a additional option for users to block all the users of an instance without needing to do each one individually.
Fediverse wide
Do they think they have influence beyond the ML instances?
There’s a lot of .ml users who make accounts on sjw and fail at radicalizing those users.
I believe it
think
There is the error in the logic.
It’s exhausting wasting effort on those that put none in.
I mean I think that is a bad and unhealthy idea. If piefed.social, world or a particular instance wants to set it up that way then go ahead, sure, but I do think it should be up to the admin using the software to decide which servers this should or shouldn’t apply to rather than what sounds like an opt-out scheme. I mean sure go ahead, code how you like, who am I to judge, but I’m only saying it in consideration of best practices.
If HB runs into the silly issue again that almost lost them their domain (and temporarily switched to chapo.chat), this code will be a maintenance burden just because of the developer’s specific grudge.
I’m saying this as a user happy about the fact that my instance defederated hexbear and lemmygrad, there are cool communities there, but they are an insufferable bunch.
I believe they further clarified that there are specific default filter sets that can be loaded when a new piefed instance is created, not that they are literally removed in code.
Here’s the comments discussing it:
centrist extremists
can’t make that shit up…
I actually lol-ed at that
If I don’t make it back, tell my wife… Hello.
Haha based as fuck.
Am I missing something? Aside from the “baked in” claim, how is this different from defeds on Lemmy? It’s always one way, ie the instance that defeds can’t see content from the other instance, but the target instance can still see them.
It is indeed the same, some comments in that thread make it look like some people discovered defederation today
Ok, that’s what I thought. Which is funny because I learned how it works after learning that hex admins (generally) defed mutually to avoid a one way issue, exactly like they’re freaking out about here.
Good luck with that they/them in Russia.
it’s fine, once in russia they will be in the communist utopia of their dreams, at which point all will join into one gestalt consciousness.
due to morality laws, that consciousness will be identify as a cis man.
Has no one told them the communism thing was over in the eighties?
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Why bother with the 1 way federation, though?
So your users can go on their instance, I guess? That’s not a great reason. Cut them off or don’t.
Agreed, there is no good reason for a one way federation with a trash instance.
Even if the idea is that they have communities that aren’t horrible, the taint is strong enough that the same communities should just be promoted on non/less shitty instances.
I think it’s the other way around, actually. It sounds like hex users are actually receiving posts from outside but it’s their own content that is being blocked
IMO, it’s not great regardless of which direction it’s going. Fuck ML’ers, but it isn’t really necessary to create one-way engagement with them.
If they decided to block the other direction, I’d be fine with that.
What gets me is that their users are so smug. It’s really off-putting.
Agreed, there is no good reason for a one way federation with a trash instance.
there is if you want to allow your users to get revenge, and that seems to be what @rimu@piefed.social is aiming for here. weaponizing software to harass an instance.
That’s also how Lemmy defederation and user blocking works FYI so it’s not unique to PieFed
That’s also exactly how dessalines built Lemmy’s “block” system for both users and instance blocks
I remember way back when world was still federated with most of the triad. Hexbear honestly has no one but themselves to blame. With nothing of value to offer. But cycles of revenge and retribution are hardly helpful.
They got their asses rightfully kicked to the curb for brigading. I have zero sympathy for them in this situation. But this is still disappointing behavior on the part of @rimu@piefed.social and makes me a bit more reluctant to recommended piefed to others etc. Even though .world outright blocks hex anyways. I hope it gets addressed sooner rather than later. Because I “REALLY” like the experience so far on piefed. And would like to see it prosper. Even though this will be a bit of a blemish on the project. That’s nothing compared to Lemmy and its devs.
Have a dialogue front and center to opt in to blocking the whole triad when setting up the software. Nothing wrong with that at all. But yeah, please don’t stirr up the dumbass’s nest. They’re better off being irrelevant and largely ignored. Even if it’s funny ironically for this to happen to them. It’s just more pointless drama.
Example of two Piefed instances that currently federate hexbear:
- https://piefed.zip/instances?page=9&filter=federated&search=
- https://piefed.au/instances?page=6&filter=federated&search=
- https://anarchist.nexus/instances?page=4&filter=federated&search= , which is related to https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/, also federated with hexbear
List of Piefed instances that currently defederate hexbear:
- https://piefed.blahaj.zone/ , the same way https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/ does
- https://piefed.world/, the same way https://lemmy.world/ does
- https://piefed.ca/, the same way https://lemmy.ca/ does
- https://feddit.online/, the same way https://fedia.io/ does (by the way, Fedia isn’t a software, it’s called Mbin, and doesn’t have such code, so not sure why you’re including them into your title)
- https://quokk.au/, it used to be the same when it was still a Lemmy instance
- https://piefed.europe.pub/, the same way https://europe.pub/ does
https://piefed.fediverse.observer/list
As you can see, instances defederating hexbear are instances managed by teams which were going to do so anyway, as they already did on Lemmy.
Instances who want to federate know how to do so, there are three examples.
doesn’t mastodon also bake in blocks of some nazi/csam instances? at least that’s what I’ve heard.
I don’t like that, even as a person who chose my instance because it defederated from them.
From my understanding, it’s just a switch that defaults to “On” an instance admin can toggle off during setup or later
Yes, that’s right.
The screenshot characterizes it as a hardcoded thing, implying that it cannot be altered through the UI. This is not the case.
that is not true, according to our admins they have talked to both rimu and hexbear, with no luck. we don’t have any control over it and rimu refuses to give us the choice.
This is incorrect as stated in a comment below
Instance admin, not user.
