Gautam BhatiaI had quite forgotten what it was like to go three days without being trolled, abused, or piled on. It's a nice feeling. Thanks, Mastodon.
Vinay Aravind@gautambhatia There's a whole Mastodon instance populated with Sanghis called inditoot and they were starting to randomly troll the people here and it turns out the admin of mastodon.social just blocked the whole instance. The simple decentralised elegance of Mastodon.
Sai Krishna@vinayaravind @gautambhatia playing the devils advocate here while trying to understand better how mastodon works.How is one person blocking an instance on behalf of all people of one instance decentralized? Was there a vote of some kind?Where can I find out how all this works?
Prasanna Venkadesh@Saivadla @gautambhatia @vinayaravind I guess you are asking how come some random user can technically block a whole instance. You wanted to understand any feature that is provided like calling for vote? Is that it?
If that is the case, then all users have the option to hide or mute or block a particular domain only for their account in the server. but when the admin decides to block an entire instance, it is blocked for everyone.
In this case, many people were raising issues and giving calls about this instance and @Gargron being the admin did it.
In my opinion, if hate speech has reached to unbearable levels, it is good to swiftly block that instance instantaneously to avoid larger spams or damages and then users can have a voting process (we have polls) to decide whether or not to unblock that domain.
There is also another approach, where instead of federating openly to all instances and having a list of instances to block (blacklisting), a instance can follow Whitelisting, i.e they federate with only friendly instances right from the beginning and as they discover new friendly instances the whitelist grows.
Recommend reading: https://nolanlawson.com/2018/08/31/mastodon-and-the-challenges-of-abuse-in-a-federated-system/
If that is the case, then all users have the option to hide or mute or block a particular domain only for their account in the server. but when the admin decides to block an entire instance, it is blocked for everyone.
In this case, many people were raising issues and giving calls about this instance and @Gargron being the admin did it.
In my opinion, if hate speech has reached to unbearable levels, it is good to swiftly block that instance instantaneously to avoid larger spams or damages and then users can have a voting process (we have polls) to decide whether or not to unblock that domain.
There is also another approach, where instead of federating openly to all instances and having a list of instances to block (blacklisting), a instance can follow Whitelisting, i.e they federate with only friendly instances right from the beginning and as they discover new friendly instances the whitelist grows.
Recommend reading: https://nolanlawson.com/2018/08/31/mastodon-and-the-challenges-of-abuse-in-a-federated-system/
Bhaukaal@prashere "then all users have the option to hide or mute or block a particular domain only for their account in the server"
I only see an option to hide a particular domain.
I only see an option to hide a particular domain.
@bisaat right, it depends on how you access it. The web interface may provide option to hide their posts from your timeline so you could continue to use peacefully.
This should be the first option for us. If the levels of abuse spreads virally, then it is sensible for the admin to block an instance completely.
How does the admin or moderators know the levels go up? By the number of people reporting a particular account.
This should be the first option for us. If the levels of abuse spreads virally, then it is sensible for the admin to block an instance completely.
How does the admin or moderators know the levels go up? By the number of people reporting a particular account.
@prashere Oh! okay, it seemed to me you said a user could block an instance. Hide and block shouldn't be used interchangeably, adds to the confusion for new users.
There is also ambiguity on what does hiding a server do?
- You will not see posts from that server on the public timelines
- You won’t see other people’s boosts of that server in your home feed
- You won’t see notifications from that server
- You will lose any followers that you might have had on that server
@prashere Does hiding also prevents users of that instance from replying to twoots of the users of instance which blocked it? Can they follow the user back if they haven't locked their account?
@bisaat unlocked accounts are always vulnerable.