#Fediverse #Blocklists: #Moderation in Noncapitalist #SocialMedia

> the paper explores how fediverse blocklist developers attempt to mitigate the problems of lists while also generating knowledge about content moderation

@rwg York University

2025-09-20: https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/1556

#SciComm #WissKomm #FediModeration #CulturalStudies #SocialScience #SocialMedia #ContentModeration

Honest question from someone who's never admin'd an instance and so has no idea:

Is it really that hard to just set up something that will flag (or block) certain strings in new-signup account names? Like, you want open signups, fine, but couldn't it at least message the admins if someone signs up with a name that matches any of various regexes (which would catch things like slurs, "Hitler", "WhitePower", etc.)? 1/2

#Fedi #meta #moderation #FediModeration

We should pay attention to how the far-right movement will try to undermine BlueSky. What we learn could be useful in the future.

Moderation might turn out to be the biggest challenge.

#FediModeration #FarRight

Y'know, I think people like the Jimmy Truths dude serve as an example of the shortcomings of #Fediverse moderation. This dude has likely made like, hundreds of accounts on dozens of instances, but all the instance owners can do is suspend his account. It's gotten to the point where the dude now keeps coming back with usernames and posts mocking the admins for being unable to permanently remove him, often on the same instance repeatedly.

Larger companies can do things like send cease and desist letters, contact his ISP, hardware ban him, etc a lot easier. They simply have more resources to deal with really tenacious harassers than the average instance admin does. I'm not a networking expert, but I wish there was a way to actually deal with guys like this because as the Fediverse grows in popularity, it's likely more users like this guy will crop up.

I can imagine it being pretty easy for bad actors to focus their attention on a single instance and overwhelm it if there's enough of them. Or people like this dude so persistent and obnoxious that it wears the often volunteer staff down over a long stretch of time.

There seriously needs to be focus put on improving moderation tools for Mastodon before we get to that point.

#Fedi #FediModeration #Moderation #FediTalk #Mastodon

Laura Seime vom @correctiv_org -#Faktencheck-Team im #SocialHub-Magazin (@socialhub) über ihre Arbeit – inkl. Tipps zum Umgang mit #Falschinformationen:

> In einer idealen Welt würden alle #SocialMedia-Betreibenden alles dafür geben, dass es auf ihren Plattformen mit rechten Dingen zugeht und ein faktenbasierter Diskus
herrscht. Aber das ist leider nicht so.

👉 https://socialhub.io/wp-content/uploads/SocialHub-Mag-27.pdf

#CORRECTIV.Faktencheck:
https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/

#Desinformation #ContentModeration #FediModeration

There appears to be another wave of bots sharing TinyURL links and NSFW hashtags, while not using any content warning to censor the thumbnail, which is uncensored porn. The URLs may lead to phishing or malware.

The description used by the accounts seems to promote some shopping website, which may be another scam.

#fediadmin #FediModeration #admin #moderation

@donaldball

Defederating an instance is a major step. All follower relations are deleted. And rather permanently, especially if you don't keep a good register of why you defederated who, why and when. If you dont revise regularly your decisions, you won't even notice if things improve on the other side (volunteer moderation teams have sometimes a significant fluctuation).

So, of course, you are totally free to block an entire instance if you feel that the instance culture promotes harassment (or whatever else one does not want to interact with) and their mod team do not respond to reports.

However, suggesting to #fediblock an entire instance is a major step of escalation. As good practice in this cases, we would do good to provide receipts/screenshots and a reasoning. And especially if it is not an obvious nazi/CSAM cesspool, it would be nice to know if you tried to interact with the mods there before using the fediblock hashtag.

fediblock is (unfortunately) almost the only widely adopted communication channel between mods&admins, but the hashtag is frequently abused for personal feuds and low-quality jokes.

Thus, if you consider the issue to be serious, please invest your time to use this tool responsibly (if you can, I don't know your personal situation).

The following could make sense (depends on what you did already):

- report offensive posts of the instance, checking the box to forward the reports to the instance in question.
- browse through the local timeline of the instance to see whether this is a generalized problem (also you might find even worse actors). Take screenshots.
- if that doesn't work out, contact the admins/mods directly. Be polite, most are volunteers. And give them some time to respond.
- if the problem still persists, and you consider it so serious that the instance in question deserves to be ostracized completely, then you can still suggest a #fediblock. But in this case, you'll have receipts and if your case is strong, you make also the work for other mods/admins easier because then we can build on your research and need only to check it.

Again, depending on your personal situation, or if you are directly affected by bigotry and harassment, and in the really obvious cases there might be reasons to escalate quicker.

But keep in mind that when you write a fediblock post, several thousand of people will read it and then have to decide what to do with the information.

PD: I have absolutely no stake with the instance you are talking about. I just saw this fediblock suggestion and felt the need to weigh in.

#Moderation #FediModeration