Yes.
according to our admins
I thought that part was pretty easy to understand, but let me make it clearer for you.
Admins cannot switch the block on or off. The block cannot be toggled by admins. Admins don’t have control over toggling the block. The option to toggle the block is unavailable to admins. Admins lack permission to toggle the block. Admins have no way to switch the block setting. The block toggle is outside admin capabilities. Admins are unable to enable or disable the block. The block toggle is not something admins can access. Admins do not have the right to change the block state. The system prevents admins from toggling the block. Admins have no authority to flip the block switch. Toggling the block is not possible for admins. Admins aren’t allowed to switch the block on or off. The block state cannot be modified by admins. Admins don’t possess the ability to toggle the block. Admins are restricted from toggling the block. The block toggle option is disabled for admins. Admins can’t turn the block on or off. Toggling the block is beyond admin privileges.
I hope this clears it up for you.
You lost the chance to slowly convert into zalgo text as this progressed
All of this is incorrect.
http://piefed.social/comment/6970001
Hexbear and lemmygrad will always be blocked and PieFed is coded to block them by default on all new instances (admins can change it). No plans to defederate lemmy.ml as I’ve built mod tools that help me find the most odious users & banned them and now it’s tolerable. lemy.lol is blocked because of it’s fascist logo. That’s about it.
(admins can change it).
If you can’t toggle it, then your setup is busted in some way
After discussing it again with my admins, I have been informed I misunderstood them, and there is in fact a toggle. I was wrong.
You are the one missing the point here. Pathetic of you to give such an asinine response.
I told everyone back in the early 2000’s that the internet was a wide open propaganda hole.
They were like “What’s wrong with the internet? It’s just Homestarrunner and Newgrounds”.
I tried telling them that this was the future of news, of information, this is where everyone was going to get their worldview from, but unlike newspapers and TV stations, nobody has control over it.
China was right about one thing - the great firewall. Gotta build big walls when you have bad neighbours.
You had me in the first half, NGL.
There is never any excuse for censorship, ever. Full stop. End of debate.
What about the guy saying “I can sell you magic beans to cure cancer”, can we censor him? Can we find some common ground here?
But why? If people are going to be stupid enough to believe such a guy, that’s on them. Censoring someone just because they’re stupid is a slippery slope. Eventually it leads to the government censoring entire websites that they don’t agree with. Just look at what happened with China and their Great Firewall.
Fraud is already against the law and doesn’t require censorship.
The law is censoring fraud.
Fraud is theft through deception. It’s the theft that is criminalized, not the deception.
No I’m pretty sure “I can give you these magic beans that will cure your cancer for free” is also illegal and censored.
It feels like you just don’t consider these things censorship because they’re not controversial and almost everyone agrees they should be censored.
A lot of folks think their decentralized internet forum of choice should be a free for all, but that’s not realistic.
Moderation and censorship are easy to get confused. Moderation includes reviewing content and sources for quality and safety, while censorship aims to control or manipulate a narrative. (general words taken from this page)
A PieFed instance defederating from a historically nasty fediverse server or 12 is just a form of moderation, and is up to whoever runs the server. The reason for blocking hexbear/lemmy.ml/lemmygrad could just be to cut down on the amount of manual moderation that’s required by having their stuff federate to your server – not trying to control a narrative or suppress any opinions – just historically lots of wrong, inaccurate, inflammatory stuff that adds to a moderator’s workload. Easier to avoid it.
Lemmy.ml removing comments and banning people for having opinions that differ from theirs is censorship, because 1) they are very consistent about it and 2) it drives their narrative.
the one-way federation isn’t a block, it’s encouragement for users of piefed to go and harass hexbear out of revenge. this is nothing more than @rimu@piefed.social weaponizing the platform, and honestly I wish we had known this was going to happen. I wouldn’t of tried so hard to convince people to create the instance I’m on with piefed.
maybe a fork is possible. blocking hexbear is one thing, but it should be our choice, not the choice of an admin from another instance. someone else getting to dictate who you speak with is no different than facebook or twitter. it’s gross and out of line.
I can’t see any content from Hexbear looking from Piefed.social. So how would I go about harassing hexbear users?
the one-way federation isn’t a block, it’s encouragement for users of piefed to go and harass hexbear out of revenge.
You dont seem to understand how defederation works. Those users you’re worried about harassinf Hexbear are the ones who can’t even see Hexbear posts or users to harass them in the first place.
the one-way federation isn’t a block, it’s encouragement for users of piefed to go and harass hexbear out of revenge
This is exactly how defederation works on Lemmy itself, until the other instance also defederates to complete the circuit
this is nothing more than @rimu@piefed.social weaponizing the platform,
You mean like Lemmy devs weaponize Lemmy? Don’t you find it the slightest bit odd that all the features that could be used against them - blocking, robust voting systems, robust modlog, good mod tools - are conveniently implemented poorly, not implemented at all or outright “downgraded”?
but it should be our choice, not the choice of an admin from another instance.
How does an admin of another instance make that choice for you? If instance A starts going crazy on the blocklist, then Instance B can choose to no longer subscribe to As blocklist
maybe a fork is possible. blocking hexbear is one thing, but it should be our choice, not the choice of an admin from another instance
Piefed.zip managed to federate just fine
And to me that’s fucking hilarious. Those slimy little trolls will finally get a taste of their own medicine.
Fuck Hexbear, and fuck tankies. They’ve tortured and harassed me for pointing out their hypocrisy. I wish them the absolute worst.
Nah.
How do they harass users or communities they can’t see?
I have this weird feeling that piefed and world are corporate try to go back to centralised social media. Just paranoid.
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