this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.
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I don't see why those two features should be exclusive; both should exist and have their own purposes.
Defederation is for nasty instances whose users violate basic etiquette such as exploding-heads or hexbear. No tolerance for the intolerant.
Instance blocking should IMO be reserved for potentially disagreeable instances that aren't degenerated shitholes. Places that can behave themselves but are about topics a large portion of users might personally not like or aren't interested in such as feddit.de/nl/uk/it/..., programming.dev, startrek.website or lemmygrad.
Edit: Grammar.
See that's where I think we're getting into admin drama territory
I don't mind seeing certain instances, but if the almighty mods decree it, we have to cut off all contact.
Nah. That's getting into arsehole filter territory. The only drama about this you will see will be incited by its users.
A current issue is that defederation is the only tool for both purposes. The only possible way for a user to not see content from a certain instance is for their admin to defederate from it.
With the features separated, much fewer instances would need to go through instance admins but that doesn't mean none of them should. There are instances that are just generally disagreeable/unethical. Fortunately only a few but they do exist.
I have deliberately sought out an instance that only defederates illegal content and meta, so that I wouldn’t end up in some admin’s filter bubble.
Naturally this means my instance is also federated with hexbear and lemmygrad, and while I manually blocked some of their more obnoxious propaganda communities I haven’t found either of their instance's users overly combative or brigading in random comment sections like others here are claiming.
Though I must concede that most news relating to Russia or China usually have a good handful of their tankies defending them in the comments, which can be a bit annoying at times. Having the instance of accounts shown is very helpful in those situations to know if they are someone arguing in good faith or just spewing propaganda.
Overall I much prefer my Lemmy experience this way though. It makes for more varied discussion and points of view and helps to avoid getting stuck in an echo chamber.
I can see where you're coming from but there is a basic level of conduct that must be upheld for a place to not turn toxic. I don't think that's debatable. You cannot have a positive effect overall if people are just hurling slurs at each other. The same goes for less toxic behaviour to lesser degrees but I think it still applies.
Opinions are a different matter but even those must be kept in check to a degree. You can write a deeply xenophobic comment in a manner that does not go against basic etiquette but that doesn't mean it's something everyone should be exposed to. I do not believe that Xenophobia and other unethical opinions help build a healthy (online) culture.
You make some good points and I think that there should always be an "unfiltered" view available somehow but I also think you're not seeing the biases consuming unfiltered views introduces. There are already more than enough biases out there without the extremes but even just being exposed to extreme content will alter your opinion and the extremes tend to use this effect to their advantage; intentionally creating an image that is massively skewed towards their extreme.
This effect works even if you're fully aware of it which makes it so incredibly dangerous.
I can appreciate and agree that instances with very little blocking are a thing but that should never be the "default" experience IMHO.
The admins of a social media platform the size of lemmy intentionally creating filter bubbles is not something I've seen often. You can fault them for many things but i.e. Reddit (the company, not the community) has for the most part done a really good job at not creating filter bubbles perhaps too good of a job, judging by how long they allowed i.e. the_donald to stay.
I've yet to see an example of this on Lemmy (on the instance level that is) and I don't see how that would ever work given how diverse any given instance in its own is (biased yes but not homogenous).
Plus, all defederation is public. If you wanted to know whether your instance is creating a filter bubble around you, all you need to take a look is /instances and browse the defederated ones.
I agree that a certain level of civility should be maintained through moderation, but in my opinion it is bad for the user agency and individual control to have other people pre select for you before you even had the opportunity to decide for yourself if you want to engage with that type of content, even if they have nothing but good intentions.
Your suggestion of introducing a third, "true" all feed that users could browse sounds like a good compromise. Maybe restrict it to all instances that have application based or closed registrations to protect from the most obvious avenue of harassment.
Though I would like to emphasize again that I have had only very few negative interactions on Lemmy and haven’t observed xenophobia or bigotry as you suggest would immediately take hold.
Granted, occasionally there is someone trying to spam a transphobic meme or something to a couple communities, but that happens even with more strict moderation. A quick report later and the account and post are gone.
our opinions on what constitutes an arsehole might differ.
Then you shift to an instance that mods the way you prefer.
it shouldn't be hard to see how that's a bad solution.
Like a supermarket stops selling yoghurt because the manager doesn't like it so now they tell you to just have cream cheese for breakfast.
If you're looking at instances here like supermarket then yeah, it doesn't make sense. If you start looking at them as communities whose ideals should align to yours (and other users on it), then it makes perfect sense for you to just shift to a different instance.
It’s more like you’re going to the vegan grocery store and you’re upset that you can’t find chicken stock
The problem comes when the vegan store has items you want but they decided that they will not distribute them to stores that also sell chicken stock. And if that happens with multiple other cases you'll be forced to visit multiple stores to get your groceries.
Which wouldn't be that weird if it wasn't because all those stores belong to the same "universal general store" chain that was originally designed so you would only need to visit your closest store to access all products.
i think it’s more like going to a different supermarket.